Unsolicited Advice, : How to Apply for a Faculty Job

[Mankay]

After wading through a mile-high stack of applications for an open faculty position at UW a few years ago, I compiled a list of tips for postdocs hoping to make the transition to the faculty level. I’m therefore barging into Sean’s Unsolicited Advice series with advice for the later stages, completely screwing up his numerical order in the process (sorry Sean!). This advice is undoubtedly biased towards those applying to research oriented universities, rather than to smaller liberal arts colleges with a stronger emphasis on teaching. I also am in a pure astronomy department, and can’t say for sure whether the physicists have some more involved series of secret handshakes and passwords that they use to evaluate candidates. You’ll therefore have to cherry pick the advice as needed. Hopefully others can weigh in on comments to bring a different perspective. Let’s begin!




Read the job description!

Very rarely do departments conduct truly open searches. Instead, they are usually trying to fill some current need in their department, whether it’s finding someone to teach a particular graduate course, to expand into a new research direction, or to build strength in a specific subfield. They will usually try to make this clear in the advertisement. If you do not fit the description, you need to explicitly address that fact in your application (usually in the cover letter, but also in your research statement as well). For example “Although my past research has been focused primarily on predicting the gravitational radiation signatures of colliding black holes, it has a natural outgrowth into the generic physics of compact objects” or “While I’m known for my work on galactic dynamics, I have published several papers on barium abundances in K-giants.” It’s OK to apply for jobs for which you are not a perfect fit, as long as you explain why you think they should still take a look at you. Also don’t self-select out if you’re not a perfect match to the ad. Like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play.


Remember that it’s a job, not a prize.

Many postdoctoral positions are “prize fellowships” that go to the applicant with the most scientific promise and/or the strongest record. Faculty positions are different. They are jobs. There is work involved, and the department is looking to bring in someone who can do that work. They are not passing out an award to you for being smart. If there will be teaching involved, you need to discuss your teaching record and philosophy explicitly. What graduate courses could you teach? Would you be comfortable teaching large introductory courses? Do you think you’ll be a good mentor for students? If there are large department projects underway (i.e. new facilities or initiatives), discuss the role you will play in shepherding those projects.


Understand the institution.

It’s remarkable how many applications we get that clearly have no understanding of our institution. They don’t know who’s on the faculty, what research is done here, or what facilities we have. If you’re applying to a small liberal arts teaching college, you shouldn’t be discussing how you look forward to working with grad students. If your work absolutely requires the world’s largest telescopes, and you’re applying to a place that doesn’t have one, you had better explain why you think that will be just fine with you. Otherwise, you look unserious about the position, which makes you look immature, and unready for the larger responsibilities of being a faculty member. Departments love to hire grownups!


Don’t write more than a 3-4 page research statement.

Why? Because I’m reading 99 other applications and have better things to do then read a 20 page review article. And don’t try to dodge this advice by using a tiny font. I will not be fooled, and will instead be annoyed.


Look to the future.

Unless you’ve applied to a place with a poor record of tenuring assistant professors, you may be at the institution for decades, and they’re going to want to know what you’re thinking about doing in the next five years. More of the same? Branching into new directions? Switching wavelength regimes? We’re not after a detailed plan for the next six months, but a brief general discussion of where you think your research is heading.


Know your weakness, and fix it.

If you’re not getting on short lists after a few years of trying, there’s a reason. Find out what that reason is, and fix it before the next round of applications are due. You need to take a cold hard critical assessment of yourself as a scientist and colleague. Compare your record to those of the people who are getting on the short lists. Are you not publishing enough? If not, then stop traveling or writing proposals and write something up instead. Are your papers not getting cited (hint: you’re working on stuff that people find uninteresting)? If not, then you need to work on something that will actively shape the larger scientific discussion, rather than working on something that is decades ahead of its time, that will get scooped by someone else who has better data and works faster than you, or that just cleans up a few details of little general interest. Alternatively, if you haven’t been traveling at all, you need to go give some good talks at major meetings and drum up some interest. Do you have a larger vision? If not, you need to step back from your little piece of the puzzle and figure out what the big problem is you’re trying to address, and then reassess if you’re taking the right step to answer it — avoiding the old chestnut that “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Do you communicate well? If responses to your talks seem lukewarm, you need to learn how to give more engaging informative talks. Practice them in front of grad students. Practice them in front of someone who you trust to give you the truth. Which brings us to…


Give good talks.

Anyone who is personally known to someone on the committee has a real leg up. “Oh yeah, I saw her give a great talk in Victoria!” goes a long way to getting your application an extra look. The flip side is that you really can’t afford to give a bad talk at this stage of your career. If all someone remembers is that they fell asleep during your talk, it’s not going to help you. Since teaching is an essential part of being a faculty member, bad talks will kill you. Don’t write your talk the night before, no matter how much other stuff you have to do. If you have been lacking opportunities to give talks (i.e. you’re not being invited to give colloquia, and keep getting assigned posters at conferences), get some help from any senior person you see as a mentor (and also re-evaluate your research choices and your speaking skills!).


Don’t neglect the cover letter.

The cover letter is the opportunity to frame your role in the department. Who do you see yourself working with? What big projects/facilities at the department interest you? What can you offer the department to make it a better institution?


Make your CV easy to interpret.

Separate refereed and unrefereed papers. Put your name in bold-face in all author lists. Include the titles of your papers. A nice layout and scrupulous avoidance of typos keep you from looking sloppy.


If you don’t get the job, sometimes it’s not you.

Sometimes there is absolutely nothing you could have done to get a particular job, short of having an entire personality/interest transplant. Sometimes a department needs a big scientific presence to shake things up, and if you’re a more careful deep thinker, you’re just not going to fit the mold. Sometimes they need a generous mentoring presence, and if you’re an energetic mover on the national scene, you’re not going to get the job. Sometimes they really really really really need someone to work on star formation, and you don’t. You may be demographically wrong — too fresh out of grad school, or too senior for a greying department. So, don’t take it too personally if you don’t get a specific position. However, don’t use this fact as too much of an excuse if you never get on short lists, and instead go back to the advice above.


Decide if you really want a faculty job in the first place.

Being a faculty member is not the only way to be a scientist. There are many jobs out there that don’t require worrying through another 6 years of uncertainty, dealing with hordes of sometimes mathematically illiterate 18-year olds, struggling for grants and putting up with the psychoses of other faculty. Take a good hard look at Rate Your Students first and decide if this is really for you. Just because being a faculty member seems like the obvious next step, it isn’t always the best step for you. Don’t be afraid to send out a round of “real world” applications at the same time and see what alternate paths are available.