Because one can never be too careful
Please use this thread for straight-up questions and answers
regarding the assembly of dossiers, mailing practices, letters of
application, interviews, job-talks, etc. Basically anything involving
the process, from A to Z.
A sometimes useful, and oftentimes entertaining, site to check out
is the Chronicle of Higher Education's Discussion Forum. Two
particularly relevant examples are here:
The Job Seeking Experience
The Interview Process
The threads are often not apposite, but they can be a treasure-trove
of laughs and morale boosts. And don't forget to check the archives on
this site for the past few years.
87 comments:
Here's a straight up question about applications: How should I refer in my CV and cover letter to my article and book that are currently being considered for publication. Both of them have been sent out to readers. So I plan to say that they are "under review." Do I include where they are under review? That would show that I'm not just pulling this out of thin air, but I am not sure about what common practices are here
No harm in saying where.
Ok, the book is one thing. But do people actually list their articles on their CVs before they are forthcoming? That seems...dodgy.
Question about the job at George Washington University: does anyone know whether they have a particular research specialism in mind? The ad only says they want someone who can teach Greek at all levels, but they don't say the person needs to be primarily a Hellenist research-wise. Or is that just implied?
Of course you should list your article / book! Just be sure to differentiate between:
"In progress" - Working on it, but haven't submitted anywhere
"Under review at X" - Submitted, but haven't heard back yet
"In revision/resubmission at X" - Submitted and offered invitation for revise & resubmit
"Forthcoming at X" - Submitted, accepted, soon to travel the world
do people actually list their articles on their CVs before they are forthcoming? That seems...dodgy.
Yes, people do that. I think it's dodgy, but that's clearly not the universal opinion.
I was told to include submitted articles in the way that 2:10 suggests, but I was strongly advised not to include works in progress as they can come off as padding.
I was told to include submitted articles
I think this has become a gray area. Some people think it's OK, some don't. I tend not to give a submitted article any weight, because submitting things is extremely easy and it's that part after that that can be challenging.
There are some supervisors out there (you know who you are) that actually encourage their students to send out multiple virtually unrevised dissertation chapters vel sim. in order to pad CVs and also give the supervisors something to talk up in their letters. It is easy enough to simply ignore such stuff on CVs, but sometimes some of us actually get sent this crap to review, and for that reason I'd like to punch these supervisors in the face.
Yes. How dare people send work that you think is crap in for review? What possible good could getting unrestrained anonymous feedback on a piece of work do for anybody? Clearly the only reason people submit work that reviewers think is weak is so that the submitter can pad his or her CV.
P.S. I'd like to punch you in the face. If you only want to read polished finished work, stop reviewing, buy a subscription, and shut up.
You are truly clueless, and likely one of the supervisors in question. I am not talking about young scholars making an earnest effort to get published. I'm talking about work that is rushed out just for the purposes of padding a CV, often when these supervisors know full well it is nowhere near ready for publication. Sometimes, e.g., the footnotes include internal references to other chapters, or the argument itself relies on material that was clearly treated in a different chapter. And in fact I have had one student of one such supervisor explain that she was told to just go ahead and send stuff out because it looks good when applying for jobs, and because "it is always helpful to get feedback." This is a colossal waste of people's time and if you don't understand that you are truly a fucking moron.
Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you were (1), omniscient and (2), that you had ¡anecdotal evidence! to support your claims. Truth is, you have no idea why people send the work they send. Your prejudices do no one any good, and the discpline, nay the world, would be better of if you fucked off and died.
More invective! Bigger, badder insults! Whip those dicks out and beat each other with them!
If you only want to read polished finished work, stop reviewing, buy a subscription, and shut up.
Of course submissions to journals should be what the author regards as "polished, finished work." The refereeing process is not for free copyediting or to bounce ideas off of anonymous readers. A piece ought to seem to you to be publishable as is when you send it in, even if you end up having to revise it.
