7 Years Ago at RYS. An Open Letter to Job Search Flakes From Someone Frazzled On the Other Side of the Desk.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

To the Needy Job Applicant. 

Dear Job Applicant,

Thank you for applying for a position at our university! I am confident that you will make an important contribution to our academic community, especially given how similar you sound to the little snowflakes already enrolled in this institution. Like you, they believe that their every action is worthy of personal notice and praise!

I deeply apologize for failing to send you a gilded thank-you note for gracing us with your stellar application. We should have done more to encourage you, especially since you couldn't possibly be one of the applicants who mails their application piece by piece, ensuring the greatest possible difficulty for the underpaid staff member who manages the files. Oh, you thought the search committee did that? No. It is a single work-study student making $7.40 an hour, but I apologize for the confusion.

Your confirmation letter wasn't proofread? I suppose that step was overlooked in the five seconds I was given to write it and send it to duplication services. I also realize that I misspelled your middle name on the form letter informing you that you did not, in fact, include a copy of your CV with the application. This is totally unacceptable and I apologize. I really should be able to be more detail oriented as I manage 200 pieces of mail in the three hours between my afternoon classes.

I also would like to extend my regrets regarding the fact that you cannot distinguish between the items we need in order to have a formally complete application with the items that we encourage you to include in order to give us more information on your, no doubt, illustrious intellectual career. You are clearly so talented that there is no reason why we might be interested in additional information on your teaching and research.

Please feel free to call me every day to ask if I have received your last letter of recommendation; I truly have nothing better to do than micromanage your file.


Sincerely,

[Officially forged signature
of the Head of the Search Committee]

Why Your Cousin With a Ph.D. Is a Basket Case. From Slate.Com.

It’s your sister’s wedding, and you and your quiet but nice cousin—he’s doing his Ph.D. in something, maybe history?—are doing your best to get drunk off the watered-down open-bar bourbon. You’re just making polite conversation, so you ask him: “Want to come visit us next Christmas?”

Why on earth did his sallow face just cloud over at your kind and generous offer? Because he has no idea where he’ll be living two Christmases from now—he just applied to 30 jobs in 30 far-flung towns, so from a logistical standpoint “next Christmas” might as well be Pluto.

Such is the madness of the academic hiring process.

THE REST.

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This article is by Rebecca Schuman, a terrific and very well known educational columnist. We love her, and have learned much through reading her articles. She hates us, however, and, well, we guess there's nothing to be done about it. She's said this about us: "Fuck College Misery. They've been nothing but snide, dismissive and ignorant to me, always." 

If that's been her experience, then we're sorry. There are very few writers in the mainstream that we have as much respect for, and regardless of what's been done to her by members of this community, even former moderators, the current moderator sends along an apology.

English Proffie Gig Open in Pennsylvania.

The Flava.

One day after his arrest on federal child pornography charges, an award-winning English professor at Allegheny College has resigned his position at the college.

Kirk Nesset, 57, of Meadville, formally resigned from the college Thursday at 9 a.m., Kathy Roos, Allegheny spokeswoman, confirmed Thursday afternoon.

“Kirk Nesset resigned without a settlement and is no longer affiliated with Allegheny College,” Roos said. A meeting for members of the college community to discuss the incident and their feelings about it is today.

THE REST.

This Week's Big Thirsty. The Job Search Misery Continues from The Yuckster of the Yukon.

Okay, don't judge me too harshly. I taught at a terrible school for 2 years, right smack dab in the middle of some okay post-doc / VAPpy positions. This is a school with a bad reputation in my discipline. It's not a for-profit or anything, but the name SOUNDS bad, people in the state know it's a joke, and I didn't too particularly well there, ending up more or less getting into a shouting match with a department chair who was happy not to renew me.

Now, I was glad to leave, and I found a pretty good position right after, MANY states away. And I felt the search they did for me was a little perfunctory and quick because I had a contact on their faculty and they hired very late.

But now as I look at some tenure-line positions, I am worried all over about what they'll find if they investigate.

I did nothing wrong. Not a pervert. Not an embezzler. Not a nut.

But I was unhappy, and when the chair went after me because I wasn't quite the Nazi he was, well, then things got bad in a hurry.

Q: What do I say about this position, this school, this relationship with the chair? To my friends, my story makes sense; they side me. But of course they would. I've practiced it out loud on my own, though, and I can't seem to find a way to make it sound like I'm not either hiding something or simply attacking the boorish ignorance of the place. Has anyone had a similar black mark on the CV? How did you clean it up?

