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Chapter 4

Deciding Where and When to Apply

Before you begin a job search, think about what kind of job you want and whether you are currently prepared to compete successfully for it. Study position announcements to see what different types of institutions seem to require, and use the information to help plan your next steps. If you do not yet seem qualified to compete successfully for the jobs you really want, consider whether a postdoctoral position or fellowship, additional teaching experience, or another kind of opportunity will position you for a successful search.

It is important to think about both your priorities and your realistic chances of achieving your goals. Even in a tight market where you feel options are limited, it is still useful to keep your sights on what you really want. The more articulate you can be about your plans and goals, the easier it will be for you to communicate with your advisor and others who will assist you in your job search, to prepare for interviewing, and to assess job offers.

Sharing your thoughts with your advisor, department placement chair, and others who will work with you in your search can help these individuals act effectively on your behalf. Conversations with them can help you clarify your own thinking as it evolves. Honest faculty feedback about your choices can be enormously helpful to you. The best way for you to elicit it is to ask for candor, assuring those you ask that your feelings will not be hurt by what you hear. Needless to say, respond in a way that does not cause someone to regret his or her frankness with you.

Understanding the Market

Competition for faculty positions in every discipline is very strong. You must know something about the job market before you begin your search. The more informed you are, the better your search will be. The experience of graduate students a few years ahead of you in your department or postdocs who finished a few years earlier provides a very limited knowledge base. You need to do additional research to be conversant with several topics.

Learn about the hiring outlook in your discipline and in your field of research. Try to get a sense of how broad the market is in your field. You may find that opportunities exist outside traditional departmental definitions: for example, although your degree is from an arts and sciences department, you might seek a position in a professional school such as business, government, communication, or education. Find out how many times typically people in your field go on the job market before obtaining a faculty position. Additionally, if you are in a highly specialized field, it is crucial that you know when and where openings are anticipated.

There are several ways you can obtain this information. Read articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Education. Contact your scholarly association (see Appendix 1) for reports it may have produced about the market. Check to see whether your department, university career center, or graduate dean’s office has records of the jobs taken by new Ph.D.s from your school. Talk with students in your department who are on the market or recent graduates who have new faculty positions. Even if you are not on the market yet, take a close look at the job postings for your field to get a sense of what is asked of job candidates. Above all, talk regularly with your department chair, mentor, and other faculty members about the job market in your field.

In addition it is crucial to keep abreast of general economic trends, particularly those that affect higher education. Read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other major media outlets. Attend presentations on trends in higher education, as the industry is currently changing quickly and dramatically.

Deciding to Apply for a Postdoctoral Position

Many doctoral students, even after years of graduate study, are unsure what exactly a postdoctoral position or fellowship is. That is because these positions, often simply called “postdocs,” can run the gamut from a longstanding, well-defined, nationally advertised opportunity, to an endeavor that is funded on an ad hoc basis, to a job of undetermined time and structure that is improvised as the project develops. A postdoc title can include different names including Fellow, Scholar, Resident, and Associate. A postdoc can be entirely focused on research, entirely focused on teaching, or somewhere in between. Most important, a postdoc is meant to be a temporary position, a period of additional training that helps you to strengthen your profile as a candidate for tenure-track positions (though certainly not everyone who does a postdoc will move to the tenure track). If you are preparing an application for a postdoc, you should be sure to craft your application carefully, stating clearly how your work fits in with a given research initiative, what steps you will take to move forward in your own research, perhaps even including a timetable, and how you will work to fulfill the terms of the fellowship. As you near the end of your graduate work it is wise to have a sense of whether a postdoc is the natural next step for people in your discipline.

In the biomedical sciences it is difficult if not impossible to obtain a tenure-track position without postdoctoral experience. This is also sometimes true in other fields of science and engineering, depending on the discipline. Conversely, job candidates in the sciences who have a well-developed research profile are taking on “teaching postdocs” to gain the teaching experience they may need to obtain tenure-track positions in teaching-focused institutions. For those in science, engineering, and related fields, many postdoctoral opportunities come through engagement with an individual researcher, usually called a Principal Investigator or “PI,” who may have funds available in his or her research grant to hire a postdoc. For this reason, if you are finishing a Ph.D. in these fields, you should be in close communication with your advisor and dissertation committee in order to develop a network of potential PIs whose work may be a good fit for your current research interests and future goals. There are also national funding organizations, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, that award postdoctoral funding directly to Ph.D.s. These programs, though very competitive, allow you to come to a chosen lab or project with your own funding, making it easier for you to connect with the research project of your own choosing. For some of them, you will need the support of a future PI to complete the application process.

