Academic Job Search

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Academia is often referred to as ‘the ivory tower’, where ‘ivory’ presumably conveys nobility while ‘tower’ hints at unattainability. This moniker is not helping the view of academia in today’s increasingly anti-intellectual and anti-elitist US. By many, the concept of tenure and the job security it implies are viewed as an undeserved perk that nobody else has so the no-good elitist academics shouldn’t have it either. Unsurprisingly, I am a strong supporter of tenure, for reasons that range from self-serving to objective and warrant a whole other post. Let’s just say that, in STEM fields, tenure should be thought of as part of the benefits package, a part that enables universities to recruit and keep stellar researchers who would otherwise make much, much more money in industry.

I love being a professor. I really do. I have never really thought about doing anything else and I am fortunate that things worked out so I was able to land a faculty position at a great R1 university. This is my 10th year at this place and, while I have had ‘feelers’ from other institutions, due to the family being deeply rooted where we are it’s unlikely we’ll be moving any time soon. Indeed, owing to the scarcity of jobs, extreme competition, the ability to achieve the job security of tenure at one place coupled with the generally reduced mobility after tenure, changing jobs in academia happens considerably less frequently than in ‘the real world’ (another term that I find both sad and hilarious, because it further emphasizes how surreal academia and academics are considered to be by the ‘real people’). The low mobility means you are stuck with the same people for years or decades, and in my opinion this is the primary reason why tenured folks — who could in principle raise hell and challenge administrators and fight the forces of evil such as underperforming colleagues, decreasing state support, increased overhead rates, incompetent staff, and ballooning prices at the local coffee shop — just don’t do as much as it seems they could or should. It’s because a majority of those colleagues (as well as many administrators and staff , and perhaps even some baristas) will also be around for a long time.

Walter White (Breaking Bad), a meek chemistry professor turned terrifying meth king-pin Heisenberg, is not to be trifled with.

Before you reach tenure, you keep your mouth shut so as not to aggravate the people who will vote for your tenure case. After tenure, you realize that “OMFG I am not going anywhere, but neither are they…” So there is a great emphasis on treading lightly during conflicts. I know, it sucks. At my advanced age, I have finally started to realize that maybe, perhaps, incidentally, there is an off chance that there may be some smidgen of truth that biting the opponent’s head off in a full frontal attack may not be the ideal plan A for resolving interpersonal conflicts at work. Dang.

When you get tenure, you get the dubious honor of being assigned more service tasks. I personally prefer to be on committees that may be work but at least they have some tangible impact, such as faculty hiring. These committees where the stakes are reasonably high are an excellent way to study human behavior, as I get to observe colleagues who are very skilled  versus those who are considerably less so go at it during conflict, utilizing the full arsenal of expertly crafted rational arguments alongside backhanded compliments, thinly-veiled sarcasm, and a variety of fascinating passive-aggressive maneuvers.

Here is an example: These days I am privy to some serious elbowing in terms of whom we get to interview. Let’s just say that a person from an area that should not be hiring is trying really hard to convince us that their candidate would actually fall under the areas described in the ad. The arguments go along the lines of “We have the green light to hire a candidate in the field of bunny hopping. We should bring in this candidate who works in the area of squirrel cloning, because he could also clone bunnies, and without enough bunnies nobody can investigate bunny hopping!” The truth is that bunny hoppers need the hire as they have lost some people and the prospective hire the squirrel cloners are pushing is nowhere near  what the hoppers need; the cloners need to back the eff off and let the hoppers hire just as everyone in the department had agreed on. In an ideal world, a bunny-hopping representative — or better yet the department chair — would just say “Back off!” to the squirrel cloners and we’d get back to work looking at the bunny-hoping candidates. Instead, many long emails and a lot of wasted energy are a result of the hoppers fending off the cloners’ encroachment, without anyone admitting to taking offense or starting a counter-offensive. I am on the search committee but in neither field, so I am just a fascinated spectator, on my 17th bag of popcorn while taking notes on how to tread lightly and fight without fighting in the name of long-term peace and collegiality.

Academic Job Search — Surviving the First Cut
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Prof. Xykademiqz gets ready to screen tenure-track applications

I am on a faculty search committee again this year. It’s a lot of work, but as far as faculty service obligations go, this one is really worth it because you have an influence over who your future colleagues will be and where the department will go in the long run.

Here, I will be talking about a physical science field and a research-intensive institution, one of the so-called “very high research activity” or R1 institutions according to the Carnegie classification [also referred to as a major research university (MRU)]. While the process somewhat varies between disciplines and types of institutions, many aspects are probably universal and therefore  worth sharing.

