Humanities Ph.D.s today face a critical challenge: finding creative ways to translate their doctoral training into careers beyond academia.
The academic job market is undergoing a significant transition. Recent studies show a steep decline across disciplines in the current percentage of Ph.D.s pursuing tenure-track positions, reaching as low as 25 percent in some fields. An internal study at Johns Hopkins University indicates similar trends among those in the humanities, finding that “70 percent of Ph.D. students in humanities and social sciences fields […] are more interested in industry careers than academic positions.”
Institutional support for this transition, however, is often lacking. The question then, is: How do we better support humanities Ph.D.s in securing and thriving in such nonacademic roles?
As a humanities Ph.D. who has established a career bridging the gap between academia and industry, I represent a growing group of scholars pursuing advanced degrees with the goal of applying their skills beyond traditional faculty roles after they graduate. Early in my graduate studies, I pursued a passion for collaborative work by actively engaging in various elected leadership positions, such as graduate student professional councils, advocacy committees and my university’s graduate student senate.
Those experiences, combined with my research training, resonated with executives at a global cybersecurity hiring team for a luxury car company, who invited me to lead global strategic educational outreach planning and experiential learning initiatives for the organization. This role, in conjunction with serving as the education co-lead for the company’s partner organization (the Global Center for Cybersecurity, or GCC), gave me extensive exposure to best practices in experiential learning outside of academia.
For instance, while co-leading a GCC Education Workgroup—which was composed of university faculty, C-level corporate executives, and government leaders tasked with finding solutions for the global cybersecurity talent gap—we identified two particularly effective career readiness strategies: 1) developing tailored experiential learning programs to home-grow early career talent who can transition seamlessly into full-time roles, and 2) partnering with educational providers with the key goal of training students from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities for entry-level positions and mid-career transitions.
Those strategies now serve as a foundation for my work at Johns Hopkins University, where I began advising Ph.D.-level biomedical, life sciences and public health researchers on how to translate niche skillsets to diverse careers outside of academia. My role has since expanded to revamping experiential learning offerings for all Johns Hopkins Ph.D.-level talent, including launching programs tailored for my fellow humanities Ph.D.s.
My experiences in corporate and nonprofit sectors taught me an important lesson, which I now share with my advisees: You don’t have to be the leading subject matter expert to enter a new career field; you simply need enough experience to speak confidently about your skillset to get a foot in the door. The rest will come with the job.
Recognizing Current Transferrable Skills
Many skills acquired in doctoral-level humanities training are easily transferable. For instance, Patrick Brugh, Director of the Center for Staff Life Design at Johns Hopkins University, cites his doctorate experience as a springboard for his successful transition from academia to management consulting. “I learned to read huge amounts of literature in super short periods of time, connecting historical trends to current situations [and] creat[ing] innovative activities to get folks engaged and excited.”
Ph.D.-level humanistic training—with its focus on culture, language and communication—gives graduate students an edge. Humanities Ph.D. students excel at untangling complex systems, posing targeted questions to pinpoint key issues and formulating innovative solutions. They learn to analyze complex arguments and ideas, critically evaluate and synthesize information, and present data accurately, using clear and persuasive communication when sharing outcomes. Additionally, humanists are experts in communication, skilled at transforming vast amounts of information into captivating narratives that grab stakeholders’ attention and leave a lasting impression. Those skills are highly sought in industry.
With humanistic education’s focus on communication, this population is also well-positioned to adapt quickly and effectively to new professional communication styles outside of academia. Kirsten Sardi, a senior strategic engagement executive for online language learning app Duolingo, shares about this transition: “I needed to learn how to communicate in a much more concise, bulleted and truncated way. I followed company announcement formats, aligning my communication with company norms, being reflective about what the company culture is and how to adjust to it.”
Making Skills More Industry-Relevant
How, then, can humanists effectively apply skills they already have to a new professional setting?
As an employer relations expert, I’ve heard industry partners request three key specific skills from applicants with humanities Ph.D.s:
- Agility, or adaptability to fast-paced workflows and project management systems.
- Cultural fluency, or comfort navigating new settings with different cultural and communication norms.
- Collaboration skills, or the ability to have a team versus individualistic mindset.
My experience in the humanities resonates with those requests. I came from an academic environment that generally prioritized individual analysis and interpretation in projects that unfolded over months or years. Collaboration was rare, and professional siloes were common. To successfully transition into corporate and nonprofit settings, I needed to embrace new cultural norms and vocabularies, swapping academic jargon such as “interdisciplinary work” for “cross-functional collaboration.” With daily team check-ins for brainstorming and status updates, projects unfolded quickly over weeks or even days, evolving organically out of ongoing interaction with colleagues across the globe.
Learning and applying those and other practical skills needed for effective collaboration will help humanities Ph.D.s succeed outside of academia. For instance, Thera Naiman, who has a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins, recommends that doctoral students seek out opportunities during graduate school to become comfortable with tools for team-based projects. “One fear people have about grad students and Ph.D.s is that they are not used to collaborating. Being able to reference specific platforms like SLACK or TEAMS channels during interviews will be incredibly helpful.”
