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Putting Yourself in a Position to Get Lucky

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By Richard H. Dery

When I began looking for a tenure-track position teaching English, the first campus that invited me for an interview was Lake City Community College in North Florida. I bombed. I easily answered questions about my teaching philosophy, but other, more personal questions left me hemming and hawing: "Do you think you would like living in our community?" "Why did you apply at this school?"

Now, I'd done some research on the college, but my answers to the latter questions lacked conviction. The truth was that I would have accepted a position requiring me to teach naked in an igloo as long as it was on the tenure track. I felt like the committee couldn't be serious about these questions. I'm not a strong enough candidate, I wanted to explain, to be picky about where I teach.

Lake City did not hire me. Neither, later that summer of 1998, did Santa Fe Community College, the one in Gainesville, Fla., where I worked as an adjunct. Naturally, I was discouraged. I thought about the interviews and the questions I'd been asked. I realized that I did not know if I really wanted to live and work in Lake City or even Gainesville. I hadn't thought about what kind of college and what kind of community would be the best place for me to be happy and productive.

Yet, I kept telling myself that I couldn't afford to be selective. Instead, I decided to bury academe in cover letters and résumés. Examining the job listings in The Chronicle of Higher Education every week, I applied to every school that ran an advertisement, and spent hours combing the Web sites of community colleges around the country looking for openings that weren't advertised in The Chronicle. I registered with Georgia's Higher Education Clearinghouse and scanned the State of Florida's job listings every month.

I spent a fortune on linen paper, envelopes, and postage and ran through ink cartridge after ink cartridge as my little printer struggled to keep up with the load. Often after sending out a stack of résumés, I dreamt that my cover letters were chock full of spelling errors and comma splices.

One day, the secretary of an English department in Buffalo, N.Y., called me. "Mr. Dery," she said, "the Search Committee asked me to call you and ask you a question."

"Yes?" My heart jumped a little. I thought for sure she would invite me for an interview, but instead she asked an odd question: "Do you have any idea where this community college is located?"

"Yeah, it's up there in western New York," I answered. "Near Niagara Falls."

The phone line was quiet for a minute. "Do you," she finally said, "have any idea how cold it gets up here?"

As it turned out, the committee, seeing that I lived in Florida at the time and suspecting that I had no idea what words like "arctic air" really meant, wanted to make sure that I was truly interested in moving up to Buffalo. "We just want to make sure taking part in this process is an efficient use of your time," the secretary explained.

I told her that I was interested in the job, thanked her for her concern, and hung up the phone. As soon as I punched the disconnect button, however, I realized that I really had no interest whatsoever in living in Buffalo. I considered the phrase she'd used. "An efficient use of your time."

Finally, I realized that I'd been working hard at finding a job, but not smart. My plan of applying anywhere and everywhere was not only failing, but it was consuming time and energy that would be better devoted to other projects. I sat down with a yellow legal pad and began to write down what was important to me in a job. I started to think about the kind of school I wanted to work for and the kind of community I wanted to join.

As it turned out, weather was not a big consideration for me. I'd lived in Florida, mostly North Florida, for 20 years and had grown tired of the heat and humidity.

What was important was that I wanted to work at a larger school with the kinds of facilities and support that a larger school provides. I also wanted to work at a school that believed in giving its teachers freedom to teach their classes as they felt best, a school with a strong commitment to using technology to enhance but not displace classroom instruction. Finally, I realized that I wanted to live near a major city such as Chicago, New York, or Washington. After years in the North Florida woods, I figured it was about time I got me some dadburned culture.

Once I figured out where I wanted to be, I worked to strengthen the aspects of my résumé that I thought would appeal to my target colleges. At my own expense, I flew to Chicago and presented my ideas on using technology at the fall 1999 conference of the League for Innovation in the Community College. That led to an offer to write an entry for a forthcoming book published by the league, Exemplary Practices in Community College Instruction. I also explored WebCT distance-learning technology at Santa Fe and helped design Web materials for the college's Writing Lab.

Last January, with a much stronger sense of who I was and what I wanted, I narrowed my field of potential colleges and concentrated my search. To my surprise -- as someone who had despaired of ever finding a tenure-track job and was seriously considering changing professions -- I wound up interviewing with six colleges.

To my even greater amazement, I received two offers of full-time jobs. One was in upstate New York. The other was at Brookdale Community College in central New Jersey, just 50 miles from Manhattan. The job in New York offered the mountains and a more rural setting. I was sorely tempted, but in the end I just really felt that I would be happier at Brookdale.

I started my new tenure-track position at Brookdale this fall, and teach a full load of writing courses that has proven both challenging and rewarding. The tremendous support I've received from my new colleagues and especially my mentor has really helped me adjust. I marvel at many small conveniences I never knew as an adjunct: I have my own computer, my own desk. I have file drawers where I can keep important papers instead of lugging them around in my backpack. Most importantly, I believe the college is committed to quality education and offers ample opportunity for growth. In the spring I will add a literature course to my load and continue to develop lessons for our networked classrooms.

Paradoxically, by figuring out exactly what I wanted and becoming more selective as to where I applied, I became a much stronger candidate and received more offers. I could write stronger cover letters and answer interview questions with more confidence. I was working smarter and getting better results.

Did luck play a role? Of course. Competition is so fierce that it takes a little luck to land a job these days. But it's also important for a candidate to put him or herself in the position to get lucky, and that's what I did by figuring out what I really wanted.

In the end, in order to find a job I had to find myself.