Comments on: Unsolicited Advice, V: How to Apply for a Faculty Job

By: tiger-moon

tiger-moon — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:17:31 +0000

1. Try your best to go to the best universities for you PhD degree;

2. Pass all the exam;

3. Publish good papers;

4. Learn how to handle with “dog fighting”;

5. Join in top 1 group during pos-doc period;

6. Go to second level universities for assistant professor position;

7. Raise up;

8. Stanford, Harvard will use money to buy you back;

9. Grab best graduate students;

”””””

By: Garbage

Garbage — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 02:53:48 +0000

Since this trend of unsolicited advice was originated by Sean, I was curious about what does he have to add to this theme. Havent noticed any comment of his instead. I am sure he must have some good piece of advice for the crowds…

By: f15mos

f15mos — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 01:21:02 +0000

How can it be unsupported by evidence if it has never been done? Sound petty darn stupid.

Meanwhile elsewhere it done left and right. Google does it (asks to solve nontrivial problems) – a pretty well to do company. So do any financial market company while competing for the best of disillusioned former string theorists. Even good old INS admission officers do it. Recall what Einstein was asked when he crossed the border of the land of the free?
Application process should be a well deserved prize for well spend research work years not the idiocy of what it is now.

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 01:08:18 +0000

f15mos,

That’s a load of B.S. It’s also unsupported by the evidence. Scientists care about the supporting-evidence business, or should. Lord only knows what purpose IQ tests (!) and entrance exams would serve. By the way, the problem in most searches appears to be choosing among too many qualified candidates, not weeding out undeserving ones.

Applying for these jobs is a pain in the butt, irritating, and at times degrading. However, if you let the difficulty of it overtake and own you to the point where you blame all problems on some putative undeserving “blind lesbian,” you’re ruining your own life with bitterness. That’s okay, but don’t inflict it on others.

By: f15mos

f15mos — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:49:53 +0000

This post convinces me once more that American Science would benefit from:

– abandoning affirmative action
– establishing IQ thresholds and entrance exams for faculty candidates
(exams should not be based on multiple choice problems, but be open ended
problems including some with unknown solutions).
– finding out how many papers the applicant has actually written (applies
mostly to experimentalists)
– abandoning tenure. Just hire professors on term contracts with possible
extensions based on certain performance markers.

Nowadays you either need to be a blind lesbian or be lucky to be mentored by well connected professor, or be married by one.

By: James Chisholm

James Chisholm — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:31:47 +0000

Don’t neglect the cover letter.

Very important — I probably would have gotten at least a few more bites had I taken the time to individualize my cover letters in my first round of applications. As it was, I used the same technique I used for my postdoc letters, which was a stock letter with name and address merged in.

By: Julianne

Julianne — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:02:19 +0000

You need somebody like an advisor, collaborator or mentor who will help, writing good letters, promoting your work, and caring about your fate (a little).

Completely agreed! The one of the pieces of advice I would have added to Sean’s piece on being a grad student: “Pick an advisor who you like and who has a track record of going to bat for their students, even if the research is not your first choice scientifically.” I’ve seen too many pairings where it’s clear that the student and the advisor essentially lothe each other, which isn’t likely to result in a gushing letter or tons of support after graduation.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:16:02 +0000

Okay, I should not comment on this subject, but I have one addition. All of these things that the applicant should or must do are very reasonable. But it’s not just you-the-applicant’s burden. I think that tends to make people more stressed out and guilt-ridden, as if they didn’t do enough. As far as I know, nobody really gets a job based just on their own efforts, except for supergeniuses – and supergeniuses tend to also have good letters of recommendation. You need somebody like an advisor, collaborator or mentor who will help, writing good letters, promoting your work, and caring about your fate (a little). If your senior people won’t help you, probably the best course of action is to politely move on from them (I nearly said “politely fire their asses”) and find new senior people who will, in your next postdoc or other career move.

FWIW, don’t forget that in a lot of fields (maybe not string theory) there are non-professor science jobs. Too many people act like the only choices are tenure-track and hedge funds.

By: stressfulyesdemoralizingno

stressfulyesdemoralizingno — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 03:42:32 +0000

Yes, the whole process is stressful. But there’s no need to get demoralized. You wouldn’t want to be hired by a place where the existing faculty had significant doubts about you before you arrived. So think of it as a mutual recognition that the fit wasn’t right. At least in my search, I think “fit” was extremely important… In fact, in retrospect, I’d say that most of my job applications were pointless. None of the ads and applications that I thought were a stretch resulted in more than a request for references. On the other hand, of the ads and applications that I did feel good about, a respectable fraction reached the shortlist stage. Perhaps, I put more effort into the latter. But if I were doing it again, I’d write half as many applications.

By: Hektor Bim

Hektor Bim — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:05:02 +0000

It’s not a question of being demoralized. It’s just a fact, especially if you are not an experimentalist. You’re very likely to have to apply for jobs multiple times, and you’ll have to redo much of the work each time. It’s rare to succeed on your first try. So, yes, you do have to put a huge amount of work into it, and it may take a while to pay off.