This is the first of five installments of “How to Get an Academic Job,” a new guide on the tenure-track search from our Career Talk columnists. Next up: “CVs, Cover Letters, and Other Application Documents.”
Will you go on the academic market — this year, or at all? The baseline assumption in many fields, and from many faculty advisers, is that every doctoral student intends to go on the academic job market. Baked into that assumption is another one: that a tenure-track job is what every Ph.D. wants.
Those assumptions do not hold true for all students. You may feel uncertain about whether an academic job would be the right fit for you. If you are feeling pressure from others to go on the academic market, try to separate your own feelings from those external messages. Spend some time thinking about the following questions:
How to Get an Academic Job
- Do you enjoy research and teaching? Is it important to you that you get to keep doing both of those in an academic setting?
- Imagine yourself in a faculty job. What kind of institution do you envision yourself at — teaching what kinds of students and in what location?
- What is important to you in your life? What do you need to feel happy and fulfilled?
- Are you willing to move anywhere and take any academic job? If not, what are your parameters?
- Are there external factors — a partner’s job or a family member’s health needs — that you need to account for?
Your answers may be clear: You definitely are going on the faculty market, are game to do so more than once to get the job that you want, and are willing to live anywhere (at least until you receive tenure). Alternatively, you may decide not to pursue a faculty job because you realize that, even in the best-case scenario, a tenure-track job would not be a good fit for you. Both decisions are valid, as is deciding to limit your search by geography or institutional type, or opting to “test the waters” the first year, with a full-court press planned for the second.
Our point: Some serious self-reflection is required before you dive into the academic job market. It is time-consuming, exhausting, hard on relationships, sometimes expensive, and often demoralizing. It is not something you do just because you think other people want you to, or because you are not sure what you might do instead.
Ideally, you should start your search about 18 months before you need a job, though it is definitely possible to do it in less time. Many candidates go on the academic market without their dissertation or degree in hand. Indeed, it used to be fairly routine to be hired that way. These days, your dissertation should be close to complete, and you are often expected to have publications under review, if not already accepted for publication. You are very likely to be competing with people who have been doing postdocs, so your scholarship needs to be at an advanced stage. Perhaps more important, when you’re asked “What’s next on your research agenda?,” you need to be able to answer with confidence and clarity.
Some people do a “practice round” on the faculty market to iron out the kinks in their applications before doing their “real” first run the next year. That strategy is understandable, but be aware that even a limited number of academic-job applications will take up a lot of time and energy and may prevent progress toward your Ph.D. Keep that in mind in deciding whether to do a practice run.
What help should you expect from your adviser? Your dissertation adviser and committee members should be a core part of your job-market team. In addition to reading your application materials and providing letters of recommendation, they can help you strategize — deciding which jobs to apply for, preparing a job talk, practicing interviews, and, finally, negotiating an offer or regrouping for the next hiring cycle.
That said, just how involved they’ll be will vary significantly. Some advisers read multiple drafts of application materials and provide insight and encouragement wherever possible. That can be great, so long as your adviser’s wants and needs don’t subsume your own. Other advisers are much more hands-off, in which case you may need to turn to someone else — a different member of your committee or a mentor with academic-hiring experience — for that guidance.
Either way, it will save you and your adviser both time and stress if you can agree ahead of time on a plan for their involvement. Are they willing and able to read multiple drafts of your CV, cover letters, or other application materials? How quickly can they turn those around? How much lead time do they need for a letter of recommendation?
Keep in mind: You are probably not your adviser’s only Ph.D. student on the job market. Fall semester can be very busy. The more organized and on top of things you are, the easier it will be for people to support you — and do not be afraid to send them a gentle reminder 72 hours before a deadline.
What will you do if you don’t get an academic job this round? No doubt you’ve heard plenty of job-market horror stories. Suffice to say, the competition is rough in many fields. Being an excellent researcher and teacher is no guarantee of a tenure-track job, and some aspects of your search are simply outside your control. So it’s important to focus on the things you can control and avoid obsessing about the rest.
You have control over your application materials, so you should invest time in making them as good as they can be (as we will shortly discuss). But you should also do some planning on several fronts:
- What other career paths might you consider? It is possible to spend many years in pursuit of a tenure-track job that never materializes, to the detriment of your mental, physical, financial, emotional, and social well-being. A campus visit one year does not mean a job offer the next. Decide ahead of time how many times you intend to go on the tenure-track market — then stick to that decision. Whatever your plan, don’t wait to explore your options outside of academe. If you’re not sure how to do that, visit your campus career center and check out myIDP (for the sciences) or ImaginePhD (for the humanities and social sciences).
- How will you support yourself through each cycle? Many people adjunct while they are on the academic job market, or they pick up work through their faculty advisers or departments. Still others look into temp work, tutoring, or side gigs. Some Ph.D.s end up applying to full-time, industry jobs to pay the bills, which can be lucrative and lead to unexpected opportunities — but will also leave you less time for your academic search.
