I strongly disagree with the advice to candidates not to tailor their cover letters to individual positions. Whether or not SCs are "vain" isn't the point -- you want a job, so you don't want to alienate the SC with your letter.
I'm on a SC this year, have been on several in past years, and have talked to many, many colleagues on SCs at other institutions. Every SC member I've ever known has expected that candidates' cover letters will be tailored to the individual position. At a minimum, your letter should indicate that you've looked at the institution's website, know what size dept./school you're applying to, and have some idea of what you might be asked to teach here.
Yes, it's a huge pain to have to tailor all your letters. But whether you think SCs are justified in expecting such tailoring or not, they (we) do expect it. Remember the first time we read your letter will be when we're trying to make preliminary cuts out of a pile of probably 100 to 150 applications. We've got to whittle that number down somehow. You won't serve your own cause well by indicating that you're not interested enough in this job to find out anything about the school.
I think this proves my first theory -- SC members enjoy judging you (of course), arguing with each other, being in control of something (since they are in control of very little otherwise) and jockeying for positions of power, but they also enjoy it when you pay attention to things they've done (the ad they've written, the curriculum they've refined, the courses they've created etc.) The process is fundamentally about them, not you.
Here's a second theory: if all qualified candidates (say a completed PhD and teaching experience) were assigned to available positions by lot AND we spent the thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars now devoted to the job market recruiting new students into Classics, we as a field would not be demonstrably worse off.
Does Heraclitus really and truly believe that cover letters should just be written generically, and that all job ads should say the same thing, so that SC members will no longer be the heros of the search? The administration would LOVE to see unspecific searches run by all of our departments, then it would look like we don't know what we are doing and we really don't care what we will do in the future. They could finally get rid of us, and they'd be right in doing so.
I, for one, believe that it makes sense for applicants to read the individual job ad carefully, study what the department does, and then determine the best way to sell themselves to that job. This is, of course, assuming they want that job at all - I know that some jobs are beneath so very many of us...
OK, here's a recent job ad, for which I applied, and for which I would kill. I have nothing against the university, the Classics department there, or its members. As I said, if they offered me the job, I would weep with joy.
"Applicants must have a PhD in classics or a related field, teaching excellence as demonstrated by course evaluation summaries, potential for a strong record of scholarly publication as demonstrated by publications or works in progress, and be able to teach ancient Greek language at all levels, as well as courses on classical literature in translation, classical mythology, and material culture/history. "
How do we tailor our letter to that?
Further, do mad libs paragraphs really fool anybody? "I fully support the (phrase from website) mission of your (big/small) (public/private) (research university/liberal arts college). My interest in (specialty) will complement Professor (Name's) work in (specialty) and Professor (Other Name's) work in (other speciality). My background give me a head start in (three courses from catalog). Go (Fightin' Ethnic Group/Screaming Animals/Color Adjective Demons/Devils)!
I hope that there's at least one search committee (perhaps even the one who wrote the ad above) who reads my letter, knows I'm busy too, and realizes that my letter would not be more meaningful with the addition of some meaningless additions. You want a scholar and teacher; I explain my scholarship and teaching.
Here's a second theory: if all qualified candidates (say a completed PhD and teaching experience) were assigned to available positions by lot AND we spent the thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars now devoted to the job market recruiting new students into Classics, we as a field would not be demonstrably worse off. why on god's green earth should we aim to recruit MORE people into the dead-end that is Classical studies? srsly. cruel much?
Anon. 11:40 & Anon. 1:20 must be the life of the party at job interviews. "What courses would you like to offer that could appeal to students from other departments and undeclared majors?" "Hell no, I don't want to teach!"
Heraclitus lost anyone who's ever been on a SC when he said "SCs enjoy ..." No, Heraclitus, no-one enjoys being on a SC. I'm not leaping with joy at having over 100 applications to read and evaluate over Thanksgiving so that we can meet to draw up our convention interview list right after Thanksgiving. Almost all SC members try to do their task conscientiously; after all, we'll be working for years or even decades with the person we hire so we very much want to get it right. But I have yet to meet anyone who enjoys serving on a SC or who doesn't face the process with something pretty close to dread, especially since those 100-plus files have to be read at the same time of the semester that brings stacks of papers to grade and finals to write.
By the way, I agree that a system whereby job applicants' names were drawn from a hat would be much less stressful for everyone. It might even not change the outcomes all that much. But since that isn't the system we have or ever will have, SCs are left with trying to judge, from your letter, if there's enough reason to think you'd be a good fit here to allocate one of our precious 12 interviews to you. Remember -- over 100 applicants, 12 interviews. We want to interview people who seem likely to do well here, in this specific milieu. So yes, the job ad. and the search process are "about" this job, not about you.
If your only teaching experience is of small discussion classes at an undergraduate-only SLAC, a SC at a major research university where they need someone to teach lectures to classes of 250 is unlikely to be won over by your letter about the importance of discussion and individual attention to the students. Conversely, you may be the most brilliant lecturer in the world, but if you have never taught a class with fewer than 200 students and say in your letter that you "look forward to teaching graduate seminars," you're probably not going to thrive in an SLAC in a tiny town.
On the other hand, if you write a letter that lets us know you are aware of where we're located, what our class size and our expectations of teaching (large lecture? small discussion?) are, and how you envisage teaching the sort of classes we need this hire to teach, then you've given us reason to think that you might adjust successfully to being here even if your previous experience has been somewhere very different.
I don't think tailoring is as much of a burden as people are making it out to be. Know your audience. Know what (types of) courses are taught there. If they request specific things - show in your letter that you can do them. Show, don't tell. This is key. Your letter likely SHOWS a bunch of stuff already that they want. Just rearrange it to suit the type of school and make sure you know who you are talking to. When I was on the market I had a letter that honestly did not change much from school to school beyond the types of courses I proposed, the order in which my paragraphs appeared, and the amount of space I devoted to discussing a teaching philosophy. And this letter worked very well (within the past 4 years) because it was a strong letter that showed who I was as a scholar and teacher. I just shifted the emphasis between SLAC and R1 schools. Stop wasting time arguing over tailoring and spend the 20 minutes on a website that it takes to show them you know to whom you're applying. It doesn't take much more than that.
Madlibs won't work, because they are empty telling phrases. Show. Don't tell. If you're interested, I found The Professor Is In to have very useful advice on the difference.
If by "recruiting new students into Classics" you simply meant recruiting majors while emphasizing to them repeatedly that they should under no circumstances go to grad school in Classics, I withdraw my comment. I took it to indicate active recruitment of professional Classicists, which given reality as we know it is completely unconscionable.
I'm sure your institution has a Word template with the proper letterhead. If not, it is easy enough to make one. Or, do it the old fashioned way and scan your letter as a PDF.
In any case, don't waste time and energy worrying about this. Good luck!
As you should know, Classicists, Heraclitus does not believe in a utopian future. But more on that anon. I proposed the lottery only as a thought experiment, which may compel us (if we are not too narrow-minded) to think about the value added to the overall classics economy by the immense undertaking that is our annual job market. I maintain (and I think you agree) that we as a profession gain comparatively little relative to our considerable expense and effort in this area. In fact, I think most Classics PhDs with some teaching experience are broadly capable of doing almost any job provided appropriate support (and if not we should focus our efforts on reforming graduate education). What if you dumped all the CVs on the floor, closed you eyes, reached into the pile and hired the first person whose CV you extracted? Would you lose your job? Would your program crumble and disappear? Is the random person you select likely to be that toxic? Yet if your enrollments drop and you have no or very few majors (all I meant by recruiting students into Classics), you face an imminent and existential threat. If we spent all the time we currently spend reading and writing job applications building up our programs, we would surely mitigate against any problems of fit and then some (if we lived in a theoretical utopia in which Heraclitus does not believe).
Why do we do it this way, then? Why do you, dear committees, solicit pages and pages of documentation and letters and statements? Not, I think, out of consideration for the candidates; indeed, all this imposes an enormous burden on the candidates, whose application you are eager to toss out at the first sign of weakness. No, it is because, as you say, you have to work with the person you hire, and you want to have a say in who that person is. Nothing wrong with that. But it proves, once again, my initial point: we forget at our peril, gentle applicants, that this process fundamentally not about us. (1/2)
You say that you no one "enjoys" serving on a search committee. If you are one of those who locks their office door and unplugs their computer when this duty comes calling, then you are truly a saint. But you found your way to this board, so may I be so venturesome as to suppose that you expended considerable effort crafting your ad and offered your own views on what materials you should solicit? Did you maybe nuance the description of the desired subfield, in fear that you might not receive enough applications? Did you perhaps suggest that a statement of teaching philosophy might also be a nice thing to request -- just to get a fuller picture? I know you, my tenured brethren, too well! You may complain ceaselessly about the unbearable burdens of your job, but what if your tenure was revoked? Then we would all find out how much you love and need your appointment. Likewise, what if, by some hypothetical lottery, you lost the chance to vet and judge your future colleague? How bitterly you would regret this forsaken right! I don't think I am suggesting anything controversial when I say that we as humans enjoy judging others (whether you enjoy reading CVs is a separate matter). Why would the Bible warn us not to judge if there was no enjoyment in judgement?
I am not even saying, as you can see, that I do or would act any differently. All of this is only prefatory to my third and final theory: we, my fellow applicants, are the salt of the earth. It is our fate to be crushed under the feet of our elders as they amble comfortably toward retirement. Forget all talk of fairness and justice and find peace in suffering.
I am not even saying, as you can see, that I do or would act any differently.
And there I think we have the heart of the problem. My suspicion is that you've taken your own, shall we say, distinctive attitudes, are unable to imagine people who don't share them, have accordingly projected them onto how people in general operate, and are now berating everyone else for being the reflection of yourself that you have projected onto them.
With what brilliant obscurity, O philosopher worthy of my pseudonym, you express yourself. I'm not sure your argument coheres logically -- why would I berate people for being reflections of myself? -- but this is probably part of your marvelous subtlety and in any case irrelevant to the larger point. Pray tell, which of my theories do you find most "distinctive"? That those who decide the terms of a search and who hold the positions of power in that context want to make decisions that are first and foremost in their own interest? That to exercise judgement over others is consciously or subconsciously pleasurable, an innocent observation about human nature made first by none other than Christ Our Lord? That there are many worthy applicants for any given position, a statement I have read in countless rejection letters and heard in other contexts from more than one search committee member? That low enrollments in Latin and Greek imperil the existence of many Classics programs across this country (cf. LSU, Albany, Pitt, Centenary, etc.)? Or that the conditions of academic employment have declined dramatically over the past few decades and will continue to do so, an outlook which articles in the Chronicle and Inside Higher Ed have repeated ad nauseam in recent years? And is this final point really surprising when we consider the stagnation in real wage growth in this country for all but the very rich?
Perhaps you mean only that you love your job and don't complain about your duties. If this is so, on behalf of our numerous unhappy colleagues, I congratulate you. But again, this irrelevant to the larger point that in this process search committees have the power to do more or less as they please; we may infer, therefore, that they will do first and foremost what pleases them. It actually matters very little to me how many other applicants share this view -- fewer would probably be better, I suppose -- but if I have cynically misapprehended the truth, I would happily be corrected on any specific point.
Does anyone here have any idea or inside scoop regarding the University of Wisconsin-Madison search? The job ad has not changed much since last year, and the successful applicant will begin January, 2013. Looks a tad sketchy to me.
A quick question, one that might move us from the principles of interpreting job ads to the actual practice:
The position at the University of Manitoba is advertised as Instructor I/II with a teaching load between 3:3 and 4:4 (depending on service responsibilities). It is also labelled a "Tenure-Track" position on the Placement Service's list, though there is no such mention in the ad itself. Do we assume it is simply mislabeled, or do we imagine that the position has the possibility of becoming a tenured professorship?
I think the Manitoba will be a position with a tenure path, but as an instructor (primarily a teaching post) rather than research faculty. Some universities that have these two different streams for tenure do have mechanisms to move from the instructor to research stream, but I don't know whether that is the case here. I read this as the expected teaching load is 4/4, but if you do significant service the teaching load will be reduced. It is also worth noting that this will likely have a lower pay scale than a research stream tenure track position. If it makes a difference to whether you will apply, I suggest you write to the head of department for clarification.
One detail here: every time anyone posts anything about any institution on here, a shitstorm of accusations, innuendo, and general idiocy ensues. That being the case, I will no longer be updating the wiki. Why would I want to subject a potential employer and group of colleagues to the things the children on this board make up? This may seem like a tiny and insignificant contribution to the process, but it's what's in my power to do.
In principle, I agree with 9:06 AM. Furthermore, the info on the wiki might not be true. If it is, however, then what UHM has done is unethical and potentially illegal. In this case, that is, if it is true that they have notified someone of an interview before the review of their applications has officially begun, the wiki has performed a valuable service and perhaps even uncovered a crime.
Hey, we need our shitstorm of innuendo. Take a moment to recall that this community is made up largely of people who have become painfully aware that they will probably *never* get a job in the career into which they just poured almost a decade of their lives. These people are then given anonymity on the internet. Frankly I'm amazed at how utterly tame it all is.
Re: 12:01 PM Assuming that the information is true, UHM may just be inviting applicants on a rolling basis. I have seen other departments do this before. But if they have already finalized their list, then yeah that's bad.
The "children" on this board face horrendous odds of gaining permanent employment, and living a somewhat stable and normal life. You would be anxious too. I believe a little sympathy from our TT and tenured readers is in order. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, some SC members who frequent this board have been reluctant to acknowledge that the burden is indeed upon candidates, and not the other way around. Perspective. Get some.
The ad says, "review of applications will begin Nov. 30 and will continue until position is filled." If it had said "review will begin on Nov. 21..." then no problem. As it is, it's hard to imagine that anyone who turns in their application between now and Nov. 30 will enjoy consideration equal to those who have already been offered interviews.
Come on SC members. You know the rules. Have they played by them?
Come on SC members. You know the rules. Have they played by them?
If it is true (which I don't think it's at all safe to assume) I'd call it unethical if they have already filled up a large percentage of their interview slots. (And if they've done that, it's also dumb, because they're tying their hands if they get further good applications in the meantime.)
On the other hand, I don't know why you'd bother inviting anyone at all before the deadline. It's not as though people are going to be withdrawing their applications and it won't be possible to invite them after the deadline. I guess maybe they could be aiming to hire someone before the conference?
In any case, search committees having their interview lists ready too early is not a common problem.
With what brilliant obscurity, O philosopher worthy of my pseudonym, you express yourself. I'm not sure your argument coheres logically -- why would I berate people for being reflections of myself? -- but this is probably part of your marvelous subtlety and in any case irrelevant to the larger point. Pray tell, which of my theories do you find most "distinctive"?
I would love it so much if somebody would do a "dramatic reading" of your comments. They are perfect.
This note looks back a few days to the question about the position at the University of Manitoba. I am currently a T-T at a Canadian university which will also be hiring teaching intensive t-t professors (although not in Classics). Here are some thoughts about that type of position for those who are interested in applying. The caveat is that I am speaking from the experience of my own university and this may not be entirely applicable to Manitoba.
These positions do have a higher teaching load which could approach 4/4 and it may not be the case that you can transfer into a more research-oriented position. The universities are specifically advertising for teaching-intensive jobs because that is what the administrations want. For tenure the requirements will likely be slightly different than other t-t positions. More emphasis will be placed on teaching; at my own university you will need other professors to come to your classes and provide evaluations for your tenure file. Research will be considered to a lesser degree, but you may be expected to publish within the field of teaching in addition to your field of expertise.
Also, with respect to the discussion about tailoring cover letters. This is an important consideration for a specifically labelled teaching-intensive position. A long explanation of all of your future research interests will not be as valuable as evidence for your excellence as an instructor.
Thanks, Anonymous 11/22 9:58. Your comment confirms what a friend in Manitoba's department (not on the SC) told me about the position. It will be teaching intensive. Per the ad, languages will be an important component of the teaching, as will intro-level courses in translation. Research will not be a significant portion of the job or the tenure considerations but the job is tenure-track. The instructor job is a different stream than a professor job would be (as 11/20 2:06). It will probably be at a lower rate of compensation though there is possibility for promotion to a higher rank of instructor. I imagine that the distinction is equivalent to full-time lecturer versus tenured/tt professor positions at American universities.
Has there ever been a relatively well established department that's imploded faster than Arizona's? I could see Texas in the same spot in 20 years. All it takes is a couple sabretooth, an exodus of archaeologists, and change in economic/political fortunes.