And one may develop a reasonable understanding of "polished, finished work" by submitting one's best stuff for review. The ability to judge the quality of one's own work accurately is not innate.
It's true that it's hard to know how good your own work is, but that is where the supervisor should come in. I had a colleague who used to recommend that his students "just send stuff out." (I think he did this because he was lazy--it takes tons of time to help a student rework a chapter into something publishable--ok, not always, but for our average student it does). The worst part is not that he was causing his students to waste the time of reviewers, but that those students ended up scarred by the whole process of peer review. If a supervisor does his job peer review shouldn't be terrifying.
The blathering about not putting submitted articles on the ol' CV is hogwash.
Committee members know the difference between published and submitted articles. A line for submitted articles (and works in progress) lets them know what you're working on. Sometimes it can make the difference between having only your CV read and your application getting a better perusal.
It also shows an active research plan and that the applicant has some faint idea of how to approach the publishing process. (Many people leave graduate school uninitiated into the mysteries of peer review.)
I say this as someone who survived the interview process, got a job and has hired others.
So I am not only the president of the hair club for men, I am also a member.
And one may develop a reasonable understanding of "polished, finished work" by submitting one's best stuff for review. The ability to judge the quality of one's own work accurately is not innate.
Sure. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people who send in stuff that they couldn't be bothered to put any sort of professional face on. Typos everywhere, misconstrued Greek and Latin, self-contradiction, weak (or random) engagement with existing scholarship, poorly written sentences and paragraphs, sloppy organization. That's all stuff that can be fixed before submission, but I'd say that maybe one out of every three pieces I get suffers from several of those problems.
Committee members know the difference between published and submitted articles.
Right. That's why I ignore articles listed as "submitted."
Yep. I could quite literally write a dirty limerick right now on a piece of toilet paper, scan it, stick it in a .pdf, and submit it electronically to a top journal, at which point according to some I could list it on my CV thus:
"Fuck It or Suck It? The Further Adventures of the Man from Nantucket." (under review/submitted)
Is the UW-Madison ad for a Homerist a mistake? It seems to be a description of someone they already hired.
You do realize that editors can simply send the shit back without forwarding it to their referees?
UW-Madison: yes, mistakes were made. Don't bother applying.
You do realize that editors can simply send the shit back without forwarding it to their referees?
Yes, but that doesn't happen very often, for a variety of reasons.
Plates don't count in writing sample page limits, correct?
Plates don't count in writing sample page limits, correct?
Depends how long your captions are.
The UW-Madison story must be a good one. I've never seen anything quite like it.
Absolutely nothing wrong with putting clearly labeled work "in progress" on your c.v.; often it will be something not from the dissertation and there will be one person on a committee who will enjoy and learn from asking you about it, and it can give a precise title to something a letter-writer mentions. Opinions differ as to whether you should put "under review" or "under review at /submitted to AJP/AJA." Some people think that means it's really been submitted and not imaginary, but I find it annoying and unimpressive, and it can be embarrassing if it's rejected before the interview.
"The UW-Madison story must be a good one. I've never seen anything quite like it."
Actually, I can think of several cases in which a school had to readvertise a search to keep the non-american that they hired. That seems to be the situation here, no?
I think what you are referring to are people hired in temporary positions that later had to be readvertised as tenure-track. That is not the case here. I suspect someone screwed up, and royally.
It's probably a visa problem - has happened to a friend who was in a TT. His school applied for the wrong visa; it's sadly par for the course in the incompetent world of universitys' international offices
it's sadly par for the course in the incompetent world of universitys' international offices
Yes, if you really, truly want to fuck something up, make sure that an international office is involved in at least one stage of the process.
Are the faculty at Creighton aware that their HR website is asking candidates to personally submit letters of recommendation?
If I want to send a chapter (or a completely-argued portion of a chapter) from my dissertation as a writing sample, what do I do about bibliography? Put full cites in footnotes? Assume author/date is enough? If I need a full bib at the end, does that count towards pages?
