A liberal arts degree is such a versatile degree, that it can prepare you for dozens of distinct careers from archaeologist to legislative researcher to United Nations staff. It may be difficult to believe, but this unique degree is nothing new and it has never really been considered an “experimental” or “alternative” degree. Liberal arts study has been around since ancient Greek and Roman times, but liberal arts colleges didn’t begin to multiply in North America until the early 1800s. In medieval European Universities, liberal arts covered seven subject areas including arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, grammar, logic, music, and rhetoric.

Today, there are more than 200 liberal arts colleges across the United States. These liberal arts degree programs promote the study of history, languages, literature, mathematics, philosophy, and science—subjects that form the basis of a general or “liberal” education. Many institutions describe the liberal arts curriculum as the study of three main branches of knowledge including: the social sciences, humanities (literature, language, philosophy, the fine arts, and history), and the physical and biological sciences. In addition to studying the three main branches of knowledge, liberal arts colleges allow students to focus on a particular major. Typical liberal arts majors include:

• Biology
• Chemistry
• History
• Languages (French, German, Russian, Spanish)
• Liberal Studies
• Literature or other Humanities
• Philosophy
• Physics
• Psychology
• Social Sciences
• Sociology

While the liberal arts curriculum is basically the same at all liberal arts colleges, these unique colleges come in all shapes and sizes. Liberal arts colleges may be secular, religiously affiliated, gender-specific, public or private, urban, rural, residential, independent or part of a larger college or university.

Graduates with a liberal arts degree are an attractive option for employers mainly employers feel that liberal arts graduates have developed the skills necessary to deal with today’s evolving career world. Employers also see a liberal arts graduate as an individual that has demonstrated the ability to learn and become successful in today’s working world. Liberal arts graduates have proven that they have the ability to uncover problems, find solutions, and implement them.

Although liberal arts degrees have benefits on a personal, community, and career level, this type of degree also has benefits on a financial level. Liberal arts graduates entering professional fields can expect starting salaries ranging from $38,620 (anthropologists and archaeologists) up to $80,560 (political scientists). Earnings increase significantly with  master of liberal arts degree (MLA).

If you are interested in obtaining a liberal arts degree, you should start by contacting one of the top schools for liberal arts. The following colleges ranked high on U.S. News & World Report’s National Liberal Arts Rankings for 2011.

• Amherst College, Amherst, MA
• Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
• Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA
• Carleton College, Northfield, MN
• Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA
• Davidson College, Davidson, NC
• DePauw University, Greencastle, IN
• Furman University, Greenville, SC
• Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA
• Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA
• Haverford College, Haverford, PA
• Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT
• Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
• Pomona College, Claremont, CA
• Scripps College, Claremont, CA
• Sewanee: University of the South, Sewanee, TN
• Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX
• Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
• University of Richmond, Richmond, VA
• Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
• Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA
• Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
• Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
• Willamette University, Salem, OR
• Williams College, Williamstown, MA

For more information about the top liberal arts colleges and universities in the United States, visit U.S. News & World Report rankings for 2011 at http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/liberal-arts-rankings.

Jobs for Liberal Arts Graduates

• Account executive trainee
• Administrative assistant
• Affirmative action officer
• Anthropologist
• Archeologist
• Benefits manager
• Caseworker
• Caseworker
• Choreographer
• City manager
• College recruiting specialist
• Compensation manager
• Compliance officer
• Congressional relations officer
• Congressional staff member
• Consul
• Copywriter
• Cultural affairs officer
• Customer relations officer
• Customs agent
• Customs inspector
• Dancer
• Economic development coordinator
• Employee relations officer
• Employment interviewer
• Exporter
• Foreign language teacher
• Foreign service
• Fund raising/development
• Geographer
• Historian
• Immigration agent
• Importer
• Intelligence officer
• Interpreter/translator
• Investigator
• Job analyst
• Labor relations manager
• Labor relations researcher
• Legislative analyst
• Legislative assistant (federal, state & local)
• Legislative researcher
• Lobbyist
• Media buyer
• Organizational development specialist
• Personnel generalist recruiter
• Politician
• Press relations officer
• Producer
• Program analyst
• Program information officer
• Promoter
• Public affairs officer
• Public relations officer
• Publicity assistant
• Recruiter
• Research assistant
• Researcher
• Researcher
• Sales promoter
• Sociologist
• Speechwriter   
• Stage manager
• Training & education supervisor
• Training specialist
• Travel agent
• United Nations staff

Could it be true? Is searching for a position on job board a complete waste of time? According to an article posted on the WSJ website, landing a job posted on a job board just might be a crapshoot. Minneapolis-based CollegeRecruiter.com founder Steven Rothberg says more than 80 percent of job openings are actually unlisted. This means job hunters have to be savvy searchers with excellent networking and researching skills to score an unlisted job.

Because 80 percent of employers “will try to promote from within or rely on employee referrals,” there are several things job seekers must if they want a shot at an unlisted job:

Look for signs: Keep up with what’s going on in your industry. Read trade journals, follow analyst commentary and monitor the stock market for indicators showing which companies are growing, restructuring or contracting out services.

Compile a list of companies that you’d like to work for and research relevant positions within those organizations.

Only apply to jobs that closely fit your skills and experience, says Susan Strayer, a career coach in Washington. “If you want to become that wildcard choice, a 30% match isn’t going to cut it. You need to be as close to 100% as possible.”

