THE
HISTORICAL PROFESSION #4:
JOBS
This final session of our class will focus on one of the long-term goals of your graduate education: finding a job as a professional historian. Melanie Gustafson's Survival Manual is the best single guide to this subject. The Townsend article provides information about the structure of the current job market. The next two articles demystify two of the most important rituals of the historical profession: professional conferences and job interviews. The final article introduces some of the issues graduate students are currently raising in professional organizations of historians.
Reading Assignment:
Melanie Gustafson, Becoming a Historian: A Survival Manual for Women and Men. AHA Committee on Women Historians, 2001.
The American Historical Association, "The Academic Job Market for History Ph.Ds"
Coordinating Council for Women in History, "Public History Pages"
Peggy Pascoe and David G. Gutierrez, "Advice for Graduate Students (& Other Colleagues): Getting on the Program for the ASA Annual Meeting." ASA Newsletter 20 (March 1997): 3, 22-24. (In Course Reader).
Linda Gordon,
"Successful Interviewing." Perspectives (November
1989): 6-7. (In Course Reader).
Suggestions for Further Reading:
Paul Boyer, "Graduate Applications-The Important Elements." Perspectives 27 (October 1989): 1, 5.
Steven A. Leibo, "Using the Annual Meeting to Win a Position at a Small Undergraduate College." Perspectives (December 1995).
Lesli Mitchell, The Ultimate Grad School Survival Guide. Peterson's, 1996.
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Mitchell is a graduate student in English, and her advice on choosing and applying to schools, teaching, writing the thesis, and conferences is excellent, and largely applicable for historians. Beware, though, of her enthusiasm for publishing anything anywhere (it really does matter where you publish). Her chapter on job searches emphasizes teaching to an extent that makes it applicable only to jobs at small liberal arts colleges. . |
Robert L. Peters, Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning a Master's or a Ph.D. Noonday Press, 1997.
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A guide for graduate students that places special emphasis on setting and reaching goals as efficiently as possible. The book has excellent advice on writing, oral presentations, and choosing and working with advisors and committees. Peters' Ph.D. is in biology, and his sections on thesis proposals and job hunting are less useful for historians. |
Mary Corbin Sies's Home Page. http://www.otal.umd.edu/~sies/
| A very useful compilation of questions and answers for academic job interviews, which includes Sies's candid translations of the hidden meanings behind various inquiries. |
Donald Asher, Graduate Admission Essays: What works, what doesn't and why. Ten Speed Press, 1991
| A professional resume writer that advises prospective applicants to graduate school, not just on the mechanics of the process, but the style, approaches, and other nuances as well |