Author/date in the notes is fine. It's also fine to do a little Works Cited just for your sample and not count it towards the total page count.
Creighton: I don't read the HR language as meaning that you have to personally mail the letters.
When applying to a temporary teaching position, how much should I say about my research? Nothing at all?
For any others who also like waiting until the last minute... Toronto gave a link for INSTRUCTIONS for their online system, but didn't provide the actual link for applying. So, being magnanimous, I am providing the link: https://utoronto.taleo.net/careersection/10050/jobdetail.ftl
Perhaps the Placement Service in the future might check that for online applications there is a functioning link? I just wasted five minutes looking for it.
"When applying to a temporary teaching position, how much should I say about my research? Nothing at all?"
I think your research says much about you as a teacher. Whether you're curious and engaged in the discipline will reveal whether you can arouse students' curiosity and inspire them to engage. Further, if you can explain your research clearly and engagingly in your letter, then you can probably explain things to students well, too. Finally, your research might catch the interest of a committee member. I'd say you should address your research, though perhaps differently, or at least with different emphasis, than you would for a tenure track job.
Applications are rhetorical documents. Make the best argument you can using every tool you have.
Thanks, 3:36. That's very helpful.
I recall somebody practically soiling themselves with rage last year or the year before because applicants to a temporary position were wasting the person's time by addressing their research in their cover letters.
Which is just to say that no matter what you do there is some deranged freak out there who will be violently offended by it.
It is Classics, after all.
How do you know they didn't actually soil themselves? You know what they say about the donkeyfication of assumption.
re: Raging self-soilers.
After following Famae for a few job cycles, I have become absolutely certain of one thing: if you attempt to send the application that you think the committee members want, you will accomplish nothing more than driving yourself crazy. Certain members of committees are assholes, or they think this is a game (I'm going to reject all the applications that use the word "seven"!), or they feel they are far too important to sully themselves by touching the application of a lowly wretch like you (Consider the assholes at Otago: they sent rejections within four days of the application deadline. They put less time into the consideration of these applications than the applicants put into their preparation.) All you can do as an applicant is build your CV and send in the best application you can.
I stand by what I said at 3:32. Your application is an argument. Make it your best one and hope the search committee is peopled by reasonable human beings. It does happen, if rarely.
Re: Otago. With that turnaround, I had assumed we got axed by HR before the committee even saw our applications.
Re: Otago again: In my experience, this is pretty standard for most of the institutions in the English-speaking countries outside the US and Canada. They may or may not read the applications, but they certainly don't waste any time in letting candidates know they're no longer in the running.
RE: Otago.
Quick turnaround is fine, perhaps even preferable to waiting until May. But I for one am skeptical that there was any meaningful consideration of the writing samples and teaching portfolios (indeed the cover letters) that they requested in the four days it took them to send out rejections.
Maybe it isn't dishonest, but the other explanations--lazy, disrespectful, hubristic--don't make them look much better. Even if it was HR kicking out the applications, the ad could have warned that they wouldn't consider applications that X, Y, or Z.
I thought it was an open secret that NZ universities only hired hobbits.
I'm a homo floresiensis. Does that count?
Of course. Belonging to a long extinct species of hominid is no obstacle to employment in Classics, in New Zealand or anywhere.
So, I'm getting to work on my UNC application, and am inspired to ask a question that for some time has been bothering me at the subconscious level: why do some programs that are set up for online applications require that reference letters be sent by mail? (Regardless of our traditions here at Famae Volent, this is a question, not a complaint.) I've pondered this, but the only explanation I can come up with is that maybe it's intended to keep people from writing their own reference letters, but even that seems unlikely. So does anyone know why this is? It just seems so much simpler that if a school is already set up with an online application system it would have everything arrive electronically.
