Keeping Track of Job Postings. It's hard to believe, but even though we're just days into the Fall 2010 semester, job postings are going up for Spring 2011 and beyond (even 2011-2012 full-time postings!) Whether you're actually on the job market or just keeping an eye out on activity in your field (always a good idea), there are several tech-based ways to keep up with job postings. Not all job posts will appear through all of these methods. By diversifying the ways in which you keep up, you guarantee better coverage of the market and are more likely to see posts that interest you. RSS feeds. Many job listing websites publish an RSS (really simple syndication) feed of updates. If you've got an RSS reader, adding the job site's feed to your list is a, well, really simple way of keeping up.
Listservs/email notifications. Twitter. Bookmarks. How about you? [Image by Flickr user gottgraphicsdesign / Creative Commons licensed] The three things I learned at the Purdue Conference for Pre-Tenure Women: on being a radical scholar | Context and Variation. The kiddo is asleep for the night. My husband and I sit on kitchen countertops, facing each other.
“We should get back to work.” “Yeah.” We sit another moment, shoulders slumped, dark circles under our eyes. “I don’t know how I’m going to get all these grants done,” he says. “I don’t know how I’ll get all these manuscripts drafted,” I reply. We sit some more. Pile the ubiquitous Mommy Guilt on top of this, the culturally conditioned guilt that says not staying at home hurts my child despite the intellectual knowledge that good daycare, and the kind of quality investments I make with my daughter, are hugely beneficial, and there are few hours in my day to sleep. We talk some more. This is the more raw side of my life, the harder side that blog readers and Twitter followers seldom see. The conference did not lower my panic, or my tears, and judging by the other attendees, I was not alone. The conference was transformative.
So I want to share the three main points I learned. 1. Dr. Dr. 2. 3. Ask the Experts: Seven Strategies for Success on the Tenure Track. Securing a tenure track position in today's job market is a major accomplishment. Once you have one, though, how can you ensure your success and achieve tenure? Last week, I was on a panel where new faculty could ask the panelists questions about the promotion and tenure process. The invitation to the panel indicated that we should come prepared to answer questions and that they would end the panel by asking us to each give our single most important piece of advice to new faculty.
I decided that my single most important piece of advice would be to tell the new faculty that they could figure out the tenure standards for their department, even if no one wanted to be very specific about it. I detail how to do that in this post. There were other gems of advice offered by the Chairs, Deans, and tenured professors on that panel, and I will share some of them with you. Write every day One of my colleagues told me before the panel that her single most piece of advice would be to write every day. "Honing" your application and ruining your summer. Submitted by syntaxfactory on June 8, 2011 - 10:36am "Honing" your application and ruining your summer From Philosophy Smoker by zombie Could you specify what it takes to 'hone' an individual application?
I've never been on the market. I'm sure you can tailor the cover letter to each institution, but what can you do other than that? That's a good question. Other than tweaking your cover letter and CV, you might choose a different writing sample, if you're in a position to do so. My two cents: I'm of the school of thought that a cover letter should be about a page to a page and a half long, and is an opportunity for you to emphasize your strengths, your experience, your interest in the particular job, school, department, etc. Syntaxfactory's blog. Writing a job letter « parezco y digo. It’s that time of year again… time to sharpen one’s job market skills. As someone who secured tenure-track employment inside of the last five years, I frequently have finishing grad students ask for help in preparing their dossier for the market.
I’ve also sat on a few search committees at this point. Advise is better with examples, but I don’t have copies of my old letters any more (they didn’t survive the switch from PC to Mac, nor the switch from paper to electronica). I used to hand those letters out to grad students going on the market. But, I don’t have them anymore. Note that the advice (for whatever it is worth) is directed towards new PhDs in History looking for traditional academic employment. The ancillary materials requested by specific institutions will clue you in, in part, to what the school is looking for. What does the cover letter need to accomplish?
You cover letter must be tailored to the specific type of institution to which you are applying. The Introduction Service. Getting Your Digital Work to Count. Here at ProfHacker, we regularly write about the stages of professional life in academia. One of the most important–and therefore the most stressful–is preparing for promotion and tenure. George wrote about this subject last week; Anastasia has had advice about starting a tenure box; Nels has covered writing annual reviews; and Natalie recently featured a list of our posts on annual reviews and CVs. Of course, ProfHackers also tend to like digital tools, both in our teaching and research, and such digital scholarship ends up being a challenge when it comes time for the tenure and promotion process. How do you talk about blogging in your tenure documents? Last week, however, saw the appearance of something that might help us all out. The guidelines represent the MLA’s awareness that the evaluation of digital work is problematic at present and will hopefully help departments and individuals know what their responsibilities are when engaging with this work.
Return to Top. Mock Job Talks via Google + One of the most common advices on giving any sort of a presentation – from job talk to conference paper to course lectures – is to practice them before an audience. An audience forces you to pace your presentation in a way that is more realistic than one might do when just lecturing to an empty room. They will stop you when something you said is unclear. They will provide a constant gauge of how well you’re doing through their facial expressions (are they bored?
