This is the third of five installments of “How to Get an Academic Job,” a new guide on the tenure-track search from our Career Talk columnists. Previously the series explored “CVs, Cover Letters, and Other Application Documents.” Next up: “The Interview Stage.”
How do I find open academic jobs in my field? And when? Tenure-track openings are typically posted in late summer or early fall. Some disciplines used to have a date on which their primary scholarly association “opened” its job list, but that practice has fallen by the wayside as the hiring calendar has expanded. There have also been more late-breaking postings in recent years, with ads going up at the end of winter or even in the spring, although those jobs are more likely to be postdocs or visiting professorships than tenure stream.
Position announcements are still commonly posted to the job boards of major scholarly associations, and also in other places, such as The Chronicle’s own job board.
How to Get an Academic Job
In addition to the job boards, keep an ear out for interesting postings via your own network and your adviser’s. It should not be a secret that you are on the academic job market. Conference panels can be another great way to meet colleagues in your field or subfield, and hear about potential openings. Ask your fellow panelists out for coffee to keep the conversation going. Do not think of these interactions as fishing for an “in.” Rather, they are an opportunity to make a good impression as both a scholar and a prospective colleague.
Should I apply to everything? Traditionally, many advisers have told candidates to cast a wide net and apply for any job they might be qualified for. That’s a valid strategy but it’s not the only one. An equally valid approach is to be more selective, and focus your search on certain types of institutions or geographic areas.
No two academic jobs are the same. Teaching loads, research expectations, service requirements, tenure guidelines, student populations, and geographic locations all differ drastically. Large public land-grant universities, small liberal-arts colleges, and community colleges all offer very different faculty experiences.
Even if the job market in your subfield looks like you will have limited options, it is worth thinking about the kind of institution and position that you want to be in. Some factors to consider:
- Do you want your job to skew more toward teaching or research?
- How much emphasis on (and support for) research do you want?
- What kind of teaching and advising do you like to do? Do you have experience working with particular student subgroups, such as first-generation, nontraditional-age, or international students?
- Would you prefer to be in an area that leans rural or urban? Are there particular locations that are important for your research?
- Would you rather work at a large university with a dense bureaucracy, or a small college where you may have to wear many hats?
Besides institutional type, there is the job itself. You may have subfield specializations that qualify you for jobs outside of your primary discipline. A sociologist who studies Asian immigration to North America, for example, might be able to apply to positions in both sociology departments or Asian-American studies programs. Your adviser and committee members can help you think through the types of jobs you should target.
The first wave of job ads has been posted. How do I glean the most important information? Although many academics are well versed in the art of close reading, they often neglect to apply that skill to job postings. Some job ads are fairly spartan, leaving you to mine a department’s website for clues. Other job postings are filled with useful details. Either way, here are the basic points to look for:
- Is the role on the tenure track (usually indicated by the job title of “assistant professor,” but often stated explicitly)?
- What would be your responsibilities in the position, including teaching, committee work, and research expectations? Many postings will specify the teaching load.
- What are the preferred qualifications and area(s) of specialization?
- What are the application instructions (including the list of documents you’ll need to submit)?
- If the role is a postdoctoral position, what is its emphasis, topic, duties, and responsibilities?
- Most ads include an Equal Opportunity Employer statement. Make sure to read it, because it may tell you a good deal about the institution and its mission. (It also may be boilerplate, but it’s important to read it, rather than dismiss it out of hand.)
Pay close attention to the language of the posting. The phrasing will tell you something about the institution and the department. A college may say it’s primarily focused on teaching, but if its job ad lists a 2-2 courseload (meaning you would teach two courses a semester) and says the candidate must maintain “an active research program,” you will need to show evidence of strong research potential. Conversely, if a job posting includes information about committee service, revising the department’s major or minor, and participating in faculty governance, it’s likely that you should foreground your teaching and service experience.
Too often, candidates project their dream job onto all of the openings they apply for, and submit documents that are out of sync with the realities of the position. Any faculty job posting is a carefully negotiated notice, attempting to meet as many of the department’s needs as possible. Your letter and other application materials should reflect an attentiveness to those needs. (This holds even more true if you’re applying for administrative or hybrid roles. For those, you’ll want to really focus on how you match the needs expressed in the job description.)
Do I really have to tailor my application for every job? Yes, you really have to tailor your cover letters and other application materials for every job. You might think no one will notice if you don’t. But having read more than our share of job documents over the years, we can assure you: It’s obvious when a candidate has put effort into understanding the role and the institution, and it’s obvious when they have not.
Tailoring all of your job documents might seem like a tremendous amount of work. But it is manageable if you approach the task in the same way as your cover letters: by starting with a framework. You will need to create a set of templates:
- Draft general versions of your research, teaching, and diversity statements, focusing on some of the best practices that we’ve outlined above.
- Once you have solid drafts in hand, think of any variations that might be inherent to your job search. For example, a scientist applying to both research- and teaching-focused institutions might need two versions of a research statement: one that focuses on working with graduate students and one that envisions work done with only undergraduates in the lab. Similarly, an interdisciplinary candidate in theater studies and English might need two research statements, depending on the type of position.
- Once you begin seeing job postings, you can further tailor your statements to respond to a particular department’s needs. For example, you might revise your teaching statement to mention how you would handle a specific course listed in the posting. Or tinker with your research statement to highlight a possible connection with a research center or an archive at the hiring institution. And if the role is a postdoc on a particular topic, make sure that your cover letter and other materials hew closely to that topic.
Deciding just how much tailoring to do requires keeping close track of the documents requested for each opening. It’s key to be explicit about your fit for the job and the institution. If you’re like most Ph.D.s in this hypercompetitive faculty market, your reason for being interested in any given position is obvious: You want a tenure-track job in your field.
But search committees want to know why you want to work in their department and on their campus, not why you’re willing to work anywhere. That’s the goal of tailoring: to convey your unique connection to the position and the institution. (For more advice on this front, read our 2023 column on how to tailor your cover letters.)
How am I going to keep track of all of this? Very carefully. Especially if you are applying for a dozen or more jobs. Some candidates find it useful to keep a spreadsheet of all their applications that includes:
- The institution’s name.
- A link to the job ad (be sure to download the position announcement in case it gets taken down).
- Application deadlines.
- Links to tailored job materials.
- Names of the people you’ve asked for letters of recommendation.
- Space for any additional notes on the position or institution.
That spreadsheet can be very effective in combination with a cloud-based folder system, such as Google Drive or Dropbox. Each position should have its own clearly labeled folder containing the job ad itself, plus your tailored materials. Using a cloud-based system will let you easily share items with your recommenders and anyone you might ask for feedback.
It is also important to devise a simple system to track application deadlines. In addition to noting them on your spreadsheet, you may want to enter the dates in your calendar and set up an alert to notify you several days in advance.
The Academic Jobs Wiki can be helpful for tracking the status of various job postings. A word of caution: Fight the urge to monitor it obsessively. It may be worth designating a time once a week to check it. You should also take the information you read there with a grain of salt, as it is crowd-sourced and unregulated.