A guess: because that's easier for the letter writers themselves? If it's one of those systems which asks for their e-mail addresses and then contacts them, each letter writer has to go upload the letter herself, sometimes being careful to follow specific instructions. With many applications and many recommendees, this becomes a substantial burden. If they just want a mailed dossier, an administrative assistant can send that. Some of us applicants also appreciate the opportunity to inconvenience our letter writers less, and therefore possibly maintain a slightly better relationship with them.
Well, as you say, that's just a guess -- does anyone out there know?. And your guess would only be correct if departments are given the choice by Human Resources (or whatever office it is) to have digital or online references: departments might think they're doing colleagues a favor, but I find it hard to believe that the bureaucrats care at all about that, especially given how thoughtless they are in making the online applications themselves so time-consuming.
Oops, I meant "digital or hard copy" rather than "digital or online.
@2:47. But is there any conceivable reason that the "assistants" at Interfolio couldn't be the ones to follow those online instructions and upload the letter. It is, in reality, far easier for a letter to upload a letter once to Interfolio and then forget all about the process.
A guess: because that's easier for the letter writers themselves?
It is so endearing that you think there is anyone out there who cares about this. This is the last thing on institutions' minds; if anything, they're feverishly trying to devise more bullshit unique forms that require you to do more than just upload a letter ("please rate this applicant on a scale from 7 to Q, with 7 being 'best ever student under 5'9''' and Q being 'good morning, Captain!' and please leave a concise explanation of the ranking in the box provided, without using verbs or the letter 'e'").
Why does everyone I meet, even strangers on the internet, describe me as "endearing"? It's uncanny.
If your comment is a fair index, it's because you appear to assume reflexively that people are trying to be thoughtful and helpful to other people. This is an outlook that, while profoundly incorrect, divorced from reality, and potentially dangerous, is nonetheless widely regarded as enviable and admirable and is, for most of us, long since completely irrecuperable.
Thank you for your thoughtful and helpful explanation!
I think "Apparently Endearing" may just be the female version of Elwood P. Dowd...
Except Harvey is real, while humane human resources departments exist only in the realm of fantasy, imagination, and delusion.
Dammit! I have a dick. Being mistaken for female on the internet and phone is the *other* thing that always happens to me.
Well, if you bring up the information about your dick earlier in these interactions, that will probably cut down on the confusion. Like so:
"Hello, this is So-and-so. My penis is also here with me."
"I agree with what Anonymous 9:31 said, as does my penis."
And so on. You can just slip it in very naturally.
People normally instruct me to avoid slipping it in if at all possible.
Has anyone figured out what the mysterious 'Other Document' in Villanova's application process is?
Since they are asking for undergraduate and graduate transcripts, I guess we can use the "transcripts" and "other document" to upload each document separately.
they are asking for undergraduate ... transcripts
Wow, you're not even making that up. I'm sorry, but this is the single most efficient way for a department or institution to say "We are a bunch of complete fucking buffoons and we have no idea what we're doing."
Well, that may be an overstatement. They could ask to see your kindergarten art projects or something like that. But still, this is a request of staggering stupidity. Anyone involved in the making of that request should go around with a bag over their head for shame.
Job ads from other departments at Villanova have the same language, so that one is clearly HR's fault. They do like to keep themselves and others busy. Fewer questions asked about wasted resources that way.
Is anyone else having a problem with the HR program at Villanova, George Washington, or Harvard? It's now had 12 hours to convert my files into PDF format and hasn't managed to do so. Which is ridiculous, considering that half of them are already PDFs.
Yes. I've actually had no trouble up to this point (including with Washington University) but my already-a-pdf document has been 'converting' on the Villanova site for the last twelve hours.
I got the GW site to work, but have been waiting almost 2 days for the Villanova site to "convert" documents that are already pdfs. I've had absolutely not luck with the WashU site at all. Thinking about just mailing hard copies...
Ditto on Villanova. Just my cover letter (already .pdf), also taking over 12 hours to convert. No sign of improvement, or any means to abort and try again...