In the sciences and engineering, PIs and postdocs work long hours and their projects and successes are tied together. Before choosing a lab, it is important to have a sense of how well you will work with a potential PI and whether he or she will support your career goals. Are those currently working in your potential research group happy? Have they moved on in productive directions? Will you be able to publish while in this research group? Will your research interests be supported and will you have a reasonable amount of freedom in determining the direction of your projects? The National Postdoctoral Association (www.nationalpostdoc.org) has developed a strong set of resources around career development for graduate students and postdocs. Those in the sciences and engineering spend a median amount of four years in a postdoc. It is important to do all you can to make sure these years are fruitful ones for you.

In humanities and social sciences, the postdoc has become increasingly prevalent. Many Ph.D.s in these fields are doing postdoctoral fellowships because they were unable to secure tenure-track employment, and are hoping to use the postdoc as means to build their research and teaching in order to become more competitive candidates. Furthermore, the total number of postdocs has increased, as institutions and funding agencies see the creation of postdocs as way to support recent Ph.D. graduates in these fields. Some postdocs can be a way to move your research forward without the heavy teaching responsibilities associated with being a visiting assistant professor or the insecurity of being an adjunct; others have teaching as a primary responsibility; still others make being a part of a scholarly community and participating in meetings and conferences an integral part of the experience. It is important that your application materials explicitly address the stated goals of the postdoctoral opportunity. In most fields in the humanities and social sciences, postdocs are advertised nationally and often are as competitive as tenure-track opportunities themselves. Some opportunities are based on specific campuses, at a center for the humanities, for example. Others are competitions run by various funding agencies such as the Social Science Research Council or the American Council of Learned Societies. Regardless of your exact discipline, it is likely that information about postdoctoral opportunities will come through your department and scholarly association.

Questions to Ask When Deciding to Apply for a Postdoc

• Why are you planning to do a postdoc? Is your field one where postdoc experience is usually required?

• Do you want to use your postdoctoral experience to increase your expertise in your dissertation area or to broaden your skill set?

• Should you do your postdoc in a large research institution or in a smaller school?

• What qualities do you plan to look for in the supervisor who will serve as your mentor? How do you plan to assess those qualities?

• What type of facilities and other resources are required for the type of research you want to do?

• Will this postdoctoral position help you move your research forward in a way that will provide a strong basis for an independent scholarly career?

What to Consider as You Apply for Faculty Positions

It is important to understand that there can be big differences in institutions and departments. The questions listed below should help you as you develop awareness of these differences. Are you most interested in:

Institutional Characteristics

• A public or private institution?

• A large university or a small four-year teaching college or community college?

• A for-profit university?

• A school with a distinctive institutional personality, such as a women’s college, a historically minority-serving institution, an institution with a strong religious affiliation, or a school offering an innovative curriculum?

• An institution that emphasizes research over teaching or one that emphasizes teaching over research? A competitive job market has enabled institutions that formerly emphasized only one of these to require both; however, “teaching” and “research” institutions still may be distinguished from each other.

• A place that demands or offers heavy involvement in the life of the school (usually a teaching college) or one in which your major identification will be with your department?

• A highly selective institution or one that prides itself on offering educational opportunities to a broad section of the community?

• An institution where the faculty is unionized or one where individual salaries are market-driven?

• A U.S. institution or one in another country?

• An institution with a high rate of tenure or an institution without tenure-track positions?

Departmental Characteristics

• Many colleagues in your field of research or an opportunity to be the in-house expert?

• The opportunity to and expectation that you will socialize with others in the department or an atmosphere that encourages solely professional involvement?

• An emphasis on graduate or on undergraduate teaching?

• A department in which you would be the first person of your cultural background ever hired, or one in which you feel most people are like you?

• A department with a specific orientation (“traditional,” “radical,” “applied”) or one whose faculty members take a variety of approaches?

• A department where teaching occurs mainly in seminars or one where classes are primarily large lectures?

• A department that emphasizes research or one that emphasizes teaching? Think about what kind of facilities you need to carry out your own research plans.

• A department with a hierarchical structure or one that emphasizes participatory decision making?

Geographic Considerations

Can you work and live comfortably in any region of the country? Is it important to you to be in a rural, small city, suburban, or urban environment? There are advantages to each area. Consider if you need to limit the geographic range of your search, or find an institution near an airport, because of personal considerations, such as the career plans of a partner, a child’s education, or the need to be near a relative who is ill. If you are planning to look both in the United States and in other countries, are you able to teach in a language other than English? Compare the cost of living in the various locations where there are jobs in your field. The cost of living in the United States varies widely.

How Competitive Are You?

Be thoughtful in evaluating the type of institution where you will be able and willing to do what is necessary to attain tenure. Be sure there is no discrepancy between your ability and willingness to perform in your first job and your ability to obtain it. For example, in some fields, it is very important to be able to obtain funding for your own research. Be honest with yourself as to whether you will want to compete for these funds in a long-term way. Perhaps you are highly productive in research and publication and very awkward in oral presentations and conversations. In that case, you can work to improve your job hunting skills instead of letting them limit your job search, because your job hunting ability can always improve if you are willing to give it practice and attention. On the other hand, if you interview extremely well but seriously doubt your ability or willingness to perform the level of research required to get tenure, do not talk yourself into a job whose demands you may not want or be able to meet. The tenure clock usually starts the minute you accept a tenure-track position. If you feel you will be unable to do what will be required to achieve tenure, you will surely face another, possibly more difficult job search down the road.

