It’s the “mating season”: department chairs pore over stacks of résumés from would-be contract teachers like so many desperate singles studying profiles of potential love matches. It’s common to hear administrators joke about needing “bodies” in their classrooms — part-time faculty bodies. Someone, anyone, to stand in front of the students, crack open the textbook, and teach. I have objected to this method of hiring since, well, forever. The idea that employing a “body” qualifies as a bona fide hiring strategy within higher education is absurd. So, instead of writing about the drawbacks of shoddy hiring practices, I thought I’d write about how adjuncts can take advantage of shoddy hiring practices. Why not? Actually, I’m not suggesting readers do anything shoddy, but rather work the system.
Remember these words: professionalism and persistence. Landing a part-time teaching gig can be the result of one, the other, or both.
First, decide where you want to teach. Look on the college’s Web site, in the local newspaper, or on your favorite online academic job sites. Next, call the department secretary or administrative assistant and ask if the department is hiring part-time faculty members for the upcoming semester. Secretaries and assistants are often easier to approach than the department chair. Find out the name and title of the individual who’ll do the actual hiring.
Next, polish your résumé or CV. If you don’t know the difference between the two, check out this handy reference. Yes, spelling counts. Really. So does your e-mail address. While Teachingwhore@yahoo.com might be a hoot for you and your friends, a would-be employer will have a different perspective. Whether you choose to send a résumé or CV, it must be formatted and presented perfectly. Send along a short (2-3 paragraph) cover letter that is neither photocopied, nor generic. Include information about which courses you’re qualified to teach. Hint: study the department’s online course catalog before you write your letter.
Seven to ten days later, follow up with a phone call. Make sure your résumé and cover letter arrived. (Yes, you sent them by U.S. mail. You cared enough about the job to invest in a stamp and an envelope.) Schedule a time to speak briefly with the person who’ll do the hiring. This is a cold call, and the only way to make it work is to practice and prepare for the phone call before you’re up to your neck in stilted silence. Your goal is to make a positive impression quickly. To do this, prepare short answers to the kinds of questions you might expect to field. Put together a concise one-to-two minute patter about your education and experience. More importantly, ask questions about the specific courses that need staffing. If you have education and/or work experience that make you a good match for a particular course, mention it. Listen carefully, and ask exactly what experience and qualifications the department looks for when hiring contract faculty. Do they want previous teaching experience? Is a terminal degree a must? Be honest with your prospective employer and yourself.
At the end of the call, ask whether your experience and education might make you a good match for any of the courses that need staffing. If the answer is no, be polite, say thank you, and move along to the next name on your college job-hunting hit list. If the answer is yes, ask whether you and the employer might meet in person sometime over the next week or ten days. At this point, you have a solid lead on a job, and you have to close the deal, as they say in the sales business. Make no mistake, this is sales — you’re selling yourself to a prospective employer. If the employer expresses interest in you, but can’t schedule a meeting, ask if you might follow up with a phone call, say, a week before classes start. Send a short thank-you e-mail the same day. Remind her/him that you’ll follow up again closer to the start of the semester. Persistence 101.
On the other hand, if you manage to snag a meeting, you’re that much closer to closing the sale. Overdress. Really. Take copies of your résumé and cover letter in case the employer can’t find the materials you sent. If you really want a job, you’ll have prepared a syllabus for the specific course you want to teach, and hand it to the pleasantly surprised employer to look at while you chat. Now, this point is very important: Though you’re selling, good salespeople do their selling almost as an afterthought. Smile and relax. Realize that hiring contract faculty members isn’t exactly a picnic. At some point, come right out and ask if there might be a course (or two) for you.
After all, someone is going to be hired shortly before the semester begins, right? Why shouldn’t it be you?
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5 Responses to Mating Season
11159766 - August 20, 2009 at 5:39 pm
In my experience, it would not be especially useful to call the department head, who is not going to want to be interrupted by dozens of applicants – or by one.If the letter and cv are of interest, the department will get in touch with the candidate.I understand that different schools may work differently.
nuenglish - August 21, 2009 at 10:34 am
Yes. I’m a department chair (English). A phone call a bit after the CV arrives isn’t out of the question. But I’d far prefer to get e-mail attachments (formatted so I can open them, and they don’t appear garbled) than paper. If I get paper, I scan it into pdf and drop it on my hard drive. I’m a one-person HR department, among many other things, and my office is littered with paper I can’t find when I need it–searching by keyword is easier.Spelling is important, as is some reasonable match for the job description. “I’m the grammar Nazi” is simply not the thing I’m looking for to staff a course on grammar for teachers-in-training. Some knowledge of outcomes assessment, experience in actual primary or secondary classrooms, and a relevant degree are far more important. Have the credentials you claim. “I didn’t actually earn the degree I listed on my CV; it’s all but completed” is a disgraceful statement.Give me professional references I can contact fairly quickly by e-mail or phone. “This is her secretary; she’s currently on sabbatical in a small Asian country with no internet access” isn’t going to help.
mustangrun - August 25, 2009 at 10:21 am
Get out and MEET people! Go to meetings, conferences, etc., and get your face out there! There are HUNDREDS of applicants for a single faculty position- all equally qualified. And, since each application can amount to at least 10 pages of cover letter, CV, and other supporting documents, no search committee is going to read all of that (amounting to thousands of pages). Search committees know who’s going to apply before the advertisement even goes out because they’ve made phone calls to people they know and want to apply. It’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know- now more than ever.
just_one_adjunct - September 4, 2009 at 10:41 pm
I get the persistence side, but consider this===people make money off of this issue, and most are *now* tenured faculty who ‘say” they are on the side of part-time faculty. “get a labor lawyer on retainer” one of these clowns suggested. With all my extra funds right? I bet you even bought one of their books, line of _____ more likely. Everyone makes money off of us and then create structures to govern and control us. The worse kind of traitor though is the one who pretends to be in your ranks. At least MOST administrators are honest, but go ahead and read their books and blogs like sheeple. that is what they want after all. I bet P. D. Lesko is a pseudonym for one of these charlatans. Pleae step forward?
laoshi - September 19, 2009 at 1:50 pm
What’s wrong with “teachingwhore@” as an e-mail name for an adjunct teacher? If the shoe fits. . .