Hello! I'm an aspiring medievalist partway through my degree. However, as we all know, it's not easy to get a job in a historical field. I specifically want to work in academia, and I have time to improve my employability now, seeing as I don't have my degree yet. I fully intend to get a doctorate, incidentally, because most historical jobs seem to demand that. I'm also working on my Latin, German, and French. Do you have any other suggestions for me? Thank you so much for your time.
Oh, I also work in a small museum of early US History currently, if that helps.
Read this article: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005
There is some debate to be had as to why the study says what it does, but the take-away is very clear: students from schools outside the top-20 have next to no academic job prospects. Use the conclusions (and the ranking they provide) to help you pick the PhD programs you apply to. Where you go is more important than if you go.
NB: there is some flexibility in the rankings provided based on subfield.
I posted some advice a few months ago, and it may be helpful (the entire linked thread should be useful). Let me know if you have any followup questions and I'll try to answer them if I can.
My biggest piece if advice is: research the job market. It's a bad time to be a medievalist, and you'll have to fight tooth-and-claw for a job in the field. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it - I'm getting a PhD in early medieval history, despite the challenging prospects. But you need to go in with your eyes open, and to be prepared to leave academia if it doesn't work out in the end. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a lot of good articles about the job market, and if you do a google search for 'adjuncts', 'humanities', and 'crisis', you'll find hundreds of news article explaining the employment challenges facing our field at the moment.
Aside of that, my biggest piece of advice would be to learn the languages you're currently studying. I give more suggestions in the post I linked above.
If I may ask:
What county are you in?
What part of the middle ages do you hope to specialize in?
I'm in another field in the humanities, but it applies generally: publish and network. Publishing shows you have chops, and networking can turn those chops into jobs. I'm very meh on conferences except to network.