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.
Explore Career Paths in the Public Humanities
Beyond Academia
In 2012, two PhD students in Psychology, Els van der Helm and Bryan Alvarez, established a non-profit on UC Berkeley’s campus dedicated to career exploration outside tenure-track. Els and Bryan recruited graduate students and postdocs from various departments to organize the first Beyond Academia conference in 2013. Beyond Academia’s mission has since been to foster career education through a series of events including its flagship annual conference, workshops, tutorials, and panels that connect academics with those who have made a transition to non-academic jobs.
Visit the Beyond Academia’s website.
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.
Visit the Beyond the Professoriate’s website.
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.
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.
Visit the Grad Career Consortium’s website.
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.
Visit the Humanists@Work’s website.
Humanities Commons Alt-Ac Support Network
The Alt-Ac Support Network is a public spreadsheet with the names of post-Ph.D. 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.
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 Ph.D. program for students seeking to translate values, methods and content of advanced studies in the humanities into careers that serve the public good.
Visit the Humanities for the Public Good website.
ImaginePhD
ImaginePhD is a free online career exploration and planning tool for Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars in the humanities and social sciences.
Humanities and social sciences Ph.D. 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
Ph.D. Matters
Ph.D. Matters empowers people to live flourishing work lives. It offers unique educational and conversational products, such as Life’s Potluck Buffet.
View Ph.D. Matters’ Life’s Potluck Buffet.
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.
Versatile Ph.D.
The Versatile Ph.D. mission is to help graduate students, ABDs and Ph.D.s identify, prepare for and excel in professional careers.
Versatile Ph.D. gains real-time intelligence from the U.S. and global job market that provides Ph.D.s 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 Ph.D. community and its vast array of skills and talent.
They support Ph.D. 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.
Visit the Versatile Ph.D.’s website.
Discover 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 programs are free.
Visit the 80,000 Hours website.
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 Ph.D.s.
Visit the American Historical Association Career Center.
Americans for the Arts’ 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.
Visit the Americans for the Arts Career Center.
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.
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.
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.
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.