Humanities for All

A project of the National Humanities Alliance, the Humanities for All database showcases “higher ed-based publicly engaged humanities initiatives, presenting a cross-section of over 1400 undertaken over the past decade from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.” Projects are organized by discipline, theme, geography, and type of institutional and community partners. There’s…

Where Historians Work

Created by the American Historical Association, this database of 8,515 historians who graduated from US universities between 2004 and 2013 “provides the fullest picture  of PhD careers available for any discipline.” The tab displaying information for careers beyond the professoriate is particularly interesting. It details the occupations – ranging from a single “pest control officer” to…

Where do humanists work?: Organizational Profiles

Graduates of humanities PhD programs finish their degrees with wide-ranging abilities in research, communication, instruction, and project management. For students who have spent many years at research-intensive institutions, however, it is can be difficult to imagine contexts outside of the professoriate where they might apply their training. As an assignment for English 630: Professional Humanities…

Academic Careers You May Not Have Considered

For those PhDs who are energized by the excitement of a university campus but decide that a traditional academic role is not a good fit, David McDonald, assistant director of career services at Duke who works with doctoral students, suggests that they consider a wide range of teaching and administrative possibilities within the wider university…

A Humanities Careers Timeline for the PhD Student

By Matthew Woodbury, Research Assistant, The Humanities PhD Project Among her opening remarks at the University of Michigan’s Career Connections Conference, Dr. Fatimah Williams Castro (Founder and CEO of Beyond the Tenure Track) emphasized the importance of preparation and planning to a successful job search. Instead of waiting for the last semester to consider post-graduation…

Job Tips for International Students

Twenty-five percent of Rackham doctoral students in the humanities are international students. Non-resident status adds an additional challenge to the work of identifying, applying to, and securing employment. In this article from InsideHigherEd, Gaeun Seo provides a perspective on seeking for a job as an international student. Processes of identifying what you are good at…

Advice for PhDs Seeking Non-Faculty Jobs

This article by Jennifer Polk is based on responses from panelists at the 5th annual Beyond the Professoriate conference. Her piece suggests patience, exploring options, the confident application of knowledge and skills, and considering how professional identity can derive from or be a reconceptualization of one’s academic identity.

2019 HWW National Predoctoral Career Diversity Residential Summer Workshop

2019 HWW National Predoctoral Career Diversity Residential Summer Workshop Due September 30 2018 The Humanities Without Walls consortium based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign invites applications from doctoral students pursuing degree in the humanities and humanistic social sciences to participate in this three-week, in-residence summer workshop in 2019. This is a limited-submission application.…

UM Career Center Resume and Cover Letter Tips for PhD Students

A new resource for PhDs from UM’s Career Center includes worksheets that can help identify transferable skills and construct narratives that make the skills developed during a doctorate legible to employers. The packet also provides “brief introductions that explain various application materials, reflection tools that can help … articulate your experience, examples of application materials, and, core…

Resumes and Cover Letters for PhD Students

This resource for creating cover letters and resumes developed by Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences Office of Career Services includes answers to FAQs about preparing resumes and cover letters, a useful word bank for describing various career experiences, nine examples of resumes tailored to particular interests or career trajectories, and sample cover letters.