Career Resources

Find Current Academic Job Postings:

• H-net
• Academic Jobs Wiki
• American Historical Association (AHA)

A webinar on how to navigate the academic job market.

UC Berkeley’s Career Center offers an annual academic job search series.

Handshake is Berkeley’s recruiting platform available to current students and alumni.

Idealist is the job board for nonprofit work.

Hired is a major job listing site.

LinkedIn: In case you still need a reason to join.

The Berkeley Career Center’s website includes many more subject and industry specific job search sites.

Glassdoor is a platform where employees and former employees anonymously review companies. This can be a useful tool for learning about an organization’s culture and for getting a sense of salary range in different jobs and industries.

CVs and Resumes. Check out the following articles for guidance on writing an effective CV or resume for your job search: Beyond Academia's “From CV to Resume,” Shawn Warner-Garcia's "How I Reimagined My Resume," and Laura York's "Some Dos and Don'ts for an Effective CV and Cover Letter."

Online Profiles and Networking. For guidance on managing your online presence, see Gregg Britton's "Making your voice heard," Mark Carrigan's Social Media for Academics, and Vanessa Varin's "Managing Your Digital Self." Phil Wolgin's "An Academic's Guide to Getting a Non-Academic Job," offers concrete advice on making new contacts and doing informational interviews.

For a number of reasons, you may want to consider doing paid work while in graduate school. In addition to earning money, freelance and consulting work or part-time work in an organization - whether as an intern or an employee - can be a valuable opportunity to explore a career area of interest and to build a wider network of professional contacts. You can find current work and internship opportunities posted on the Career Center’s recruiting platform Handshake, as well as on LinkedIn and other job sites.

The Career Center’s website helpfully lists internship opportunities by field, for instance non-profit or communications. Many large organizations and some smaller ones have recurring internship programs with set application processes - often for multiple intern sessions each year. Local examples include the Oakland Museum of California and SFMOMA, but the opportunities are nearly endless.

If you are interested in an internship and aren’t sure where to begin, consider the wide array of organizations with established internship programs where our PhD alumni work. These span the government, non-profit, and private sectors. While some history PhDs are excited to work in academic-adjacent and public history roles, others are not. Our alumni work in careers as wide-ranging as law, psychology, consulting, entrepreneurship, and furniture design - so it is worth thinking broadly about your interests. If you’d like to make contact with one of our alumni before or while applying to intern or work at one of the following organizations, please feel free to get in touch for their contact information. Informational interviews are an essential first step for any job search.

Interning while in graduate school is by no means the right way to gain professional experience for everyone. Internships may make more sense at early stages in our doctoral program, though there are exceptions - for instance internships at RAND require applicants to have done a minimum of two years of graduate work. For students interested in transitioning to work in the private sector, finding paid part-time or contract work may be a better option. While volunteer work may occasionally be a good way to get a foot in the door at a particular organization, in general we advise pursuing opportunities for professional development that pay. It is an important part of establishing yourself as a professional. At the moment, internships are not eligible for campus tuition or fee waivers, and so are best done over the summer.

Organizations with recurring internship opportunities where our alumni and/or current students work

• Asana

• Box

• Center for American Progress

• Credit Karma

• Federal Reserve Bank of SF

• Gates Foundation

• Gensler

• Google

• RAND

• International Student Exchange Programs

• Museum of African Diaspora

• National Academy of Sciences

• National Air and Space Museum

• National Archives

• National Endowment for the Humanities

• PayPal

• US Department of Homeland Security

• US Commission on International Religious Freedom

• US Department of State

• US Department of the Interior

• Yelp

Work Opportunities on Campus

A number of campus bodies have paid work opportunities for grad students. These may not be available every semester or academic year, so it is worth occasionally checking campus websites as well as keeping an eye out for email announcements. In general, look for jobs advertised as “fellowships” to denote their professional development components as distinct from work/study or job/position listings.

• Academic Innovation Studio

• Berkeley Research Computing

• Center for New Media

• DH@Berkeley

• Graduate Assembly

• Graduate Division

• History and Social Science Project

• The ORIAS Speaker’s Bureau recruits grad students every fall to develop 45 minute presentations on their research to deliver in schools from the middle school to community college level. Through the process of preparing a presentation in consultation with ORIAS and local instructors, grad students receive feedback on their work. Speaking engagements are paid.

• The Center for Teaching and Learning runs a Graduate Student Assessment Fellows Program. Check out Maelia DuBois’ blog post on participating in the program.

• The College of Letters & Science hosts a number of recurring internships including a Graduate Student Mentors Program

• The Oral History Center at Berkeley’s Bancroft Library hosts grad student interns

• UCDC Although UCDC does not offer internship opportunities for graduate students, it is possible for grad students living or conducting research in Washington D.C. to affiliate with the program. We have heard from at least one of our department alumni that doing so presented important networking opportunities that later supported his job search for policy positions.

• UCOP

• UC Press hires student interns on a work-study basis. Many graduate students are eligible for work study, so it is worth completing a basic FAFSA.

Department Financial Support

The department will now consider offering summer stipends to grad students who wish to take on an otherwise unpaid internship opportunity with a partner organization. The aim of this support is to encourage students to gain experience with research, programming, and communications at companies, non-profit organizations, and government or cultural institutions and to expand their skills working in non-academic settings. Students who complete summer internships will meet with the Career Development Fellow on three occasions - once before, once during, and once after the internship period to check in about their progress. They will also be asked to contribute a piece on their experience to our career development blog. It is our hope that this interaction with the department will support students in gaining skills in articulating their professional experience for multiple audiences.

For specific application guidelines, please contact the career development team at history_careers@berkeley.edu. In general, you will be expected to communicate in advance with your proposed organization and demonstrate that you have identified a specific project(s) that you will be working on, show that someone has agreed to serve as your mentor, and articulate what that mentorship will look like. You should also be prepared to explain how the project and organization fit with your career or career exploration goals.

While we encourage you to think broadly about potential partners, both in the Bay Area and further afield, a number of local organizations have expressed interest in having a grad student intern:

• History and Social Science Project

• The Living New Deal

• Computer History Museum

• California State Parks