The LSA has a wealth of resources available to those interested in pursuing a career in linguistics. The range of professional opportunities available to linguists ranges across industry, academia, government and the non-profit sectors.

What Can You Be with a Linguistics Degree?​

Our most popular (and free) online resource, Why Major in Linguistics, briefly outlines the kinds of careers you might pursue with an undergraduate degree.

Our full-length book, Why Study Linguistics (available for purchase) goes into much greater depth about the full range of professional options and opportunities available to those who take courses in linguistics at any level.

The Five Minute Linguist, with essays authored by leading LSA members, provides a strong general introduction to the different sub-fields of linguistics for those exploring potential career specializations.

Note: A portion of the sales from both books benefits the LSA.

Explore Current Job Listings, List a Job Opening or Prepare an Application

Our online Career Center has scores of job listings and is viewed by thousands of prospective job applicants each year. A range of online topical resources by career stage and sector is also available. Our colleague organization, the LinguistList, also offers a job listing service here. UCLA's linguistics department has a particularly helpful set of pointers about applying for academic jobs here.

Professional Development Resources

The LSA has a wealth of materials, tools, and services to help you develop your professional skill set, whether you work in academia, industry, government or the non-profit sector, including:

Advancing Your Career

One of the easiest ways to advance your career is to take advantage of the LSA's many resources and opportunities for publishing your researchpresenting your worknetworking at eventsraising your professional profile, gaining advice from a mentor, or serving on an LSA committee.

Opportunities for Collaboration

Embedded in all of the LSA's work is the opportunity to advance your career by collaborating with other linguists and allies. These opportunities are especially rich at our summer Linguistic Institute, at CoLang, and at our Annual Meeting. Apart from these events, there are mechanisms in place to foster collaboration throughout the year on LSA publicationsadvocacy workcommittee service, and public outreach.

Looking for more? Our online Resource Hub allows you to perform a custom search by topic, audience, or format.