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Advertising Basics

February 21, 2012, 1:36 pm

By Gene C. Fant Jr.

I have many fond memories of looking at job ads in The Chronicle when I was on the market during my final year of the Ph.D. I worked in a campus office that had a subscription and, this being just prior to the days of the online version, we practically stood in line when the weekly issue arrived in the mail on Thursdays. No search-term shortcuts were available to us; we had to hunt and scavenge to make sure we didn’t miss anything. 

I likewise remember how often my perceptions of institutions were shaped by their ads. Good ads (clear job descriptions, good layout, nice description of the institution itself) have lingered in my memory and prolonged my positive impressions. Odd ads created hesitations, especially those that lacked basic information such as specialty areas or that seemed to have a surplus of positions that might indicate campus troubles.

I often ask our search committees to review a number of ads before working with our human-resources folks on our postings. This is a helpful activity and sometimes even alters our job descriptions when we see what peer institutions are doing. Job-posting formats and contents often fall into dusty habits and “boilerplate” cut-and-pastes that are stale or downright unhelpful.

What suggestions would you offer about how to improve position announcements?

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  • ksledge

    Schools should make it easy for applicants to determine from the ad the teaching-research balance, and relatedly, how much teaching and research are valued in a candidate and in promotion cases. Sending too much teaching-related information to a research-oriented school is the kiss of death, no matter your research accomplishments. Likewise, not demonstrating a strong commitment to teaching and undergraduate education at a teaching-oriented school will get you nixed right away. Some exploring of the school’s website will often give you a hint if it’s not already obvious, but it would help for this information to be spelled out in the ad.

    Where it is particularly useful is if a school with “University” in the title actually cares a great deal about teaching and undergraduate education. 

  • singfasola

    I manage faculty for an online program at my not-for-profit university and we do things a little differently.  We list basic requirements in the ad, and when a response comes in that actually matches the basics, I send an email thanking the applicant for his or her interest.  I attach an FAQ that outlines an online instructor’s duties and our performance expectations, compensation, training/orientation requirements, etc. I also attach a very brief questionnaire that asks them to review our program’s website and asks more about their teaching experience and about their ability to commit to the time that will be required. (Yes, I do respond to people who don’t hit the mark.)

    Of course, we are online, and we are interviewing adjuncts. But I think this works because we tell suitable candidates what they need to know without the pressure of an interview. We give them time to think about what we do and how we operate. We give them a chance to say “No thank you” gracefully, or “Tell me more” enthusiastically without any phone tag and minimal email tag. Those folks who are enthusiastic get a long phone interview that’s about the important things- subject matter, approach to teaching, etc.

    This seems to work well for us, and recent hires have commented on a “professional approach”. This might not work out of the box for “regular faculty”, but perhaps it could be tweaked to that purpose.

    (There was a recent Forbes article online that said there were only three real questions: Can you do the job? Will you love the job? Will we love working with you?)

  • look123

    I like your practice of reviewing an ad before sending it to H.R. It is something that should always be done.  Check your spelling.  The 2/14/12 Chronicle Of Higher Education listing from the University Of Hawai’i at Manoa’ spelled Hawai’i as Hawaia^??i.  

    Please distinguish the Minimum Requirements from Desirable Qualifications as very few people are full blown Experts in a list of skills that is 8 lines deep.  I understand that bases must be covered and budgets must be met, but where do schools draw the line between this, and having a jack-of-all-trades staff? 

    Be sure to list when the application review begins.  Just because the position is Open Till Filled does not mean it is not helpful to know when the review committee would like to have the applications in hand.

    If you require a snail-mail delivery PLEASE make sure your campus Post Office knows to send envelopes to the department right away or PLEASE make sure the section secretary knows to go to the campus Post Office to pick the mail up every day. (Especially if it is right before the start of a new semester.) I once called a school to make sure they had gotten my envelope and found out that no one from the office had gone to pick up the mail for over a week because the semester had not yet officially started. Despite the post mark showing the mail had been sent in a timely manner I was no longer eligible for review.  

    If the position is pending depending on the clearance of funds please state so.  It is just nice to know, so an individual can decided if it is worth the hours to put together a packet, or to fill out a online application for a job that may not exist at all. Please let us make informed decisions as we are all mortal and our time on Earth is finite.

    If there is a position number please list it.  Not everyone does.  

    Some positions require a sample of portfolio materials to be mailed in hard copy.  Please state if it is all right to send a CD with images or writing samples on it, or if you require the full printouts. Printed images from the arts, or a image of a highly detailed scientific experiment can drain an expensive color cartridge in just a few prints. CD’s are cheep by comparison.

    If you wish to know what an individuals salary requirement is, please make sure the University has a fairly-easy-to-find list of salary ranges for its various positions.

    Just a few ideas for improving position announcements. Hope it helps.

  • 99911187

    Thanks for your observation, which clarifies Steinbeck’s rather confusing comment in a report from December 31, 1966, a few days after he arrived in the war zone: “Yesterday we took a chopper out to the 23rd Artillery Group, which guards one approach to the city. These are 105-mm. howitzers and they airlift them around the way Santa Claus delivers packages. Anyway, their air spotter called in some activity and they honored me by letting me fire the first round from the No.4 tube. It was a proud moment and they gave me the shell casing to take home. That will be a logistical problem but I’ll manage it.” – pm

  • raymond_j_ritchie

    I missed Vietnam by less than two years but a psychiatrist relative of mine had to deal with Australian soldiers straight off the helicopters in a field hospital (real M.A.S.H.).  With 20/20 hindsight it is easy to see that getting involved in the Vietnamese civil war was not a good idea but it was a real dilemma at the time.  Given Soviet geopolitical activity at the time if the yanks had not lost 50,000 men in Vietnam they would have lost 50,000 men somewhere else (might even have “won” on better chosen ground).
    Even today the leftist commentariat refuse to acknowledge the nature of the regime that won in Vietnam.  It generated millions of refugees, savagely treated minority groups and shows no signs of liberalisation. 37 years later they still deny higher education to the grandchildren of those who served on the “wrong” side.  I for one will not go near the place until there is a regime change.

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