The committee work involves sifting through hundreds of applications in order to choose 3–5 who will be invited for an on-site interview. We don’t do phone or Skype interviews. Our committees consist mostly of people with expertise in the targeted area within the department, but also one or two people from other areas.  In my department, everyone on the committee sees every application;  I am sure there are committee-to-committee variations, some may split the application piles so each file is seen by only one person.  The process of selecting interviewees usually involves several steps. The first cut is done by every committee member on their own. This is the most drastic cut, which the vast majority of applications don’t survive, as the several-hundred-application pile is reduced to a few tens — the long list. While each committee member has their own, it’s actually surprising how much overlap there is among different people’s long lists. Input from others in the department may be solicited at this point. Then the committee meets once or twice to discuss the people on the long lists and reduce the number to a short list of 3–5, with perhaps a couple of alternates. These 3–5 need to get approved by the department executive committee (all tenured faculty) and the college dean to be invited to an interview. Therefore, the candidates have to have some pretty apparent markers of future promise that are easily defensible in front of the colleagues and the dean.

You, the applicant, need to survive the first cut and make the long list of at least one but preferably several people on the search committee. If you make no one’s, it is highly unlikely that anybody will give your application a second look.  This process is not unlike panel review of proposals — someone has to notice you and want to champion you, or you don’t really stand a chance. 

When I have hundreds of applications to sift through and the search is defined pretty broadly, there are three things that I immediately look for: your area of expertise, where you did your PhD and postdoc, and your publication record. Which first brings us to…

Documents: Different searches request different paperwork, but every search will ask for a cover letter and a CV. Some will ask for research and teaching statements. Some will ask that the references send letters right away, some just want the names of the references and will ask for letters if you are nearing the inclusion on the short list. Always, always, submit a cover letter, a CV, as well as research and teaching statements. Even if the ad does not explicitly ask for the last two, submit them anyway. Why? Because others do, and even though your application must technically be considered if you submitted the minimal required paperwork, once you are nearing the  inclusion on the short list it helps if people know in a bit more detail what it is that you actually want to do and how.

However, in order to survive the first cut, your past record is key, so your CV is the most important document. During the first round of screening, I only look at the CV, along with a few quick glances at the cover letter. The following information gets retrieved during the initial screening:

Area of expertise: Have it prominently somewhere in both the cover letter and the CV what your subfield is, or what your 2-3 broadly defined areas of interest are. I am grateful if within 5 seconds of opening your application I know what it is that you are an expert in. Here’s the rub — sometimes the ad is vague on purpose in terms of the area, because the department wants to cast a broad net and just hire whoever looks best. Sometimes it is vague because the department did not decide ahead of time what the priorities are. Sometimes there are well-defined priorities, but they are not in the ad for all sorts of reasons. All you, as applicant, can and should do is apply if the search appears to be even remotely receptive to your expertise and then keep your fingers crossed. There is no point in trying to guess what is behind an ad. Ads are crafted as much (or more) by HR as by the department and language often leaves much to be desired. Faculty job ad craftsmanship often brings to mind the proverb “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” 

Pedigree and publications: Where you come from — your pedigree, your PhD and postdoc institutions and groups —  this is all very important. We all believe that people who went to top schools must be very smart to get in, they get quality education, and they have reputable people vouching for them, so it’s hard to deny that pedigree matters.  However, it is not enough. It is very, very important how your publication list looks. If you have a PhD and postdoc with many first-author publications in reputable journals, you are the person I want to see. So, if you are serious about an academic position in a science field and you feel you have what it takes to do that job, but you are getting a PhD at a good but not top school , then you have to publish as much as possible as a grad student, more than a person from a more prestigious school. If your field requires a postdoc, then you also need to try to get into a good, productive, and if possible prominent group at a better university, where “better” generally means “better name recognition.” And keep publishing like your life depends on it. I know, this is easier said than done, as postdoc advisors are not be the world’s most nurturing demographic, especially those who are very successful at cutthroat places.  Also,  a bad match with a postdoc group pretty much effs you over for good, which is why you need to be as careful and and as informed as possible when trying to find the optimum combination of productivity and pedigree boost. And it doesn’t hurt to be a  little lucky. 

Finally, it may seem like the first cut during a faculty search is made somewhat crudely. However, among hundreds of applications, the truth is that the vast majority are simply not competitive at all — these applicants will never get a faculty position. I am probably wrong about a handful of them, but not about most. In an ideal world, someone would tell these people that their applications don’t look competitive for the type of position they seek. But then again, all sorts of unconscious biases can creep up into this type of advice, so perhaps it’s better to just let people apply. But you, as an applicant, can certainly try to talk to your PhD and postdoc advisors and find out what a typical record of a recent tenure-track hire looks like. You can also go online and look at the websites of assistant professors at institutions where you envision  working, count their publications and see how you measure up. Good luck!

Academic Job Search — Tales from the Other Side

We often read about the trials and tribulations of academic job seekers.

But it’s not until you are on the other side and a few years into a professorship that you start seeing how a faculty search looks from the standpoint of your future colleagues.

