July 17, 2008
Misusing Campus Resources?
I am a stickler for confidentiality in searches. I won’t contact references until I receive specific approval from candidates. I won’t call an on-campus telephone number if I can avoid it. I won’t use a candidate’s campus e-mail address if I can find an alternate address.
That last concern is probably just me being paranoid, based on anecdotes about institutions monitoring employee e-mail messages, but it’s also an issue of the appropriate use of campus resources. Faculty members using a campus e-mail account to search for another job is a little like their using campus letterhead, printers, and postal accounts for their applications.
Mind you, I’m not talking about applicants who are completing their graduate work, serving in postdocs, or in one-year positions — i.e, situations in which it is clear they are on the job market. I’m talking about candidates who are in “permanent” positions.
When I see applications coming in, I really like to see people using their own private e-mail accounts, home or cellphone numbers, and “From the Desk of” letterhead. The use of campus e-mail and phone numbers doesn’t spoil me on a candidate, but I have to say that, for the sake of both stewardship of resources and confidentiality, I like to see personal materials used.
Am I being overly sensitive on this matter?
By Gene C. Fant Jr. | Posted on Thursday July 17, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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Given that you can get a hotmail or yahoo account for free, it seems to me irresponsible not to use it for all non-job-related matters. A university e-mail account is funded for business purposes only. Whether you’re doing a job search or sending a friends baby/puppy pictures this should be done using personal e-mail (or stationary). The only exception is grad students — where the job search is explicitly subsidized by the university. E-mail actually does cost the university money (servers are expensive) — it’s not some sort of free benefit.
— anonymous Jul 17, 08:55 AM #
yes, oversensitive. lateral mobility is difficult enough in academia. a school email is a form of currency and candidates shouldn’t need to worry about using it.
— anon Jul 17, 09:04 AM #
Well, I think e-mail is easy enough, and those of us worried about confidentiality should rely on gmail or whatever anyway. But it seems to me hard to avoid using letterhead for job applications—that, after all, is part of your professional “signature.” I would think that most search committees would look a bit suspiciously on applications coming “from the desk of”, and actually wonder if you are employed or not.
— flprof Jul 17, 09:46 AM #
What I want to know is when is it time to give up on trying to land a tenure-track job? This is my third year on the market and I feel like the goods in a fire sale every time a younger, more newly-minted Ph.D. gets the job for which I interviewed. AHA costs a fortune and not one of my conference interviews has gotten me an on-campus interview. In a cynical mood, I see the AHA job interview system as a way to increase AHA membership and funding on the backs of job applicants. And those interviews in “the pit” are a nightmare of anxiety, anticipation, and frustration.
— Mary Bivins Jul 17, 10:09 AM #
In answer to your concluding question, not so much over-sensitive as under-sensitive. Yes, as a general principle, employees should not use work resources for activities not directly related to work. But the academic job market presents extenuating circumcustances and, as flprof points out, often places profs who desire to move in a double bind. In no other field that I know of are those who wish to relocate programmatically regarded with suspicion. At a recent job interview, I was asked by no fewer than nine different people, many not on the committee, why I wanted to leave my current position. Given this atmosphere of distrust, the last thing job candidates need is someone questioning their use of letterhead.
I gladly reimburse my department for any letterhead I use, but job letter real estate is too valuable to spare a sentence explaining one’s honesty. Plus, few things are more unbecoming than having to defend oneself.
— Bardolph Jul 17, 10:31 AM #
I am somewhat reminded of my very first summer job. I worked in an office where one of the bosses (it was a partnership) was paranoid about these sorts of things, to the point of disliking that employees would use the paper towels by the breakroom sink to cover their food in the microwave, rather than just for the established use of drying hands after washing them.
This may not be quite the same, but it’s related: an employer’s desire to overcontrol their employees’ lives. Some control makes sense, but when it comes to things like occasional personal use of email or letterhead or paper towels, too much control is likely to lead to some sort of rebellion rather than responsibility.
— Posting from work Jul 17, 10:43 AM #
Oversensitive. I admit that I avoid using my work contacts as a primary form of contact, but I was once told that it was “proper” to remove all forms of work-related contact info from my coverletter and resume. When that happened, however, (or if I requested that communication be “switched over” to my personal account) I actualy found that, like #3 suggested, search committees more often specfically asked if I was currently employed, working full time, and asked more obvious probing questions about my satisfaction at my current workplace.
Coincidence? Maybe, but intuition says there was a connection.