Marc Checks In With an Update on the Perverted Serial Sexual Harasser (Well, Probably...) Job Candidate.

Suddenly the candidate's
glass is half full.

Thanks for the feedback over the weekend. I took my question to a friendly Dean - we have another type as well.

It was suggested I call the candidate up and simply say, "We'd like to carry on in the process, but it's been brought to our attention that you've moved a good deal in your career, and we're committed to finding someone who's in it for the long term."

Even the committee thought this was okay.

Called him up. He's a trailing spouse. His wife works in bio-tech, and has jumped around a bit herself because of grants. But she's just taken a longer term position at a large lab near us and since it's more administrative, there's less reason to move. And, here's the clincher. They have a new grandbaby about 30 miles away.

We're going to interview him.

Should he have told us in his letter? What kind of stuff should we tell committees in letter? This personal? Grandbabies?

I'm suddenly reading every job packet differently.

Thanks again,
Marc (Go Wolverines, I guess...)

Is There a Job Committee Thirsty? Marc in Michigan Fucks Up the Sacrosanct Rules in Ways Nobody at the (Old) Compound Will Ever Forgive Me For.

I'm running a job search committee for the first time with a couple of vets and a couple of newbies like myself. We're a teaching institution seeking an asst/assoc level professor to teach and do 50% administration. We're very middle of the road, but a fine place to teach. Nobody is extraordinarily ambitious, but we do a good job in the classroom.

Somehow I got asked to cull the big stack and bring about 20-30 top candidates to our first meeting next month.

And I'm stunned. The wealth of applicants is defeating my will. Lots of great people, lots of interesting cases.

I have one guy - and this is all HEAVILY anonymized - who I think looks great, but there are elements that scare me. Could you readers tell me what their impression would be of a candidate like this:

• He's 55.
• He's got 6 books, but only one in our particular field. He has virtually no other publications or research in journals.
• He's had tenure twice and left after 3 and 5 years.
• He's taught at 10 different institutions, including one of the top ten research universities in the country, hell, any country.
• For the past 5 years he's taught part time at a community college on the other side of the country from us. There's no explanation of why he left a tenured job for that one.
• He's taught longer than anyone else in our department.
• He has relevant experience in administration - he was even a department chair for 5 years.
• His letter is extraordinarily well done and he shows real knowledge of our university and our department.

Q: And he scares me. Why would anyone give up tenure? Twice? Has he been run out of town? Will my committee colleagues think I'm crazy? Have I discovered a diamond in the rough, or is it just all rough?

WTF Hiring Committees

As an adjunct I am always on the hunt for a new, better paying, more consistent gig. One thing I have always wondered is why universities make adjuncts jump through so many damn hoops. For example:

1. Many universities I work for actually don't provide performance reviews. If you don't get a class the next term THERE is your performance review.
2. The applications are mind numbing, why are you making my transcribe all the information from my CV to your online system?
3. Also why the hell do so many universities want me to send my official transcripts before they have even looked at my application? That shit gets expensive after awhile.
4. Also the three letters of recommendation, from who? The Dean who never has the time to talk to me and only calls me three days before a class starts? I could probably get the secretary to tell you I am a nice polite lady who always says please and thank you.

Yet I toil away in the hope to get enough cash scraped together to pay my heating bill this winter.

Maybelle is still around

Hello CM!

I've been here: reading, but not commenting. I wanted to write a post about my life, but it was job season, and an abysmal one at that.

The academic job market wasn't even sniffing at my applications. Sure, I could hold out until the visiting positions start posting in March, or I could start looking at adjuncting again, but after my experience with Misleading U, well, I won't do it again.

With my COBRA coverage running out and a certain website being a complete disaster, I took stock in my life.

I have many tales to tell about the whole process (ordeal?). The good news is I celebrated the New Year with a new job. With benefits.

I miss teaching. I really do. But, I also had a health issue that needed to be addressed. I'm able to see a physician regularly (and afford the co-pays). Trying to feel well again has become my top priority.

I miss researching. I miss having students. I miss who I thought I would have become.

I do not miss begging at the academic table for a place to sit.

Dr. Amelia's Pro Tips for Job Searchers.

Dear job candidates:

Thank you for your interest in the Hamster Fur Department. We are so pleased to welcome you on campus this week. Here are a few tips for ensuring your success:

1. If we ask you what classes in the major you can teach, don't make up classes that we don't offer and probably won't ever offer. We all have dreams. However, we work in reality.