The first aspect is what goes on in the department. There may be a more-or-less formal mechanism by which the department decides when new hires are needed. How this is done depends on the department culture and size. In mid-size (20-40) and large (40+) departments, there are probably multiple people in several subareas, and it’s sometimes a tug of war to decide which subarea gets a new candidate or has the highest priority for hiring. It helps if the department administration in functional and keeps a record of who hired last and how successful recent searches in different subareas went. Also, some areas have the potential to bring in more money than others — it should not matter, but it does. Some areas are considered to be the department’s great strength, and some places like to be the best place to do A and B, rather than just another place to do A through F reasonably well. As a result, they will hire more in the subareas where they are already strong. The larger the department, the more large subareas as well as strong personalities there are. Things can get gory…

Assuming the department can get its act together and decide on what it needs, a case has to be made with the higher administration, which generally means the college dean. The department may or may not get to hire, depending largely on the college budget, but also on the college strategic plan (I shudder at the sound of this bit of bullshit jargon, but there are such documents and people do rely on them), how recently the department last hired, if they had retirements or faculty leaving for other institutions, and the general standing of the department in the college pecking order or the dean’s list of favorites. 

If things go well, the department will get an OK to hire in early fall and will be able to advertise in October-December and generally interview as early as late January, but more typically February through April. Getting an interview is the hard part, yet it never ceases to amaze me how poorly many candidates actually perform during the onsite interviews (we don’t do Skype or phone), but I would say that’s fortunate as it helps the search committee decide.

I am on the search committee second year in a row and it is a lot of work. People are really looking hard for the best candidate but also one who is likely to want to come here. This is an interesting twist, especially at places that are not MIT, Stanford, or the like — the über-tippity-top-5-school-ultimate-pedigreed candidates who don’t botch interviews tend to want to stay within their creme-de-la-creme echelon. Every year there are one or two such hot commodities on the job market, whom everyone interviews and everyone gives an offer to, which I think is silly — each  is only one person and each of them having 20 offers is good for their ego, but schools should really think whether such candidates are realistic hiring prospects.

I know, that means the department admitting that they don’t consider themselves to be tippity-top, so the collective self-consciousness of the department comes to play. Do we pretend we are more awesome than we are and go for the fanciest candidate, but then get turned down? Or do we potentially sell ourselves short and not go for the fancy, but rather for one who is both very good and likely to accept?

I suppose there’s a dating metaphor here: do you ask out the hot girl you really, really like, but so does everyone else, or do you ask the the not-quite-so-hot girl you like as well, but who’s not on everyone’s radar so your chances of her going out with you may be higher? I would say, in dating, definitely go for the girl you really like, because the heart wants what the heart wants, and she may like you more than you know. My Spouse would say to go with maximizing your chances. In academic hiring, things are a little more straightforward; after all, you will not be longingly looking on as the hot girl walks into the sunset with another dude and curse yourself for not having had the guts to ask her out. In fact, if you are lucky enough to have two candidates the department likes, they are both generally pretty awesome and either one would make a great colleague. Eliminating one based on super-hot-commoditiness (I really should lay off of making up silly words) is as good a reason as any.

New faculty searches are quite draining for existing faculty. A lot of emotional energy goes in it — we all want to hire someone good, we get excited about promising candidates, we get irritated by those who have failed to prepare or look downright disinterested. Candidates (understandably) don’t realize how many meetings each of us faculty have in regards to each search, even without the time needed to talk to the candidate. When you are on the search committee, you also have the higher-than-average obligation to take candidates to lunch or dinner, on top of having to attend every talk, meet individually with each candidate, and partake in debriefing meetings after each visit. After the 3rd or 4th candidate, the time commitment alone does get fairly tedious.

After the interviews are over, there is the potential lack of consensus as to who the best candidate was. In my experience, in very strong, high-performing subareas, people tend to reach a consensus as to who performed best pretty quickly. In others, you have more of a strong-personality interference, territoriality (someone senior but inactive people blocking the hiring of someone junior who is perceived as a threat), and other considerations that may result in the most promising candidate not getting the offer.

I am in a large enough department that I have seen all sorts of scenarios play out. We are lucky to have a smart chair who has the best interest of the department at heart, as well as considerable political savvy to pull it off and forward our agenda while not irritating the college administration. Thank god for those soft skills, heh?

As for advice to faculty candidates: apply anywhere you appear to be a reasonably good fit, with “reasonably good” and “fit” interpreted very liberally. If the call is vague, that often means the department is open to seeing who’s out there before deciding on a subarea to prioritize. If you get an interview, congratulations! But even if you think you did great, you as a candidate have no idea about what is going on in terms of the internal politics, so it’s best not to obsess about it as there is nothing you can do. There may be some who liked you when you interviewed, but if the department priorities or loudest mouths are elsewhere, you are toast. I know this hardly sounds as a consolation, but it is what it is. All you can do is try to do your best. You’ll get better at interviewing with more practice, and you’ll get better at realizing what it is that you want in a potential home department. 

Good luck!