If your current wokrplace is that worried about you leaving by using your work e-mail, then perhaps they have the problem, not you.
On top of all of this the process itself falls under the category of “personal business”. If your actively working against your current employer by directing students to another institution, that’s one thing. In this case, however, the communique is no different than paying bills online, reading personal discussion boards, or downloading music from iTunes… something which I have seen everyone from the president down do on their college-issued machines during “working hours”.
I guess I would argue that the overall resources necessary to manage a handful of e-mails is virtually inconsequential, since most of those resources are the exact same ones required for you to connect to your Hotmail account. If you’re really paranoid, take every e-mail you’ve received regarding job searches and put them on a personal USB drive, that way they don’t “fill up” the school’s server or PC hard drives. :P
— Zang Jul 17, 10:44 AM #
If I receive an application from someone NOT using university letterhead or email, I immediately wonder if they’re legit. And I don’t believe there’s much, if any, cost to using a university email account. This argument seems to me to be a bit puritanical, quite frankly. I expect my faculty not to use university postage for personal business such as job applications, but that’s more than adequate.
— Robert K Jul 17, 11:06 AM #
It should be noted that being a professor is a lifestyle, rather than just a career.
Call me crazy, but I view the use of letterhead as a symbol of school pride and spirit – even in job searches. To completely separate this is wandering off to an individualistic personality, and management can’t have that in today’s view of the student as customer! (your school’s fight song playing in background)
— HCAJR Jul 17, 11:07 AM #
I gladly used my former institution’s email, letterhead, and postal service to apply for and get my current job. I didn’t feel bad at all. Now, over a year after my departure, my email account there is still active, and still filling up their server with messages that I never respond to. If this institution were really concerned about stewardship of public resources, they would have closed the email account months ago (they also keep sending me junk mail that continues to arrive for me there—at their expense!—including the unused season tickets to basketball games and baseball games that I received since I had been appointed to the athletics committee right before I was dismissed). Yes, employees should be conscientious, but should they be more so than their employers—former and current?
— A dude in academe Jul 17, 11:48 AM #
It is hard to believe that anyone actually gets hired anymore. Anyone who would show “loyalty” to an institution is a delusional worker – if you think an institution wouldn’t drop you in 2 seconds, for any reason, you are sadly mistaken. To return to my first point. Why do you want people to use their own address (and duh, a business address IS a proper address)? Oh, I know, to make fun of it if it doesn’t meet your precise, polished criteria. It must be so difficult finding that perfect candidate ( as in – the one who is a friend of a friend wink, wink, or the one with no sense of self who can grovel with the best 13th century serfs). Of course there are so few individuals that can equal the deities that work on hiring forums – especially when candidates make sooo many mistakes and do sooo many WRONG things like sit crooked, be the wrong ethnic/sex/or whatever group, wear inappropriate clothes, shoes, order the wrong thing when other hiring members eat like, or have the manners and personalities of, wild dogs, not follow the cool trends in acadamia, not play the right games or have the right personality, and of course their e-mail address must be satisfactory – Oh my God. This clicky high school behavior is becoming so offensive. You are looking for a working partner not a prom girlfriend or very best friend, tee hee. It is ironic that such intelligent individuals are completely blind to their own bigotry, two-faced positions, and child-like actions – things they so readily point out in others. Only the shamelessly arrogant, self-absorbed, megalomaniacs can foster such critical, juvenile, and petty reactions (although such behaviour is typical of high-ranking individuals in many primate cultures, so I suppose it should come as no surprise). Too bad Jonny Swift is dead. These fault finding, savage, crude hiring committees should start looking in the mirror rather than make a fool out of everyone they meet. Disgusting. Oh, and I bet you don’t like being criticized or made fun of do you, well neither does anyone else.
— A.M. Jul 17, 12:16 PM #
Well, I think saying a candidate should probably not use email is being a little overly sensitive, however, using campus envelopes, letterhead, printers, and other resources is not appropriate in job searches so I have to agree with you on those points. Remember, a lot of people check and utilize their campus email addresses from home, on their own time and from their home computer so I do think it is OK.
— Ryan Greene Jul 17, 12:20 PM #
#4, it took me three seasons to land a TT job (as ABD). And that one was a decent gig, but in a very undesirable location. Not in history, but close enough. My advice: finish the PhD, adjunct at an open enrollment institution, publish in high end journals, apply all over the country, and take every interview opportunity you get. Do not be a geo-snob.
On-topic: Are you freakin kidding me? There is no marginal cost increase for answering a few personal emails. Most schools permit that as part of their IT policy. I would not want to work for such an anal-retentive supervisor.