Work/Life Balance Considerations

The academic job search necessitates a balance between restricting yourself and having an open mind. You also want to think about the balance you want to strike between career-related features and nonprofessional aspects of a job. For example, would you take a position at a highly prestigious institution at which you would need to work nearly all your waking hours in order to have a reasonable chance of obtaining tenure? Do you need to consider the career goals of a partner? (For additional discussion, see Chapter 20, “Dual-Career Couples and Pregnant on the Job Market.”)

When to Look

Because most jobs are advertised about a year before they are to begin, you will probably start your job search while you are still finishing your dissertation or postdoctoral research. Be realistic about when you will finish. For Ph.D. students it is crucial that you discuss with your advisor when to begin the search, because he or she will be knowledgeable about the advisability of being a candidate with an unfinished dissertation as opposed to one with the degree in hand. That is the most important factor in determining when to start looking.

On the other hand, if you are in a field with very few annual openings, and a good job is announced before you are entirely ready to apply, you and your advisor may decide that it is a good idea for you to accelerate your search. If you are in the first year of a postdoc with a two-year commitment and the perfect job opportunity comes along, you are in a difficult situation. You probably must discuss it with your supervisor, who will almost certainly find out about your application at least by the time you are invited for an interview.

If it looks as if you will finish in a year in which very few openings are available, plan to search for good interim opportunities while you conduct the academic job search. Some postdoctoral and other fellowship opportunities have very early deadlines for application, like faculty positions. Do not wait until you find you have no job offers before you apply. Some faculty positions will continue to be listed throughout the academic year, so, while you must begin your search early, it may continue over several months.

If you are an international student or postdoc, you should find out if there are visa considerations that might affect the timing of your search and the date you might prefer to have your degree awarded. Start working on this task early to avoid problems or delays that might prevent an institution from offering you a job later on, or that might compromise your ability to remain long-term in the United States if that is your preference. If you are on a campus that has an office that offers good visa and immigration advising, use it. If not, consult a reputable immigration attorney.

Interdisciplinary Areas

If you have an interdisciplinary degree, you have the advantage of being able to apply for jobs in more than one kind of department. On the other hand, when you read job announcements, you may notice with dismay that they frequently occur within the confines of departments defined by traditional disciplinary distinctions. At times you may face the problem of seeming “neither fish nor fowl” to a search committee.

If you are looking outside your field, learn the language of that field and use that language in your CV, cover letter, and interview. Disciplines have their own strong identities, and search committees in a related discipline will not consider you if they think you cannot talk to them in their language. It is imperative to have a letter of recommendation from someone for each discipline in which you are applying.

From time to time positions will be posted as joint appointments. Applying for such a position will affect how you frame your written materials, as the search committee will be made up of people from different departments with different priorities. If you accept a joint position, be sure you clarify responsibilities and expectations before you begin your new position.

In addition to those in your own discipline, join other scholarly associations so that you are current academically, as well as aware of job openings. Attend their conferences. To make sure you are aware of all possible openings, ask faculty and recent graduates in the disciplines that interest you for suggestions of places to look for job notices. For example, those whose work is best defined as gender studies may see appropriate jobs listed under History, English, Sociology, or Anthropology in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and in the job listings of those respective professional associations.

Discussing Your Plans with Others

In talking to others, whether faculty members or peers, keep your own priorities clearly in mind, and use your own judgment. For example, perhaps your research has only recently begun to take off because you were meeting personal obligations that you are convinced will now be lighter. In that case you may want to try for jobs that your advisor feels are beyond your reach, even if you need to take a postdoctoral position in the interim to strengthen your credentials. If you are a natural risk-taker convinced that a department at a new overseas campus of an American institution may give you the opportunity to innovate in teaching and research, you may choose to apply to the position even if the department’s reputation is not yet established.

Following your own instincts as to what you will find satisfying is easy if your goals are similar to those of the people around you. While obtaining any tenure-track position is an achievement, you may encounter some resistance from advisors who feel that only positions at certain types of institutions are worthy goals. It is often more difficult if you want to follow a path that seems foreign to your advisor and most of the students in your department. In that case, use their skepticism as a prod to make sure that you get as much information as possible to make informed decisions. If you want to do something nontraditional, be able to explain your decision to others so they can support your search. Balance this skepticism, however, with the enthusiasm of people who are doing what you would like to do, even if they are at other institutions and you have to seek them out. In the end, it is your career and your life, and you are most likely to be satisfied with both if you shape them according to your own priorities and values.