Looking for a Job with a Humanities PhD. Where to Start?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Omg don’t go to law school, you don’t need three more years of education and student debt - unless you desperately want to be a lawyer in a specific field. What terrible advice.

Talk to your school and try to connect with others in your field of study. I think consulting and NGOs might be a good fit but you need to narrow down your interests.

Not terrible advice as I recommended only Top 6 law schools or attending on a full tuition & fees scholarship. Starting salary is $215,000 plus a $15,000 bonus for most grads of T-6 law schools who decide to practice in biglaw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do organizations like the State Dept, INternational Org of States, UN, etc have historians? Perhaps they do and you could manage their archives or written story? The Smithsonian seems promising perhaps. See if your network includes anyone from there. If not, write cold and ask for informational interviews.

While you are looking, Could you get freelance work writing the Background or History content for webpages?

Good luck.

NP and this is clearly well-meant advice but not practical. For one, archives are managed by archivists, which is a field in its own right. Same for museums; curators, collection development staff, etc. tend to have degrees in museum studies or the like. While as a History PhD OP undoubtedly has valuable experience from the end-user side with archives, unless she's had the opportunity to gain experience in one it's not that likely that she's going to be able to walk in off the street and into a role at one of these institutions where competition is quite stiff.

OP, not at all to say there's not a whole lot of things you can do with a history PhD outside of academia. Plenty of companies will hire a PhD who can write! And there are a ton of nonprofits in the DC area who are interested in those with PhDs. (And around here, you can actually get a decently paid, if not necessarily top-dollar, job at a nonprofit.) The recommendations to check out the CHE and Chronicle of Philanthropy are good. Idealist.org (https://www.idealist.org/en) is another good place you might look if you're interested in nonprofit work.

[Anonymous]

Check out the website “My Versatile PhD.” It’s been around for years as a place that helps academics transition outside of academia and use their degrees in new ways.

Good wishes to you!

[Anonymous]

I have several friends with history PhDs working at NEH. They love the work and describe the agency culture as very friendly, since so many PhDs work there.

You might see if you can set up an informational interview with people who've gone into fed agencies you're interested in and get some advice about how to craft a resume and application for federal jobs, since it's its own special world.

There are more and more mutual support and networking groups for ex-academics and PhDs not going into academe, and they are full of good advice. Track down the graduates of your own program who are working outside the academy and find out about their stories. Twitter is a great place to connect with people in your field doing alt-ac and nonacademic work. It's one of the less toxic corners of the Twitterverse.

[Anonymous]

You will want to read the numerous threads on here about not going into journalism to help you cross that one off your list. Lots of other writing-related options out there in other jobs. Good luck OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the feedback so far! I had wanted to be a professor when I first started my PhD, but academic jobs have become increasingly scarce and I'd also gotten married to someone whose job doesn't allow him to just move to a small college town.

I enjoy research and writing, and I'm quite good at these. I'm just not sure if these skills are enough outside of academia.

OP, those jobs have been scarce for the past 30 years at least. You should have seen this coming. If you're not finished with the PhD, then don't spend another dime on it. It's wasted time and money. Your best bet is to try to get some kind of job - non-instructional perhaps - at a local college or university. If you can find a way to get some experience in a university office of some kind while still in your program, that will be helpful. Think some kind of academic services, writing center, language lab, educational IT, etc. I don't know what your degree is in, so I can't give any advice beyond that.

You might have some luck outside of school if you are in an area related to govt or politics, but if it's something useless like literature or history, then you're sunk and need to consider a complete career change. You can of course go to teaching in K-12, but after academia that will be a painful lesson in humility (and you'll have trouble in a setting where critical thinking is actively discouraged). But it pays decently and there are jobs.

[Anonymous]

A lot of park rangers have advanced degrees in history. I don't know how difficult those jobs are to get, though.

[Anonymous]

Go work as a historian at the State Department. The Foreign Service Institute has a gaggle of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have several friends with history PhDs working at NEH. They love the work and describe the agency culture as very friendly, since so many PhDs work there.