— Renae Jul 17, 04:06 PM #
The lack of ethics displayed among the responses posted on this topic is quite shocking. In contrast, I suppose one should not be surprised at such attitudes in this age of entitlement, in which employees think employers “owe” them something, generated out of some imagined sense of self-importance, underappreciation or of being “underpaid” (why not move on, if you think you deserve more pay?). And blaming the committees? I hope those who disdain the hiring committees end up spending the rest of their careers seeing the other side of that little equation!
— Shocked, more or less Jul 17, 04:21 PM #
Unfortunately for “Schocked” the age of legal slavery has ended. You are confusing groveling servitude with reciprocated respect. No reasonable person feels themselves entitled to anything – most think fair wages for fair work. The poor are poor because they make minimum wage, not because they are grumbling lazies. I am sure Shocked, like so many of us (myself included) in acadamia came from privilege and do not care to understand the trials of others, and lack the empathy to do so. The “move on” comment only shows how out of touch and ignorant many employers are – it is a clever way of instituting a monarchical “I use my workers like indentured servants who owe me their services and graces for me actually hiring them.” Just because you are gifted and pulling in a big salary does not give you the license to disparage others or demand some feudal respect like a colonial governor. Unfortunately, this type of elitism is corrupting and perverting decency in the workplace. Of course if you hire individuals from satellite arenas where arrogance is rife, what else would you expect than an individual with the same impudent attitude. Try hiring decent candidates that are personable rather than celebrities. Oh, and hiring from a ring of “friends”, as in professional nepotism can bring disaster as well.
— A.M. Jul 17, 05:27 PM #
You’re concerned with the use of letterhead?! or a school email account?! Is a blank piece of paper rather than letterhead make you forget that someone is trying to leave their current job? (gasp! – scholars can’t leave their institutions… Or can they???)
Writing about this is truly a waste of time, energy, and resources.
Chronicle usually has good tips and advice, but this is just crap.
— way oversensitive Jul 17, 05:42 PM #
This has been interesting, but what about the other side of the coin. The same institutions that might complain about faculty using email to job hunt have no compunction about sending unsolicited offers to the university emails of people they want to recruit.
— oldhand Jul 17, 07:22 PM #
I’m confused…
There have been tons of stories recently of professors and administrators whose -mail accounts were accessed legally for a variety of reasons. Why are so many people unaware that on many [but not all] campuses the employees often have restrictions on how certain resources are used?
Simply because you disagree with that [and many of us do] does not mean it’s not the rule there.
I think it’s clear a few issues are agreed-upon:
That faculty should be allowed to search for other jobs without teir current employer pitching a hissy.
That faculty should list a series of contacts so that potential employers can select the one(s) they find most appropriate.
And lastly, and most importantly, there are search committees out there that will judge you for not using the “proper” stationary.
Let us all think on that for a moment.
— anon Jul 17, 08:05 PM #
#11 / A.M.:
Clearly you have had some “disappointing” experiences with job searches. I am a firm believer that any white male over 45 is wasting his time looking. But, to hold on to the anger it appears you have is not going to do you any good health wise. How often do you wake up at night and unable to get back to sleep because the same story replays it’s self over and over? Take a deep breath, head up to the Tetons in WY, and/or garb a latte on the ferry over to Victoria. Some things you can’t change so don’t beat yourself up over it. The cure is to remember that the human race is a small thing and short live in the scheme of things.
— Dr. Bill Jul 17, 10:43 PM #
Let’s try to stay on point here. What this is really about is what I regard as the double standard of academic “moral economy.” Namely, as employers, universities expect undue “loyalty” from faculty, pile on loads of work and obligations outside of one’s normal duties and expect it to be done gladly as part of university “citizenship”, and do not hesitate to lay people off when the budget crunch comes. Meanwhile, faculty are regarded with suspicion and hostility if they consider searching for better employment, even to the point of being told not to use university letterhead? I suppose by the same token that “blank sheet of paper” should come from Office Depot, not the supply cabinet.
— flprof Jul 18, 07:38 AM #
Oversensitive. There is no generally accepted rule that graduate students and faculty should not use university letterhead and email addresses for job searches, and in fact some encourage graduate students to do just that. In my view it is unethical to start setting ad hoc ethical traps for people at other institutions who are acting in good faith.
— Tom Benson Jul 18, 07:52 AM #
It depends on your employer’s policies. At my school, we are allowed to do a small amount of personal business using our school email account. If we are sending/receiving large quantities of email, that is a problem. The cost is almost zero to the school; it’s a cheap benefit that faculty enjoy.
