My Twitter feed is replete with complaints about preparing academic job applications, and it occurred to me that I could provide a valuable public service by opening up a forum to discuss the common yet vague requirements for such job applications. Possible topics for discussion include the following:
- What should go in my cover letter?
- What counts as “evidence of teaching effectiveness”?
- How do I go about writing an effective teaching statement or research agenda?
- How can I tell whether a job listing is a sincerely open search or an empty formality that will end in an inside hire?
- Why in the world does every postdoc application process require slightly different materials such that I need to rewrite everything every single time?
- How can I best balance my desire to save money with my need to cling to some shred of hope when weighing whether to just go ahead and sign up for three years of Interfolio up front?
- Why does God hate young academics so much?
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 8:48 am
Further question: “why did I do a degree in such an unexciting and non-cutting edge subfield?”
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 11:06 am
I read in the THES the other day that the success rate for Research Council grant applications has gone down to 16%; this was being reported in terms of “might as well give up, what’s the point even trying?” In job applications, getting into a shortlist of 6 is usually seen as an achievement – in fact, it usually *is* an achievement.
I’ve worked out the secret of getting a job once you’ve got an interview, though. It’s very simple: instead of concentrating on not making the mistake you made in the last interview, you avoid making the completely different mistake you were about to make in *this* interview. Crack that and you’re sorted.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Why doesn’t interfolio have a document type “research statement”? (Or “teaching statement”).
Why *does* it have a document type “cover letter”, when presumably you’ll at least be changing whom the letter addresses whenever you send out an application?
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 1:00 pm
It would be great if they had a feature where you could create a form cover letter and fill in different things — not just the addressee, but also maybe leaving a sentence here and there where you could “customize” to the institution. Having a basic teaching one and research one and then having that feature would’ve been a huge time-saver. I daresay they have the technology since Word has been able to do mail merge for decades.
Fun fact: in the first line of my cover letter for Shimer College, I misspelled the name of the school as “Shiner” (also confusingly the last name of the dean, to whom the letter was addressed). Since I got the job, I think that’s pretty definitive evidence that such things do not automatically disqualify you.
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 11:48 am
One thing I don’t get is adverts for positions that ask for an extended (like, two pages) description of how you plan revise your dissertation for publication. I mean, presumably I’ll look at which bits didn’t really work and try and make them better; if I already had concrete plans for good stuff to do in my dissertation, why wouldn’t I just put it in my dissertation?