I heard the same thing happened to the Classics department at McGill University about 15 years ago. Egos clashed, people left, Classics became part of History and university austerity did the rest. They seem to have found their footing again but that's thanks to the old guard's retirement and the support of the History department. I'm surely not seeing any kind of future where UoA's Classics could come back in the same way.
There seems to be an inside candidate for the classics/philosophy position at the University of Pittsburgh, judging from the visiting professor in the classics department that fits their job description perfectly. Does anyone have any intel?
Who on earth would have a mole in the University of Pittsburgh's classics department?
Anyway, nice of you to try to stir up some controversy by singling out a colleague who never did anything to you and turning the spotlight in his/her direction. (I'm gender-neutral here because I don't care about this job, and won't bother Googling.) Unless you are new to the job market, you should know that whether or not that person fits the job description has no bearing on whether you or anyone else should apply (or should have applied, if the deadline has passed). And if you don't know why that is, I suggest you sit and think long and hard about it.
Calm down is correct, but I think the point that was supposed to be made up there is that there is a so-called "insider" in many, if not most, of the positions advertised in our field. Sometimes the insider is well-positioned to stay, sometimes the insider is well-positioned to leave. So if you think you're a fit, apply for the job.
No, this is where famae volant. Dammit can't anyone remember their conjugations? And, no, I don't believe you were using the deliberative subjunctive, so don't even try.
Come now. Maybe the OP meant that this is where rumors *will want* to fly. With volare implied, of course. This is appropriate, since the rumors haven't really gotten their wish yet in this case.
For what it's worth, in a thread from a couple of years ago, in response to someone who was insisting that minorities were being systematically discriminated against on the Classics job market, I used the previous several years of placement service data to show that the ratio of job seekers to job recipients was basically identical between the categories "non-Hispanic whites" and "all others," although admittedly the "all others" numbers weren't a very big sample.
This seems equally pertinent to bring up now that somebody has begun snuffling curiously around the "affirmative action" explanation for the hardship of job seekers in general.
Don't let me stand in the way, though, of the joy of picking out particular employed individuals who are ethnic minorities and fuming about how they don't really deserve their job. I am sure that's very soothing.
In flusher economic times, R1 universities would be able to make Target of Opportunity hires, which would be separately funded (outside of the dept) positions for women and minorities. Sometimes this would be a specific, invite-only search; at other times, if a candidate fit the bill, the dept. could hire them in addition to a 'regular' candidate. I know several people hired this way, but none recently. And while it looks like a win-win, there is the standard ghettoization effect of this sort of process, where the successful candidate is thought to have not really 'deserved' the position. For what it's worth, I think there is significant (subconscious) discrimination against minority grad students/junior professors in classics, esp. among older professors.
"For what it's worth, I think there is significant (subconscious) discrimination against minority grad students/junior professors in classics, esp. among older professors."
It's more sinister in some ways, isn't it? In the old days, they didn't even try to hide their contempt for Jews and women. As a black friend who recently dropped out told me, if you're clearly deemed as exceptional compared to others, you've punched your ticket for just about any job you want. If you're merely good, you're screwed.
In this market, this applies to all of us. Good is not good enough. If everyone within a fifty yard radius doesn't have a spontaneous orgasm whenever your CV sees daylight, you're screwed.
Fun game: Take your blood pressure every day. Watch the baseline rise for job market season, rise higher for the few weeks when interviews are being requested, and watch your numbers fucking skyrocket on Fridays in the couple of weeks when interviews are being announced. Seriously, if I went to a hospital right now the doctors would shit themselves.
Your 'fun game' is right on the money - but be careful. I can tell you after multiple years on this job market, you have to relax or you will have a stroke and die. period. And this sh*$ ain't worth it. SCs don't care about candidates as people (sometimes they don't even care very much about themselves, as it seems), so you had better care about yourself and look after what is most important. Classics is at best a stagnating part of the Humanities / Liberal Arts - don't throw your life (or health) away for it.
Many of us probably got that email from the placement service about listing our availability on the website's calendar. Has anyone been able to access the calendar itself? In addition to following every possible link, I have even read the instructions (!) on the help page. Nothing seems to work. Any suggestions?
I'm the previous poster. I see that Anon 9:13 said he/she read the help page instructions, which say the same thing I just said, which leaves me to believe my comment may not be very helpful. So, Anon 9:13, how far can you get? Can you log in and get to the "View My Homepage" button? When you click it, do you see your candidate info at the top and the calendar at the bottom?
I don't see what you see, which makes me think I will need to send the service an email. Having logged in and clicked on to my home page, all I can see in the main frame is a row of buttons:
View | Annual Meeting Contact Information | Edit | Orders | Placement Service Registration Form
Underneath that row of buttons is a link to my placement service registration form and, beside it, a second link to edit said form. That's all there is.
Thanks very much for the help. I will send the service an email and see if they have any suggestions.
And just like that, the problem is solved: I had neglected to update my "Annual Meeting Contact Information" page. Having done so, the calendar now appears. If anyone else is so dense as I have been, perhaps this will be helpful to know. At least I figured it out before I sent an email.
I wonder how this d-bag grades his undergraduates on their work? Or what his teaching evals must say? But not to worry, s/he looks to be tenured and will be trolling along in their post until the end of time.
... and a shining example of how frickin' easy it was to get a job, and then tenure, at a place like HC. This idiot relishes sitting in judgment of people whose scholarly shoes he doesn't even deserve to shine. Pathetic.
As I saw repeatedly this fall, it can be especially effective to dwell at length on your contract for a forthcoming book if you emphasize that it will be published by a press charging more per monograph than your library ever pays, and if your topic leaves potential colleagues paralyzed at the prospect of having to read your book when you come up for review.
A quick search of Worldcat suggests strongly that the author of above words has not produced a monograph, with either a chic and expensive press or a lowly UP with low cost-per-page. Hypocritical much? I pity his colleagues, students, and department - 25 years out of the Ph.D. and no book.
I definitely applied for that job. Fortunately, I think I managed to *not* follow his advice for avoiding an interview... We'll see how well that goes.
I can't believe I wasted my time applying for this job. Institutions like this should have to place a disclaimer on their ads so that those of us in the real world don't waste our time.
Look, guys, not everybody is a nutjob. I don't know anybody personally who thinks like this; the only instances I have come across are things occasionally linked to in the comments here: cries for help posted on the Internet by fuming malcontents with personal adequacy issues.
Granted, but the scary thing is that this blogger is a tenured associate professor at a highly-rated Classics program who is an academic do-nothing, it seems, who weighs in with contempt on job seekers. Seems a little unfortunate.
Of course not everyone is like this guy. If that were true, the field would have collapsed from the dead weight long ago.
I love how it never occurs to him that maybe he's the one who doesn't understand what a cover letter is supposed to do. No, it's much more likely that everyone else in the world is an idiot.
Am I the only one who thought his post wasn't terribly off base? He essentially suggests having a modicum of job-specific phrasing, some sense of the school to which you're applying, and the presence of mind to talk about something other than your research for a page and a half.
Lay off of the guy. He's entitled to his opinion. Y'all should be grateful for the honest view into how one search committee member thinks. Instead of bashing him you should be mulling it over as you prepare for your interviews.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a cover letter to be somewhat aimed at the job it's being written for. But clearly this guy's standards are absurd, if he thinks 95% of the applicants weren't worth more than even 'a cursory reading'.
What bothers me the most is his complete lack of empathy. We're all people here, candidates and search committee members, and it would be great if we could all treat each other with a modicum of respect. (Says the naive first-timer.)
He should never give advice; his "digital archaeology " at Hacimusalar Turkey was an unprecedented, epic fiasco. Thousands of $ down the drain. Low profile, baby.
This is true only in the superficial physical sense. We (the untenured) are people, mortal and fallible. They (the tenured) are gods. They judge us freely; we judge them at our peril. We can be cast out of the profession on the slightest whim; they cannot be fired even for gross misconduct. We do not play by the same rules. Such is the natural law of academia.
"He essentially suggests having a modicum of job-specific phrasing, some sense of the school to which you're applying, and the presence of mind to talk about something other than your research for a page and a half."
What blog post did you read? No, seriously, I want to know. I'd like to read that one.
I wouldn't say that his recommendations are so modest as "a modicum of job-specific phrasing, some sense of the school to which you're applying, and the presence of mind to talk about something other than your research for a page and a half." A "modicum" would be accomplished by a sentence or two identifying why the institution or department in question is especially attractive, but he disparages a sentence or two as insufficient. As someone who did read the incredibly generic and uninformative job ad that Holy Cross put out, I can say in good conscience that my generic cover letter in fact speaks to it, and I'm sure most of the others do, too. Aside from the vague reference to "collaborative research," there is nothing even remotely distinctive about Holy Cross' ad.
As for writing about something other than research, I'd assume that at least 95% of the letters included a paragraph about teaching. I suspect that what the distinguished archaeologist really wanted to read about was how great it would be to come teach at a school with him and his other terrific colleagues. If he needs to be told how good his program is, he should find another one.
At least he's had the courage to publish his opinion in his own name. I'll be amazed if he manages to get through the meeting in Seattle without getting punched. Then again, I probably won't get the opportunity, since I've already forgotten his name.
There is a very specific and obvious reason, already recognized in comments above, why certain people might be averse to hearing about research and publication in a cover letter.
I guess it takes some balls to admit that you've thrown out nineteen of every twenty applications on the grounds that they didn't make you feel special enough about yourself and your institution. On the other hand, doing that makes a person sound incredibly insecure, so I reckon that cancels it out.
It's worth having this discussion for two reasons: at least a few of the respondents here do not think this gentleman's opinions are ridiculous, and his way of thinking is in danger of sinking all of us (if Classics and academia as a whole are to flourish, we need less self-centered jack-assedness and more actual, collaborative work [ironically, this fellow seems to be in favor of both of these, but he obviously did not have the presence of mind not to throw out the applications of 95% of his potential future collaborators because they did not pander to his narrow-minded views of what a proper cover letter is; it is one thing to acknowledge that rhetoric is important; it is another to ignore any letter that does not pander to you, your school, and the position that you have been so utterly and graciously generous to advertise; I continue to be amazed at the people who do not find these attitudes repulsive]).
Zeus, there are some irony-challenged readers here! I know you are all so stressed out that your critical senses are blunted, but still ... Folks, he's using Irony. Remember irony? He's exaggerating for rhetorical effect. Believe me, no SC member ever threw out 95 percent of the original pile in the first-read through.
(My previous version of this post didn't come through, so I'm trying again. And no, I'm not the person who posted on the Wiki, nor am I the "dude himself." Just someone who followed the link and read the blog post.)
Folks, he's using Irony. Remember irony? He's exaggerating for rhetorical effect.
No, I think you've confused irony with sneering contempt for nearly everyone seeking a job this year. And I'm not a worked-up job seeker, although I have to say I'm pissed that there is someone out there treating my students' applications like this.
Somebody might want to save that post, by the way. I'm not sure it's going to be there forever, and it would be a shame for his magnum opus to be lost to posterity.
Makes Mitt Romney look like an amateur. Mitt only dismissed 47% out of hand; this guy said to himself, "Suck it, Mitt, I'll double that, and add 1% to show you who's boss." And Mitt would never have said any of that if he'd known he was being recorded; this guy typed that shit right up and slapped it on the Internet with his name on it.
At first, I thought that this blog piece was going to be a playful joke. Then I read that third paragraph which basically disses every graduate program out there.
While I'm not a big defender of graduate programs (quite a few overproduce both students and piffle), seriously, what balls this guy has, to criticize everyone else. Must be because he is such a major figure in the field.
Can't tell who deletes what on the wiki, can you? I don't think it's safe to make any assumptions.
On the other hand, I can't see why the original complaint should get erased from the "jeers" section. If you're going to have a "jeers" section, surely you're going to put bad search committee behavior there, and this is certainly the worst thing I've heard about a search committee member doing so far this year. That it's an individual, not a whole committee, seems to me immaterial, so long as the individual isn't named here.
If you think that that post was awesome, on the other hand, maybe instead of deleting the "jeer" you should just put in a "cheer" for the institution for ... well, for whatever you think the post was great for, I guess.
I'll also just note that, in criticizing everybody else for going about applying for jobs incompetently and arrogantly, this clown just completely fucked up his role in the search and embarrassed his department and institution just to satisfy his own ego and enjoy boasting about lording it over a bunch of people he momentarily has some power over. Somebody was looking for some irony earlier. Well, there it is.
OK, um, to change the topic: could someone provide any further info regarding the Cornell entry on the wiki ("problems with its on-line application system: requests for letters of recommendation may _not_ have been sent to references")? They used AcademicJobsOnline, right? So any requests-related issues must be on the AJO end. How do people read the wiki update: even though the letters may be sitting there in one's account, Cornell folks may not have received them, or what?
I agree with 12:07; let's change the topic. This jackass isn't worth the time. I too am puzzled by the cornell entry on the wiki, as I received no such response after I applied. Does anyone know any more about this problem with the reference letters? Should we be emailing them to insure they received our letters?
Sorry for having been unclear. At a minimum the beloved admins of this blog will delete those comments made falsely under the name of a person in the profession. No more grumpy cats or unimpressed mckaylas, however apposite they may have been. They will live forever in our hearts, but they will be very gone from the thread.
I am very amused that all of the negative press that this member of the HC SC is getting stems from applicants who did, in fact, research the school and their potential future colleagues.
“I am very amused that all of the negative press that this member of the HC SC is getting stems from applicants who did, in fact, research the school and their potential future colleagues.”
It is tough to research an academic someone with no visible record of scholarly publication - save an angry blog - and not even a headshot on the department website.
No, we shouldn't leave this alone. I wasn't all that offended by his advice, quite frankly. There is a great deal of good information here, and better for candidates to confront his approach to reading files and judging candidates (which is not uncommon) head-on, rather than pretend that they can ignore it. Also, lest his deeds slip into the cacheless netherworld, here is his post in full (in two parts_:
"We all know that a PhD from a highly ranked program guarantees that the world will beat a path to your door for the mere opportunity to speak with you. How can you persuade departments that are hiring not to interview you?
Because my department is currently conducting a search, I have recently surveyed essentially the entire pool of job applicants in Classics, and have a good sense for how the best trained candidates manage to avoid getting interviews. For those PhDs who have not yet mastered such a basic skill, I am summarizing here the strategies I have observed.
Let me stress that these comments are aimed only at a very small fraction of candidates. When I tried to compile a short list of roughly 5% of our applicants for interviews, I was unable to do so. Rephrasing that in positive terms, more than 95% of the candidates successfully avoided an interview based solely on my first fairly cursory reading of their dossier. When you consider the kind of dedicated and talented students who go on to graduate study in Classics, that figure is a remarkable testimony to the powerful effects of graduate school.
First let me suggest three fairly general guidelines:
Do not read the job description. Find out nothing about your potential home institution and colleagues. Focus relentlessly on your personal career advancement, to the exclusion of any suggestion that your professional work might affect another human being positively.
These may seem obvious, but after reading many applications, I have a better appreciation for how some candidates apply them most effectively. Remember, even in a field like Classics, you cannot count on letters of recommendation to disparage you adequately: you need to use the parts of your dossier that you can directly control — your CV, any specific essays or statements that an advertisement requires, and, especially, your cover letter — to ensure that you do not get an interview.
Almost all candidates will start with the easiest tactic: send in the same generic cover letter that you use in response to completely different job advertisements. Many candidates will let a bland, off-topic letter speak for itself, but one rhetorical refinement I came to appreciate is the addition of a single sentence or two mentioning the hiring institution, but clearly appended to an otherwise unmodified cover letter. If the appended sentence can raise some subject that is central to the job description, but otherwise unmentioned in the cover letter, it will be especially clear that this is an afterthought, and that you have no real interest in the subject. Even better is the appended sentence that implicitly contradicts the emphasis of the rest of the cover letter. Of course, if you are not confident that your reviewers will appreciate this subtlety, you can always resort to brute force: leave the name of a different institution in your appended sentence. Although I saw this only rarely, it demonstrates to even the most insensitive reader that the cover letter is completely impersonal.
What should you do if your generic cover letter actually responds to some part of the job advertisement? Unlikely as that may seem, it can happen, and candidates will then have to take extra precautions to stay off the interviewers' short list. Use your CV and additional statements to obfuscate or directly contradict any apparently relevant sections of your cover letter. If you allude to a potentially interesting digital project in your cover letter, do not include it on your CV, or else present it on your CV as trivial (e.g., list it under some category like "Other service", beneath a more highly valued contribution such as "ordered pizza for grad student lecture series"). If your cover letter could be misread as referring to collaborative research among students and faculty, expand on that in a separate statement about your research that never mentions students. As I saw repeatedly this fall, it can be especially effective to dwell at length on your contract for a forthcoming book if you emphasize that it will be published by a press charging more per monograph than your library ever pays, and if your topic leaves potential colleagues paralyzed at the prospect of having to read your book when you come up for review.
