next »

[canuckois]

I know this is an old post, but it happens to be very relevant to me.

I just submitted a 3 page cover letter a week or two ago, which seems to be against the majority of the advice being given.  However, when the add asks for a cover letter with no statement of research or teaching, yet asks you to discuss your research and teaching ambitions, it is hard not to have a longer cover letter.

Maybe I should have made it shorter, but I think it would have been too brief given this specific situation.  I guess my feeling on this is that the length of the cover letter really depends on the requirements and specifications given by the search committee, but then, I just entered the job market so I could be just plain wrong.

I always assumed that if they don't want a research and teaching statement that means they just want a brief one or two paragraph summary of each in the cover letter and they will delve deeper during the phone interview.

Exactly.

No one on a SC wants to see a 3-page letter in an 8-point font.  And yes, I've seen those before. 

Keep the letter brief; if we didn't ask for a research or teaching statement, it's because we don't need to see a long-winded exposition of your dissertation topic.  At the end of the day, a summary of your dissertation isn't the thing that's going to get you hired.

Don't worry about it, Kron.  In the future, though, consider why the SC is asking for certain things and not asking for others.

[drj_b]

Every PhD I know who was offered a tenure-track position at an R1 wrote 3-page letters. Including me. This is in the social sciences.

To be more precise, they were 2 1/2 page letters. The text of the letters themselves really amounted to 2 full pages in 12-point font, single space, with 1 inch margins all around. The 3rd page was mostly to make space for the address and salutation at the beginning of the letter and not make it look crowded. The last page was usually just a wrap-up, do not hesitate to contact me for additional materials, thank you, my contact information, etc. 

You do have to be extremely concise, but they also need a clear picture of where you are coming from and where you are going in terms of your research and teaching interests, and what you can offer as a colleague. All of us had refereed publications and other notable experience by the time we finished grad school, and well-developed long-term research agendas. So that length of letter is hardly overkill.

 

[lightningstrike]

OK, OK. There are enough people chiming in support of the three-page cover letter with numerous examples of how so-and-so got so-and-so job with a three-page cover letter. And I'm sure the supporters of the one-page cover letter and two-page cover letter will have their examples.

Let's look at it this way. Nobody is going to fault you for writing a one-page cover letter or a two-page cover letter (this assumes that it is well-written), but there will be just enough people out there that will fault you for writing a three-page cover letter that it would be best to just avoid writing three-page cover letters in the first place. Seriously, is it really that tough to communicate the essentials of your fit and qualifications for an institution with one page? And furthermore, you want to make it as easy as possible for a committee to understand what you are about. If you can do that with alacrity and brevity, you make it easier for a committee to decide to let you pass through to the next step in the search process.

[justanotherucprof]

You can break any rule if you know what you are doing and why.  I've written a very specialized and tightly argued five page cover letter that has not only gotten me an interview and job, but also compliments from the committee. But I've also been on enough search committees to know that any letter longer than a page becomes a barrier to communication more often than an avenue of communication.  The longer the letter, the more critical it is that you know what purpose every word and sentence serves.  Far too many people bury their stories: highlight your key message in a finely polished letter, and leave it to the CV to fill in the details.