Et Tu, Liberal Arts Major? 6 Keys to Landing a Great Job

If you're a humanities major or new grad, the reality is that you will need to work harder and be both more creative and resilient than a business major, computer science or other pre-professional student to land a good job. Which is why many liberal arts students enter the academic world with a plan for building credentials, whether by double-majoring in a technical field or by taking skill-focused elective courses that will enhance their resumes. As a product and supporter of liberal arts* I am absolutely convinced that a liberal arts education – with small-size classroom discussions facilitated by dedicated professors who love to teach, taking place in a shared residential living and learning environment – will prove invaluable throughout your career. The skills that are forged through this experience - critical thinking, information synthesis, problem-solving, and effective communications, will put you in good stead. That is, once you get the chance to apply them!

Here are six pieces of practical advice to leverage your liberal arts education and land a great job:

1. Know Your Skills and What You Want to Do.
Be prepared to connect the strengths you demonstrated in school to a skill that employers will value. A hiring company won’t make the effort to solve that problem for you. For example, if you’re a first-rate researcher who enjoyed studying complex and intricate macroeconomic issues, you might consider working in market research or product development. 

2. Become Skilled in Tomorrow’s Disciplines.
Alec suggests that you “commit to gaining a foothold in the fields that will propel tomorrow’s economy,” including big data, analytics, genomics, cyber, and machine-learning/robotics. “Demonstrate to employers that you aren't just a star-gazing poet” by departing from your comfort zone and taking classes outside of a traditional liberal arts focus. If you supplement your humanities studies with work in tech and engineering disciplines it will put you on even footing with graduates from more pre-professional programs. And if you do this while also taking advantage of your broad liberal arts education, you might even find yourself ahead. 

3. Meet with Career Services and Alumni Relations.
Chances are, your career services and alumni relations offices are working hard to help connect students with internships and entry-level jobs. Talk with the career center about the types of jobs and companies that interest you, and then follow any leads they provide. Think of it this way: Your school’s career department needs examples they can point to when trying to talk about how successful they’ve been. Why not make yourself one of those success stories?

4. Be Creative about Getting Your Foot in the Door.
Networking is important for everyone, but it is especially important for liberal arts students. This is because liberal arts majors graduate with fewer clear credentials that employers can rely on when making hiring decisions. Laura Chambers, who runs eBay’s program for new employees, says that any time a position comes up that’s appropriate for a liberal arts major, the company receives thousands of applications. Chambers says, “Finding a way to leverage any connections will ensure you get noticed among the crowd.”

5. Think Globally.
Consider working outside of the traditional business hubs in the U.S. or Western Europe. Today’s frontier economies are tomorrow’s developing economies, and today’s developing economies are tomorrow’s developed economies. Graduates can position themselves for the long-term if they’re willing to sweat it out in a frontier economy while their friends are living it up in New York City, San Francisco, and London.

6. Consider Sales. 
If you are persuasive and enjoy being around people, your liberal arts background can help you become a strong performer in sales. "No good salesperson is unemployed," says Jay Walker, founder of Priceline.com.  “Sales is the best job in the world if you like people, can communicate and synthesize well, and are skilled at solving other people’s problems. The fact is, nothing happens in the world without sales. Give me any field, and I’ll show you how, without sales, there is no forward momentum. Even scientists have to sell to get their funding. There is never a recession in sales.” 

Clara Shih, a Stanford graduate who founded Hearsay Social, an enterprise software company, and who serves on the Starbucks board of directors and is a compelling LinkedIn Influencer, estimates that 30 percent of her employees majored in the liberal arts. Clara tries to hire people who are well-rounded, whether they were trained in the humanities or in technology. “Just as we appreciate well-rounded technical students who read Shakespeare and Tolstoy, liberal arts students can become more interesting candidates by dabbling in technology, say by taking introductory programming classes and building apps on the side.” In other words, your degree matters, but what really counts is the extent to which you complement your major with elective courses and find ways to build hard skills in your spare time.

If you’re a liberal arts student, this article will hopefully help you to breathe more easily. Your education has taught you plenty of valuable, marketable skills, and if you work creatively to apply them, you will be able to weather the storms of an ever-changing job market.

* I am a graduate of Vassar College with a degree in Economics and four years of French and I serve on the Board of Trustees of Wesleyan University.

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