While many applicants use the protracted and obsessive "forthcoming book" discussion to put off potential interviewers, the possibilities it offers for avoiding an interview are almost limitless. If done properly, you can demonstrate with it that years of advanced study have taught you only a narrow range of technical skills without fostering any kind of development as a thoughtful member of an academic community. Prose style is highly individual, but you can heighten the effectiveness of this trope if you strive for a tone of entitlement. Make it clear not only that the proper role for students and colleagues is to advance your career, but that they should be grateful for the chance.
Perhaps the handful of applicants to whom I am offering these suggestions cannot benefit at this point in their careers: if you have not completely internalized these fundamental habits of thought by the time you receive a PhD, it is highly unikely that you will ever pick them up, and we should recognize that some people may simply be incapable of learning such ideas. But given the nature of the job market in academia today, I feel ethically compelled to share these suggestions. If even one applicant thinks differently about applying for a job because of this post, that will be more than enough of a reward for my efforts
As a search committee member this year, I can say that I did put a lot of care into reading all 120 letters of application we received, and noted whether or not a candidate appeared to have taken our ad seriously and addressed what they can offer our department in terms of what we said we needed/wanted. Some candidates made it easy for us to put them on our interview list by making their case well in their letters. I know that it is incredibly time consuming to tailor letters, having done it myself hundreds of times over the five years I was on the market in search of a tenure-track job. But on the flip side, search committees are under great pressure to hire someone with needed interests and skills (if they are expressed in the job ad) who is interested in our particular position. In the current economic climate my institution isn't going to put additional money towards redoing a failed search or to running a new search if the candidate we hire leaves after a year or two because he or she really isn't interested in working in a department/place like ours and just took the position to stay in the game for another year while continuing on the market. If we make a bad hire, we could lose the position, which would hurt our program seriously. There is a lot at stake in this process for both job candidates and search committees, which makes it all the more stressful for everyone involved.
No, it's not. To tailor 20+ coverletters beyond a couple of sentences addressing the particular ad and school is as unrealistic as it is disingenuous. If the SC wants a show of flattery that belies a poor fit in their department, let them waste their time. Better to present yourself honestly and let them decide what to make of your strengths and weaknesses.
If perhaps you had spent more time publishing interesting research and less time crafting exquisitely tailored cover letters it would not have taken five years to find a job, and you might have landed at a place that is not so crappy that your primary concern in hiring is making sure that you find someone so unattractive to the rest of the world that they will stay.
Seriously, I have a fair bit of experience on search committees myself, and it is ridiculous how often these kinds of attitudes prevail. Other members find every kind of ridiculous excuse to dismiss qualified candidates when in fact their primary sin is that they have published, and they seem to be actively engaged in publishing further. The sad thing is that many of these very fine candidates would no doubt have also made excellent and committed teachers, often far moreso than the decidedly mediocre candidates chosen in their stead. And they would have been happy to have the job, and given the scarcity of openings, they likely would have stayed for many years.
I'm all for tailoring, if that's what it takes to get an interview. If you think I'm applying to jobs that I don't want or would not accept, then you've been in your tower too long.
Here's the problem, from Holy Cross's ad:
"We seek a colleague who will be a skilled teacher of Greek and Latin at all levels and of broader courses in Classics in our thriving program within an undergraduate, liberal-arts college. We are especially interested in candidates who can contribute within their research specialties to the College’s growing program in collaborative undergraduate research, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary. Candidates must demonstrate commitment to a liberal arts education and excellence in undergraduate teaching as well as scholarly achievement."
My standard letter addresses my teaching, my research specialty, and my commitment to education. The HC SC says a couple of sentences to get the name of the institution are offensive. What do you expect us to do?
To the members of the Holy Cross Search Committee: You got generic letters because you wrote a generic job ad. You want good letters? Do your job better.
P.S. Cynicism is not irony. Sarcasm is, but it deserves no forgiveness.
I suppose it is a thankless task, and useless, to try to engage in meaningful dialogue about the realities of the job search process from the search committee point of view. Candidates are stressed, worried, and just looking to vent, I guess. Listen, the job market has been tough for a long long time in our field. Taking five years to get a tenure track job is not a mark of failure to publish - it is a sign of the times. Sure, some get tenure track jobs right out of grad school, which is great for them and no doubt a mark of their quality as candidates and some serendipity, too. Others have a number of fellowship years and VAP positions, such as myself, and while the time on the job market was both expensive and stressful, those VAP positions enabled me to get valuable experience teaching in a wide variety of institutions from small liberal arts colleges to large state universities, and so, were ultimately helpful to my career. And anyone who thinks the administrations of only lower tier schools are extremely money conscious, you are in for a shock once you transition from graduate student to faculty member. Budgets have been cut widely. If you are lucky enough to get a t-t job at a place with tons of research money and big department budgets, congratulations. You are to be envied. But there are few such places left. Most will get jobs at schools that are closely watching pennies.
Research money? Is that actually a thing? We're in the humanities. We're supposed to produce research for free in the spare time we get from 60+ hour weeks of teaching and service.
Yes, many people go through years and years of VAPs these days. What you neglect to point out, however, is that even more of us (from top programs, too) are going through years and years of working at Starbuck's vel sim post PhD. And then we get tenured people telling us we're too full of ourselves. It boggles the mind.
@11:48 Look, this has nothing to do with candidates being stressed out, or what people do or do not understand about the state of the market. I am in a T-T job at a good but not great institution, and I put in my time getting here. And insofar as I succeeded on the job market I did so despite the fact that I didn't waste countless hours trying to represent myself as some magical unicorn of a size and shape divined by interpreting the signs available on departmental websites.
And I would go much further and argue that not only is what this idiot at Holy Cross expects unreasonable, his implied advice is terrible, and as likely to sabotage candidates who follow it as not.
In recent years my fellow committee members have often been eager to throw out candidates whose letters were too obviously tailored to reflect what the candidate thought we might be looking for (rather than what he or she really was). And anything that can be perceived as flattery is usually fatal. It is the same reason that we often find dossier service recommendation letters more useful than the tailored kind. We just want an honest appraisal of a candidate's accomplishments, talents and interests. Whether they are a good match for us is for us to decide.
My best advice is to assume that the committee you are writing for is composed of reasonable people. Even if you know that in fact there are scores of jackasses out there not much different in kind (if perhaps degree) from the guy at Holy Cross.
Yes, it is extremely time-consuming to tailor letters to individual places. But it can be done.Most years around this time I write anywhere from 30 to 65 letters of recommendation for students who want to go to graduate school, law school, Teach For America, etc. etc.. I tailor each letter to the program the student is applying to. I do not send generic letters out. I read the description of the program in question and discuss how the student would be a good fit for that program. And I do this while grading final papers and final essay exams, teaching three classes, serving on committees, and being a member of an SC in those years (not this one, unfortunately) when we are lucky enough to have a position open in classics or any of a number of related disciplines.
Tailoring letters matters. In our last classics search a few years back, when we read generic application letters from people talking about how they were looking forward to teaching graduate seminars in papyrology, we knew that they had not bothered even to glance at this institution's website nor to think about how they'd adjust to teaching at an SLAC. A hire where the new person is miserably unhappy and leaves as soon as possible is harmful all the way around, to everybody. And yes, deans DO take lines away and give them to other departments. If we make the wrong call in a given search, we may very well lose the line (I have seen it happen, not in my department but at this institution).
So are we going to spend one of our precious APA interviews on someone who seems not even to know that we're an SLAC with no grad students? No, we are not. That's not "publication envy" (we've all published a good deal), it's common sense. We have only a very few interviews to use, and if we get them wrong there can be really bad consequences: we hire a colleague who doesn't want to be doing this kind of teaching, is very unhappy here, and leaves, or we may even have to declare a failed search. In either of those cases, we are vulnerable to losing our line. We're not going to risk it. If you're going to take the time to apply here at all, then let us know that you're applying here.
Throwing out an application that talks about teaching grad seminars if you're a SLAC is completely fair. But do you really think 95% of the applicants to the Holy Cross position did that?
Tailoring makes sense insofar as your letter should express why you're a good fit for the job, and if it's a SLAC that might mean a few sentences or a paragraph about experience teaching small classes or whatever else the job ad wants you to address, but this strategy is something he specifically slams. We can tailor, but we can't (and shouldn't) write completely new letters for each individual job.
I just have a really hard time believing that more than 95% of us are screwing up so hard that we should be eliminated based on the "first fairly cursory reading of their dossier."
12:20 says that his/her colleagues have been only too eager to throw out obviously tailored letters. But 12:45 makes a case for why tailoring is crucial.
Fwiw, I just sat through a SC meeting where, when we were trying to winnow the 25 best candidates down to the 12 we could interview, one of the criteria we used to EXCLUDE some from the list was "No tailoring in the cover letter."
So, what the Hell should a candidate do? I guess the only way to stay sane is to write the kind of letter that is comfortable for you and just accept that you're going to alienate some SCs no matter what you do.
I just have a really hard time believing that more than 95% of us are screwing up so hard that we should be eliminated based on the "first fairly cursory reading of their dossier."
Precisely. Of course you're not. Clearly, these numbers are way over the top, and that's exactly why the post MUST have been meant as ironic. Badly done, heavy-handed, sarcasm laden, but clearly not meant to be taken literally.
This guy doesn't really mean that 95 percent of applicants are obviously discardable, anymore than Swift really mean that the Irish should eat their babies.
All this talk of crafting hyper-targeted application letters is giving me the cold sweats, and I'm not on the market!
I have a modest proposal. No more application letters, period. Everybody submits one, generic "personal/research/teaching statement" to a central clearing-house. For example, the APA could adopt a system like this.
Job candidates post their entire file online, referees post letters accompanying said file. Applicants apply to a job simply by filling out a brief, a very brief, form and search committees download whatever parts of the applicant's file they need. By definition, there are no "customized" letters, neither by applicants nor by recommenders. Applicants work on presenting themselves as they want to be seen in general, not as they want to be seen by Holy Cross, or Harvard, or U. Mass-Amherst.
No more divining what SCs might want. No more unreasonable expectations by SCs. No more bullshit, by either party. Less stress for all involved, and a more robust signaling mechanism for scholarly competency and genuine fit.
"This guy doesn't really mean that 95 percent of applicants are obviously discardable, anymore than Swift really mean that the Irish should eat their babies."
I'm pretty sure Swift didn't write while actively cutting into an Irish baby that he had on a plate in front of him.
Fwiw, I just sat through a SC meeting where, when we were trying to winnow the 25 best candidates down to the 12 we could interview, one of the criteria we used to EXCLUDE some from the list was "No tailoring in the cover letter."
Shorter 12:54: We are looking to hire pastry-chefs. Doctors need not apply.
"Yes, many people go through years and years of VAPs these days. What you neglect to point out, however, is that even more of us (from top programs, too) are going through years and years of working at Starbuck's vel sim post PhD. And then we get tenured people telling us we're too full of ourselves. It boggles the mind."
I have a genuine question, for which I hope I won't be flamed. Did your undergrad professors not warn you about the job market before writing recs to get you into grad school? Not only I, but every other classics prof. I've talked to in the past ten years, has a "look before you leap" talk that we give the starry-eyed majors who want to go to grad school. We tell them there are no jobs, that it is VERY unlikely they'll ever get a tenure-track position, that if there's anything else at all they can imagine doing, then do that instead, and we tell them to go to grad school ONLY if they think the experience of spending several more years studying this material is worth it for its own sake. We tell them to go to grad school on the assumption that getting the PhD will NOT lead to a job.
From the level of vitriol, hatred, and sheer rage against the world in general and the tenured in particular, I get the impression that most of you posting here were NOT warned before you started grad school. You all certainly sound like people who think they have been deceived or tricked into getting a doctorate under false pretenses. If that's true, it's pretty shocking.
I found the many years of adjuncting and VAPs as soul-destroying, exhausting, and disheartening as anyone else, but I don't remember that I, or anyone in my grad school cohort, felt this level of rage. We *knew* the job market was unbelievably terrible, and we knew that we'd get TTs, if at all, only after many years of trying and many of us never would. So we were exhausted and deeply discouraged, but I don't remember this level of rage and bitterness.
So I wonder -- were you not warned? Did you not know? Are most professors not telling undergraduate majors the truth about the job market?
@1:02. Your suggestion of using something like Academic Jobs Online would make the process simpler and more transparent for everyone. I only wish that our profession will be reasonable enough to adopt it someday.
@1:51. Have you not been around for the past several years? This question has been discussed more than once, whether grad students should know what they are getting into. The short answer: most people are told; most people are biased to believe that they will be the ones who somehow beat the odds.
I'm not full of rage. I just find it confusing to be labeled as full of myself (because of my good degree, publications, etc.) when I'm actually struggling to survive. I would think the reason for that is fairly straightforward.
Incidentally, though, no. I wasn't warned as an undergraduate. I was actively encouraged to go into Classics professionally and told that I was a shoe-in.
Of course, I got a much better sense of the academic market once I was actually in grad school. The burden for my life decisions is still very much on me, and I don't think I ever said otherwise.
I have to more or less concur with December 6, 2012 2:22 PM. I was encouraged throughout, in spite of being aware of the bleak scene. In grad school I was told over and over by the senior faculty to expect a mass retirement / die off / what have you and that there would be more slots than people. Yeah, right. Clawing one's way through the market for years, stacking up hefty vitae with substantial research programs and still finding the thing impossible explains some of the angst, although I would not call it rage. The HC blog post has irritated people here (at least this person) b/c its author is a tenured do-nothing who is somehow permitted to pass judgment on others starting out. Someone yesterday pointed out how new PhDs and the tenured folks don't play by the same rules - and they were right on the money
On the other hand, it is also true that the current generation of PhDs were being advised by their undergraduate mentors before the current economic collapse.
Remember that since 2008 getting a Visiting Assistant Professor position is roughly as difficult as getting a tenure-track job was before then. Before 2008, roughly 30% of applicants were getting tenure-track jobs in a given year (this from the APA's own numbers). 30% is now roughly the percentage of applicants who get any job at all, including VAPs. Roughly 13-14% now get TT jobs in a given year.
Anyone who doubts how shitty this market is needs to learn math and go look at the APA's own numbers.
@2:52's stats are in part why I absolutely get enraged by attitudes like those of the guy from HC. Clowns like this would rather hire an incompetent flatterer who they know is lying to them than someone who is clearly competent but prefers not to flatter. Afterwards the fact that they chose said person (out of scores of candidates!) is all that is necessary to convince themselves that this hire was a smashing success. And of course the ideal young colleague is one who is so unproductive and whose teaching is so unimpressive that he is even more reliant on the goodwill of those who hired him to earn promotion. Yet more opportunity for flattery!
And if by accident they hire someone who is actually competent, of course she flees at the first opportunity. What a horror, we were duped! Next time, we will need to read the cover letters more carefully!
Back in the day, clowns like this caused less real harm. In certain cases there really were more positions than competent candidates. But in a market like this, choosing not to consider talented, driven and accomplished candidates, and instead focusing on who best stroked your ego borders on criminal.
Personally I have no use for tailored cover letters, and I don't really understand people who want them. If I worked at a SLAC, I can't imagine I'd get my shorts all in a knot if I had to be exposed to two sentences of an applicant talking about graduate courses they'd like to teach. Just give me a letter addressed to "Dear Members of the Search Committee" that talks about your research and about the different kinds of teaching you might do at different kinds of institutions.
Could any of my colleagues here clarify for me why this is such a big deal to them, and what useful information they get from letters that are highly specific to their institution? Please note that I'm not asking whether candidates would be wise to tailor their letters, but what you personally get out of such a letter and how it helps you assess an application.
SLACs have to sell themselves as special to prospective students. Faculty eventually end up drinking that Kool-Aid for real; they then expect prospective faculty to have drunk it already.
Tailoring letters is easier when one already has a TT job, is looking for another, better one, and is applying selectively. ABDs, VAPs, and the like do not, of course, have this luxury.
