Hi there, I’m Emily! 👋 Welcome to Hired Humanities, a biweekly newsletter devoted to helping humanities students build careers they love.
First, I want to acknowledge all of the support Hired Humanities has received over the past few weeks. Thank you to all who have subscribed and spread the word. The response has truly surpassed my wildest expectations, and my only hope is that you continue to find this little corner of the Web inspiring and helpful.
This week, I have a question for you: How many times have you been asked “Can you tell me a little about yourself?" in an interview and didn't really know how answer?
Well, this seemingly innocent question was the bane of my existence when I started interviewing for jobs. Every time I spoke with an interviewer I knew it was coming, but I could never seem to answer it well. One time, an interviewer’s eyes glazed over as I recited the different schools I attended (“I graduated from this school in 2010, then spent a year at this school in an intensive language program, then I got my masters here, then I went there..." See, you’re bored too). Another time, an interviewer looked confused as to why I was sitting in front of her.
“As an academic, are you sure you won’t get tired of this position?” She asked, raising her eyebrows.
I started to dread the question, and I'm willing to bet a few of you have felt or feel similarly. Summarizing your career in a few sentences is never easy, but it's even harder when you don’t have much non-academic work experience and are conflicted about leaving academia. How do you condense the last five years of your life into a few sentences? Where do you even begin to tell the story of why you’re here, interviewing for a job that isn't obviously related to the stack of degrees on your resume? On top of that, it’s a common interview opener, so it’s your first chance to make a positive impression.
Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash
Eventually I figured out that having a response at the ready was the only way I could move past the fear of revealing myself as an academic one-hit wonder. What's more, I found that showing up to an interview armed with a succinct narrative of my alt-academic journey was a complete game changer. Not only did it stop me from rambling incoherently about my time in graduate school, but it allowed me to highlight my skills and unique experience.
So, in this issue, we're talking about how to ace the "Tell me a little about yourself" question. Break out a pen and paper, and let's get to work crafting your own alt-academic narrative.
Structuring your narrative
Most interviews— especially initial phone screens— are short. You have a finite amount of time to make your case and keep your interviewer's attention, so brevity is key when crafting your alt-academic story.
With that in mind, I recommend sticking to the classic "beginning, middle, end" plot structure, and allotting no more than three sentences to each part. I know this may sound next to impossible, but I promise you can do it. You'll just need to ruthlessly cut academic jargon so you can focus on what you actually have to offer.
Below I show you how to plot your narrative and make each part impactful. I've kept things broad to cover as many situations as possible, but ultimately you'll need to make a call as to what suggestions work best for you as there is no "magic formula" for telling your story.
Beginning: Introduce yourself, but stick to the basics
Like the beginning of any story, you'll need to introduce your audience to the main character. In this case, the protagonist just happens to be yourself.
When you've been in graduate school for the past few years, your academic work is big part of your life. It's entangled with your identify and your training as a scholar informs how you experience the world. However, if you’re interviewing for a job in an industry that isn’t adjacent to your academic field, you'll want to avoid explaining your research in detail.
Why? It’s a surefire way to make yourself seem stuck in professor mode, which is definitely not what you want. Your resume should include the details of what schools you’ve attended, so don’t bother spending precious face time with the interviewer enumerating the minutia of all your degrees either.
Instead, briefly summarize your graduate work so you can move on to the good stuff. Here's an example using my own story:
I’ve spent the last several years working towards a PhD in Ancient Greek and Roman literature.
I have several different institutions on my resume, so I elide a lot of my experience when summarizing my graduate school years. I also generalize my field of study— Classical Philology— to make it audience-appropriate. Sure, an interviewer may not know that I was a Latinist studying the intersection of material culture and literature, but that simple sentence communicates just enough about my background to set the stage for the rest of my story.
Middle: Explain the pivot
This is where it’s tempting to go negative.
Think back to the last conversation you had with friends or family members about your time in graduate school. Did you feel yourself getting physically uncomfortable and worked up? Did you rant for 20 minutes about your dissertation advisor, the anti-union university administration, the dearth of tenure track jobs?
Yeah, you do not want these feelings to dictate your interviews.
Even though your frustrations are completely valid, grievances about graduate school should not be your stated reason for applying to the job. It will distract the interviewer from where you are now, and you'll run the risk of appearing pessimistic and difficult to work with. Plus, being in that mind set will stress you out and make the whole process more painful than it has to be.
Alternatively, use the career pivot to highlight your newfound interest in whatever industry or role you’re pursuing. This is your first opportunity to make the case that your skills are transferable, so make the most of it by showing how you connected the dots between your academic experience and the role at hand. It’s the perfect time to highlight how excited you were when you discovered that user research requires the same skills as historical research, or how your passion for storytelling led you to explore a career in communications.
Another great way to explain your pivot is to frame it in terms of fit. For example:
As an academic, the nature of my work was solitary. I love being part of a team, and I realized I would have more opportunities to work collaboratively and use my writing skills to help businesses reach a wider audience if I moved into industry.
In this case, the interviewee could easily linger on how much he loathes spending long days in the library alone. Yet instead of focusing what didn’t work for him, he turns the negative into something much more compelling and positive: a personal search to align his career with his love of teamwork and desire to make an impact.
End: Bring it to the present
How you wrap your response is just as important as how you begin. A strong ending can be the difference between appearing confident or insecure, capable or incompetent. In short, your conclusion sets you up for success.
My recommendation is to end with what you’re looking for in your next role and why the job at hand is the next logical step in your career. This approach naturally transitions the conversation toward the present moment, giving the interviewer something to work with as they continue to ask you questions.
Let's take a look at an example:
I've been looking for roles where I can leverage my writing skills in new ways. I love that your agency emphasizes the storytelling aspect of brand development, and I feel like I could contribute a fresh perspective to the team.
The imaginary interviewee hits on three things: what she wants out of her next job, what she finds appealing about the company, and what value she can provide to the team. She positions herself as a self-starter who is ready to take on the next challenge and prompts the interviewer to dig deeper. I mean, don’t you want to know what her perspective is?
Telling your story well
Luckily, crafting your narrative is 80% of the battle. The remaining 20% is learning how to tell your story well. Here are three quick tips to help you prepare to share it during interviews:
Don't put pressure on yourself to memorize your narrative verbatim. It's difficult to do and will end up making you sound rehearsed anyway. Instead, focus on learning the major plot points and key phrases.
Buy a friend a (virtual) cup of coffee and role play the interview together. Ask for feedback on the narrative flow and your overall delivery. The goal is to sound natural and relaxed as you walk through your alt-academic journey.
The night before your interview, refresh your memory by jotting down talking points. This is my favorite exercise to prepare for interviews since it's a low-effort way to get in the interviewing mindset. Bonus: if it's a phone interview, you can use your notes to guide the conversation— just remember not to read them like a script!
A parting note
Thanks for tuning in this week! Don't hesitate to drop a line if you have questions or feedback. And, if you think someone else in your life would love to receive Hired Humanities in their inbox, please spread the word.
See you soon,
Emily
Reading List
A few of my favorite links
🚨 Friendly reminder for those who can: VOTE! Slate breaks down how to vote in every state.
✏️ This article from Harvard Business Review is a great reminder that you don't need to meet all the qualifications to apply for a job.
🔒 People with humanities backgrounds are uniquely positioned to tackle the biggest questions in tech. This New Yorker profile on the founder of encrypted messaging service Signal digs into the ethics of digital privacy and more.