Job Placement Information | Department of English

The Penn English Department runs a comprehensive Job Placement Service and is committed to providing all of our graduate students with the advice, mentoring, and support they need in order to prepare themselves for a successful job search. The Department's Placement Officers, currently Abdulhamit Arvas and Chi-ming Yang, assist job seekers in preparing CVs, application letters, dissertation abstracts, and teaching portfolios; help students to prepare for interviews and coordinates the dress-rehearsal mock interviews in which numerous faculty members participate; offer advice on campus visits and the selection and presentation of a job talk and/or teaching demo; coordinate practice job talks; and assist job seekers in negotiating the terms of an offer. The Placement Officers are also available to answer questions about the job market from graduate students at earlier stages of the program.

For a full list of the first-time tenure-track jobs of our graduates, please consult our Job Placement Record. For a record of what graduates have gone on to do, academically and non-academically, see our Doctoral Alumni Directory.

In addition to the job placement support provided by the department, all graduate students are encouraged to take advantage of the university’s Career Services office, which provides workshops and resources specifically tailored to graduate student career preparation, one-on-one consultations, and access to online career exploration tools. Career Services also runs a Career Exploration Fellowship (unpaid) for Ph.D. students that pairs fellows with a host organization for shadowing and gaining practical knowledge and experience of non-academic career paths.

Important Links:

All Ph.D. students and faculty in English have access to the online MLA Job List. Job seekers should consult this list and other resources that post job listings, including the Chronicle of Higher Education and field-specific websites and listservs.