Oh my goodness. Bothering to tailor a job application letter to tell the committee why you might be a good fit is outrageous! Why, it is like telling a graduate school why you are interested in their particular program, and giving them a reason to admit you over the other 100 students competing for 4 spots. Or, telling an employer in any industry why they might like to hire you - how you can contribute to their organization. Get a grip, people. Bottom line - there are hundreds of people applying for each job. Most of those people are excellent candidates. We have to have some way to distinguish between you all to come up with a short list of people to interview. Logically, if we asked what sorts of specific courses you could offer, or had some particular specialty in mind, letters that address those issues make those candidates stand out, all other things being equal. Tailoring letters is not flattery or sucking up. It is providing requested information, for those job ads that are not totally generic. I tailored all of the letters I wrote as a job candidate, and it didn't take all of my time. And after all, people seem to have enough time on their hands to devote to complaining on this Wiki.
That doesn't in any way address my question about what I'm supposed to learn from a letter tailored specifically to me that I can't learn from a generic letter that covers the different kinds of teaching that are done at different kinds of institutions.
That doesn't in any way address my question about what I'm supposed to learn from a letter tailored specifically to me that I can't learn from a generic letter that covers the different kinds of teaching that are done at different kinds of institutions
"That doesn't in any way address my question about what I'm supposed to learn from a letter tailored specifically to me that I can't learn from a generic letter that covers the different kinds of teaching that are done at different kinds of institutions."
You learn that the candidate is willing to suck up to you. This is important to many people.
People saying that we should tailor our letters are arguing against a straw man. *Of course* we tailor our letters. That was never the issue under discussion.
9:37: If your ad says you want someone who can teach languages and culture courses, and my letter says I can teach languages and culture courses, it's tailored. Stop being such a dick.
By the way, the shock is not that getting a T-T job is hard. The shock is learning exactly why it's hard. Hint: it's not the economy.
I remember my favorite professor from the small liberal arts college I attended. He was amazing. I mean, he couldn't have taught snow how melt, and I don't think I ever saw the door of his office open--for all I know it wasn't even a door but a cleverly painted mural. He hadn't published since the Eisenhower administration; he said he couldn't be bothered to learn how to use those "typewriter processing machines." He canceled class at the drop of a hat, and when he did manage to show up, he always smelled faintly of gasoline. But boy, could that guy tailor a cover letter.
I think the big question that infamous blog posts raises is, how do you tailor a cover letter without sounding corny? Especially if the advert (like the Holy Cross one) was as generic as can be? As somebody who has just finished his Ph.D., and by necessity of the earliness of his career, has only a limited set of accomplishments and teaching experience to move around the metaphorical board, what's the best way to do it? My cover letter was generic in part because I felt that it was the best way to explain my interests, my experience, and career trajectory as they stand.
Since there has been something less than a flood of responses, I'm going to repeat the question I posed yesterday.
Can any of my colleagues explain to me why I need to see a letter written specifically for me and for my department and institution?
Please note that this is different from the questions 1). whether it is prudent for candidates in general to write their letters in that way and 2). whether it might be wise for particular candidates to highlight interests and competencies that might fit well with a specific department. I am asking why I should expect every letter for a job we've advertised to address my department and institution in a highly specific and exclusive way. In other words, why shouldn't I be happy with a letter that addresses an applicant's interests in a full range of kinds of teaching that would be done at different kinds of institutions?
I'm not being facetious here; I really don't understand and I would like an explanation.
In sending a general letter of application, you ask the search committee to make the case for you. In tailoring your letter to the specifics of the job ad, you make the case for yourself. If I have 120+ applications to read in two weeks while teaching a full load of courses, working on my scholarship, and doing departmental, college, and university service, etc., I am not going to spend a lot of time making the case on behalf of candidates. Instead, the ones who make their cases to me will get the most positive attention and consideration. In a perfect world, we would have no time constraints. It isn't a perfect world.
With respect, that's a vague and evasive answer. Again, why do I need to see a letter that addresses specifically and exclusively only my kind of institution? How does that "make the case," to use your terms? In what way, for example, does not mentioning graduate courses in applications to a particular kind of school "make the case"?
They can't answer your question. Not convincingly.
The sad fact is that they want to be begged and flattered.
My challenge do the fuckwit in question is to post HIS cover letter from 25 years ago. Then explain to us what has changed in the past 25 years such that it was perfectly acceptable for his to consist of nothing other than a few sentences announcing his name, dissertation topic, and that letters from Professors x and y would arrive under separate cover.
Seriously, some of you should ask your professors from that generation if they have copies of their cover letters that they are willing to share. My supervisor's was a single paragraph. Three short sentences.
Yes, obviously some people want this kind of letter because they find it, um, "gratifying." Other people obviously just enjoy complaining about not receiving this kind of letter. And some people want a quick way of narrowing the pool of applicants and have rationalized using the letters in this way by attributing great importance to narrow tailoring (in that case, it seems strange to me to complain about candidates not writing such letters; they're helping you out!)
But I'm not giving up hope that there are legitimate reasons that exist beside these, and I would like to hear about them.
I'm finding that even for minimum wage jobs I have to explain what I've been doing for work in the last few years. There doesn't seem to be any way around that.
And the minute you mention getting a PhD they think you are lying, making fun of them, or that there is something seriously wrong with you. No matter what, you don't get the fucking job.
No. Don't be tempted by versitile phd and the like. Do not think that there are jobs out there for PhDs in classics. Or, better, don't count on it. And do not spend this time of the year thinking about it.
With a PhD in classics you are most qualified to be a classics professor. Not a banker. Not a spy. Not a management consultant. A classicist. The job market is predictable and people actually get jobs. Not as many as we all would like, but still.
There is nothing predictable about a job search outside of classics. There are opportunities out there. Some, certainly, are more lucrative than classics. As noted, I have a classics PhD, and am now working in an entirely different field.
But if your goal is employment, any employment, your best chance is in classics. And the time before the APA is not to be spent wondering what else might be possible. Do that AFTER the APA. Spend your time preparing for interviews, tailoring your letters, and the like.
Now, if you have decided that classics was a mistake and you want to move on, by all means, explore your options, but also give classics a second look. For all its faults, you have trained for it and are qualified for it.
Fallen, remember that only 13% of qualified applicants are getting a tenure-track job in Classics each year (on average since 2008). Less than 30% are getting any job at all, including VAPs without benefits, for that same range of time.
And most of us don't have any interviews to prepare for. We're just paying hundreds of dollars we don't have to go to the APA and have cocksuckers like that HC bitch laugh at us under their breath.
If people really want to know what they can do with a classics PhD - well, you can teach high school Latin. Many schools in my area want to hire Latin teachers but instead have to shut down programs for lack of applicants.
Death is, of course, the best option. Dead people don't even need jobs. But I'm too much of a fucking coward. Seneca is probably rolling over in his grave.
As someone who is likely to be on a search committee in the next few years, I'm not sure that a personally tailored letter is going to be a better guide to the candidate's abilities or not.
On the one hand, it shows that the applicant spent some time to find out who and what we are, and that's always nice.
On the other hand, such a letter will, in the end, only tell us that the candidate is good at doing cyber research. A more general letter, so long as it is very detailed, will likely provide the information I want.
What I would want, most of all, is an honest account of the applicant's abilities and experience. While I am at a teaching focused institution, that does not mean I would rule out someone from a research-intensive program, but they would have to show that they have had some teaching experience and would be able to hit the ground running with very little support from overworked colleagues.
This is the most important thing. If we get taken in by a well-crafted letter that flatters us, but the new hire turns out to be a disaster in the classroom, it is not only our department that suffers. Our students suffer as well.
A brief look at the past placement data on this wiki shows that this hiring pattern happens in Classics, as well, at both the R1 and SLAC levels. PhD cohorts from different departments are suffering at different rates. We need ALL PhD departments to provide real, up-to-date numbers on the fate of their alumni. How many eventually attain TT jobs? Where are these successful candidates placed? What about rankings in placement success rates?
PhD cohorts from different departments are suffering at different rates.
Yes, but this is not a recent phenomenon; it has been the case for a long time that some departments had much better placement records than others.
We need ALL PhD departments to provide real, up-to-date numbers on the fate of their alumni. How many eventually attain TT jobs? Where are these successful candidates placed? What about rankings in placement success rates?
I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be desirable. But on the other hand, my impression is that Classics is small enough that everybody already knows which 10-12 schools have good placement records. Does anybody feel like they don't know roughly where different graduate programs stand in this regard?
"Does anybody feel like they don't know roughly where different graduate programs stand in this regard?"
True enough. But I wonder if there would be some surprises if these rankings came out. Placement reputation and placement numbers may not always be in accord. I also wonder if published rankings would make all programs and/or advisors more forthcoming about future prospects to prospective students, or at least more proactive in trying to place students.
The institutions that most need a placement warning label are also those that are least likely to be inclined to talk about their placement records.
I don't think this would have its intended effect, though. It might affect at the margins graduate schools' competition for prospective graduate students. But overall it wouldn't cause institutions with mediocre or poor placement records to go without graduate students: there are always people willing to enroll in even the most hopeless programs, because they just know it's going to be different for them.
In my limited experience as a recently tenured faculty member in an excellent but not elite department offering PhDs, I've started to notice a bifurcation in the types of jobs that our most successful students land.
There's the traditional route that seems to be fading - many years of experience in the languages, a solid publication, elite undergraduate department, etc. When a student fits the traditional mold, I encourage them to go all in. This might change in the future, but these folks seem to land a job within three years.
If a students seems to excel outside the box a bit - digital humanities, archaeology, etc. - we encourage them to develop these interests WITH the caveat that they might take a more circuitous route towards a permanent job. Not only would they not be the most competitive for a traditional job, when the right fit comes up, they're incredibly competitive. I think the 5-10 years hopping around is shrinking towards five and less, and I think it will only get better as universities continue to downsize traditional classics.
9: 10 wrote, re tailored letters, "What I would want, most of all, is an honest account of the applicant's abilities and experience. While I am at a teaching focused institution, that does not mean I would rule out someone from a research-intensive program, but they would have to show that they have had some teaching experience and would be able to hit the ground running with very little support from overworked colleagues."
My school isn't doing a search this year, but based on my SC experiences in the past I'd say that this is what most of us (I think) mean by a tailored letter. How does your teaching experience equip you to teach in this sort of program? If your one-size-fits-all application letter just says "I have taught three lecture classes, each with 250 students" then the SC at an SLAC is left wondering how you'll make the transition. You need to tell them how you think that will work. At my SLAC, we certainly consider, and have hired, people who have never taught anything but huge lecture courses -- but they need to let us know that they've thought about the difference between the teaching they've done and the kind of teaching they'll do here, and they need to say something about how they'll adjust to that difference.
That's what a "tailored" letter should do. The SCs I've been on have no interest at all in flattery of our own research. The letter that says "My research would complement Prof. W's work on X, and I would love to sit at the feet of Prof. J. to learn all I can" etc. ad nauseam is just creepy. But it's crucial that the letter talk about how the candidate sees him/herself adjusting to the kind of teaching we do here.
You also need to have some discussion, however brief, of how you can continue your own research at this institution. If your research depends on continual access to major collections of papyri, for instance, you're not going to be able to do that at most SLACs. If you depend heavily on TLG and you're applying to a place that doesn't subscribe to it, where the library budget has been frozen for some years, you need to think about how you'd adjust to those circumstances. You don't need to give up on your ongoing research and you don't need to go into great detail about how you'd manage here. But you do need to show us that you know this job is in an isolated area a day's drive away from any research library, you know you'll be teaching a 3/3 load so you can't easily make that drive to the nearest library, and you've thought about the implications of these things for your research . If we hire you and you're utterly miserable because you don't know how to do this kind of teaching and you can't continue your research program, everyone loses.
9:10 also wrote: "If we get taken in by a well-crafted letter that flatters us, but the new hire turns out to be a disaster in the classroom, it is not only our department that suffers. Our students suffer as well."
After many years of experience on SCs for several different departments, I have to say that we've never been snookered by flattery into hiring someone who can't teach. As I say, flattery is creepy. But we DID once, many years ago now, hire someone (on the basis of a completely untailored one-size-fits-all letter) who had no discussion-class experience at all, had only taught at major research universities with graduate programs, and said nothing at all about how s/he thought teaching at an SLAC would differ. That person looked so good in every other way that we were willing to take the risk on the teaching experience -- and it was a real mistake. Bad fit in every way, miserable here, gone after two years, and we had the search to do all over again (and were lucky to be allowed to keep the line.) Since then, I've been very gun-shy of the entirely un-tailored letter.
That's the closest I've seen yet to a good argument for a "tailored" letter. But I think it's mainly an argument for having a university template and a SLAC template. I'm not sure that even deserves the name of "tailoring."
If your research depends on continual access to major collections of papyri, for instance, you're not going to be able to do that at most SLACs.
Also, wait just a minute. This isn't an argument for people to tailor their letters. This is an argument for people with certain programs of research not to apply to your institution. That's totally different.
If a students seems to excel outside the box a bit - digital humanities, archaeology, etc. - we encourage them to develop these interests WITH the caveat that they might take a more circuitous route towards a permanent job.
Way to reinforce my belief that classicists embrace a dying, text-only dogma
December 8, 2012 4:36 PM brings up a point that I've been wondering about.
How important is it for those of us who are Classicists in something of the traditional mold to come from an elite undergraduate institution?
I am a WASP, but the SLAC I went to was decidedly average, and it was located in an undesirable part of the country (my PhD is from a non-elite ivy league school). Does this play a conscious role in anyone's decision making?
1,279 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 1279 Newer› Newest»I strongly disagree with the advice to candidates not to tailor their cover letters to individual positions. Whether or not SCs are "vain" isn't the point -- you want a job, so you don't want to alienate the SC with your letter.
I'm on a SC this year, have been on several in past years, and have talked to many, many colleagues on SCs at other institutions. Every SC member I've ever known has expected that candidates' cover letters will be tailored to the individual position. At a minimum, your letter should indicate that you've looked at the institution's website, know what size dept./school you're applying to, and have some idea of what you might be asked to teach here.
Yes, it's a huge pain to have to tailor all your letters. But whether you think SCs are justified in expecting such tailoring or not, they (we) do expect it. Remember the first time we read your letter will be when we're trying to make preliminary cuts out of a pile of probably 100 to 150 applications. We've got to whittle that number down somehow. You won't serve your own cause well by indicating that you're not interested enough in this job to find out anything about the school.
I think this proves my first theory -- SC members enjoy judging you (of course), arguing with each other, being in control of something (since they are in control of very little otherwise) and jockeying for positions of power, but they also enjoy it when you pay attention to things they've done (the ad they've written, the curriculum they've refined, the courses they've created etc.) The process is fundamentally about them, not you.
Here's a second theory: if all qualified candidates (say a completed PhD and teaching experience) were assigned to available positions by lot AND we spent the thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars now devoted to the job market recruiting new students into Classics, we as a field would not be demonstrably worse off.
Does Heraclitus really and truly believe that cover letters should just be written generically, and that all job ads should say the same thing, so that SC members will no longer be the heros of the search? The administration would LOVE to see unspecific searches run by all of our departments, then it would look like we don't know what we are doing and we really don't care what we will do in the future. They could finally get rid of us, and they'd be right in doing so.
I, for one, believe that it makes sense for applicants to read the individual job ad carefully, study what the department does, and then determine the best way to sell themselves to that job. This is, of course, assuming they want that job at all - I know that some jobs are beneath so very many of us...
@10:02: You lost me with the idea that we should be recruiting more students into Classics. That's just cruel.
OK, here's a recent job ad, for which I applied, and for which I would kill. I have nothing against the university, the Classics department there, or its members. As I said, if they offered me the job, I would weep with joy.
"Applicants must have a PhD in classics or a related field, teaching excellence as demonstrated by course evaluation summaries, potential for a strong record of scholarly publication as demonstrated by publications or works in progress, and be able to teach ancient Greek language at all levels, as well as courses on classical literature in translation, classical mythology, and material culture/history. "
How do we tailor our letter to that?
Further, do mad libs paragraphs really fool anybody? "I fully support the (phrase from website) mission of your (big/small) (public/private) (research university/liberal arts college). My interest in (specialty) will complement Professor (Name's) work in (specialty) and Professor (Other Name's) work in (other speciality). My background give me a head start in (three courses from catalog). Go (Fightin' Ethnic Group/Screaming Animals/Color Adjective Demons/Devils)!
I hope that there's at least one search committee (perhaps even the one who wrote the ad above) who reads my letter, knows I'm busy too, and realizes that my letter would not be more meaningful with the addition of some meaningless additions. You want a scholar and teacher; I explain my scholarship and teaching.
We have met the enemy, and they is who again?
