[Nicky Agate]

Do you have a certain kind of career in mind, or an area in which you are particularly interested? Post about it in this thread and you might just find someone who can guide you.

[Amanda Konkle]

Anyone have advice on how I can get into academic publishing with a Ph.D. and freelance copyediting experience?

[Monica Miller]

There are two main areas that I’m interested in outside of the traditional academic track. As I’ve done a lot of archival research myself—as well as having worked in a special collections library while finishing my bachelor’s degree–I’m interested in some sort of administrative position related to libraries or archives. The other area is working in some capacity with an organization such as the NEH, developing and organizing seminars and programs. Before I returned to school, I worked for ten years in a variety of administrative professional positions in healthcare and higher education; this fall, as a postdoctoral fellow I’ll be the assistant director of the writing program at Georgia Tech. I’d like to find a position that allows me to use my administrative experience along with my traditional academic training.

[Melissa A. Dalgleish]

Amanda, I’m happy to help. I’m speaking from a Canadian context, and from my experience working for Oxford University Press Canada, but I think this advice should be pretty widely applicable. Nearly everyone I worked with at OUP who had started in the last 5-7 years had entered the field via the placement portion of their publishing certificate (which here are offered by Ryerson University and Centennial College). These tend to be paid internships that happen as part of the publishing certificate program, and it was rare that someone would get hired without having gone this route. I was one of the few, but only because I had really niche background that they happened to be looking for at that moment. I’d suggest checking out similar programs in your area–at least at Ryerson, you can start interning as soon as you’ve completed one course, and many people never actually get the certificate after they get hired somewhere full time.

[Sarah Ruth Jacobs]

I’ve been applying to online journalism/online copywriting jobs.

[Nicky Agate]

Hi @srujacobs!

Have you had much luck? Do you have experience in that field, or are you using your humanities writing skills? And which sites do you recommend for others who might be interested in such work?

Cheers,

Nicky

[Sarah Ruth Jacobs]

Hi Nicky, yes, I worked a year in New York book publishing, and I’ve published a few things online, so that experience definitely helps. I’ve gotten some calls/interviews. I guess the market here in the US is different as opposed to Canada in that there isn’t a huge barrier to entering academic publishing. It does help to know someone, of course. Another technique that I’ve heard is that if you know a company is hiring, you could query a stranger from that company to talk about jobs in that sector over coffee. Then I guess when you submit your resume you can let them know and they might put in a good word for you. That’s audacious, I know, but I think so many people get jobs on knowing someone and reputation that it’s probably a pretty realistic strategy.

[Stacy Hartman]

Hi Sarah!

I just wanted to say that using informational interviewing for networking is not really all that “audacious” these days. Generally speaking, it’s nice to have the interview a little further in advance of submitting your application, especially if you really have no other connection at all to the company, but it’s pretty typical to let someone you’ve done an interview with know if you’ve submitted an application for a job. And of course the interview itself should NOT be a quasi-job interview – it should really be focused, at least initially, on the person you’re interviewing and what they do and how they got into publishing, before you start talking about skillsets and what you might want to do.

I’ve seen this work a couple times for people in various sectors. It’s a completely legitimate strategy.

[Nicky Agate]

I just want to reiterate what @stacy_hartman said above. Informational interviews (or, if you prefer, taking someone to coffee) are an absolutely crucial part of the job search. Particularly if carried out before there is a specific job opening that might interest you, they give you an opportunity to get a low-stakes feel for a company’s work environment and priorities while allowing you to casually make an impression that may just work in your favor when a job does open up.

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