Naiman leveraged a Johns Hopkins–sponsored internship opportunity into a full-time government contracting role with her internship team. Key to making the transition was her experience with collaborative project-management software and programs. “It was incredibly helpful that I had experience with ASANA,” Naiman shares. “When interviewing, the hiring team asked what experience I had working in a fully remote and collaborative workspace. I had briefly used ASANA for a project. They were excited about it.”
Employers also prioritize presentation skills that align with industry expectations. “Learn to effectively share your results,” Naiman advises. “I use presentations a lot more than I ever did in academia. Nonacademic roles have higher standards and expectations for presentations being visually appealing.”
John Blatz, an artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning expert who has held diverse roles at Apple, Google and Grammarly, provides tips on how to gain additional experience: “Find faculty members who will help you with your public speaking skills. There are faculty members out there who say ‘there are 300 presentations at this conference—you have to be the one everyone remembers. We are going to spend weeks making this perfect.” Such skills will be crucial when sharing out project delivery updates and reports.
Learning to Navigate Collaborative Feedback
Part of working in a collaborative environment is learning to leverage team-based feedback. C.J. Higgins, a Johns Hopkins postdoctoral fellow in philosophy, speaks to common learning curves for humanists in this area: “Our work [in academia] is very individual. The only opportunity for feedback is limited to conferences or one-off colloquiums.” Beyond adviser input, he says, additional feedback is “unusual,” and comments from conference attendees are often “too superficial to be helpful.” As a result, humanities scholars must learn to recognize on their own when they’ve delved too deeply into an unproductive research area, commonly referred to as “an intellectual rabbit hole.”
In industry, working in isolation can lead to dead-ends that derail project deadlines. Blatz explains, “Engaging in project-based work in collaborative environments teaches Ph.D.s how to prioritize the goals of the team. As a manager, it’s my job to make sure that my team is working together effectively, and that often means asking them to redirect their effort to align with each other.”
Relying on team expertise speeds up project completion and improves results. Honing this skill will help humanities Ph.D.s cultivate a team-based mindset, leading to successful and efficient project delivery within fast-paced timelines.
To cultivate those skills, career educators should facilitate, and humanities graduate students should engage in, short-term, team-based engagements. Case competitions or project-based industry partnerships help build skills in collaboration and teamwork. Internships and experiential learning programs also provide practical experience that translates into compelling interview stories.
Creating Career Entry Points
How can career educators design scalable experiential learning opportunities for humanities Ph.D.s to gain experience and confidence in their skillsets?
Roshni Rao, Ph.D. and Tyler Sluder in the Johns Hopkins Doctoral and Postdoctoral Life Design Studio have documented strategies for creating effective Ph.D.-level experiential-learning opportunities. My experience with designing and implementing similar programs for Ph.D.s of all disciplines has shown me that because humanities Ph.D.s often have limited exposure to nonacademic careers and mentors who have made successful transitions, this population needs a more personalized approach. Here are some successful strategies that I recommend.
Engage early. Humanists need time to understand that their research, while valuable, may not have a direct application in industry—and that’s OK. Connecting with those students early in their university experience provides ample time to explore diverse career paths, engage in experiential learning opportunities, and hone transferable skills—all of which create more competitive job candidates. Finding organic ways to regularly meet potential program participants where they are—through orientation events, departmental gatherings, happy hours and so on—will help you position yourself as a resource early on.
Encourage peer-to-peer connections. Wherever possible, include Ph.D. students in project planning, development of marketing materials and outreach efforts. Connect with student leaders and collaborate with student organizations to co-host informational sessions or workshops, which will create natural feedback channels with diverse student populations. Program participants will benefit from inclusion in a supportive environment characterized by shared knowledge, experiences and aspirations, creating a deeper sense of community.
Strategically scale support services. Host large-group workshops and small-group coaching sessions featuring live résumé reviews for group learning. Those approaches can address common questions efficiently, freeing up time to tackle other responsibilities. Cohort-based learning creates a supportive and interactive learning environment, which allows educators to help more students develop new skills, build confidence and increase their overall professional readiness.
Leverage successes. Showcase internship successes and highlight career transitions resulting from experiential learning in newsletters, social media and other outlets. Such firsthand accounts inspire current Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows to envision options outside of academia, as well as identify potential mentors who might offer career guidance. Further, promoting successes within the humanities community contributes to a broader narrative of Ph.D. success beyond academia, challenging traditional career paradigms and expanding professional possibilities for future scholars.
In conclusion, experiential-learning opportunities, in all their shapes and sizes, provide practical experience that translates directly to industry needs while building meaningful connections between scholars and employers. They also empower applicants to excel in their new job starting on day 1. For educators, using a multipronged approach that combines staying abreast of industry needs and strategically engaging humanities populations is crucial for creating a well-prepared talent pool. Together, these efforts can transform the lives of humanities Ph.D.s, providing them with the skills and confidence they need for success in any field.