In any given year, the Job Register at the AHA annual meeting provides us with a small snapshot of the state of current history job market, and the 2007 Job Register in Atlanta was no exception. There were 283 searches reported to the Job Register at the annual meeting earlier this month, with all but 15 of them conducting interviews on site (it is worth repeating to avoid confusion that these searches do not constitute the entirety of the history job market, but only those searches that were present and working in Atlanta). These 283 searches can be broken down in myriad ways—by specialization, by institution, by length of contract (temporary, non-tenured, tenure-track, tenured, etc.), and so on. As most readers know, the employment pages in the back of Perspectives are divided by 10 geographic regions and one “public/other” category. (For the definitions of these categories, please see the first page of the classified ads in any issue of Perspectives). What would applying this classification scheme reveal about the jobs available at this year’s annual meeting?

By far, most of the interviewing institutions were from the Southeastern (78 searches) and mid-Atlantic (62) states. Great Lakes institutions had 45 searches, followed by the Western states (36), New England (27), the Southwest (12), Plains States (10), Rocky Mountain states (8), and foreign institutions (3). The public/other category had two searches active in Atlanta.

For other looks at the Job Register, please see the annual meeting report in the upcoming March 2007 issue of Perspectives.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.