Looking for a Job, Part 3

1) Aside from the obvious (publications, stellar recommendation letters, etc.), what is it about an applicant’s file that would make you insist on interviewing him or her?

I think the important word here is “insist” because it is crucial to remember that committees are looking for reasons not to interview candidates. There are so many apparently well-qualified applicants for every position that unless a letter, a dossier, or some kind of other supporting material cries out to a member of the hiring committee, it’s likely that a quiet yet deserving candidate might well be overlooked.

One of the commentators mentioned that he or she looked for letters of recommendation from outside the candidate’s home institution. I also think that’s an excellent marker. Even having letters from someone outside of the candidate’s home department indicates a willingness to look around and to pull from the best resources. I’d also agree with John Glavin that a sense of “easy self-confidence” is essential. I like when a student has experience outside the classroom or academe. One of the reasons that I have edited LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory at U. Conn. for so long (now co-edited with Margaret Mitchell at the University of West Georgia) is so that graduate students would have the opportunity to work on a scholarly journal, to become assistant editors and managing editors, to read and handle manuscripts, and to learn and understand the process by which things are published. I find the students who are most enthusiastic about working in academe are often ones who have worked elsewhere.

2) What do you consider “important scholarly work” and why? What does it do and how does it do it? Keep your answer to one sentence, please.

Important scholarly work builds on, adds to, and changes our understanding of the work or an idea.

3) How can an applicant make his or her letter not sound like everyone else’s but not be disturbingly quirky?

You have to tread that fine line between being smug and being clever. My husband and colleague, Michael Meyer, talks about how he used a line from his dissertation in a smart, almost ironic way: “Like Bronson Alcott, I fear the ‘age hath no work for me.’” I think that the rote opening of “I am writing to apply for the position of Assistant Professor . . .” is a waste of space. I started my letter with something along the lines of ‘When I decided to title my MLA panel on Sex and Death in Victorian Literature ‘Coming and Going,’ I knew that I would be upsetting some of the more traditional perspectives on the period.’” I got 13 interviews. Granted, the job market was more welcoming in 1987 than it is now, and so my brag doesn’t carry the weight that it would were I applying for one of the few positions that will be available this year. But I do think that shoving every word through the Play-Doh factory machinery of tediously-formulated cover letter land prevents those students who have real voices from letting those voices be heard. We’re looking for scholarship that has a voice to it. Why shouldn’t we let a student who has that voice show it?

I know I’m looking for somebody who’s going to make the life of the department.

(Brainstorm illustration, with an image modified from a photo by Flickr user stopnlook)