9:36 again, with an update:
The Villanova site finally finished "converting" my documents and I was able to submit them. Still struggling with WashU, though I will take advice of 9:37 and mail hard copies.
I hope others are able to get some success with these online app systems, too!
And it looks like Villanova has removed the required 'Other Document' from their list, too.
Villanova sure is a load of fun. Interfolio received two separate upload requests per letter of recommendation. One for HR and one for the department? One for the application, one for the trash can?
As a writer of letters of recommendation, may I say that I dread getting the two messages from Villanova (it's always two, a second one arriving about a minute after the first). When they arrive, I know that I'll be spending an indefinite and potentially very long time checking that browser window every few minutes, waiting to see whether their system has succeeded yet in converting my pdf into a pdf.
You know, the .pdf conversion problem might not be as bad as it looks. When uploading applications I've at least twice had such delays (which, moronically, can include converting a .pdf into a .pdf), but on one site discovered that if I back out of that page and returned the conversion would be finished. So it might be worth doing that, refreshing the browser, or logging out and back in -- I suspect that the problem is not the time of conversion, but some glitch in confirming it.
On a related topic, GWU's site did not seem to generate an automated request to recommenders (i.e. Interfolio). Was this anyone else's experience?
I had the same experience with GWU's application. I went back a couple of days later and hit the green button next to each application, to "resend" a notice to Interfolio, and that time it went through. So I suggest you log back in and do that also.
Same experience with GWU, but I don't see a screen with a "Green Button" or any reference to interfolio. Where do we go to connect to interfolio?
I only just figured this out myself. It's through Interfolio rather than through the job site itself - the instructions can be found on the Interfolio Help tab.
LOL @ UoA
I think what people have done for GWU is to click, in interfolio, on "Add Delivery" and then on "Upload Application to Website" and followed the instructions there. This probably works but it is a little surprising that GWU would expect us to figure this out without making any reference to interfolio in their application materials. This makes me wonder if a different solution is intended.
OK, I wrote to the chair of GWU about the letters. His response: "We will only be asking for letters from candidates who make it past the first round of deliberation, so that several hundred senior professors are not being asked to write letters, but rather a much smaller number are writing for a reduced pool of viable candidates."
Hope this helps.
Re the questions and comments some of you have posted about submitting letters for the GW position: Most of you read the posting correctly and realized that we have not actually asked for letters yet. We will only be asking for letters from candidates who make it past the first round of our deliberations, which will take place soon, so that several hundred senior professors are not being asked to write letters, but rather a much smaller number are writing for a reduced pool of viable candidates. Some of you have Interfolio accounts, so that is not an issue, but most applicants have to ask their recommenders for individual letters, which results in a lot of work and time for them, often for candidates who do not even meet the basic job description. Thus, I believe that the system we are following makes the most sense, so that people are not being asked to write letters on behalf of candidates who are not actually viable, but are instead writing on behalf of a much smaller pool of qualified candidates who have already survived the first round.
In addition, the online setup here at GW is new and in a trial phase, which is why some of you have experienced hang-ups in creating pdfs, etc, for which I apologize.
Cheers, EHC (Search Commmittee Chair, GWU)
Sooo... Do the UoA jobs exist or not? The APA ad for one of them was updated but they are not in the university databank.
Also, Hawaii sending interview notifications before applications are due? Classy!
not being notified, even after having been interviewed, is nothing new. sometimes the letters never come. sometimes they come quite a time later. sometimes they get your name wrong. often it is the final act of of the misanthropy parade that often is hiring in the humanities. and then you get to see some of these awkward people who have few human interaction skills when you are squeezed into the lift at the next god awful apa conference. i especially like it when those committee members then try to pretend they don't know you.
Steal generalist positions? It's more like convince an archaeologist to help a classics department become more relevant. Soon you will all be generalists, if that. Good luck in the 21st century. The Victorians are calling. They want their discipline back.
Post a Comment