It’s people, not paper: Tap your personal network of colleagues, friends and family to find those inside connections that can forward your résumé to decision makers. Join professional trade organizations and attend trade shows, conferences, and seminars.

 Make it easy to find you: Promote your availability by posting your résumé on networking websites like LinkedIn.com and on specific industry websites like ClearanceJobs.com or edjoin.org, a website for educators. Emphasize unique skills on your résumé since companies will search online databases when they have specialized needs.

 Follow up with employers since first hiring picks don’t always work out. The same job may get reposted six months down the line. You want to be available to that employer before they post the new job.

When searching for a position using an online job database, job hunters can quickly and easily submit a resume with just one click. While online job databases have made it easier for applicants to submit resumes, the only confirmation you will receive after submitting it is an auto generated “thank you for applying” message. Chances are, you will never really know if your application made it to the right person, if at all.

“I’ve heard stories of hiring managers [meeting applicants after the fact] and saying ‘You’re perfect! How come I never got your resume?'” said Liz Lynch, career expert and author of “Smart Networking: Attract a Following In Person and Online” (McGraw-Hill, $16.95).

According to Lynch, online applicants may feel like they’re at the mercy of the database, but there are steps they can take to increase their odds of being noticed. The best option is to find a friend, acquaintance or even a friend of a friend who works at the company and can physically walk your resume to human resources (HR) department.

If you do not have a connection to the company you are applying with, there are tactics you can use to help increase your chances of making it through the databases’ prescreening process. Databases prescreen applicants based on keywords, so you should always customize your application and resume. Forget cutting and pasting. You should incorporate keywords into your application and resume that match what the position is looking for. For example,

“If your resume lists ‘social networking’ under your skills but the job posting says ‘social media’, change it.”

If you change even a few words, this could increase the chances of your application reaching a real, live person.

There are other ways to make your web search work for you. Consider using every online tool you possibly can, such as LinkedIn and Google Alerts. Make sure your LinkedIn profile or others are up-to-date, professional, and set up to receive emails. With Google alerts, you should choose several companies you are interested in working for and stay current with what’s happening within the company and which jobs are available. If you hear of an opening, apply right away. If you hear that the company plans to hire, don’t hesitate—submit your resume. And remember, it’s perfectly ok to send a follow-up letter in a week or so after clicking “submit.” This small gesture just might attract a significant amount of positive attention to your resume.

If you’re serious about finding a job in any professional career, you have to be on LinkedIn. Also, if you have a job but might be interested in a new job, the advice is the same.

Hopefully you’ve already heard this from others and you already have a profile. In that case do research on how to beef it up and get more prospective employers to find it.

If you haven’t heard this, or you’ve just been lazy about getting going, then get on there now and put up a profile!

Here’s some interesting information from a recent Fortune article on how LinkedIn will fire up your career.

If you need a job, or just want a better one, here’s a number that will give you hope: 50,000. That’s how many people the giant consulting firm Accenture plans to hire this year. Yes, actual jobs, with pay. It’s looking for telecom consultants, finance experts, software specialists, and many more. You could be one of them — but will Accenture find you?

To pick these hires the old-fashioned way, the firm would rely on headhunters, employee referrals, and job boards. But the game has changed. To get the attention of John Campagnino, Accenture’s head of global recruiting, you’d better be on the web.

To put a sharper point on it: If you don’t have a profile on LinkedIn, you’re nowhere. Partly motivated by the cheaper, faster recruiting he can do online, Campagnino plans to make as many as 40% of his hires in the next few years through social media. Says he: “This is the future of recruiting for our company.”

Facebook is for fun. Tweets have a short shelf life. If you’re serious about managing your career, the only social site that really matters is LinkedIn. In today’s job market an invitation to “join my professional network” has become more obligatory — and more useful — than swapping business cards and churning out résumés.

Companies explain that LinkedIn is more effective at finding qualified candidates, but it’s also more cost effective as well since employers don’t have to pay a recruiter.

Now it’s time to get started!

Here’s an interesting email from a career counselor posted by Andrew Sullivan on his blog. The key piece of advice seems to be that you have to go outside the normal channels if you want to be successful on your job search. Sending resumes to job boards only gets you so far.

I feel for the guy, but he should break the rules more often. Having been unemployed myself for months, I understand the frustration. But having worked in career counseling for a few years, I know how to look for a job. Most people don’t, and would do better if they did.

Don’t waste too much time with job boards unless you are someone with a very specific technical skill looking for a job that requires that skill. Do contact employers directly and consistently, and contact them before they have job openings. The old nostrum that “if a job is posted, it’s been filled” is generally true.

The reality is that 80% of jobs are filled via personal connections and relationships. It really is like high school; people hire people they know and like. Think of everyone you know, even your worthless brother in law, as a potential connection to a job, either directly or indirectly. Your resume should be the last thing an employer sees, because the first thing they should see is you in person.

The writer goes on to give 5 useful tips of how to approach a job search. Check them out.

Andrew then posts responses from other readers. This one caught our attention.

The career counselor nails it. I’ve been looking for a job for about two months now and have come to the conclusion that Human Resources is, without question, the most useless, bureaucratic, least efficient department in ANY organization. HR has, ironically, perfected the extrication of any sort of human contact imaginable when applying for a job – no names, no contact info, no phone numbers, no nothing. I even went to one job fair where an HR rep for a company refused to accept a resume I was trying to hand her. “We only take resumes online for jobs posted,” she said.

You can’t just go through the motions. Get out there and bypass HR whenever possible. Keep networking – relationships matters!