The constant workload of graduate school can make job hunting, even for part-time and summer positions, stressful. How do you find a job that fits your professional goals, provides some extra cash, and fits into your studies?
I have worked for the National Park Service, substitute taught, toiled in the archives, and worked odd summer jobs. In my experience, the three keys to a successful job search are knowing what you are looking for, being flexible, and using your network. This piece offers advice, aggregated from my own work as well as friends, mentors, and colleagues, to help make your summer job search a successful one.
Know What You are Looking For
Knowing is half the battle, and that is especially true in job searching. Before you start your quest for employment, you will need to know the different opportunities available to you. The major dividing line you will find for employment is between internships and jobs.
Securing Internships
Internships are positions specifically designed to provide professional development and grow your skillset for a limited time period, usually around three months—the length of a summer. Interns provide valuable labor and services for the places they work, but the primary goal of internships is to improve your skills in a practical environment. Because of this, some internship employers only offer unpaid internships.
The world of internships can get very messy. What someone defines as “professional development” varies from organization to organization. Some internships are designed to make you intimately familiar with a specific, field-appropriate task. For example, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has hired archival interns to twelve-week terms the past few summers to assist in processing materials, which would make you more acquainted with how institutions locate, acquire, and intake material. Other internships, like ones offered by the South Dakota State Museum Studies program, provide you with resources to travel and network in your scholarly field, introducing you to a variety of different roles over the course of a few months. You may spend your time each week completing entirely different tasks, such as running the library reference desk, practicing community engagement, or working on educational programming. Neither type of internship is inherently better than another, it just depends on your own skillset and goals. Internship applications tend to open earlier, some by late fall and others into early spring.
Finding a Job
Compared to internships, jobs are more straightforward. Job listings tend to include specific duties associated with the open position. Furthermore, while internships are designed to end, jobs exist for undefined periods of time. This can make it tricky for graduate students to apply, since some employers may not want to invest time into workers who have a hard end date, or at least a sharp reduction of hours, in mind. Plenty of jobs, however, align with the academic calendar; organizations like the National Park Service, local community colleges, and public school systems all offer opportunities that likely overlap with your graduate school schedule.
Job applications generally open later than internships, because they are more tied to an employer’s immediate need. This can change depending on the field. 2024 summer seasonal positions for the National Park Service, for example, opened in October of 2023. Other positions may not be tied to a formal job advertisement at all. Post-secondary instructional positions tend to operate on a rolling basis and can have more informal applications. Communicating with faculty in other departments ahead of time could earn you an email from a department head in sudden need of an adjunct instructor for the term. For all positions such as these you will want to remain flexible and proactive; being the first to look at a job board or communicate with potential employers may give you the inside track to a summer position
Finding the Job Opening Itself
Once you know the type of employment you are seeking, it is important to know what job or internship title you should be searching for, where to look for it, and how often you should be looking. There are very few job titles as straightforward as “historian” or “history intern,” but some occupational titles that may fit humanities students include: Tour Guide, Park Guide, Park Ranger, Curatorial Intern, Archival Intern, Education Technician, Social Media Intern, Substitute Teacher, Editorial Intern, Tutor, Research Assistant, and Administrative Assistant.
There is no one single repository for history related jobs, but there are resources that offer some information. All federal openings (including at the National Park Service, the largest employer of historians in the country) must be posted on USAJobs. The National Council on Public History has a regularly updated job board, as does the American Association for State and Local History. These online databases, in combination with job-hunting staples like LinkedIn and Handshake, should give you a solid entry point into what positions are available.
It is important to look early and often for employment opportunities. Mid-fall and mid-spring see the most openings posted, but new opportunities are posted at irregular times throughout the year. Regularly checking job boards and websites you trust is the best way to make sure you find an opening that fits you. Keep in mind: you will often be competing with professionals in the field who do the work full-time. Do not let this discourage you. They need someone for the job, and if you think your skills fit the bill, then apply! You need to make employers say no; do not make it easier for them to reject you.
Knowing What You Want and Being Flexible
Once you know what to look for, the next step is figuring out your own employment priorities. Since humanities and arts jobs are competitive, you may have to take roles with trade-offs or embrace new and unexpected experiences. To do this effectively, it is important to reflect on what you are looking for in your work, and what your dealbreakers are. Are you limited by location to a specific city, or do you have the money, family, and/or friends that would let you explore other markets, especially during the summer? Is securing extra income to cover bills your main motivator to find employment, or are you prioritizing work in a specific area you think would improve your resume post-grad school? Is the position remote, hybrid, or in person? What is the minimum amount you need to earn?
Having your employment priorities in order allows you to set your expectations, figure out what you are comfortable with, and apply for positions accordingly. If you are heavily restricted by location, you may limit the geographic scope of your search, even if an interesting role across the country opens up. If specific skill development is all you care about, then you can throw location to the wind and apply more broadly. No matter what, taking the time to think about what you want out of employment, and what you are willing to give up for that, will make your job search more efficient.
Using Your Network
The final piece of a successful job hunt is creating and leveraging a professional network. A fleshed-out network can help you navigate the varied and complicated world of job applications and resume writing across fields. Professors in your department are a great place to start; most senior faculty will have well-developed relationships both in and out of academia that they may be happy to share with you. These types of connections may lead directly to a research assistant or adjunct position, or make you indirectly aware of a job posting in the field. Beyond your department, the American Historical Association Career Contacts program is a great way to create new connections with people throughout the historical world in a more structured format. If all else fails, emailing professionals in the field you want to work in might yield surprising results—people in the humanities are passionate about their work and are usually eager to talk about it with others. Networking does not guarantee that you will be rewarded with a high paying summer job in your field, but it does increase your chances of finding a summer role that works for you.
Lastly, remember to give yourself grace. Not every summer will be filled with career-oriented employment, and that is ok! There is no shame in doing non-academic work. Sometimes that is the best way for you to rest your brain and sustain yourself financially during the summer. Graduate school is rewarding, but it is also a long and difficult journey. Prioritizing your mental health or financial stability in the summer may be the best decision for both your long-term health and career prospects.
Featured Image: Credit to Connor Barnes
Clio and the Contemporary 
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