You might see if you can set up an informational interview with people who've gone into fed agencies you're interested in and get some advice about how to craft a resume and application for federal jobs, since it's its own special world.

There are more and more mutual support and networking groups for ex-academics and PhDs not going into academe, and they are full of good advice. Track down the graduates of your own program who are working outside the academy and find out about their stories. Twitter is a great place to connect with people in your field doing alt-ac and nonacademic work. It's one of the less toxic corners of the Twitterverse.

I'm the history PhD who works in grantmaking from upthread, and let's just say...I probably know your friends
I agree that contacting folks for informational interviews is a good idea. I've done a number of those over the years. I think that those of us who have made the transition from academia to other jobs are often very willing to share any insights we may have picked up along the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg don’t go to law school, you don’t need three more years of education and student debt - unless you desperately want to be a lawyer in a specific field. What terrible advice.

Talk to your school and try to connect with others in your field of study. I think consulting and NGOs might be a good fit but you need to narrow down your interests.

Not terrible advice as I recommended only Top 6 law schools or attending on a full tuition & fees scholarship. Starting salary is $215,000 plus a $15,000 bonus for most grads of T-6 law schools who decide to practice in biglaw.

But she has no desire to be a lawyer.

Not everyone is money/status driven. Why is that concept lost on DCUM??!

[Anonymous]

OP here. Some really good advice here, thank you! I'm especially intrigued by NEH and consulting/risk analysis and would love to learn more.

Just to clarify, my PhD program was fully funded with a stipend and I don't wish to go to law school at this point. Ideally, I'd like to go into a field that is at least adjacent to my field of study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the feedback so far! I had wanted to be a professor when I first started my PhD, but academic jobs have become increasingly scarce and I'd also gotten married to someone whose job doesn't allow him to just move to a small college town.

I enjoy research and writing, and I'm quite good at these. I'm just not sure if these skills are enough outside of academia.

OP, those jobs have been scarce for the past 30 years at least. You should have seen this coming. If you're not finished with the PhD, then don't spend another dime on it. It's wasted time and money. Your best bet is to try to get some kind of job - non-instructional perhaps - at a local college or university. If you can find a way to get some experience in a university office of some kind while still in your program, that will be helpful. Think some kind of academic services, writing center, language lab, educational IT, etc. I don't know what your degree is in, so I can't give any advice beyond that.

You might have some luck outside of school if you are in an area related to govt or politics, but if it's something useless like literature or history, then you're sunk and need to consider a complete career change. You can of course go to teaching in K-12, but after academia that will be a painful lesson in humility (and you'll have trouble in a setting where critical thinking is actively discouraged). But it pays decently and there are jobs.

I presume the PhD is fully funded?

[Anonymous]

OP, if you have a facebook account, check out a group called ‘The Professor is Out’. It’s a very active group geared toward PhDs leaving academia for other jobs (including those leaving straight from grad school). Plenty of threads in there from historians and other folks in the humanities, with a lot of advice regarding types of jobs, how to rework a vita into a resume, etc. It maybe worth setting up a burner account to get access if you do not currently have a FB acct. Versatile PhD used to be good, but they got bought out and their forum is dead.

[Anonymous]

Think tank or policy research seems obvious. What type of work experience do you have?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if you have a facebook account, check out a group called ‘The Professor is Out’. It’s a very active group geared toward PhDs leaving academia for other jobs (including those leaving straight from grad school). Plenty of threads in there from historians and other folks in the humanities, with a lot of advice regarding types of jobs, how to rework a vita into a resume, etc. It maybe worth setting up a burner account to get access if you do not currently have a FB acct. Versatile PhD used to be good, but they got bought out and their forum is dead.

Not the OP, but thanks for this! I wondered about Versatile PhD. When I saw this thread, I went to check out Versatile PhD and was dismayed to find it was all pay-to-play stuff of no interest, vs. 10 years ago when I was leaving the academy.