Bringing Linguistics to Work: A Story Listening, Story Finding, and Story Telling Approach to Your Career

by Anna Marie Trester

You were drawn to linguistics as a course of study because you enjoy tackling challenges, so why not bring the skills you have honed to professional challenges that speak to you? The world (of work) needs linguists!!

Linguists possess a unique set of analytical skills that are applicable in any professional context, and which may also be brought to the process of finding the job. Who better to tackle the series of texts and interactions that comprise the job search than someone trained to critically analyze language? There’s no reason our cover letters shouldn’t be the very best ones out there!!

In this book, I share stories of professional linguists to help answer the perennial question “linguistics? what can you do with that?” along with developmental activities to help you use the tools and skills you already possess to navigate your career next steps. “Here’s to what’s next!”

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction

168 pages, Paperback

Published May 2, 2017

Reviews

[Jen Nycz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent guidebook for those on the alt-ac job market (though there's much here applicable to the academic job market as well). Not just a run-down of "what you can do with linguistics" as a career, its goal is to empower linguists by showing them how to apply their research skills (e.g. understanding different textual genres, determining audience, assessing patterns, etc) to the job search itself. I'll definitely be recommending this to both undergraduate and graduate students!

[M. Mundy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually enjoyed this book more than Putting Stories to Work. For me, it was more practical, and yes, more academic. I think that's what made it a better read for me. I even took notes and scanned a few pages (okay, a lot of pages).

The practical aspects are in the last chapters. I especially enjoyed the info on how to decipher an organizational story. Totally insightful.

I wished the formatting were better. The layout made it a bit cumbersome to get through, but I did persist. Good book and worth the read.

[Cal Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for any budding linguistics grad or recent grad! Really practical, useful advice. As a non linguistics major 10 years into his career, I was still able to gain some great insights in storytelling and experiencing a career like a journey.