Here's a second theory: if all qualified candidates (say a completed PhD and teaching experience) were assigned to available positions by lot AND we spent the thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars now devoted to the job market recruiting new students into Classics, we as a field would not be demonstrably worse off. why on god's green earth should we aim to recruit MORE people into the dead-end that is Classical studies? srsly. cruel much?
Anon. 11:40 & Anon. 1:20 must be the life of the party at job interviews. "What courses would you like to offer that could appeal to students from other departments and undeclared majors?" "Hell no, I don't want to teach!"
Heraclitus lost anyone who's ever been on a SC when he said "SCs enjoy ..." No, Heraclitus, no-one enjoys being on a SC. I'm not leaping with joy at having over 100 applications to read and evaluate over Thanksgiving so that we can meet to draw up our convention interview list right after Thanksgiving. Almost all SC members try to do their task conscientiously; after all, we'll be working for years or even decades with the person we hire so we very much want to get it right. But I have yet to meet anyone who enjoys serving on a SC or who doesn't face the process with something pretty close to dread, especially since those 100-plus files have to be read at the same time of the semester that brings stacks of papers to grade and finals to write.
By the way, I agree that a system whereby job applicants' names were drawn from a hat would be much less stressful for everyone. It might even not change the outcomes all that much. But since that isn't the system we have or ever will have, SCs are left with trying to judge, from your letter, if there's enough reason to think you'd be a good fit here to allocate one of our precious 12 interviews to you. Remember -- over 100 applicants, 12 interviews. We want to interview people who seem likely to do well here, in this specific milieu. So yes, the job ad. and the search process are "about" this job, not about you.
If your only teaching experience is of small discussion classes at an undergraduate-only SLAC, a SC at a major research university where they need someone to teach lectures to classes of 250 is unlikely to be won over by your letter about the importance of discussion and individual attention to the students. Conversely, you may be the most brilliant lecturer in the world, but if you have never taught a class with fewer than 200 students and say in your letter that you "look forward to teaching graduate seminars," you're probably not going to thrive in an SLAC in a tiny town.
On the other hand, if you write a letter that lets us know you are aware of where we're located, what our class size and our expectations of teaching (large lecture? small discussion?) are, and how you envisage teaching the sort of classes we need this hire to teach, then you've given us reason to think that you might adjust successfully to being here even if your previous experience has been somewhere very different.
I don't think tailoring is as much of a burden as people are making it out to be. Know your audience. Know what (types of) courses are taught there. If they request specific things - show in your letter that you can do them. Show, don't tell. This is key. Your letter likely SHOWS a bunch of stuff already that they want. Just rearrange it to suit the type of school and make sure you know who you are talking to. When I was on the market I had a letter that honestly did not change much from school to school beyond the types of courses I proposed, the order in which my paragraphs appeared, and the amount of space I devoted to discussing a teaching philosophy. And this letter worked very well (within the past 4 years) because it was a strong letter that showed who I was as a scholar and teacher. I just shifted the emphasis between SLAC and R1 schools. Stop wasting time arguing over tailoring and spend the 20 minutes on a website that it takes to show them you know to whom you're applying. It doesn't take much more than that.
Madlibs won't work, because they are empty telling phrases. Show. Don't tell. If you're interested, I found The Professor Is In to have very useful advice on the difference.
Here's a related question. Letterhead is easy when you're sending a hard copy. What do you do when you're sending an electronic one?
If by "recruiting new students into Classics" you simply meant recruiting majors while emphasizing to them repeatedly that they should under no circumstances go to grad school in Classics, I withdraw my comment. I took it to indicate active recruitment of professional Classicists, which given reality as we know it is completely unconscionable.
Unless they are independently wealthy. If you want to try to get Bill Gates to become a professional Classicist, more power to you.
Regarding electronic letterhead.
I'm sure your institution has a Word template with the proper letterhead. If not, it is easy enough to make one. Or, do it the old fashioned way and scan your letter as a PDF.
In any case, don't waste time and energy worrying about this. Good luck!
As you should know, Classicists, Heraclitus does not believe in a utopian future. But more on that anon. I proposed the lottery only as a thought experiment, which may compel us (if we are not too narrow-minded) to think about the value added to the overall classics economy by the immense undertaking that is our annual job market. I maintain (and I think you agree) that we as a profession gain comparatively little relative to our considerable expense and effort in this area. In fact, I think most Classics PhDs with some teaching experience are broadly capable of doing almost any job provided appropriate support (and if not we should focus our efforts on reforming graduate education). What if you dumped all the CVs on the floor, closed you eyes, reached into the pile and hired the first person whose CV you extracted? Would you lose your job? Would your program crumble and disappear? Is the random person you select likely to be that toxic? Yet if your enrollments drop and you have no or very few majors (all I meant by recruiting students into Classics), you face an imminent and existential threat. If we spent all the time we currently spend reading and writing job applications building up our programs, we would surely mitigate against any problems of fit and then some (if we lived in a theoretical utopia in which Heraclitus does not believe).
Why do we do it this way, then? Why do you, dear committees, solicit pages and pages of documentation and letters and statements? Not, I think, out of consideration for the candidates; indeed, all this imposes an enormous burden on the candidates, whose application you are eager to toss out at the first sign of weakness. No, it is because, as you say, you have to work with the person you hire, and you want to have a say in who that person is. Nothing wrong with that. But it proves, once again, my initial point: we forget at our peril, gentle applicants, that this process fundamentally not about us. (1/2)
You say that you no one "enjoys" serving on a search committee. If you are one of those who locks their office door and unplugs their computer when this duty comes calling, then you are truly a saint. But you found your way to this board, so may I be so venturesome as to suppose that you expended considerable effort crafting your ad and offered your own views on what materials you should solicit? Did you maybe nuance the description of the desired subfield, in fear that you might not receive enough applications? Did you perhaps suggest that a statement of teaching philosophy might also be a nice thing to request -- just to get a fuller picture? I know you, my tenured brethren, too well! You may complain ceaselessly about the unbearable burdens of your job, but what if your tenure was revoked? Then we would all find out how much you love and need your appointment. Likewise, what if, by some hypothetical lottery, you lost the chance to vet and judge your future colleague? How bitterly you would regret this forsaken right! I don't think I am suggesting anything controversial when I say that we as humans enjoy judging others (whether you enjoy reading CVs is a separate matter). Why would the Bible warn us not to judge if there was no enjoyment in judgement?
I am not even saying, as you can see, that I do or would act any differently. All of this is only prefatory to my third and final theory: we, my fellow applicants, are the salt of the earth. It is our fate to be crushed under the feet of our elders as they amble comfortably toward retirement. Forget all talk of fairness and justice and find peace in suffering.
(2/2)
I am not even saying, as you can see, that I do or would act any differently.
And there I think we have the heart of the problem. My suspicion is that you've taken your own, shall we say, distinctive attitudes, are unable to imagine people who don't share them, have accordingly projected them onto how people in general operate, and are now berating everyone else for being the reflection of yourself that you have projected onto them.
Heraclitus indeed.
With what brilliant obscurity, O philosopher worthy of my pseudonym, you express yourself. I'm not sure your argument coheres logically -- why would I berate people for being reflections of myself? -- but this is probably part of your marvelous subtlety and in any case irrelevant to the larger point. Pray tell, which of my theories do you find most "distinctive"? That those who decide the terms of a search and who hold the positions of power in that context want to make decisions that are first and foremost in their own interest? That to exercise judgement over others is consciously or subconsciously pleasurable, an innocent observation about human nature made first by none other than Christ Our Lord? That there are many worthy applicants for any given position, a statement I have read in countless rejection letters and heard in other contexts from more than one search committee member? That low enrollments in Latin and Greek imperil the existence of many Classics programs across this country (cf. LSU, Albany, Pitt, Centenary, etc.)? Or that the conditions of academic employment have declined dramatically over the past few decades and will continue to do so, an outlook which articles in the Chronicle and Inside Higher Ed have repeated ad nauseam in recent years? And is this final point really surprising when we consider the stagnation in real wage growth in this country for all but the very rich?
Perhaps you mean only that you love your job and don't complain about your duties. If this is so, on behalf of our numerous unhappy colleagues, I congratulate you. But again, this irrelevant to the larger point that in this process search committees have the power to do more or less as they please; we may infer, therefore, that they will do first and foremost what pleases them. It actually matters very little to me how many other applicants share this view -- fewer would probably be better, I suppose -- but if I have cynically misapprehended the truth, I would happily be corrected on any specific point.
Does anyone here have any idea or inside scoop regarding the University of Wisconsin-Madison search? The job ad has not changed much since last year, and the successful applicant will begin January, 2013. Looks a tad sketchy to me.
I think the Wisconsin ad is just a formality they have to go through in order to get a visa for their hire from last season.
A quick question, one that might move us from the principles of interpreting job ads to the actual practice:
The position at the University of Manitoba is advertised as Instructor I/II with a teaching load between 3:3 and 4:4 (depending on service responsibilities). It is also labelled a "Tenure-Track" position on the Placement Service's list, though there is no such mention in the ad itself. Do we assume it is simply mislabeled, or do we imagine that the position has the possibility of becoming a tenured professorship?
I think the Manitoba will be a position with a tenure path, but as an instructor (primarily a teaching post) rather than research faculty. Some universities that have these two different streams for tenure do have mechanisms to move from the instructor to research stream, but I don't know whether that is the case here. I read this as the expected teaching load is 4/4, but if you do significant service the teaching load will be reduced. It is also worth noting that this will likely have a lower pay scale than a research stream tenure track position. If it makes a difference to whether you will apply, I suggest you write to the head of department for clarification.
Thank you for this response. I don't imagine that it would prevent me from applying either way, but it is good to know what the situation might be.
Details on the University of Hawai'i shenanigans, anyone?
Re: Hawaii.
One detail here: every time anyone posts anything about any institution on here, a shitstorm of accusations, innuendo, and general idiocy ensues. That being the case, I will no longer be updating the wiki. Why would I want to subject a potential employer and group of colleagues to the things the children on this board make up? This may seem like a tiny and insignificant contribution to the process, but it's what's in my power to do.
In principle, I agree with 9:06 AM. Furthermore, the info on the wiki might not be true. If it is, however, then what UHM has done is unethical and potentially illegal. In this case, that is, if it is true that they have notified someone of an interview before the review of their applications has officially begun, the wiki has performed a valuable service and perhaps even uncovered a crime.
Hey, we need our shitstorm of innuendo. Take a moment to recall that this community is made up largely of people who have become painfully aware that they will probably *never* get a job in the career into which they just poured almost a decade of their lives. These people are then given anonymity on the internet. Frankly I'm amazed at how utterly tame it all is.
Re: 12:01 PM
Assuming that the information is true, UHM may just be inviting applicants on a rolling basis. I have seen other departments do this before. But if they have already finalized their list, then yeah that's bad.
The "children" on this board face horrendous odds of gaining permanent employment, and living a somewhat stable and normal life. You would be anxious too. I believe a little sympathy from our TT and tenured readers is in order. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, some SC members who frequent this board have been reluctant to acknowledge that the burden is indeed upon candidates, and not the other way around. Perspective. Get some.
Preface: If the info on the Wiki is true....
The ad says, "review of applications will begin Nov. 30 and will continue until position is filled." If it had said "review will begin on Nov. 21..." then no problem. As it is, it's hard to imagine that anyone who turns in their application between now and Nov. 30 will enjoy consideration equal to those who have already been offered interviews.
Come on SC members. You know the rules. Have they played by them?
Come on SC members. You know the rules. Have they played by them?
If it is true (which I don't think it's at all safe to assume) I'd call it unethical if they have already filled up a large percentage of their interview slots. (And if they've done that, it's also dumb, because they're tying their hands if they get further good applications in the meantime.)
On the other hand, I don't know why you'd bother inviting anyone at all before the deadline. It's not as though people are going to be withdrawing their applications and it won't be possible to invite them after the deadline. I guess maybe they could be aiming to hire someone before the conference?
In any case, search committees having their interview lists ready too early is not a common problem.
With what brilliant obscurity, O philosopher worthy of my pseudonym, you express yourself. I'm not sure your argument coheres logically -- why would I berate people for being reflections of myself? -- but this is probably part of your marvelous subtlety and in any case irrelevant to the larger point. Pray tell, which of my theories do you find most "distinctive"?
I would love it so much if somebody would do a "dramatic reading" of your comments. They are perfect.
This note looks back a few days to the question about the position at the University of Manitoba. I am currently a T-T at a Canadian university which will also be hiring teaching intensive t-t professors (although not in Classics). Here are some thoughts about that type of position for those who are interested in applying. The caveat is that I am speaking from the experience of my own university and this may not be entirely applicable to Manitoba.
These positions do have a higher teaching load which could approach 4/4 and it may not be the case that you can transfer into a more research-oriented position. The universities are specifically advertising for teaching-intensive jobs because that is what the administrations want. For tenure the requirements will likely be slightly different than other t-t positions. More emphasis will be placed on teaching; at my own university you will need other professors to come to your classes and provide evaluations for your tenure file. Research will be considered to a lesser degree, but you may be expected to publish within the field of teaching in addition to your field of expertise.
Also, with respect to the discussion about tailoring cover letters. This is an important consideration for a specifically labelled teaching-intensive position. A long explanation of all of your future research interests will not be as valuable as evidence for your excellence as an instructor.
seen on the APA website:
"UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA – TUCSON, AZ (Two Positions) - UPDATED NOVEMBER 26, 2012 - BOTH JOB SEARCHES HAVE BEEN CANCELED." wheeee.
Re: Manitoba Instructor I/II positions.
Thanks, Anonymous 11/22 9:58. Your comment confirms what a friend in Manitoba's department (not on the SC) told me about the position. It will be teaching intensive. Per the ad, languages will be an important component of the teaching, as will intro-level courses in translation. Research will not be a significant portion of the job or the tenure considerations but the job is tenure-track. The instructor job is a different stream than a professor job would be (as 11/20 2:06). It will probably be at a lower rate of compensation though there is possibility for promotion to a higher rank of instructor. I imagine that the distinction is equivalent to full-time lecturer versus tenured/tt professor positions at American universities.
seen on the APA website:
"UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA – TUCSON, AZ (Two Positions) - UPDATED NOVEMBER 26, 2012 - BOTH JOB SEARCHES HAVE BEEN CANCELED." wheeee.
Well, that right there would seem to be yet another reason not to apply for either job...
Has there ever been a relatively well established department that's imploded faster than Arizona's? I could see Texas in the same spot in 20 years. All it takes is a couple sabretooth, an exodus of archaeologists, and change in economic/political fortunes.
I heard the same thing happened to the Classics department at McGill University about 15 years ago. Egos clashed, people left, Classics became part of History and university austerity did the rest. They seem to have found their footing again but that's thanks to the old guard's retirement and the support of the History department. I'm surely not seeing any kind of future where UoA's Classics could come back in the same way.
This wait is excruciating.
Hey, look, a new kid. Cute.
The seasoned are no less anxious.
The seasoned are no less anxious.
The seasoned are no less anxious.
The seasoned are no less anxious.
The seasoned are no less anxious
The seasoned are no less anxious
Any work from Pacific Lutheran? Anyone? they said monday we should hear backk, but the wiki says nothing. I guess Im out.
There seems to be an inside candidate for the classics/philosophy position at the University of Pittsburgh, judging from the visiting professor in the classics department that fits their job description perfectly. Does anyone have any intel?
Who on earth would have a mole in the University of Pittsburgh's classics department?
Anyway, nice of you to try to stir up some controversy by singling out a colleague who never did anything to you and turning the spotlight in his/her direction. (I'm gender-neutral here because I don't care about this job, and won't bother Googling.) Unless you are new to the job market, you should know that whether or not that person fits the job description has no bearing on whether you or anyone else should apply (or should have applied, if the deadline has passed). And if you don't know why that is, I suggest you sit and think long and hard about it.
Calm down. Just looking for information. This is where famae volent, is it not?
Calm down is correct, but I think the point that was supposed to be made up there is that there is a so-called "insider" in many, if not most, of the positions advertised in our field. Sometimes the insider is well-positioned to stay, sometimes the insider is well-positioned to leave. So if you think you're a fit, apply for the job.
No, this is where famae volant. Dammit can't anyone remember their conjugations? And, no, I don't believe you were using the deliberative subjunctive, so don't even try.
Ladies and gentlemen, here is my impression of an archaeologist:
"There's a deliberative subjunctive?!?"
Come now. Maybe the OP meant that this is where rumors *will want* to fly. With volare implied, of course. This is appropriate, since the rumors haven't really gotten their wish yet in this case.
Or ubi could be expressing purpose...this is a place for rumors to fly?
As for rumors: has Affirmative Action swayed any searches over the last few years?
