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[123_abc]

I'm gearing up for my third year on the job market.  I finished my PhD last summer and immediately started a two-year contract in a full-time, non-tenure track position at the school that granted my PhD.  The current position is in an academic unit close affiliated with the unit in which I was a PhD student.  While I am happily employed, I'm hoping to move on and land a tenure track job.

In prepping for the job market I've been retooling my materials and my CV.  I've also decided to mix-up my letters of reccomendation.  The past two years I had letters from my Diss advisor, two members of my diss committee (one of whom I am very close with, the other of whom I rarely see), and the director of my PhD program.  I've decided to drop the committee member I never see and ask the director of my current program to write me a letter.  In addition to overseeing my teaching and service, hu has observed my classes on a number of occasions.

I'm considering dropping the director of my PhD program as a reference and asking a colleage from my PhD program to write a letter.  The real advantage my colleague offers is that he knows my work intimately, while the director of my PhD program, while supportive and enthusiastic, isn't as familiar with my scholarship or research.  Hu also a reputation for being a mediocre letter writer.

In addition to working closely together in grad school, my colleauge and I have collaborated on a few academic presentations and have read and responded to each other's dissertations and journal articles.  Hu's since moved on to a tenure track job which is on hold while he spends the next year in a post-doc in his sub-field.  While said college works in a different sub-field, hu can speak directly to my contributions to the larger interdisciplinary fields in which we both work. 

So the shift would be this:
Old letters: Diss Advisor; enthusiastic committee member; distant-committe member; and PhD program Advisor
New letters: Diss Advisor; enthusiastic committee member; director of current unit; and colleague from grad school.

The big question I have is this: is it acceptable to have a colleague write me a letter of rec. this early in my career?  Will a strong letter from a colleague look better or worse than a mediocre letter from a program director?  Or, will search committees look at it and say "oh how nice, your buddy thinks your smart."

[betterslac]

If colleague = someone who 1) knows your teaching and 2) has some idea of your scholarly qualities, and 3)has worked with you and knows what kind of colleague you would be in an academic setting where the ties are professional rather than only personal, and 4) is established, the answer is yes.

If colleague = someone who is 1) a pal from grad school and 2) does not currently have a tt job, and 3) has not worked with you full-time in a professional setting, the answer is no.

This at least is my experience in my discipline (political science)

[seniorscholar]

I agree -- a letter from someone who is not tenured at a reasonably reputable university is not worth much. The dissertation director and the current supervisor who knows your work, teaching, and collegiality are important. If the colleague is not a smart third choice, is there someone who knows your work but is not a friend, say the chair of a panel on which you've presented, or the editor of a journal in which you've published (or, if you had a very good reader's report on a ms. you've submitted, you might ask the editor if the reader would be willing to make his/her name known to you).

[airball]

Not to threadjack, but...

I'm new in a TT position, and looking to move up. Do I:

A) go without a letter from my current institution?

B) Get a letter from junior colleague who knows I am on the market? Hu has seen me teach, knows my pedagogical style, and can say "Airball really would fit in at a school like _______. " Hu is not tenured, but will speak to my teaching and collegiality. Oh, hu  also can pull material from my reappointment letter. 

Aigh, the madness has begun.

[123_abc]

Thanks for the input--it's a big help.  The colleague's letter would only be used in cases in which a school wants four letters (as opposed to three, which is the common number for my areas) or when the job is squarely in the interdisicplinary fields we work in.  Hu meets the criteria you mentioned and, I think, will be a good reference.  Thanks.

[seniorscholar]

In answer to "Airball" --

A letter from an untenured colleague is not, at least in my department (humanities, R-1), an acceptable reference about your teaching abilities. If you're trying to go on the market without letting the senior people in your department know (always somewhat risky, since academe is a smallish world in any specialty, and someone who reads the application at one school or another is almost certain to know someone in your department and may well informally contact the pal to say "so why is Airball looking already -- is there some problem?"), then try at least to find a tenured person in another department who will visit a class and write a letter. Does your school have a "Teaching Improvement Center" or some such body that provides evaluations and help (if needed) to faculty -- and also would provide a confidential letter?