histjobs

Fewer new historians and more job openings translate into one of the healthiest job markets in the field in years.

Data that will be published this month in Perspectives, the magazine of the American Historical Association, show that 966 history positions were advertised there in the 2004-5 academic year, a 13 percent increase in one year. During the same year, the number of new Ph.D.'s reported by departments fell by 14 percent, to 840.

As a result, the number of positions in Perspectives exceeded the number of new Ph.D.'s awarded for the first time in 15 years. Not all positions are advertised in Perspectives, and available jobs for junior faculty members are also being sought by unemployed or underemployed Ph.D.'s from the past few years, so the AHA report on the data cautions against assuming that finding a good faculty job in the field will be easy. But it is clearly a much better market than historians have seen in the recent past.

The history job market appears to be better across the board, in terms of geographic specialties sought for junior professor positions. There are still more jobs being listed in the history of North America and Europe than in other areas. But the percentage increases in position listings are much higher for Africa and the Middle East.

Junior Faculty Positions by Geographic Field

Another aspect of geography is also important to job seekers: where the jobs area. In 2004-5, as they have been historically, the greatest number of job listings are in the Northeast and Midwest. But the rate of growth is far greater in the Southwest.

At the AHA meeting, the statistic that is on the mind of many job seekers is their number of interviews. Many departments conduct brief interviews at the meeting to decide which candidates to bring to campus for in-depth interviews. An unscientific sample of new Ph.D.'s or soon-to-be Ph.D.'s outside one of the interview areas found that many of them felt good about their number of interviews. But "good" varies by specialization.

Two historians of Africa, for example, reported having 9 and 14 interviews, although they indicated that some of those jobs were "world history" in which they would mix general history introductions with their specialties.

In other areas, having just a few interviews was encouraging to candidates. One new Ph.D., who like most of those on the job market did not want to be quoted by name, is a scholar of Appalachian history. Positions in the field are "few and far between," he said, so he was pleased to have one interview for a job focused on his specialty and another focused on colonial American history.

Christian Raffensperger, who is finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, was also pleased to have two interviews. Raffensperger specializes in medieval Russian history, and had one interview for a medievalist position and one for a position on world history up to 1500.

Raffensperger said he had low expectations since he still needs to wrap up his dissertation, and expected things to be much better after he does so in the spring. Having two interviews now "is surprisingly good," he said.