I'm quite proud of FV for going three hours now without responding to the above.
That is all.
Anonymous said...
I'm quite proud of FV for going three hours now without responding to the above.
That is all.
..A' la Bastille!!!!
Affirmative action? For the one black person. two Latinos, and five Asians out there?
For what it's worth, in a thread from a couple of years ago, in response to someone who was insisting that minorities were being systematically discriminated against on the Classics job market, I used the previous several years of placement service data to show that the ratio of job seekers to job recipients was basically identical between the categories "non-Hispanic whites" and "all others," although admittedly the "all others" numbers weren't a very big sample.
This seems equally pertinent to bring up now that somebody has begun snuffling curiously around the "affirmative action" explanation for the hardship of job seekers in general.
Don't let me stand in the way, though, of the joy of picking out particular employed individuals who are ethnic minorities and fuming about how they don't really deserve their job. I am sure that's very soothing.
In flusher economic times, R1 universities would be able to make Target of Opportunity hires, which would be separately funded (outside of the dept) positions for women and minorities. Sometimes this would be a specific, invite-only search; at other times, if a candidate fit the bill, the dept. could hire them in addition to a 'regular' candidate. I know several people hired this way, but none recently. And while it looks like a win-win, there is the standard ghettoization effect of this sort of process, where the successful candidate is thought to have not really 'deserved' the position. For what it's worth, I think there is significant (subconscious) discrimination against minority grad students/junior professors in classics, esp. among older professors.
The APA cometh. Advice for first timers: ignore all the soothing advice and kind words of your mentors and prepare for this interview.
If you haven't had an interview like this, you haven't been doing this long enough.
Would that search committee members were merciful enough to actually use a shotgun to put us out of our misery.
Advice to interviewees: don't talk about your pornography stash.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/11/29/dumb_criminal_of_the_week_meet_the_job_candidate_who_told_the_fbi_about.html
"For what it's worth, I think there is significant (subconscious) discrimination against minority grad students/junior professors in classics, esp. among older professors."
It's more sinister in some ways, isn't it? In the old days, they didn't even try to hide their contempt for Jews and women. As a black friend who recently dropped out told me, if you're clearly deemed as exceptional compared to others, you've punched your ticket for just about any job you want. If you're merely good, you're screwed.
"If you're merely good, you're screwed."
In this market, this applies to all of us. Good is not good enough. If everyone within a fifty yard radius doesn't have a spontaneous orgasm whenever your CV sees daylight, you're screwed.
Fun game: Take your blood pressure every day. Watch the baseline rise for job market season, rise higher for the few weeks when interviews are being requested, and watch your numbers fucking skyrocket on Fridays in the couple of weeks when interviews are being announced. Seriously, if I went to a hospital right now the doctors would shit themselves.
Your 'fun game' is right on the money - but be careful. I can tell you after multiple years on this job market, you have to relax or you will have a stroke and die. period. And this sh*$ ain't worth it. SCs don't care about candidates as people (sometimes they don't even care very much about themselves, as it seems), so you had better care about yourself and look after what is most important. Classics is at best a stagnating part of the Humanities / Liberal Arts - don't throw your life (or health) away for it.
Many of us probably got that email from the placement service about listing our availability on the website's calendar. Has anyone been able to access the calendar itself? In addition to following every possible link, I have even read the instructions (!) on the help page. Nothing seems to work. Any suggestions?
Dear Anon,
Once you login to the placement service website, click on "View my homepage" on the left hand side. Then scroll down to see the calendar.
I'm the previous poster. I see that Anon 9:13 said he/she read the help page instructions, which say the same thing I just said, which leaves me to believe my comment may not be very helpful. So, Anon 9:13, how far can you get? Can you log in and get to the "View My Homepage" button? When you click it, do you see your candidate info at the top and the calendar at the bottom?
I don't see what you see, which makes me think I will need to send the service an email. Having logged in and clicked on to my home page, all I can see in the main frame is a row of buttons:
View | Annual Meeting Contact Information | Edit | Orders | Placement Service Registration Form
Underneath that row of buttons is a link to my placement service registration form and, beside it, a second link to edit said form. That's all there is.
Thanks very much for the help. I will send the service an email and see if they have any suggestions.
And just like that, the problem is solved: I had neglected to update my "Annual Meeting Contact Information" page. Having done so, the calendar now appears. If anyone else is so dense as I have been, perhaps this will be helpful to know. At least I figured it out before I sent an email.
Ha! And just now there is an email from Renie explaining the above. Perhaps that means I wasn't alone, which is somewhat encouraging.
Guys! The seasons don't fear the wiki, nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain! We can be like they are!
take note, ye doomed readers of this blog - these people are reading your dossiers.
Jesus Christ, what a colossal jackass.
That guy apparently just doesn't like cover letters as a genre. In which case he probably shouldn't be on a a fucking search committee.
More of fuckwit than a jackass. But yes, colossally so.
I wonder how this d-bag grades his undergraduates on their work? Or what his teaching evals must say? But not to worry, s/he looks to be tenured and will be trolling along in their post until the end of time.
... and a shining example of how frickin' easy it was to get a job, and then tenure, at a place like HC. This idiot relishes sitting in judgment of people whose scholarly shoes he doesn't even deserve to shine. Pathetic.
If I thought this were representative of the general atmosphere at HC I'd be writing to withdraw my application right about now.
As I saw repeatedly this fall, it can be especially effective to dwell at length on your contract for a forthcoming book if you emphasize that it will be published by a press charging more per monograph than your library ever pays, and if your topic leaves potential colleagues paralyzed at the prospect of having to read your book when you come up for review.
A quick search of Worldcat suggests strongly that the author of above words has not produced a monograph, with either a chic and expensive press or a lowly UP with low cost-per-page. Hypocritical much? I pity his colleagues, students, and department - 25 years out of the Ph.D. and no book.
Start writing that letter. Attitudes that clownish only thrive under controlled conditions.
A shorter version of his rant: "I've never published a book, and if I did it would certainly not be at a reputable press." Moron.
I definitely applied for that job. Fortunately, I think I managed to *not* follow his advice for avoiding an interview... We'll see how well that goes.
From L'Annee it seems he's never even published a fucking article. That seems incredible.
I can't believe I wasted my time applying for this job. Institutions like this should have to place a disclaimer on their ads so that those of us in the real world don't waste our time.
Look, guys, not everybody is a nutjob. I don't know anybody personally who thinks like this; the only instances I have come across are things occasionally linked to in the comments here: cries for help posted on the Internet by fuming malcontents with personal adequacy issues.
Granted, but the scary thing is that this blogger is a tenured associate professor at a highly-rated Classics program who is an academic do-nothing, it seems, who weighs in with contempt on job seekers. Seems a little unfortunate.
Of course not everyone is like this guy. If that were true, the field would have collapsed from the dead weight long ago.
I love how it never occurs to him that maybe he's the one who doesn't understand what a cover letter is supposed to do. No, it's much more likely that everyone else in the world is an idiot.
Am I the only one who thought his post wasn't terribly off base? He essentially suggests having a modicum of job-specific phrasing, some sense of the school to which you're applying, and the presence of mind to talk about something other than your research for a page and a half.
Am I missing something?
Lay off of the guy. He's entitled to his opinion. Y'all should be grateful for the honest view into how one search committee member thinks. Instead of bashing him you should be mulling it over as you prepare for your interviews.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a cover letter to be somewhat aimed at the job it's being written for. But clearly this guy's standards are absurd, if he thinks 95% of the applicants weren't worth more than even 'a cursory reading'.
What bothers me the most is his complete lack of empathy. We're all people here, candidates and search committee members, and it would be great if we could all treat each other with a modicum of respect. (Says the naive first-timer.)
Lay off of the guy. He's entitled to his opinion.
Of course he's entitled to his opinion. And I'm entitled to my opinion that his opinion is ridiculous.
He should never give advice; his "digital archaeology " at Hacimusalar Turkey was an unprecedented, epic fiasco. Thousands of $ down the drain.
Low profile, baby.
"We're all people here"
This is true only in the superficial physical sense. We (the untenured) are people, mortal and fallible. They (the tenured) are gods. They judge us freely; we judge them at our peril. We can be cast out of the profession on the slightest whim; they cannot be fired even for gross misconduct. We do not play by the same rules. Such is the natural law of academia.
"He essentially suggests having a modicum of job-specific phrasing, some sense of the school to which you're applying, and the presence of mind to talk about something other than your research for a page and a half."
What blog post did you read? No, seriously, I want to know. I'd like to read that one.
I wouldn't say that his recommendations are so modest as "a modicum of job-specific phrasing, some sense of the school to which you're applying, and the presence of mind to talk about something other than your research for a page and a half." A "modicum" would be accomplished by a sentence or two identifying why the institution or department in question is especially attractive, but he disparages a sentence or two as insufficient. As someone who did read the incredibly generic and uninformative job ad that Holy Cross put out, I can say in good conscience that my generic cover letter in fact speaks to it, and I'm sure most of the others do, too. Aside from the vague reference to "collaborative research," there is nothing even remotely distinctive about Holy Cross' ad.
As for writing about something other than research, I'd assume that at least 95% of the letters included a paragraph about teaching. I suspect that what the distinguished archaeologist really wanted to read about was how great it would be to come teach at a school with him and his other terrific colleagues. If he needs to be told how good his program is, he should find another one.
At least he's had the courage to publish his opinion in his own name. I'll be amazed if he manages to get through the meeting in Seattle without getting punched. Then again, I probably won't get the opportunity, since I've already forgotten his name.
There is a very specific and obvious reason, already recognized in comments above, why certain people might be averse to hearing about research and publication in a cover letter.
I guess it takes some balls to admit that you've thrown out nineteen of every twenty applications on the grounds that they didn't make you feel special enough about yourself and your institution. On the other hand, doing that makes a person sound incredibly insecure, so I reckon that cancels it out.
Dear god. This guy is an embarrassment to the field.
It would appear that someone from Holy Cross, and most likely the dude himself, has weighted in on the wiki.
*weighed*
Hilariously, he accuses applicants of being full of themselves. That's like the pot calling the kettle a pot.
It's worth having this discussion for two reasons: at least a few of the respondents here do not think this gentleman's opinions are ridiculous, and his way of thinking is in danger of sinking all of us (if Classics and academia as a whole are to flourish, we need less self-centered jack-assedness and more actual, collaborative work [ironically, this fellow seems to be in favor of both of these, but he obviously did not have the presence of mind not to throw out the applications of 95% of his potential future collaborators because they did not pander to his narrow-minded views of what a proper cover letter is; it is one thing to acknowledge that rhetoric is important; it is another to ignore any letter that does not pander to you, your school, and the position that you have been so utterly and graciously generous to advertise; I continue to be amazed at the people who do not find these attitudes repulsive]).
Zeus, there are some irony-challenged readers here! I know you are all so stressed out that your critical senses are blunted, but still ... Folks, he's using Irony. Remember irony? He's exaggerating for rhetorical effect. Believe me, no SC member ever threw out 95 percent of the original pile in the first-read through.
(My previous version of this post didn't come through, so I'm trying again. And no, I'm not the person who posted on the Wiki, nor am I the "dude himself." Just someone who followed the link and read the blog post.)
Irony? I do not think it means what you think it means.
Hey, fuck you!
Don't worry; I'm being ironic.
Folks, he's using Irony. Remember irony? He's exaggerating for rhetorical effect.
No, I think you've confused irony with sneering contempt for nearly everyone seeking a job this year. And I'm not a worked-up job seeker, although I have to say I'm pissed that there is someone out there treating my students' applications like this.
Somebody might want to save that post, by the way. I'm not sure it's going to be there forever, and it would be a shame for his magnum opus to be lost to posterity.
Oh, don't worry. Way ahead of you. I saved that mofo hours ago (and am frankly shocked it's still up as of now).
Makes Mitt Romney look like an amateur. Mitt only dismissed 47% out of hand; this guy said to himself, "Suck it, Mitt, I'll double that, and add 1% to show you who's boss." And Mitt would never have said any of that if he'd known he was being recorded; this guy typed that shit right up and slapped it on the Internet with his name on it.
He posted again on the wiki, then had second thoughts and deleted all the relevant entries. What a coward.
At first, I thought that this blog piece was going to be a playful joke. Then I read that third paragraph which basically disses every graduate program out there.
While I'm not a big defender of graduate programs (quite a few overproduce both students and piffle), seriously, what balls this guy has, to criticize everyone else. Must be because he is such a major figure in the field.
Oh, wait...
Can't tell who deletes what on the wiki, can you? I don't think it's safe to make any assumptions.
On the other hand, I can't see why the original complaint should get erased from the "jeers" section. If you're going to have a "jeers" section, surely you're going to put bad search committee behavior there, and this is certainly the worst thing I've heard about a search committee member doing so far this year. That it's an individual, not a whole committee, seems to me immaterial, so long as the individual isn't named here.
If you think that that post was awesome, on the other hand, maybe instead of deleting the "jeer" you should just put in a "cheer" for the institution for ... well, for whatever you think the post was great for, I guess.
I'll also just note that, in criticizing everybody else for going about applying for jobs incompetently and arrogantly, this clown just completely fucked up his role in the search and embarrassed his department and institution just to satisfy his own ego and enjoy boasting about lording it over a bunch of people he momentarily has some power over. Somebody was looking for some irony earlier. Well, there it is.
http://memegenerator.net/instance/31374783
Grumpy cat has come to Fam. Vol. time to go home now.
http://memegenerator.net/instance/31375617
http://memegenerator.net/instance/31376170
http://memegenerator.net/instance/31376627
These are great, but they're all going away, because you're using a name.
I don't think the meme generator admins care about that.
http://memegenerator.net/instance/31378378
OK, um, to change the topic: could someone provide any further info regarding the Cornell entry on the wiki ("problems with its on-line application system: requests for letters of recommendation may _not_ have been sent to references")? They used AcademicJobsOnline, right? So any requests-related issues must be on the AJO end. How do people read the wiki update: even though the letters may be sitting there in one's account, Cornell folks may not have received them, or what?
Did anyone grab a screencap of the now-deleted wiki edits?
http://memegenerator.net/instance/31378843
Uncool wiki deletes will be restored. This guy can run, but he can't hide
All the deleted comments can still be seen by looking at the wiki's history.
Someone should make a reddit to house these memes.
I agree with 12:07; let's change the topic. This jackass isn't worth the time. I too am puzzled by the cornell entry on the wiki, as I received no such response after I applied. Does anyone know any more about this problem with the reference letters? Should we be emailing them to insure they received our letters?
Sorry for having been unclear. At a minimum the beloved admins of this blog will delete those comments made falsely under the name of a person in the profession. No more grumpy cats or unimpressed mckaylas, however apposite they may have been. They will live forever in our hearts, but they will be very gone from the thread.
I am very amused that all of the negative press that this member of the HC SC is getting stems from applicants who did, in fact, research the school and their potential future colleagues.
“I am very amused that all of the negative press that this member of the HC SC is getting stems from applicants who did, in fact, research the school and their potential future colleagues.”
It is tough to research an academic someone with no visible record of scholarly publication - save an angry blog - and not even a headshot on the department website.
No, we shouldn't leave this alone. I wasn't all that offended by his advice, quite frankly. There is a great deal of good information here, and better for candidates to confront his approach to reading files and judging candidates (which is not uncommon) head-on, rather than pretend that they can ignore it. Also, lest his deeds slip into the cacheless netherworld, here is his post in full (in two parts_:
"We all know that a PhD from a highly ranked program guarantees that the world will beat a path to your door for the mere opportunity to speak with you. How can you persuade departments that are hiring not to interview you?
Because my department is currently conducting a search, I have recently surveyed essentially the entire pool of job applicants in Classics, and have a good sense for how the best trained candidates manage to avoid getting interviews. For those PhDs who have not yet mastered such a basic skill, I am summarizing here the strategies I have observed.
Let me stress that these comments are aimed only at a very small fraction of candidates. When I tried to compile a short list of roughly 5% of our applicants for interviews, I was unable to do so. Rephrasing that in positive terms, more than 95% of the candidates successfully avoided an interview based solely on my first fairly cursory reading of their dossier. When you consider the kind of dedicated and talented students who go on to graduate study in Classics, that figure is a remarkable testimony to the powerful effects of graduate school.
First let me suggest three fairly general guidelines:
Do not read the job description.
Find out nothing about your potential home institution and colleagues.
Focus relentlessly on your personal career advancement, to the exclusion of any suggestion that your professional work might affect another human being positively.
