Academic Careers for Political Science PhDs
APSA offers a range of resources for political science PhDs interested in pursuing an academic career including data on hiring and PhD placements . Here we highlight some of those resources. We also encourage current graduate students interested in an academic career to consult with their graduate advisors and university career centers for additional support and resources.
Career Events at the Annual Meeting
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Career Events at the Annual Meeting
Career Center
The APSA Career Center is a centralized career hub at the Annual Meeting featuring the following events.
- APSA Interview Service: APSA provides space and facilities for employers to interview job candidates for one or more days onsite at the APSA Annual Meeting. Note that not all interviewing departments use this service.
- Career Open House: The APSA Career Open House provides a space for job seekers to engage in informal conversations with employers from a range of institutions and to converse with career experts at our Ask-Me-Anything tables focused on a variety of themes.
Professional Development Panels
APSA hosts a variety of career-related panels annually at the Annual Meeting. Registered attendees for the 2020 Virtual APSA Annual Meeting have access to the recordings from the following events:
- Applying for a Job at a Teaching-Oriented Institution
- Get the Grant: Finding Funding, Writing Proposals, and Advancing Your Career at Every Career Stage
- Get the Job: Tips for the Academic Job Market
Books, Blogs, and Other Career-Related Publications
- Navigating Political Science: Professional Advancement & Success in the Discipline (ed. Kent Worcester, 2018)
- The Professor is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your PhD into a Job (Karen Kelsky, 2015)
- Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD (Loleen Berdahl and Jonathan Malloy, 2018).
- A list of additional articles and publications can be found here.
Job Boards
Interview Resources
- Best Practices for Interviewing: APSA put together a list of resources to assist job candidates as they prepare for academic interviews.
- Job Candidate Questions: The JCQ is a series of questions APSA has compiled to help job candidates ask the right things and gather valuable information for career decisions.