Career Paths
Start planning your career path in the engaged and public humanities. Learn about different professional opportunities at the intersection of the humanities and public life (including government, law, medicine, and both non-profit and profit-driven entities). Find multiple job opportunities especially curated for professionals with backgrounds in humanities disciplines. And use the resources provided by Georgetown University to plan and reach your professional goals.
Learn about Different Career Paths in the Public Humanities
Georgetown University’s Graduate Career Center
The Georgetown University Graduate Career Center provides career management resources to graduate students of Georgetown University. Students can take advantage of:
- Career Coaching to support graduate students seeking to clarify their career goals, discuss job search strategy, practice for an interview or receive guidance on offer negotiation.
- Online career resources via the Grad Career Center’s resources page and through our career management platform, Handshake.
- Career Workshops for graduate students looking to accelerate their job search and enhance their career management skills.
Visit the Georgetown University’s Graduate Career Center’s website.
ImaginePhD
ImaginePhD is a free online career exploration and planning tool for PhD students and postdoctoral scholars in the humanities and social sciences.
Humanities and social sciences PhD students and their mentors have long recognized the need for more resources to help bridge the knowledge gap between doctoral education and the realm of career possibilities. ImaginePhD is designed to meet this need by allowing users to:
- Assess their career-related skills, interests, and values
- Explore careers paths appropriate to their disciplines
- Create self-defined goals
- Map out next steps for career and professional development success
Profiles in the Humanities
Dr. Carrie Shanafelt, Assistant Professor of English at Fairleigh Dickinson University, created this document that describes a wide range of real experiences and employment opportunities that some former students of the Humanities have pursued. It reflects career paths that are astoundingly varied, deeply reflective, and often richly rewarding. The profiles are roughly organized into groups: technology, marketing, communications, journalism, publication, arts, government, social work, law, libraries, archives, education, academic administration.
Read the profiles of various humanities professionals who followed different career paths.
Humanities Commons Alt-Ac Support Network
The Alt-Ac Support Network is a public spreadsheet with the names of post-PhD professionals working off the tenure track – in universities, non profits, corporations, and more. These volunteers left academia at some point between their first semester of coursework and their promotion to full professor. They are available for either individual mentorship or public speaking relating to professionalization.
Read the Humanities Commons Alt-Ac Support Network spreadsheet.
Beyond the Professoriate
Beyond the Professoriate is the only online professional development training platform for graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and PhDs that helps them successfully transition into academic or nonacademic careers. This research-driven platform is informed by nearly a decade of experience supporting PhDs to launch new careers with their skills and training.
Trusted by over 45 institutions (and growing), Beyond Prof’s Career Training Platform helps grad students and PhDs leverage their education into meaningful careers, whether in academia or beyond the professoriate.
Versatile PhD
The Versatile PhD mission is to help graduate students, ABDs and PhDs identify, prepare for and excel in professional careers.
Versatile PhD gains real-time intelligence from the US and global job market that provides PhDs and post-docs with the opportunity to expand their career options, think confidently about their future, and take concrete steps to achieve their goals.
They are working with hiring enterprises to understand their hiring needs and expectations, while being an energetic advocate for our PhD community and its vast array of skills and talent.
They PhD entrepreneurs by providing insights on the less visible areas of the employment market, including start-ups, social entrepreneurship, and smaller enterprises at the forefront of innovation.
Beyond Academe
Beyond Academe was created in 2003 to address the shift in the historical profession, for which only a minority of PhDs in history hold a position in a History Department. The site seeks to educate historians about their options outside of academe. Beyond Academe also provides detailed assistance to historians who are looking for jobs outside of the academy and it seeks to encourage all historians to participate in the public sphere. Since its creation, Beyond Academe has been cited and commended by historical organizations and a range of universities.
Humanists@Work
Humanists@Work (HumWork) is the graduate career initiative for the University of California. HumWork believes that career initiatives and programs should be led by graduate students in the humanities, supporting and amplifying their varied experiences, interests, and points of view. HumWork is deeply invested in exploring and documenting humanities expertise at work in the world, its possibilities and limits. They believe that to be meaningful, career “diversity” initiatives must change to address the concerns of heterogeneous stakeholders, beyond those who have always been in the room.
