4 Tips for Making the Most of Liberal Arts Degrees

Liberal arts grads may have a harder time securing a job after graduation, but it can be done.

October 28, 2011 RSS Feed Print

3. Showcase your skills: Kathleen Powell, director of career exploration and development at Denison University in Ohio, says that the best way for students to tell employers why they're the best candidate is by proving it with examples.

"Examples tell the story of how they conducted research, functioned in an internship, presented at a conference, played a sport, or held a leadership role within a student club or organization," Powell says.

Mitler adds that if a student works on a large research paper, she often encourages them to bring it to the interview so they can better show the employer how they planned and organized the report.

[Avoid these medical school interview bloopers.]

4. Expand your job search: Most English majors don't go on to become novelists, and history majors don't always become history teachers.

Edwin Koc, who wrote the NACE report cited above, states in it that "the objective of a liberal education...is to prepare you broadly for the professional world so that you are prepared to undertake many jobs rather than to be trained to do a specific task."

Powell has seen the myriad of jobs her liberal arts students have attained.

"Because of the breadth and depth of their education, they bring a critical perspective to solutions," she says. "[I see] political science majors being offered positions in consulting firms; English majors landing positions with market research firms; history majors going with investment banks."

[Learn how to get hired before graduation.]

Or, in the case of Romeo, the Fordham graduate, an English major can land at a major publishing company where she helps design book covers. When she graduated, Romeo felt she was qualified for a variety of positions. She applied to jobs related to radio, photo editing, magazines, and secretarial work.

"I feel like I can do so many things," she says of her liberal arts education. "I feel like I'm not stuck in one career path. I could do this for a little while, and maybe change paths. I can own my own business one day."

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Tags:: internships,; colleges,; education,; interviews,; careers,; salaries

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There are too many college graduates, and too many with liberal arts degrees, for the advice in this article to have any relevance at all.
Find out which majors are being hired and more importantly which ones AREN'T being hired before declaring a major.
Take the path of least resistance.

Anonymous of GA 5:42AM April 17, 2013

maybe its not really the fault of the degree but rather the lack of opportuinity.
Congrats to Sarah Romeo who found a job with Penguin with a BA in English, but what to do the other 100s of English majors, Journalism majors, Communication majors who applied to the same position do?
Lord knows how many times I have (with my BA in English) applied to Penguin, Norton, Scholastic, Pearson and other various Publishing firms-it must be awsome when you get that job or internship but how do you defend the liberal arts when you don't get that internship, that entry level work. Maybe Norton only had 5 intern spots open and 200 English majors applied- sorry other 195 English people...
And yes there are unemployed nurses and accountants as well but I can't help but think that I'd rather be unemployed with a Accounting degree than something in liberal arts.

Sean of NJ 1:28PM September 05, 2012

It's quite possible that not enough liberal arts grads have worked with numbers prior to graduation.
Having experience in finance, sales, accounting, etc. may be just the "work history" proof that liberal arts students can do well with quantitative skills, even though it is well known that they can read well, write well, think critically and do research.
Employes won't know they have those skills in advance, so if someone perhaps interns in a way that demonstrates they have some basic quantitative skills, it should balance out a resume nicely.
Business math doesn't have to mean excellence at advanced statistical analysis, just that there's some experience working with numbers, as finance or managerial accounting grads already demonstrate, based on coursework alone.
If studying writing intensive subjects, perhaps be sure to work with numbers outside of classes, and then demonstrate that skill by putting it on the resume. They can't tell you have those skills unless those skills are shown, somehow.
Also, some of the business majors lack critical thinking skills. One went into the workplace and failed to be able to do simple things, such as merely say "good morning" to staff on a regular basis, failed to be able to set a simple vacation responder (people were calling and leaving messages on voicemail, not knowing the person was out of the office!), and turned off applicants in job interviews by informing them had they picked a different major, there was advancement potential (that person ended up getting a new boss who had majored in a liberal arts discipline as an undergrad, yet they clearly advance, higher than the business major interviewer!).
If businesses want long-term critical thinkers, they can train a liberal arts grad in business procedures, but they cannot easily train the non-liberal arts major to think critically. It's a skill that needs to be developed through a liberal arts curriculum, not through bean-counting classes such as how to organize an accounting ledger (we all understand the double entry accounting method, even if majored in English or Political Science). Business majors aren't necessarily creative and innovative thinkers, but liberal arts majors can certainly learn basic accounting easily.

A non business major of IL 9:33PM November 06, 2011