2. If we ask you about a 5-year research trajectory, it's fine to give broad strokes of the types of questions you are interested in. We're really interested in making sure your ideas are feasible in our environment. If you can't answer that question without referring to "my advisor" in every other sentence, you have a problem.

Connie in Conyers With Some Job Misery.

I'm a sad sack in the humanities. Oh, I like my field, but the hiring situation has been especially bad over the years since my degree.

But I'm in the job market in a big way, and in my field it goes like this:

• October / November: the majority of the jobs roll out.
• November / December: some schools do phone or Skype interviews, usually signalling their desire to skip the winter national conference interviews - which are, of course, a clusterfuck.
• January: the clusterfuck conference.
• Feb / March: the campus visits!
• April / May: the good and bad news.

It's always this way, as long as I've been in the field.

I got my first bite last Tuesday, a phone call from the search committee chair at a decent university in the middle of the country, a place near where my dad lives, and a place I've even visited to attend a regional conference in a subfield.

It's a tenure track gig exactly in my two main specialites.

They set a Skype interview for me for last Friday, gave me some stuff to review and prep.

The interview was great. The folks were funny - one guy was what you'd call a character, but it was welcoming and made the hour very enjoyable. I felt as though I got out what I needed to say. I even noted one particular sequence of classes they need covered, a sequence I've been teaching for three years now in a visiting position at a great research university in the deep South.

I spent the weekend dreamy, a bad thing to do, of course, looking at Google Maps, wondering about my chances at getting a campus visit in the winter. (Will I have to miss class? That's okay, I'll get a sub.) I don't have to worry about this place for the national conference; more time to see old friends.

Well, the reverie lasted until Monday afternoon when I got a brief email from one of the committee members.

They've hired someone already. Offered, accepted, done. Thanks, though!

How did it happen so fast? Friday at 5 pm they were talking to me. Monday at 2 pm the job was offered, accepted, done.

I didn't even have time to get on realtor.com.

- Connie

The Job Hunting Snowflake. A CM Playlet.

Flake: I desperately need your help!

DK: I was just leaving since its 5pm on Friday ...What can I do for you?

Flake: I graduated last semester but I can't find a job in Hamsterology!!!

DK: Oh dear! How come you came to see me? I don't remember you from my Advanced Hamsterology class last semester...were you in my large Intro to Hamsters class?

Flake: Oh no, I've never taken a class in Hamsterology! I was a Basketweaving major.

DK: Why not apply for some jobs in Basketweaving?

Flake: Because I want a job as a Hamster expert!!!

DK: Ok, then why not take an extra semester of classes to get a certificate in Hamsterology?

Flake: Because I want a job as a Hamster expert NOW! WHHHYYYY don't you understand?

DK: Sorry I've got an appointment off-campus [with a stiff drink]

Flake: So will you give me a reference?

What Else Can You Do? A Perfectly Reasonable Big Thirsty.

Because of a recent gift an alien civilization has given Earth, the study and work in your field has become obsolete.

But because you've been such a good employee over the years, your school's administration has convinced the aliens to let you request a job transfer within the college. (Don't worry about taking someone else's job; because of the resulting alien-human hybrids created by the invasion, enrollment is way up!)

Now, tread lightly with the wording and the reasonableness of our request, because the team of alien ombuds is a bit unpredictable. If you really don't have what it takes to become the coach of the football team, then they'll eat you or harvest your organs. (On their planet our organs can be used as an emulsifier in pet food.)

Q: You have a total of 90 seconds for your pitch. What do you say? What else can you do?

Drinking Makes it Seem Less Bad

Cal spent half a day looking
for a PG-rated "nipple clamp"
photo. He did not succeed.

Maybelle has had a few. We're good. It makes this so much easier to explain/type/confess.

The job search this week has turned .... bemusing. I've applied for enough out-of-academia jobs to get used to the random/inane/ridiculous "assignments," "tests," and "assessments" they throw at me to accomplish before the interview.

This one. Takes the cake.

The company wants me to research a product they sell and compare it to several national brands. Say what they do well. Say what Joe and Jane Competitor do better. Sure. I can do that. I can tell you how Swamps and Bogs would enhance your company's landscaping too, but ... no one outside of academia cares about my love of Swamps and Bogs.

No big deal. Right?

