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Graduate Job Search Resources

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We are committed to providing students with the best preparation and support as they pursue their job searches. Our dedicated Placement Officer works with students on the preparation of their job materials, strategies for going on the market, and the interview process. Our programs’ many extracurricular offerings in collaboration with university offices also prepare students well for alt-ac careers.

The English Department and the university both offer a variety of resources to support current graduate students and recent alumni who are seeking employment in academia, industry, the non-profit sector, and beyond. These services reflect the diversity of opportunities our students have secured following graduation – please visit our Doctoral Career Paths page and Master’s Professional Paths page for a breakdown of this data over the past 10 years.

We encourage our students to take advantage of the resources compiled here, updated regularly, from the start of their programs to best prepare themselves for professional success.

Resources for the Academic Job Search

Co-Directors of Placement

Professor Hillary Chute
Professor Talia Vestri (providing targeted support for those seeking non-tenure track jobs)

Placement Office Contact Info

John Bagley
gradenglish@northeastern.edu
(617) 373-3692

Please contact John Bagley at j.bagley@northeastern.edu for access to the 2021 Academic Job Search Guide.

Please click here for more information about our dossier service.

Doctoral candidates and recent alumni should use this form to let the Placement Office know when you are going on the academic job market.

The Office of Employer Engagement and Career Design is one of the top-ranked University career services offices in the country. Explore their Graduate Student Job Search Tool Kit for tips, events, and resources.

Resources for the Alt-Academic Job Search

The Career Design team is fully qualified to support PhDs and post-docs who are job searching for both academic jobs and Humanities Careers. Specific resources include:

  • Doctoral Career Studio Hours: Drop-in hours are currently held from 9-11 AM on Thursdays for PhDs and post-docs to meet with a PhD-focused career advisor to address career-related questions, set up longer one-on-one consultations, and/or be directed to other available resources. Strongly encouraged for anyone considering an alt-ac career and wanting to know where to get started.
  • Self-paced Canvas modules: Anyone with NU credentials can enroll in this course to learn more about designing your career, creating application materials, developing a professional brand, networking, negotiating offers, and more.
  • Resume support: Lots of general advice that can be paired with the (free) VMock SMART Resume Platform to analyze your resume using data-science, machine learning, and natural language processing.
  • Live coaching labs (sign up in advance): Events offered on all five aspects of the career design framework as well as rotating topics. A weekly schedule grid can be found here.

The PhD Network collaborates with the Career Design office on resources and programming throughout the year:

NUsource is a network for Northeastern alumni and community members to connect for career advice, industry insights, mentoring, and professional connections. Students can also join the Northeastern University Alumni group on LinkedIn.

Check out our Doctoral Career Paths page for specifics on where English PhDs have gone post graduation.

Hear from our alumni on how they navigated the job market following graduation, how they apply their English degrees in their current fields, and what advice they have for current students looking ahead to the workforce or furthering their education:

  • Imagine PhD: “a career exploration and planning tool for the humanities and social sciences” that comes highly recommended by the Career Design office. Offers assessments you can take to help determine what fields you could see yourself working in and resources for networking, building skills, and applying for jobs.
  • Versatile PhD: “The oldest, largest online community dedicated to non-academic and non-faculty careers for PhDs in humanities, social science, and STEM.” Northeastern doesn’t have a subscription, but you can still make a basic account to access several free features, including a user-posted jobs feed (more details here).
  • Connected Academics: an initiative from the Modern Language Association to prepare doctoral students of language and literature for a variety of careers. Features “connected conversations with ABD candidates and recent graduates pursuing Humanities Careers, and general career advice.”  
  • Post-Ac Guide for Language Experts: succinct, general advice for learning to identify and develop skills, network, and find jobs
  • Academic Job Market Support Network: despite the title, this also contains several resources for those seeking alt-ac jobs, including an Alt-Ac Support Network spreadsheet of professionals available for individual mentorship.

Job Postings Sites

Create a free personal log in to search careers in academia through the MLA Job List site.

Higher Ed Jobs: In addition to faculty positions, users can also search for administrative or alt-ac roles and sort by location, institution type, and functional areas.

Humanities and Social Sciences Online (H-Net): This site mostly contains professorship postings, but also lists some alt-ac jobs at colleges and universities, museums, and industry.

Chronicle of Higher Education: In addition to jobs in academia, this site also includes Administrative positions and Jobs Outside Academe.

Versatile PhD: see “External Resources” for more details.

Imagine PhD: Each Job Family Resources section on this site contains links to job boards for finding positions within specific humanities-centric fields.

UNC alt-ac job boards: This site contains a list of relevant job boards in the humanities & social sciences sorted by fields.

Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) + Digital Library Federation (DLF) Job Board: This site contains postings for library and archive jobs, all including a minimum salary amount.

  • Idealist: Search engine for jobs in the non-profit sector
  • LinkedIn: Not just for networking–you can also search for jobs by title, skill, or company
  • Indeed: General job search engine
  • USAJobs: Search engine for jobs with the federal government