Are they lost?). But getting an audience for your lectures isn’t always a simple task, and it gets more difficult the longer the presentation needs to be. The solution was quickly arrived at: Google+’s Hangouts. One of the benefits of using the Hangouts is that you get to watch the faces of your audience closely for cues while you deliver the presentation – and they don’t even know when you’re looking straight at them, so there’s none of the fake attentiveness you get when you try that in an actual room. How Not to F**k Up Your Conference Interview | (Monday Post Category: Getting You Into and Out of Graduate School) [Today's post is an excerpt from "Taming The Academic Job Market: The Professor's Guide.
" The Guide is on sale in The Prof Shop. Don't forget to check out the 30% off discount code on the Facebook page. Good only through 8/15] You have submitted your cover letter, your c.v., and your recommendations. The conference interview is about speed and first impressions. If it is a 20 minute interview, and 2 minutes are taken up in taking your seat and greetings and 2 minutes in closing and walking to the door, that leaves 16 minutes for talking. The elite departments from well funded schools will conduct the interviews in conference hotel suites reserved for the purpose, or at one of the search committee member’s own hotel rooms. Once I went to a conference interview for an Ivy League Anthropology department. Needless to say, I was not invited to a campus visit. I tell this story not as a model but as an example. Do. The Campus Visit, Part 1: Search Committee Interview |
[This post is excerpted from the Professor's Guide to Taming the Academic Job Market, available at The Prof Shop.] I will address some specific questions to expect in the search committee interview below. Before that, however, I wish to emphasize that before you ever open your mouth, your body language and overall demeanor will make a powerful impression that may well gain or lose you the job. Your body is speaking, at all times. Control what it is saying. Master the confident sitting posture. Take up all the room in the chair to which you’re entitled. Do not laugh nervously. Q: Tell us about your publication plans. A: Well, I haven’t really sent anything out to a refereed journal yet, but I am definitely planning on it. Banish this! A: I have a manuscript nearly finished that I will be submitting in the Spring to the American Anthropologist. Let’s try another one, a common question that easily trips up a candidate: Q: What do you think of Nelson’s new book? Get it? On To The Conference Interview! |
(This post is an update of an earlier post, “How Not To Fuck Up Your Conference Interview.” ) You have submitted your cover letter, your c.v., and your recommendations. And lo! You’ve been long short-listed, and invited for a conference interview! Congratulations. Now what? The conference interview is about speed and first impressions. If it is a 20 minute interview, and 2 minutes are taken up in taking your seat and greetings and 2 minutes in closing and walking to the door, that leaves 16 minutes for talking.
The elite departments from well funded schools will conduct the interviews in conference hotel suites reserved for the purpose, or at one of the search committee member’s own hotel rooms. Once I went to a conference interview for an Ivy League Anthropology department. The interview commenced, with Famous Anthropologist sighing his questions from his supine position. I thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. Preparation is key. Once you know the likely interviewers, spring into action. Resources for Grad Students and Junior Faculty. PEARLS OF WISDOM: THE BLOG | Strong stuff: Cardozo writes, “For many if not most, being an adjunct is the professional equivalent of domestic abuse, PTSD and Stockholm syndrome rolled into a single despairing plight that has only one feasible resolution: as with any dysfunctional relationship, at some point you must first DECIDE to go, then GO.
The terrible thing is that we lack the professional equivalent of transition shelters. However, The Professor is providing one kind of safe space with the Alt/Post-Ac Initiative, and I mention others below. ” by Karen Cardozo Karen Cardozo I began my visit to The Professor’s virtual office with a post on the problems of tenurecentrism, followed by musings on freeing the academic elephant from its limited range of motion. Not everything begins with a strategic plan; being open to what the universe sends is another option (read: you can thrive despite being clueless and indecisive). Once again, I discovered that I. Meanwhile, what can I tell you?
ProfHacker. Long-time ProfHacker readers know that we like Interfolio. We’ve written about it several times over the last three years: Julie Meloni wrote “Using Interfolio to Manage Your Professional Documents“; Brian mentions it when advising readers about “Preparing Now for Next Year’s Job Market,” and I included it in “Five Things That Helped Me Survive the Job Market.” The MLA job list went live yesterday, and with it the cycle of hope and anxiety has begun anew for academic jobseekers, from ABDs venturing out into the market for the first time to seasoned pros who might be looking for a change of venue to everyone else in between.
One of the questions that job-seekers frequently ask is whether or not to use a dossier service, whether Interfolio or something similar provided by their university. The answer to this question: Maybe. Or to put it another way, the answer here is not nearly as black and white as some might have us believe. Most importantly, follow the norms of your discipline. Holiday Gift: Professional Development during Your Doctoral Education. Resource Submitted by syntaxfactory on December 31, 2011 - 8:27am If you don't already own this, and you either are or have contact with grad students, you have missed out. It's free! Professional Development during Your Doctoral Education (PDF Download) Written by Edward Schiappa, Ph.D., an NCA Distinguished Scholar, this informal introduction to professional development is designed for doctoral students in communication.
Each chapter covers a different aspect about pursuing your doctoral degree in communication. Understanding the Job Market Professional Academic Organizations Your Research Identity Putting Together Your CV Assembling a Teaching Portfolio Pursuing Publication Beginning the Job Hunt The Academic Interview Negotiating Your Contract Planning for a Career Outside of Academia Publishing Your Dissertation Promotion and Tenure syntaxfactory's blog.