Oh. See. The "product" is ... well ... after a bit of online research, I realize this company sells ... *cough* adult novelties. I'm researching something related to these novelties, but ... it is very, very clear that if I get this job I'll be selling dildos, vibrators, and nipple rings along with this more benign product I'm being asked to research and compare this weekend.

I wonder if they'll ask me to try out new products at the office or if I'll get to take them home?

Maybelle is Morose

After the one interview (reminder here), there was silence. Then rejections. Maybelle got a bit desperate and started applying for any kind of work.

This week, the applications to work at restaurants and waitress started. One manager said maybe. The rest said no. Apparently a PhD does not give you the appropriate skills to wait tables and learn the shorthand for a BLT no T. I guess.

The feeling of being outside the tenure track caste system is like being a starving person looking into a bakery window. I don't want the scraps and leftovers. I want a place at the table.

At this point, I would settle for any job. Any job at all.

Are Alpacas Morose? Even Middle-Aged Ones?

Well, Al From Alpaca Falls got the job. How do I know, because Al is me, or I am Al, or I am Spartacus, it gets confusing.  For those entering the theater late, last fall Al (me) asked for advice as the internal candidate interviewing for his own job which was being converted from a term slot into a TT position.  I wanted a little extra anonymity so the Mods agreed to post my thirsty under a different name. 

So anyway, I interviewed, did well, made the finalists, taught a demo class, did extra interviews, etc. Some of it was a bit odd.  I’ve been at my school longer than my dean, but she interviewed me as if I were a stranger.  Another member of the department let me teach a demonstration lesson in one of their classes and it had a bunch of my past and current students in it.  I even enjoyed being taken out for dinner that evening to “get to know the department,” although I got to pick the restaurant as I’ve lived in the area longer than most of the rest of the committee.  They skipped the campus tour and the meeting with HR to review possible benefits. 

Late yesterday Dean Smith called and she offered me the job. I took it.  This is the culmination of a long, long road.  When I started grad school I hoped to one day end up teaching at a small four-year school somewhere. That day I walked into my first graduate class was, well, it was quite a while ago. The USSR still existed, Johnny Bench was still the Cincinnati Reds’ catcher, Princess Leia was Luke’s crush and not his sister, and most of my students’ parents were still children themselves. An interesting career outside of academia lay before me and I had no idea that the journey would take this long, but here I am.  I may not be a patient man, but I am a persistent one. 

So thanks for the advice to “Al.”  It helped and I appreciate it. Now I get to see what it’s like starting my dream career in my mid-50s when my friends are all retiring.

Better luck next time

"After careful consideration, we have extended an offer to another candidate, who has accepted. This was a very difficult decision. We appreciate your time, and wish you all the best in your future endeavors."

Cal, will you hire me to wrangle the llamas at the compound? I can feed the duck. Or cook it. Or just hold it and cry.

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from your CM colleagues...

Open until filled

I'm counting down the days until the positions I applied for close. It's a fun game of wait and see and check the job wiki. One interview is scheduled already (one-year contract position in a nearby town). I'm really excited. I'm going to knock it out of the ballpark. I hope. This time. Really.

Do you guys know about the job wikis? Frightening stuff, but it really helps you see where most major universities are in the job search process. Of course, you have to take everything with a grain of salt.

It feels like my academic life has been "open until filled." I've tried to figure out what I want to do with this half-started, half-stalled career. The contract positions weren't bad, they just didn't do much for the "career" aspect of the profession.

I think I'll reinvent myself in industry if this year's (half-assed) job search doesn't pan out. I think it's time to grow up and face the fact I didn't win the post-PhD lottery. I'm tired of the anti-intellectualism and outright hostility in my classrooms. I'm tired of the sacrifice.

If I do leave for industry, I will give back my correspondent status. There's no need to take up a spot if I have no relevant misery to share with the group.

Kelsoe From Killawog With a Report from One Side of the Interview Table.

Just returned from Big Math Conference in sunny San Diego, and along with souvenirs I have brought stories of interviewing misery for your reading pleasure. I'm on the hiring side of the table now, and I am in awe of the lack of interviewing skills that some of our good-on-paper applicants had.

(Is there a term, like "snowflakes", for those incompetent fools looking to be hired? Because there should be. It's a funny mix of grad students. visiting assistant profs, postdocs, tenure trackers disillusioned with life in mid-western nowhere college, people bailing from industry, etc.)