These may seem obvious, but after reading many applications, I have a better appreciation for how some candidates apply them most effectively. Remember, even in a field like Classics, you cannot count on letters of recommendation to disparage you adequately: you need to use the parts of your dossier that you can directly control — your CV, any specific essays or statements that an advertisement requires, and, especially, your cover letter — to ensure that you do not get an interview.
Part dough:
Almost all candidates will start with the easiest tactic: send in the same generic cover letter that you use in response to completely different job advertisements. Many candidates will let a bland, off-topic letter speak for itself, but one rhetorical refinement I came to appreciate is the addition of a single sentence or two mentioning the hiring institution, but clearly appended to an otherwise unmodified cover letter. If the appended sentence can raise some subject that is central to the job description, but otherwise unmentioned in the cover letter, it will be especially clear that this is an afterthought, and that you have no real interest in the subject. Even better is the appended sentence that implicitly contradicts the emphasis of the rest of the cover letter. Of course, if you are not confident that your reviewers will appreciate this subtlety, you can always resort to brute force: leave the name of a different institution in your appended sentence. Although I saw this only rarely, it demonstrates to even the most insensitive reader that the cover letter is completely impersonal.
What should you do if your generic cover letter actually responds to some part of the job advertisement? Unlikely as that may seem, it can happen, and candidates will then have to take extra precautions to stay off the interviewers' short list. Use your CV and additional statements to obfuscate or directly contradict any apparently relevant sections of your cover letter. If you allude to a potentially interesting digital project in your cover letter, do not include it on your CV, or else present it on your CV as trivial (e.g., list it under some category like "Other service", beneath a more highly valued contribution such as "ordered pizza for grad student lecture series"). If your cover letter could be misread as referring to collaborative research among students and faculty, expand on that in a separate statement about your research that never mentions students. As I saw repeatedly this fall, it can be especially effective to dwell at length on your contract for a forthcoming book if you emphasize that it will be published by a press charging more per monograph than your library ever pays, and if your topic leaves potential colleagues paralyzed at the prospect of having to read your book when you come up for review.
While many applicants use the protracted and obsessive "forthcoming book" discussion to put off potential interviewers, the possibilities it offers for avoiding an interview are almost limitless. If done properly, you can demonstrate with it that years of advanced study have taught you only a narrow range of technical skills without fostering any kind of development as a thoughtful member of an academic community. Prose style is highly individual, but you can heighten the effectiveness of this trope if you strive for a tone of entitlement. Make it clear not only that the proper role for students and colleagues is to advance your career, but that they should be grateful for the chance.
Perhaps the handful of applicants to whom I am offering these suggestions cannot benefit at this point in their careers: if you have not completely internalized these fundamental habits of thought by the time you receive a PhD, it is highly unikely that you will ever pick them up, and we should recognize that some people may simply be incapable of learning such ideas. But given the nature of the job market in academia today, I feel ethically compelled to share these suggestions. If even one applicant thinks differently about applying for a job because of this post, that will be more than enough of a reward for my efforts
Candidates are understandably sensitive about most anything these days, but his advice is pretty sound.
I think the man's advice was right on the money. But the tone was as a deaf as bat.
As a search committee member this year, I can say that I did put a lot of care into reading all 120 letters of application we received, and noted whether or not a candidate appeared to have taken our ad seriously and addressed what they can offer our department in terms of what we said we needed/wanted. Some candidates made it easy for us to put them on our interview list by making their case well in their letters. I know that it is incredibly time consuming to tailor letters, having done it myself hundreds of times over the five years I was on the market in search of a tenure-track job. But on the flip side, search committees are under great pressure to hire someone with needed interests and skills (if they are expressed in the job ad) who is interested in our particular position. In the current economic climate my institution isn't going to put additional money towards redoing a failed search or to running a new search if the candidate we hire leaves after a year or two because he or she really isn't interested in working in a department/place like ours and just took the position to stay in the game for another year while continuing on the market. If we make a bad hire, we could lose the position, which would hurt our program seriously. There is a lot at stake in this process for both job candidates and search committees, which makes it all the more stressful for everyone involved.
No, it's not. To tailor 20+ coverletters beyond a couple of sentences addressing the particular ad and school is as unrealistic as it is disingenuous. If the SC wants a show of flattery that belies a poor fit in their department, let them waste their time. Better to present yourself honestly and let them decide what to make of your strengths and weaknesses.
Anonymous @ 10:30:
If perhaps you had spent more time publishing interesting research and less time crafting exquisitely tailored cover letters it would not have taken five years to find a job, and you might have landed at a place that is not so crappy that your primary concern in hiring is making sure that you find someone so unattractive to the rest of the world that they will stay.
Seriously, I have a fair bit of experience on search committees myself, and it is ridiculous how often these kinds of attitudes prevail. Other members find every kind of ridiculous excuse to dismiss qualified candidates when in fact their primary sin is that they have published, and they seem to be actively engaged in publishing further. The sad thing is that many of these very fine candidates would no doubt have also made excellent and committed teachers, often far moreso than the decidedly mediocre candidates chosen in their stead. And they would have been happy to have the job, and given the scarcity of openings, they likely would have stayed for many years.
I'm all for tailoring, if that's what it takes to get an interview. If you think I'm applying to jobs that I don't want or would not accept, then you've been in your tower too long.
Here's the problem, from Holy Cross's ad:
"We seek a colleague who will be a skilled teacher of Greek and Latin at all levels and of broader courses in Classics in our thriving program within an undergraduate, liberal-arts college. We are especially interested in candidates who can contribute within their research specialties to the College’s growing program in collaborative undergraduate research, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary. Candidates must demonstrate commitment to a liberal arts education and excellence in undergraduate teaching as well as scholarly achievement."
My standard letter addresses my teaching, my research specialty, and my commitment to education. The HC SC says a couple of sentences to get the name of the institution are offensive. What do you expect us to do?
To the members of the Holy Cross Search Committee: You got generic letters because you wrote a generic job ad. You want good letters? Do your job better.
P.S. Cynicism is not irony. Sarcasm is, but it deserves no forgiveness.
I suppose it is a thankless task, and useless, to try to engage in meaningful dialogue about the realities of the job search process from the search committee point of view. Candidates are stressed, worried, and just looking to vent, I guess. Listen, the job market has been tough for a long long time in our field. Taking five years to get a tenure track job is not a mark of failure to publish - it is a sign of the times. Sure, some get tenure track jobs right out of grad school, which is great for them and no doubt a mark of their quality as candidates and some serendipity, too. Others have a number of fellowship years and VAP positions, such as myself, and while the time on the job market was both expensive and stressful, those VAP positions enabled me to get valuable experience teaching in a wide variety of institutions from small liberal arts colleges to large state universities, and so, were ultimately helpful to my career. And anyone who thinks the administrations of only lower tier schools are extremely money conscious, you are in for a shock once you transition from graduate student to faculty member. Budgets have been cut widely. If you are lucky enough to get a t-t job at a place with tons of research money and big department budgets, congratulations. You are to be envied. But there are few such places left. Most will get jobs at schools that are closely watching pennies.
Research money? Is that actually a thing? We're in the humanities. We're supposed to produce research for free in the spare time we get from 60+ hour weeks of teaching and service.
Yes, many people go through years and years of VAPs these days. What you neglect to point out, however, is that even more of us (from top programs, too) are going through years and years of working at Starbuck's vel sim post PhD. And then we get tenured people telling us we're too full of ourselves. It boggles the mind.
@11:48 Look, this has nothing to do with candidates being stressed out, or what people do or do not understand about the state of the market. I am in a T-T job at a good but not great institution, and I put in my time getting here. And insofar as I succeeded on the job market I did so despite the fact that I didn't waste countless hours trying to represent myself as some magical unicorn of a size and shape divined by interpreting the signs available on departmental websites.
And I would go much further and argue that not only is what this idiot at Holy Cross expects unreasonable, his implied advice is terrible, and as likely to sabotage candidates who follow it as not.
In recent years my fellow committee members have often been eager to throw out candidates whose letters were too obviously tailored to reflect what the candidate thought we might be looking for (rather than what he or she really was). And anything that can be perceived as flattery is usually fatal. It is the same reason that we often find dossier service recommendation letters more useful than the tailored kind. We just want an honest appraisal of a candidate's accomplishments, talents and interests. Whether they are a good match for us is for us to decide.
My best advice is to assume that the committee you are writing for is composed of reasonable people. Even if you know that in fact there are scores of jackasses out there not much different in kind (if perhaps degree) from the guy at Holy Cross.
Yes, it is extremely time-consuming to tailor letters to individual places. But it can be done.Most years around this time I write anywhere from 30 to 65 letters of recommendation for students who want to go to graduate school, law school, Teach For America, etc. etc.. I tailor each letter to the program the student is applying to. I do not send generic letters out. I read the description of the program in question and discuss how the student would be a good fit for that program. And I do this while grading final papers and final essay exams, teaching three classes, serving on committees, and being a member of an SC in those years (not this one, unfortunately) when we are lucky enough to have a position open in classics or any of a number of related disciplines.
Tailoring letters matters. In our last classics search a few years back, when we read generic application letters from people talking about how they were looking forward to teaching graduate seminars in papyrology, we knew that they had not bothered even to glance at this institution's website nor to think about how they'd adjust to teaching at an SLAC. A hire where the new person is miserably unhappy and leaves as soon as possible is harmful all the way around, to everybody. And yes, deans DO take lines away and give them to other departments. If we make the wrong call in a given search, we may very well lose the line (I have seen it happen, not in my department but at this institution).
So are we going to spend one of our precious APA interviews on someone who seems not even to know that we're an SLAC with no grad students? No, we are not. That's not "publication envy" (we've all published a good deal), it's common sense. We have only a very few interviews to use, and if we get them wrong there can be really bad consequences: we hire a colleague who doesn't want to be doing this kind of teaching, is very unhappy here, and leaves, or we may even have to declare a failed search. In either of those cases, we are vulnerable to losing our line. We're not going to risk it. If you're going to take the time to apply here at all, then let us know that you're applying here.
Throwing out an application that talks about teaching grad seminars if you're a SLAC is completely fair. But do you really think 95% of the applicants to the Holy Cross position did that?
Tailoring makes sense insofar as your letter should express why you're a good fit for the job, and if it's a SLAC that might mean a few sentences or a paragraph about experience teaching small classes or whatever else the job ad wants you to address, but this strategy is something he specifically slams. We can tailor, but we can't (and shouldn't) write completely new letters for each individual job.
I just have a really hard time believing that more than 95% of us are screwing up so hard that we should be eliminated based on the "first fairly cursory reading of their dossier."
12:20 says that his/her colleagues have been only too eager to throw out obviously tailored letters. But 12:45 makes a case for why tailoring is crucial.
Fwiw, I just sat through a SC meeting where, when we were trying to winnow the 25 best candidates down to the 12 we could interview, one of the criteria we used to EXCLUDE some from the list was "No tailoring in the cover letter."
So, what the Hell should a candidate do? I guess the only way to stay sane is to write the kind of letter that is comfortable for you and just accept that you're going to alienate some SCs no matter what you do.
12:53 wrote:
I just have a really hard time believing that more than 95% of us are screwing up so hard that we should be eliminated based on the "first fairly cursory reading of their dossier."
Precisely. Of course you're not. Clearly, these numbers are way over the top, and that's exactly why the post MUST have been meant as ironic. Badly done, heavy-handed, sarcasm laden, but clearly not meant to be taken literally.
This guy doesn't really mean that 95 percent of applicants are obviously discardable, anymore than Swift really mean that the Irish should eat their babies.
All this talk of crafting hyper-targeted application letters is giving me the cold sweats, and I'm not on the market!
I have a modest proposal. No more application letters, period. Everybody submits one, generic "personal/research/teaching statement" to a central clearing-house. For example, the APA could adopt a system like this.
Job candidates post their entire file online, referees post letters accompanying said file. Applicants apply to a job simply by filling out a brief, a very brief, form and search committees download whatever parts of the applicant's file they need. By definition, there are no "customized" letters, neither by applicants nor by recommenders. Applicants work on presenting themselves as they want to be seen in general, not as they want to be seen by Holy Cross, or Harvard, or U. Mass-Amherst.
No more divining what SCs might want. No more unreasonable expectations by SCs. No more bullshit, by either party. Less stress for all involved, and a more robust signaling mechanism for scholarly competency and genuine fit.
"This guy doesn't really mean that 95 percent of applicants are obviously discardable, anymore than Swift really mean that the Irish should eat their babies."
I'm pretty sure Swift didn't write while actively cutting into an Irish baby that he had on a plate in front of him.
Fwiw, I just sat through a SC meeting where, when we were trying to winnow the 25 best candidates down to the 12 we could interview, one of the criteria we used to EXCLUDE some from the list was "No tailoring in the cover letter."
Shorter 12:54: We are looking to hire pastry-chefs. Doctors need not apply.
12:06 said:
"Yes, many people go through years and years of VAPs these days. What you neglect to point out, however, is that even more of us (from top programs, too) are going through years and years of working at Starbuck's vel sim post PhD. And then we get tenured people telling us we're too full of ourselves. It boggles the mind."
I have a genuine question, for which I hope I won't be flamed. Did your undergrad professors not warn you about the job market before writing recs to get you into grad school? Not only I, but every other classics prof. I've talked to in the past ten years, has a "look before you leap" talk that we give the starry-eyed majors who want to go to grad school. We tell them there are no jobs, that it is VERY unlikely they'll ever get a tenure-track position, that if there's anything else at all they can imagine doing, then do that instead, and we tell them to go to grad school ONLY if they think the experience of spending several more years studying this material is worth it for its own sake. We tell them to go to grad school on the assumption that getting the PhD will NOT lead to a job.
From the level of vitriol, hatred, and sheer rage against the world in general and the tenured in particular, I get the impression that most of you posting here were NOT warned before you started grad school. You all certainly sound like people who think they have been deceived or tricked into getting a doctorate under false pretenses. If that's true, it's pretty shocking.
I found the many years of adjuncting and VAPs as soul-destroying, exhausting, and disheartening as anyone else, but I don't remember that I, or anyone in my grad school cohort, felt this level of rage. We *knew* the job market was unbelievably terrible, and we knew that we'd get TTs, if at all, only after many years of trying and many of us never would. So we were exhausted and deeply discouraged, but I don't remember this level of rage and bitterness.
So I wonder -- were you not warned? Did you not know? Are most professors not telling undergraduate majors the truth about the job market?
@1:02. Your suggestion of using something like Academic Jobs Online would make the process simpler and more transparent for everyone. I only wish that our profession will be reasonable enough to adopt it someday.
@1:51. Have you not been around for the past several years? This question has been discussed more than once, whether grad students should know what they are getting into. The short answer: most people are told; most people are biased to believe that they will be the ones who somehow beat the odds.
I'm not full of rage. I just find it confusing to be labeled as full of myself (because of my good degree, publications, etc.) when I'm actually struggling to survive. I would think the reason for that is fairly straightforward.
Incidentally, though, no. I wasn't warned as an undergraduate. I was actively encouraged to go into Classics professionally and told that I was a shoe-in.
Of course, I got a much better sense of the academic market once I was actually in grad school. The burden for my life decisions is still very much on me, and I don't think I ever said otherwise.
I have to more or less concur with December 6, 2012 2:22 PM. I was encouraged throughout, in spite of being aware of the bleak scene. In grad school I was told over and over by the senior faculty to expect a mass retirement / die off / what have you and that there would be more slots than people. Yeah, right. Clawing one's way through the market for years, stacking up hefty vitae with substantial research programs and still finding the thing impossible explains some of the angst, although I would not call it rage. The HC blog post has irritated people here (at least this person) b/c its author is a tenured do-nothing who is somehow permitted to pass judgment on others starting out. Someone yesterday pointed out how new PhDs and the tenured folks don't play by the same rules - and they were right on the money
On the other hand, it is also true that the current generation of PhDs were being advised by their undergraduate mentors before the current economic collapse.
Remember that since 2008 getting a Visiting Assistant Professor position is roughly as difficult as getting a tenure-track job was before then. Before 2008, roughly 30% of applicants were getting tenure-track jobs in a given year (this from the APA's own numbers). 30% is now roughly the percentage of applicants who get any job at all, including VAPs. Roughly 13-14% now get TT jobs in a given year.
Anyone who doubts how shitty this market is needs to learn math and go look at the APA's own numbers.
@2:52's stats are in part why I absolutely get enraged by attitudes like those of the guy from HC.