- How will you protect your mental health? Job hunting is stressful, and can strain your relationships — especially if you have close friends and colleagues who are also on the academic market at the same time (perhaps even competing for the same jobs). Be kind to yourself and others, as much as possible. Recognize when the stress is getting the better of you and take breaks from thinking about it. Set aside time to do things you love. Talk with your peers ahead of time about how you will handle the inevitable feelings of competition and jealousy that are very likely to arise. If you have access to counseling, this may be a good time to take advantage of it.
The International Factor
How should you adjust your planning if, as an international student in a U.S. graduate school, you hope to find a teaching job here? Or if your doctorate is from a foreign university and you want to work on a U.S. campus? Or if you are applying for jobs abroad?
Those are three very different scenarios. We’ll tackle the most common one first: international students and postdocs who trained here and are applying for faculty positions at U.S. institutions. It’s all too easy to be so focused on your research and teaching duties that you don’t get to know your own campus, let alone others. But you’ll need a deeper familiarity with American higher education to complete a successful job search. Here are ways to gain that broad context:
- Read the news about higher education in major publications, like The Chronicle or The New York Times, on a daily or weekly basis.
- Search for faculty job postings in your field and note the types of institutions where they are located. Use the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to get basic information about individual colleges.
- If you’re expected to teach undergraduates as a significant part of your faculty role (which is the case for most positions), connect with your campus teaching center for an update on trends and best practices in college teaching. (And if you’ve never taught undergraduates, find a way to do so.)
Reach out to your predecessors. There’s no substitute for talking with Ph.D.s in your program (or similar ones) who have successfully moved from international student to faculty member on an American campus. Most doctoral students and postdocs will know someone who has — if not, ask faculty members to connect you with one or two international students who found teaching jobs recently in your field.
Ask about their search (including the visa process) and the structure of their day-to-day work as a faculty member. What surprised them most about the hiring process? What was most challenging? Does their work line up with their expectations of what it would be like to be a faculty member? Those conversations can give you an on-the-ground perspective on what it’s like to work in American higher education.
Non-U.S. citizens on the faculty market here are rightly concerned about work-visa sponsorship upon being hired. Be prepared for institutions to ask you two key questions about your visa status:
- Are you currently eligible to work in the United States?
- Do you now, or will you in the future, require visa sponsorship to continue working in the States?
Don’t hedge; answer truthfully. To become familiar with both the implications of your responses and the most common pathways to legal employment in the United States, consult with your university’s international-scholars office. Many offices organize sessions with immigration lawyers who can answer your employment questions. Interstride is a good source of free articles on immigration matters; if your campus subscribes, you may be able to access additional content.
What if you don’t get a tenure-track offer? If you do land a position, your prospective institution will usually be able to secure a visa for you. Things get more complicated when you don’t (or when you are offered a limited-term position). You need to sit down with your adviser — early on in your search — to discuss the “what ifs”:
- Will you postpone your graduation if you don’t find a faculty position?
- Is there funding for you to stay an additional year in your postdoc?
- Can you buy some additional time by moving to another job title within your university (for example, a postdoc becoming a research associate)?
- Will you look for other types of jobs?
- Will you consider returning to your home country or looking for a job elsewhere?
In today’s higher-ed market, candidates often have to work in contingent positions on their way to a tenure-track job. It varies widely whether departments will consider international Ph.D.s for those very-common, limited-term openings — such as lecturer, visiting assistant professor, postdoc. Job postings sometimes specify that a department cannot sponsor “employment-eligible immigration statuses.” Generally speaking, if you’re offered a tenure-track role as a foreign student or postdoc, the hiring institution will be able to sponsor your work authorization. For contingent positions, however, you may face challenges in securing employment authorization.
Those are just a few of the challenges that foreign students and postdocs face trying to secure employment on a U.S. campus. Obtaining work authorization is an individual and complicated process — and one that you don’t want to get wrong. As you embark upon your faculty job search, be sure that you understand the steps you need to take, and when.
Can you find a faculty job from overseas? This might be your predicament if, after earning a Ph.D. from a U.S. university, you returned to your home country. Or maybe you just want to work in American higher education. Many of the same considerations we mentioned above would apply if you are hunting for faculty openings here from abroad.
To familiarize yourself with U.S. higher education, it’s important to build networks that can connect you with advice and opportunity. That’s very hard to do from another country, but not impossible. Start by joining the U.S.-based professional society for your discipline, such as the Modern Language Association or the American Economic Association, or by attending a conference where U.S.-based scholars will be present. You’ll find interesting job openings posted via that society’s website.
Give yourself a long timeline for your transition to U.S. employment, keeping in mind that a faculty job is not easy to find, nor is it likely to be permanent. It’s always more difficult to find a position in a place where you don’t currently live, particularly in a tight market such as the one for faculty and research appointments.
What if you’re an American Ph.D. interested in teaching abroad? University hiring systems differ from country to country (as do visa rules), so networking, again, is the way to fill your knowledge gaps and be connected to job opportunities. Be sure you’re meeting and talking with scholars who were trained in some of the places where you hope to live and work. They will be best positioned to help you understand the faculty job market there, from the application process itself to possibilities for advancement.