Highlights from the interviews.

Nailed it!

Arrogant Alphonse:
With all your ivy-league credentials and postdoctoral positions and research ambitions and teaching disinterest, a lowly liberal arts college such as us is clearly beneath you. After listening to you talk for 30 seconds, it was clear that we are your safety school of last resort. Did you think we couldn't see through your act, you arrogant fool? We went on autopilot for the rest of the interview out of politeness, perhaps because we were not yet exhausted by four days of interviewing at that point. No, we don't teach graduate courses. Yes, you have to teach calculus. No, nobody cares about your catergory-theoretic approach to cohomological hemisemidemi groups. I totally understand the idea of casting a wide net in this difficult economy, but you just wasted half an hour of our lives and yours.

Blythering Blythe:
We have scheduled a 20 minute interview with you. When we asked you to tell us a little bit about your research, you went into autopilot mode, looked down at the table, you refused to make eye contact with us, and you didn't slow down enough for any of us to get a word in edgewise. After the first few minutes of this nonsense, we just let you ramble on for another ten minutes; clearly you were more comfortable with this style of "interviewing" and it became the path of least resistance for us. I shudder to imagine your classroom teaching style.

Misguided Markus:
When we asked you about working with students in research, this usually involves students doing -- wait a second, do you have a pen, you should write this down, seriously, I'm not going to continue until you're prepared... okay, let's continue -- this usually involves students doing *research*. Writing exercises for your no-doubt ground-breaking college algebra book (because we *really* need more of those!) does not count. Having students train you in the use of software that you can't be bothered to learn yourself: also not research. Sure, our students may be snowflake-y at times, but we will not punish them by making them your personal labor force.

*sigh*

An Early Thirsty From Atua Bear. Meet the New Proffie. Same As the Old Proffie.

Once the semester officially begins, my department will begin job talks/campus interviews. We are lined up for five campus interviews. The CVs were distributed throughout the department, and I noticed something quite odd: all five candidates have the same research interests (theoretically and regionally) as the professors that sit on the selection committee! Two candidates are a mix of two professors on the selection committee, and these same two candidates have very similar research interests.

This drives me nuts because there are a large number of grad students (myself included) in our small department are working on a certain field of which the professors know nothing about. I don't think the faculty are oblivious to this, but I'm not sure why they continue to not hire in this area. Perhaps it is because this is a harder area to publish in. One professor in our department told the grad students that "we look for people who can publish." Another professor recently said that "faculty preferences" would determine our next hire (a faculty member is leaving after this semester), and all the grad students rolled their eyes because the "faculty preferences" ignore what the grad students need. I spoke with a recent grad (landed TT at an R1) that was appalled that this same situation (hiring where we don't need hires) happened last year too.

Q: Is it normal to hire/interview candidates that look like current faculty? Why won't they branch out? Can the grad students do anything, or should we return to our corners?

PS: I'm not sure why the department continues to admit students that study this area, but this continues to happen. I came to this school because it was one of the few I was admitted to... I did, however, make the decision to reapply to new schools this past fall, and I hope to hear some good news about changing universities in the coming months.

Last Day (warning: contains profanity)

I finished grading my finals today. This class did as poorly as my summer session, so I'm not sure if I set my standards too high, or if the population of this college does not draw strong learners. Gratefully, this institution wants me to have high standards, and even if my entire class does not have a single A student, I am free to evaluate based on my standards. It is a relief.

I had one student, Indignant Irene, who had an outright confrontation with me yesterday. We had a final group project, where I graded each member individually. I can tell who did what work rather easily, and each person is graded on the merit of his/her contribution.

The confrontation began when Indignant Irene earned an A- on the project. She had been working very, very hard all quarter, but there were still some fundamental gaps in her knowledge base. Her presentation showed a lot of improvement, but it was not perfect. It was B+/A- work, and having seen how hard she worked in class, and her working with me during office hours, I decided to push it to the A-. She felt she should have earned 100% on the assignment. She did this in front of the class. I pointed out her errors, also in front of the class, since Indignant Irene refused to wait until my office hours. Fine. I'll tell everyone what was wrong with your presentation, since you insist on hijacking my class.

Then, after all the presentations, I quickly calculated my students' current grades, so they would know where they stood, and what they needed to score on the final exam. Indignant Irene was outraged that her current grade was a B, and that there was no mathematical way she could earn an A in the course.

"But Professor Maybelle, I've worked so hard!"