Why Bluesky?
Researchers share PhD openings and postdoc jobs on Bluesky. Finding those posts can mean following the right people at the right time. We built PhD Sky to collect them in one searchable place, with links back to the original announcements.
A growing home for academic conversations
In a peer-reviewed 2025 survey of 813 scientists and science professionals, Shiffman and Wester found that respondents rated Bluesky more useful professionally than contemporary Twitter/X. The survey recruited people who had already joined Bluesky, so it doesn't speak for all academics.
The shift also shows up in research sharing. Arroyo-Machado and colleagues' study in Journal of Informetrics tracked 14,497 publications and found a sharp rise in Bluesky mentions after November 2024, with adoption varying across journals. A 2025 preprint by Zheng and colleagues analysed 2.6 million posts linking to scholarly articles. A separate 2026 preprint by Quelle and colleagues found that reconnecting with existing contacts predicted longer participation. We cite these last two as preprints, not peer-reviewed evidence.
Researchers interviewed by Nature's Smriti Mallapaty described wanting to rebuild their scientific communities. In Ned Potter's LSE Impact guide, starter packs and subject feeds help people find colleagues. These accounts explain the appeal; they don't establish better hiring outcomes.
Why the Bluesky API helps
Bluesky's API gives software a documented way to search posts and receive structured results. Its post-search specification includes keyword queries and date filters. That makes automatic collection practical without parsing the layout of a social-media page.
PhD Sky uses this API to collect public posts, then uses AI to identify likely vacancies and organise them by subject and country. You can browse PhD and postdoc positions without a Bluesky account. The listings are collected automatically, not submitted or endorsed by employers.
There are limits. Search can miss posts, and automated classification can be wrong. In his LSE Impact essay, Mark Carrigan also warns against academic dependence on commercial platforms. We treat Bluesky as one source of opportunities, not a complete record of academic recruitment. Check funding, deadlines and eligibility with the hiring institution.