Two excellent resources to get you started on your international job search are the Times Education Supplement and Euraxess.
Changing Jobs Later In Your Career
The bulk of this guide is for candidates searching for that first tenure-track job. However, faculty members change institutions more frequently than many people realize. Sometimes they switch for professional reasons (e.g., you were denied tenure or you want to work at a different type of institution) and sometimes it’s for personal ones (e.g., you’re unhappy with the college’s location, your spouse’s career requires a move, your aging parents back home need help). You have a better chance of changing jobs at the assistant-professor rank than once you are tenured, simply because there are fewer associate and full-professor openings out there than tenure-track and contingent ones.
If you’re planning a midcareer move, you very likely will apply for far fewer positions than when you first went on the faculty market. In fact, it’s hard to offer broad advice about this type of job search because faculty candidates are often invited to apply to a given role. It’s research that helps most professors change jobs. As they say, you “write your way out” of a given position. Consequently, you’ll want to prepare your job materials with particular care. Make the case for why you –– now an experienced scholar and teacher — are the best fit for this opening at this type of institution.
Scrap your old drafts for cover letters and other application documents, and start fresh. The scope and sophistication of your research, teaching, and service has very likely grown now that you’ve been a faculty member. If you’ve already gone up for tenure, then you’ve undoubtedly been asked to review your own accomplishments as a part of that process in your current department. Those tenure-file documents can inform your job materials.
A move pre-tenure can add time to your tenure clock, depending on whether you are able to negotiate “credit” from your new department for the work you did at your previous one. Not wanting to go through the tenure process twice, some faculty members hold off on trying to change institutions until after they’ve earned tenure (unless of course you are getting early signals that your tenure case is in trouble, in which case you would want to move before a negative vote). Tenure can transfer from one institution to another, especially if you are moving to a college that is ranked on par or lower than your current one. If you’re shifting to a more prestigious institution, you may be required to apply for tenure again.
Some faculty members also secure an offer from another institution primarily to give them leverage in negotiating with their current employer. That can work, since your institution is generally invested in keeping you, especially post-tenure. We don’t advise bluffing in these situations. It can backfire if the offer you have in hand is one that you don’t really want to take.
Among the factors you should consider before making a midcareer move:
- Should you tell department members that you’re job hunting? If you’ve been at your institution for a few years, you probably have colleagues who are also your friends. It may feel strange to conceal your career plans from them — and you may, in fact, decide to tell a select few. But you should also consider how you’ll feel if your search becomes common knowledge in the department, and then you don’t receive an outside offer. It can take multiple hiring cycles to be successful, and in the meantime, you may find yourself in a very awkward position.
- What are your responsibilities to your employer? They might include a large research project you’re running, an administrative role you’ve accepted, or a cohort of graduate students you’re advising. Of course if you’re unhappy at your institution, or if relocating would be better for your career, you can’t let those obligations stop you from applying for other jobs. But if you know you intend to leave, think about what you need to do to avoid burning bridges or hurting other people’s careers. For example, encourage your doctoral students to develop mentoring relationships with other professors so they aren’t isolated if they decide not to follow you to your new department. If you chair an important committee, train a faculty colleague on how to run it (whether or not you explain why you’re doing so). That way, no one is left high and dry when you leave.
With a job offer in hand, you will have to decide whether to ask for a counteroffer (assuming, of course, that wasn’t your primary goal to begin with). It won’t be much of a decision if your current department doesn’t have the money to match your new job offer. The dilemma arises when it does come back with a counter offer that is equivalent or better.
In that situation, think about why you decided to go back on the job market. Was it about wanting to make more money or have a lower teaching load? Those are problems that your current department might be able to fix, and if so, staying put may make sense. But if your decision to apply for other positions was motivated by, for example, geography or a dysfunctional department, a counter offer is unlikely to resolve such concerns. It can be very flattering, but you do not want to be flattered into making a decision that is not right for you in the long run.
A move into administration. Increasingly in recent years, we’ve seen departments hiring specifically for administrative roles, such as chair. If you have already served in such a capacity and enjoyed it, this can be a way to change institutions more easily, as chair positions are often not as sought-after as general faculty openings. Networking is vital in securing an administrative role as an outside hire, since the department is recruiting for an important leadership role.
While a hiring committee for a new chair almost certainly wants a candidate with a strong research profile, its members are going to be much more concerned about the needs of the department and how you might meet them. Your application materials should focus on what you have accomplished as chair of your current department. Have you:
- Boosted course enrollments?
- Increased the number of majors and minors?
- Secured new tenure lines from the senior administration?
- Increased your department’s budget through fund raising?
- Created new and innovative programs?
Unlike tenure-track openings, applying to be department chair is going to be more about the job itself, and what you bring to the table as a leader, than about your teaching record and research agenda. It is important to reframe your thinking about your application if you’re going to apply to these sorts of positions.
