Hi there, I’m Emily! 👋 Welcome to Hired Humanities, a biweekly newsletter devoted to helping humanities students build careers on their own terms.
Hey, readers! How’s it going?
Over the past few weeks, nearly all the people I’ve had conversations with about leaving academia have asked me what skills they should develop to set them up for success on the job market. I’m going to be honest and say that the first couple of times I heard this question, I was a little stumped. It’s difficult to give someone actionable advice if they haven’t determined a target role. Having a direction clarifies your path forward; if you’re interested in marketing, then you might want to learn about SEO, for example, or get some customer facing-experience if you’re wanting to transition into customer success.
Stumbling through these conversations made me wonder: are there skills that will serve you well no matter your career path?
The answer, I’ve concluded, is yes.
Today, we’re going to take a closer look at three skills that will serve you well in any job. Read on to learn what they are, why they are so useful, and how you can start developing them.
Nick Morrison on Unsplash
Project management
First up we have project management, which is the process of shepherding a project to completion following budget and time constraints. Project management is a rapidly growing field (the Project Management Institute estimates that nearly 88 million employees will be needed to fulfill project management roles by 2027), and it’s worth paying attention to even if you don’t aspire to become a professional project manager. In fact, most industries require proficiency in the activities that project management encompasses—juggling competing deadlines, establishing clear goals and milestones, interfacing with various stakeholders, and managing budgets—to advance to higher-level roles.
It turns out that many students engage with project management on a daily basis. Though she doesn’t name it explicitly as project management, the process Brooke Harrington outlines in Psyche reveals just how much research pulls from the same skillset. Take how she frames the way researchers must formulate their research questions:
Researchers face limits in terms of time and money. They, like everyone else, have to pose research questions that they can plausibly answer given the constraints they face. For example, it would be inadvisable to frame a project around the question ‘What are the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict?’ if you have only a week to develop an answer and no background on that topic.
Unfortunately, most students don’t know that they’re engaging in this work, and therefore don’t know how to talk about these skills on the job market.
The quickest way to further your project management skills is to actively cultivate them with your research projects. Are there ways you can develop a management system for your deadlines? Can you identify the stakeholders of your research project? Harrington’s piece is a great place to look for ideas on how to integrate project management activities into your workflow, along with Laura Pirro’s article on bringing agile project management to research. (Note that Pirro’s article is targeted towards science researchers, but many of the same principles apply.) I’d also recommend checking out Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager; I picked it up a couple of years ago after I transitioned to the industry and it’s become an indispensable resource ever since.
Another way you can work on your project management skills is by taking on departmental facilitation duties or leading a student group. The one caveat here is that roles like this can take a lot of time and energy with little return. As with any volunteer or low-paying roles, be strategic and examine the time investment in relation to what experience you’ll gain.
Communication
You might be thinking, “Emily, I write all day. My communication skills are fine!”, but I’m not talking about scholarly writing. In my experience, one of the steepest learning curves for academics is figuring out how to engage effectively with non-academic audiences.
Communicating in a business context is very different from an academic one. While scholarship is about exposition, business communication is about distillation. You can write the most beautifully wrought pitch in the world, but when you fail to get your point across in the first line or two, it’s unlikely that you’ll get the buy-in you’re looking for. Additionally, if you approach a hiring manager speaking and writing like an academic, they’ll think of you as an academic before anything else.
One of the best ways to become adept at this mode of communication is to practice by creating opportunities to write for and engage with non-academics. Have you seen any general audience articles related to your field? Think about what made the article accessible and interesting to non-experts, and try writing a story pitch based on your research. You don’t necessarily need to pitch it to a media outlet, but by all means, take the plunge if you feel ready! Additionally, don’t underestimate the power of starting a blog or newsletter. They can be incredibly helpful tools for experimenting and honing your voice.
Another important way to develop in this area is to seek feedback on your communication style. Ask a non-academic friend to look over your resume and give you their honest opinion. Have a colleague listen to the way you communicate important points in your presentations. It may feel painful at first to have people scrutinize the way you write and speak, but hearing how others receive your work will be illuminating.
Programming
Programming was the one skill that I didn’t hesitate to recommend over the past few weeks. Even if you aren’t planning on becoming a software engineer, programming is an incredibly powerful tool with a myriad of applications, from data analysis to automation. You would truly be hard-pressed to find any job that wouldn’t be made easier by knowing at least a little bit of programming. Plus, if you’re interested in tech, knowing what your engineering team is up to will make you that much savvier.
To get started, take a cue from our Career Chat guest Blaise Gratton and think about ways that you can apply programming to your own field. Why not find a research problem to tackle with programming and make the case to audit a course? If auditing is out of the question for you, there are a ton of great self-guided resources available online, including Automate the Boring Stuff and Codecademy.
As far as what programming languages to learn, Python is a great place to begin. It runs on pretty much any computer, is extremely flexible, and is fantastic for gluing libraries, or pre-written programs, together.
A Parting Note
Thanks for tuning in this week! Please don't hesitate to drop me a line if you have questions or feedback. And, if you think someone else in your life would love to receive this newsletter in their inbox, feel free to spread the word.
Onwards,
Emily
Reading List
A few of my favorite links
🐔 I’m very curious about this new book detailing the history of Nashville through the lens of its signature dish, hot chicken.
🎧 I’ve been revisiting old episodes of Adam Grant’s podcast, Work Life, and particularly enjoyed this one about procrastination.
🐟 This article from the New Yorker about how animals navigate had me laughing and in awe.