THE JOB SEARCH FOR HISTORIANS
John Wood Sweet, Director of Graduate Placement
Now that you are (almost) done with your Ph.D.’s, the time has come to consider the prospect of gainful employment. There are many kinds of jobs available to history Ph.D’s, but we are going to focus here on the academic job search—because it is highly structured, because it starts early, and because the application process for most kinds jobs requires similar kinds of preparation.
The academic job search gears up early in the fall, with positions announced during the first month or two of the semester. Application deadlines are typically in October and November. Preliminary interviews generally take place at the AHA convention in early January. Campus visits usually take place in January and February. And offers and negotiations are most often concluded by the end of March. But it is still not over! A number of jobs, many of them one-year replacement visits, are posted as late as March or April.
This process is long and it can require a substantial investment of time and energy. Fortunately, there are many ways in which you can control how effectively your abilities and accomplishments are communicated to prospective employers. And there are many things you can do to determine whether or not a particular job is a likely to be a good fit for you.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS, 2008-09
*THE ACADEMIC JOB MARKET: A USER’S GUIDE: Wednesday, 27 August, 4-6 pm. Hamilton 569
*C.V. AND COVER LETTER WORKSHOP: Wednesday, 10 September, 4-6 pm. Hamilton 569.
*TEACHING STATEMENT / PORTFOLIO WORKSHOP WITH ED NEAL: TBA
HANDOUTS <>
FAQs <>
CAROLINA DOSSIER SERVICE
For a nominal fee, the Carolina Career Services office will maintain a Reference File with copies of your c.v. and up to five letters of reference and send them to prospective employers. This makes life much easier for your letter-writers and also makes it easier on search-committees, since your materials come all in one package.
GENERAL RESOURCES
Excellent overviews and advice on all aspects of the academic job search can be found on the websites of the University of Chicago <http://caps.uchicago.edu/grads/academic_job_search.html - series> and UC Berkeley <http://career.berkeley.edu/PhDs/PhDAcademic.stm>. Mary Corbin Sies, who teaches American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park has compiled several resources, including an Academic Job Application Checklist <http://otal.umd.edu/~sies/jobchecklist.html.
The Chronicle of Education publishes articles and forums about the academic job-market on their Chronicle Careers webpage. More specifically targeted to historians on various aspects of the job-search process are articles in the American Historical Association’s newsletter, Perspectives. <http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/Issues/search.cfm>, which can be accessed and searched on-line. Examples include an essay by Michael Foley on the “Facing the Indignities of the Job Search” < http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2001/0103/0103vie1.cfm>. The American Historical Association also produces guidelines < http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/eib/hiring_guidelines.htm> for ethnical and professional hiring processes—and compiles data http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_Data.cfm on the job market for historians, which may be of interest.
There are a number of books on the job-search process, including those by Richard Bond and Pillarisetti Sudhir, eds., Perspectives on Life after a Ph.D. (Washington, DC: American Historical Association, 2005), which includes a substantial section on public history and other non-academic jobs; and Melanie S. Gustafson, Becoming a Historian: A Survival Manual (Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 2003). There is a chapter on “Landing an Academic Job” in John Goldsmith, John Komlos and Penny Schine Gold, The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001)—which has some useful suggestions despite the book’s sometimes patronizing tone.
JOB AND FELLOWSHIP ANNOUNCEMENTS
Of course, one of the first phases of the job search is searching for the jobs themselves.
For most jobs within the United States, the two best places to start are:
--The AHA Perspectives. This publication is available in the History Department office and in other places on campus. For AHA members, these listings are also available on-line.
--The H-Net Job Guide--searchable by field, on-line, open access.
Jobs in other countries are often listed separately. Some places to being include:
United Kingdom:
Canada:
https://www.academicwork.ca/en_search_advanced.asp
http://oraweb.aucc.ca/ua_e.html
The AHA website also includes a very useful database of grants, prizes and fellowships of interest to historians, which is also available only to members.
NOTE: Different kinds of institutions are likely to value different qualities in candidates. Steve Leibo discusses the needs of small liberal arts colleges. So does David Allen Harvey. Emily Sohmer Tai discusses teaching at a community college.
ON PAPER: C.V.’s, COVER LETTERS, RESEARCH STATEMENTS, TEACHING PORTFOLIOS
In addition the Berkeley and Chicago websites mentioned above, the Duke University career center also offeres advice on cover letters, c.v.s, etc., for academic job candidates. Many people have benefited from the how-to features of the Chroncile Carrers website—such as the C.V. Doctor.
Richard Reis gives general advice about cover letters. Carl Ashley, Steve Hochstadt, and Laura York offer specific advice about cover letters and c.v.s for historians.
The UNC Center for Teaching and Learning, among their other offerings, hosts workshops on teaching portfolios. Betty Dessants introduces the purpose and components of a teaching portfolio.
ON INTERVIEWING
Several pieces published in the AHA Perspectives give advice on interviewing, including contributions by Lucy Barber and John Sweet, Sandra Gustafson, and Paul Jerome Croce. Linda Gordon <esp. on discrimination issues>.
Mary Corbin Sies (who teaches American Studies at University of Maryland at College Park) offers useful advice and a long list of potential interview questions.
Sally Hadden offers advice on campus visits.
Also useful, for many people, is the perspective offered by cognitive-behavior psychologist David Burns in his Feeling Good Handbook (Plume, 1999). See chapter 16, “How to Give a Dynamic Interview When You’re Scared Stiff,” and chapter 19, “The Five Secrets of Intimate Communication.”
On job talks, many people have benefited from, Ed Wolmuth, Overnight Guide to Public Speaking (Signet, 1993), particularly chapter 1 “The Six Signals Every Audience Wants to Hear.”
NEGOTIATIONS
Sound advice on negotiating job offers have been posted on-line by the UNC Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, by Margaret L. Newhouse of the Harvard University of Career Services (1995), and by Chris M. Golde, “After the Offer, Before the Deal: Negotiating a First Academic Job,” Academe: Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, January/February 1999, Vol. 85, no. 1, pp. 44-49 (website currently under reconstruction). A frequently recommended book on negotiations is: Roger Fisher and William L. Ury, Getting To Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Penguin, 1991).
A useful resource is the the AAUP's faculty compensation survey, the Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, which is published each year in the March-April issue of Academe, available through the UNC Libraries website.
OPPORTUNITIES OUTSIDE THE ACADEMY
WRK4US is a national listserv based at Duke dealing with non-academic careers for people with humanities PhDs. You can learn more about it here: http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/fhi/wrk4us/index.php. One of its key features is the "guest speaker discussions," in which PhDs working in a variety of fields discuss their work with list participants.