Clowns like this would rather hire an incompetent flatterer who they know is lying to them than someone who is clearly competent but prefers not to flatter. Afterwards the fact that they chose said person (out of scores of candidates!) is all that is necessary to convince themselves that this hire was a smashing success. And of course the ideal young colleague is one who is so unproductive and whose teaching is so unimpressive that he is even more reliant on the goodwill of those who hired him to earn promotion. Yet more opportunity for flattery!
And if by accident they hire someone who is actually competent, of course she flees at the first opportunity. What a horror, we were duped! Next time, we will need to read the cover letters more carefully!
Back in the day, clowns like this caused less real harm. In certain cases there really were more positions than competent candidates. But in a market like this, choosing not to consider talented, driven and accomplished candidates, and instead focusing on who best stroked your ego borders on criminal.
It doesn't border on criminal. It's just stupid and harmful to our profession.
Personally I have no use for tailored cover letters, and I don't really understand people who want them. If I worked at a SLAC, I can't imagine I'd get my shorts all in a knot if I had to be exposed to two sentences of an applicant talking about graduate courses they'd like to teach. Just give me a letter addressed to "Dear Members of the Search Committee" that talks about your research and about the different kinds of teaching you might do at different kinds of institutions.
Could any of my colleagues here clarify for me why this is such a big deal to them, and what useful information they get from letters that are highly specific to their institution? Please note that I'm not asking whether candidates would be wise to tailor their letters, but what you personally get out of such a letter and how it helps you assess an application.
I think the best adjective is probably "masturbatory".
SLACs have to sell themselves as special to prospective students. Faculty eventually end up drinking that Kool-Aid for real; they then expect prospective faculty to have drunk it already.
This discussion is making me think of this scene in 'The Big Chill':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9FJiDFVoOo
Tailoring letters is easier when one already has a TT job, is looking for another, better one, and is applying selectively. ABDs, VAPs, and the like do not, of course, have this luxury.
Oh my goodness. Bothering to tailor a job application letter to tell the committee why you might be a good fit is outrageous! Why, it is like telling a graduate school why you are interested in their particular program, and giving them a reason to admit you over the other 100 students competing for 4 spots. Or, telling an employer in any industry why they might like to hire you - how you can contribute to their organization. Get a grip, people. Bottom line - there are hundreds of people applying for each job. Most of those people are excellent candidates. We have to have some way to distinguish between you all to come up with a short list of people to interview. Logically, if we asked what sorts of specific courses you could offer, or had some particular specialty in mind, letters that address those issues make those candidates stand out, all other things being equal. Tailoring letters is not flattery or sucking up. It is providing requested information, for those job ads that are not totally generic. I tailored all of the letters I wrote as a job candidate, and it didn't take all of my time. And after all, people seem to have enough time on their hands to devote to complaining on this Wiki.
Dear 7:08,
Read the HC job ad, and tell me precisely what information was requested. I'll await your sarcastic response with trembling anticipation.
Neeling before you,
Candidate
That doesn't in any way address my question about what I'm supposed to learn from a letter tailored specifically to me that I can't learn from a generic letter that covers the different kinds of teaching that are done at different kinds of institutions.
That doesn't in any way address my question about what I'm supposed to learn from a letter tailored specifically to me that I can't learn from a generic letter that covers the different kinds of teaching that are done at different kinds of institutions
This.
Neeling before you,
I see what you did there.
"That doesn't in any way address my question about what I'm supposed to learn from a letter tailored specifically to me that I can't learn from a generic letter that covers the different kinds of teaching that are done at different kinds of institutions."
You learn that the candidate is willing to suck up to you. This is important to many people.
People saying that we should tailor our letters are arguing against a straw man. *Of course* we tailor our letters. That was never the issue under discussion.
8:50 wrote:
"People saying that we should tailor our letters are arguing against a straw man. *Of course* we tailor our letters."
Well, no, a lot of you DON'T. Read the comments from those of us on SCs.
Define "tailor."
9:37: If your ad says you want someone who can teach languages and culture courses, and my letter says I can teach languages and culture courses, it's tailored. Stop being such a dick.
By the way, the shock is not that getting a T-T job is hard. The shock is learning exactly why it's hard. Hint: it's not the economy.
I'm sorry 9:37, I meant that for 9:03.
I remember my favorite professor from the small liberal arts college I attended. He was amazing. I mean, he couldn't have taught snow how melt, and I don't think I ever saw the door of his office open--for all I know it wasn't even a door but a cleverly painted mural. He hadn't published since the Eisenhower administration; he said he couldn't be bothered to learn how to use those "typewriter processing machines." He canceled class at the drop of a hat, and when he did manage to show up, he always smelled faintly of gasoline. But boy, could that guy tailor a cover letter.
Is anyone else disturbed by how many institutions in American higher education are still blatantly religious?
It's the 21st century, for fuck's sake.
I think the big question that infamous blog posts raises is, how do you tailor a cover letter without sounding corny? Especially if the advert (like the Holy Cross one) was as generic as can be? As somebody who has just finished his Ph.D., and by necessity of the earliness of his career, has only a limited set of accomplishments and teaching experience to move around the metaphorical board, what's the best way to do it? My cover letter was generic in part because I felt that it was the best way to explain my interests, my experience, and career trajectory as they stand.
Since there has been something less than a flood of responses, I'm going to repeat the question I posed yesterday.
Can any of my colleagues explain to me why I need to see a letter written specifically for me and for my department and institution?
Please note that this is different from the questions 1). whether it is prudent for candidates in general to write their letters in that way and 2). whether it might be wise for particular candidates to highlight interests and competencies that might fit well with a specific department. I am asking why I should expect every letter for a job we've advertised to address my department and institution in a highly specific and exclusive way. In other words, why shouldn't I be happy with a letter that addresses an applicant's interests in a full range of kinds of teaching that would be done at different kinds of institutions?
I'm not being facetious here; I really don't understand and I would like an explanation.
In sending a general letter of application, you ask the search committee to make the case for you. In tailoring your letter to the specifics of the job ad, you make the case for yourself. If I have 120+ applications to read in two weeks while teaching a full load of courses, working on my scholarship, and doing departmental, college, and university service, etc., I am not going to spend a lot of time making the case on behalf of candidates. Instead, the ones who make their cases to me will get the most positive attention and consideration. In a perfect world, we would have no time constraints. It isn't a perfect world.
With respect, that's a vague and evasive answer. Again, why do I need to see a letter that addresses specifically and exclusively only my kind of institution? How does that "make the case," to use your terms? In what way, for example, does not mentioning graduate courses in applications to a particular kind of school "make the case"?
They can't answer your question. Not convincingly.
The sad fact is that they want to be begged and flattered.
My challenge do the fuckwit in question is to post HIS cover letter from 25 years ago. Then explain to us what has changed in the past 25 years such that it was perfectly acceptable for his to consist of nothing other than a few sentences announcing his name, dissertation topic, and that letters from Professors x and y would arrive under separate cover.
Seriously, some of you should ask your professors from that generation if they have copies of their cover letters that they are willing to share. My supervisor's was a single paragraph. Three short sentences.
Does anyone know of any job anywhere doing anything for any amount of money I could fucking get with this worthless, piece of shit Classics PhD?
Yes, obviously some people want this kind of letter because they find it, um, "gratifying." Other people obviously just enjoy complaining about not receiving this kind of letter. And some people want a quick way of narrowing the pool of applicants and have rationalized using the letters in this way by attributing great importance to narrow tailoring (in that case, it seems strange to me to complain about candidates not writing such letters; they're helping you out!)
But I'm not giving up hope that there are legitimate reasons that exist beside these, and I would like to hear about them.
Does anyone know of any job anywhere doing anything for any amount of money I could fucking get with this worthless, piece of shit Classics PhD?
Sorry, a lot of us are asking that question. And the answer is -- no, not really.
I'm finding that even for minimum wage jobs I have to explain what I've been doing for work in the last few years. There doesn't seem to be any way around that.
And the minute you mention getting a PhD they think you are lying, making fun of them, or that there is something seriously wrong with you. No matter what, you don't get the fucking job.
This is a big problem. It's not limited to classics. A good resource, in case anyone's actually interested is
http://versatilephd.com/
No. Don't be tempted by versitile phd and the like. Do not think that there are jobs out there for PhDs in classics. Or, better, don't count on it. And do not spend this time of the year thinking about it.
With a PhD in classics you are most qualified to be a classics professor. Not a banker. Not a spy. Not a management consultant. A classicist. The job market is predictable and people actually get jobs. Not as many as we all would like, but still.
There is nothing predictable about a job search outside of classics. There are opportunities out there. Some, certainly, are more lucrative than classics. As noted, I have a classics PhD, and am now working in an entirely different field.
But if your goal is employment, any employment, your best chance is in classics. And the time before the APA is not to be spent wondering what else might be possible. Do that AFTER the APA. Spend your time preparing for interviews, tailoring your letters, and the like.
Now, if you have decided that classics was a mistake and you want to move on, by all means, explore your options, but also give classics a second look. For all its faults, you have trained for it and are qualified for it.
Fallen, remember that only 13% of qualified applicants are getting a tenure-track job in Classics each year (on average since 2008). Less than 30% are getting any job at all, including VAPs without benefits, for that same range of time.
And most of us don't have any interviews to prepare for. We're just paying hundreds of dollars we don't have to go to the APA and have cocksuckers like that HC bitch laugh at us under their breath.
If people really want to know what they can do with a classics PhD - well, you can teach high school Latin. Many schools in my area want to hire Latin teachers but instead have to shut down programs for lack of applicants.
I'd love to know where you are, then, so I can move there and get a state teaching certification.
I've applied to quite a few high school jobs. I've never even heard back from most.
Death is, of course, the best option. Dead people don't even need jobs. But I'm too much of a fucking coward. Seneca is probably rolling over in his grave.
As someone who is likely to be on a search committee in the next few years, I'm not sure that a personally tailored letter is going to be a better guide to the candidate's abilities or not.
On the one hand, it shows that the applicant spent some time to find out who and what we are, and that's always nice.
On the other hand, such a letter will, in the end, only tell us that the candidate is good at doing cyber research. A more general letter, so long as it is very detailed, will likely provide the information I want.
What I would want, most of all, is an honest account of the applicant's abilities and experience. While I am at a teaching focused institution, that does not mean I would rule out someone from a research-intensive program, but they would have to show that they have had some teaching experience and would be able to hit the ground running with very little support from overworked colleagues.
This is the most important thing. If we get taken in by a well-crafted letter that flatters us, but the new hire turns out to be a disaster in the classroom, it is not only our department that suffers. Our students suffer as well.
http://chronicle.com/article/PhDs-From-Top/136113/
A brief look at the past placement data on this wiki shows that this hiring pattern happens in Classics, as well, at both the R1 and SLAC levels. PhD cohorts from different departments are suffering at different rates. We need ALL PhD departments to provide real, up-to-date numbers on the fate of their alumni. How many eventually attain TT jobs? Where are these successful candidates placed? What about rankings in placement success rates?
PhD cohorts from different departments are suffering at different rates.
Yes, but this is not a recent phenomenon; it has been the case for a long time that some departments had much better placement records than others.
We need ALL PhD departments to provide real, up-to-date numbers on the fate of their alumni. How many eventually attain TT jobs? Where are these successful candidates placed? What about rankings in placement success rates?
I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be desirable. But on the other hand, my impression is that Classics is small enough that everybody already knows which 10-12 schools have good placement records. Does anybody feel like they don't know roughly where different graduate programs stand in this regard?
"Does anybody feel like they don't know roughly where different graduate programs stand in this regard?"
True enough. But I wonder if there would be some surprises if these rankings came out. Placement reputation and placement numbers may not always be in accord. I also wonder if published rankings would make all programs and/or advisors more forthcoming about future prospects to prospective students, or at least more proactive in trying to place students.
Looks like Holy Cross is sending out notifications - someone on the wiki marked that as their fourth interview request.
The institutions that most need a placement warning label are also those that are least likely to be inclined to talk about their placement records.
I don't think this would have its intended effect, though. It might affect at the margins graduate schools' competition for prospective graduate students. But overall it wouldn't cause institutions with mediocre or poor placement records to go without graduate students: there are always people willing to enroll in even the most hopeless programs, because they just know it's going to be different for them.
In my limited experience as a recently tenured faculty member in an excellent but not elite department offering PhDs, I've started to notice a bifurcation in the types of jobs that our most successful students land.
There's the traditional route that seems to be fading - many years of experience in the languages, a solid publication, elite undergraduate department, etc. When a student fits the traditional mold, I encourage them to go all in. This might change in the future, but these folks seem to land a job within three years.
If a students seems to excel outside the box a bit - digital humanities, archaeology, etc. - we encourage them to develop these interests WITH the caveat that they might take a more circuitous route towards a permanent job. Not only would they not be the most competitive for a traditional job, when the right fit comes up, they're incredibly competitive. I think the 5-10 years hopping around is shrinking towards five and less, and I think it will only get better as universities continue to downsize traditional classics.
9: 10 wrote, re tailored letters, "What I would want, most of all, is an honest account of the applicant's abilities and experience. While I am at a teaching focused institution, that does not mean I would rule out someone from a research-intensive program, but they would have to show that they have had some teaching experience and would be able to hit the ground running with very little support from overworked colleagues."
My school isn't doing a search this year, but based on my SC experiences in the past I'd say that this is what most of us (I think) mean by a tailored letter. How does your teaching experience equip you to teach in this sort of program? If your one-size-fits-all application letter just says "I have taught three lecture classes, each with 250 students" then the SC at an SLAC is left wondering how you'll make the transition. You need to tell them how you think that will work. At my SLAC, we certainly consider, and have hired, people who have never taught anything but huge lecture courses -- but they need to let us know that they've thought about the difference between the teaching they've done and the kind of teaching they'll do here, and they need to say something about how they'll adjust to that difference.
That's what a "tailored" letter should do. The SCs I've been on have no interest at all in flattery of our own research. The letter that says "My research would complement Prof. W's work on X, and I would love to sit at the feet of Prof. J. to learn all I can" etc. ad nauseam is just creepy. But it's crucial that the letter talk about how the candidate sees him/herself adjusting to the kind of teaching we do here.
You also need to have some discussion, however brief, of how you can continue your own research at this institution. If your research depends on continual access to major collections of papyri, for instance, you're not going to be able to do that at most SLACs. If you depend heavily on TLG and you're applying to a place that doesn't subscribe to it, where the library budget has been frozen for some years, you need to think about how you'd adjust to those circumstances. You don't need to give up on your ongoing research and you don't need to go into great detail about how you'd manage here. But you do need to show us that you know this job is in an isolated area a day's drive away from any research library, you know you'll be teaching a 3/3 load so you can't easily make that drive to the nearest library, and you've thought about the implications of these things for your research . If we hire you and you're utterly miserable because you don't know how to do this kind of teaching and you can't continue your research program, everyone loses.
9:10 also wrote: "If we get taken in by a well-crafted letter that flatters us, but the new hire turns out to be a disaster in the classroom, it is not only our department that suffers. Our students suffer as well."
After many years of experience on SCs for several different departments, I have to say that we've never been snookered by flattery into hiring someone who can't teach. As I say, flattery is creepy. But we DID once, many years ago now, hire someone (on the basis of a completely untailored one-size-fits-all letter) who had no discussion-class experience at all, had only taught at major research universities with graduate programs, and said nothing at all about how s/he thought teaching at an SLAC would differ. That person looked so good in every other way that we were willing to take the risk on the teaching experience -- and it was a real mistake. Bad fit in every way, miserable here, gone after two years, and we had the search to do all over again (and were lucky to be allowed to keep the line.) Since then, I've been very gun-shy of the entirely un-tailored letter.
That's the closest I've seen yet to a good argument for a "tailored" letter. But I think it's mainly an argument for having a university template and a SLAC template. I'm not sure that even deserves the name of "tailoring."
If your research depends on continual access to major collections of papyri, for instance, you're not going to be able to do that at most SLACs.
Also, wait just a minute. This isn't an argument for people to tailor their letters. This is an argument for people with certain programs of research not to apply to your institution. That's totally different.
If a students seems to excel outside the box a bit - digital humanities, archaeology, etc. - we encourage them to develop these interests WITH the caveat that they might take a more circuitous route towards a permanent job.
Way to reinforce my belief that classicists embrace a dying, text-only dogma
December 8, 2012 4:36 PM brings up a point that I've been wondering about.
How important is it for those of us who are Classicists in something of the traditional mold to come from an elite undergraduate institution?
I am a WASP, but the SLAC I went to was decidedly average, and it was located in an undesirable part of the country (my PhD is from a non-elite ivy league school). Does this play a conscious role in anyone's decision making?
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