Career Advice: Getting a Job in Philosophy - Inside Higher Ed

Career Advice: Getting a Job in Philosophy - Inside Higher Ed:

Getting a Job in Philosophy

June 20, 2011

By Brian L. Keeley

These suggestions are based on my personal experiences as a graduate student at the University of California at San Diego, as a postdoc at Washington University in St. Louis, and as an assistant professor at the University of Northern Iowa. While my experiences are in philosophy, much of this advice would apply to other humanities fields as well.

There are different things that can be done at different points in your graduate career. This series of recommendations will be broken down by year. I will take as my ideal a person who goes on the market for the first time in the fall of his or her fifth year. Obviously, if you go out sooner or later, the time frame will shrink or expand accordingly. (However, the longer you wait, the more urgency there will be that you get a job immediately.) Also, the order is more or less arbitrary.