Grad Career Consortium
The Graduate Career Consortium (GCC) is an international organization comprised of higher education professionals leading career and professional development for graduate students and postdocs since 1987.
PhD Matters
PhD Matters empowers people to live flourishing work lives. It offers unique educational and conversational products, such as Life’s Potluck Buffet.
Humanities for the Public Good
A coalition of bold, experimental humanities scholars and practitioners at the University of Iowa who are creating a cross-disciplinary PhD program for students seeking to translate values, methods and content of advanced studies in the humanities into careers that serve the public good.
Find Job Opportunities in the Public Humanities
80,000 Hours
80,000 Hours aims to solve the most pressing skill bottlenecks in the world’s most pressing problems. They do this by providing research and support to help people switch into careers that effectively tackle these problems, by:
- Carrying out research to identify the careers that best solve these problems.
- Producing online content to inform people about these opportunities and how to enter them. This includes the 80,000 podcast, key ideas series, job board, problem profiles, and career reviews, which collectively have over one million readers per year.
- Providing one-on-one support to help their most engaged readers enter the path that’s the best fit for them by providing advice, introductions and placements into specific jobs.
80,000 Hours is a non-profit funded by philanthropic donations, and all of their programmes are free.
The Federation of State Humanities Councils’ Job Board
Whether you are looking for a job at the Federation of State Humanities Councils or at one of the state or jurisdictional humanities councils, look no further than the Federation of State Humanities Councils’ career page. Federation members with user profiles can upload, post, and share employment opportunities through the member portal.
Visit the Federation of State Humanities Councils’ Job Board.
Humanities for All newsletter
The Humanities for All Public Humanities Newsletter includes higher ed-based public humanities news including (but not limited to):
- CFPs for public humanities-related journals, book publications, blogs, conferences, etc.
- Humanities for All news, including recent blog posts, reports, projects, and profiles from our website
- Public humanities job ads relevant to those based in higher education
- National events, resources, and grant funding opportunities
- Articles about public humanities scholarship
Read the Humanities for All newsletter archive and subscribe.
Wine and Government Cheese newsletter
Wine and Government Cheese is a weekly e-mail of federal jobs for people with advanced degrees in the humanities and social sciences.
Read the Wine and Government Cheese newsletter archive and subscribe.
American Association for State and Local History Career Center
The American Association for State and Local History’s Professional Development offerings connect job seekers with leaders in the field, proven standards and best practices, and fresh ideas. Amongst their resources, they feature career advice and job postings.
Visit the American Association for State and Local History Career Center.
American Historical Association Career Center
As the primary professional association for historians in the United States, the AHA serves as the main clearinghouse for information about jobs, careers, and employment for the historical discipline. These services range from advice for the history major pondering their first job out of college to advice, information, and job listings for history PhDs.
Americans for the Arts’s Job Board
Americans for the Arts serves, advances, and leads the network of organizations and individuals who cultivate, promote, sustain, and support the arts in America. Founded in 1960, Americans for the Arts is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and arts education.
Gender Jobs Newsletter
The Gender Jobs Newsletter provides a curated list of job opportunities for those interested in working on gender equality, ranging from jobs in non-profit and non-governmental organizations, feminist associations, international organizations, and the public sector, to ones in research institutions, consultancy firms, foundations, philanthropy organizations, and more.
Visit the Gender Jobs website and subscribe to the newsletter.
Jobs at Georgetown University
The Georgetown University Careers Portal provides distinct career opportunities to be part of a diverse university community that reaches across the globe.
As the largest private employer in the District of Columbia, Georgetown strives to model a workplace environment committed to fairness, equity, and competitiveness. We embody these principles in the diversity of our students, faculty, and staff, our commitment to justice and the common good, and our international character.
Engage deeply as a member of this dynamic team and make the most of your experience as part of Georgetown’s thriving community.
Find jobs at the Main Campus, the Medical Center, the Law Center, and the School of Continuing Studies.