I am more concerned about the use of letterhead and especially postage. That’s a violation of rules here.
To me it all comes down to following the rules.
— me Jul 18, 08:15 AM #
Using university stationary and postage for a job search? Definitely not; these items are for university business and each use has a specific cost. Making personal long distance calls on university account? Usually not, since each call has a specific cost, but my last department had a system for me to pay for personal calls so I used iit since dept had tacitly okayed. Doing phone interviews on university phone? Okay, since the caller is paying for the call, except at the institution where the department had two phone lines so tying up the line with a long call was inconsiderate to colleagues.Using university email account? That’s fine, as long as I’m aware of and willing to accept the risk that someone might be monitorng email (I was). While it does cost the university to provide email, the costs continue even if I don’t use it. I delete old messages to save server space, but I don’t avoid using campus email when searching for a position. Also, speaking as one who recently switched institutions, when I supplied contact email and phone numbers in my application materials, I expected them to be used. I didn’t supply the email accounts I use with my friends, for registering with web services, or for the online class I’m taking; I used my professional email account. Yes, it may have been monitored, but I was willing to take that risk.
— vkw10 Jul 18, 08:19 AM #
A.M.: No, like most of the posters on this topic, being of lower middle-class stock I worked my way up to where I wanted to be. My point is that folks should not look for a handout, but rather should make their own fortune despite the odds against them. If you don’t like the university where you work now, find one that suits you better — don’t expect the world to change just because you “deserve” it or because it is not fair that the “man is keeping you down.” Sniping at the system and those who have figured out how its works is a waste of time and rather pathetic.
— Shocked, more or less Jul 18, 08:38 AM #
In the discussion of the ethics of using university email and letterhead, we seem to be apllying a narrow and rigid concept of employee/employer relations, one which is looser in the academic world. Let’s say that, technically speaking, someone using university letterhead is misappropirating university property for her or his own benefit. But try to imagine what the university would be like if faculty applied the same standard to the human resource they provide the university, notwithstanding the university’s tendency to pile work on them (which could techinically be refused by a tenured faculty member). Faculty members generally must teach, hold office hours, advise students, publish, and serve on committees. If I applied this description narrowly, I could refuse to talk to students outside of office hours and class. After all, the university is not paying me to do it. I wrote more than ten rec. letters for students pursuing graduate work last year. Four of these were for alums seeking Ph.D.‘s, and I even helped two with their statements of purpose. I support multiple students by attending their performing arts events, and have even been asked to lecture after the events. Again, from a very rigid point of view, I’m not paid for doing any of these activities. They have no measurable bearing on promotion or pay increases. I do them out of a desire to support students, regardless of whether they have ever put a penny in my pocket. Looking around my own department and college, I can only conclude that my extra-contractual support of the institution and its students is typical rather than exceptional. Colleges can only thrive out of a mutual sense of generosity and appreciation. When the university, even if it’s represented by a parsimonious and punctilious department head such as the one who wrote the above column, cuts off this sense of mutual generosity, faculty respond with bitterness. I would think the amount of money saved in forbidding faculty to use letterhead and email is not worth the ill will such restrictions might generate.
— Bardolph Jul 18, 08:51 AM #
Bardolph: Yes, the bitterness is more than apparent. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how supposedly educated, professional adults can be such whiners! Being a professor (and I am one) is about more than teaching and research. It is more than just a job, as you imply. What some fail to recognize (or think they should be paid extra for), are the other, understood duties, such as writing recommendations, etc., which are part of that privilege.
— Shocked, more or less Jul 18, 09:06 AM #
The State of Florida has long had a state law that makes it illegal to use state resources for non-state purposes. At the time this law covered me, it included a state employee’s sitting in his/her office and talking on an office phone when the subject was something like getting a job elsewhere, doing consulting on a private contract, driving a state vehicle to transport household belongings, etc. Of course this was before cell phones and easily portable notebook computers were out, but still the point was made very clear to all of us when we came onboard. Interestingly enough, if we didn’t like the disgusting green paint on our office walls, we could go over to the local hardware, buy a couple gallons of paint in a color we preferred, and repaint the office ourselves using OUR resources!
dj
— dj Jul 18, 09:08 AM #
“It is more than just a job”
Maybe to you, but not to the university or administrators. You are already familiar with how the system works, but I always tell new grads that they have to realize that anything they do outside their normal duties is a donation. You should not even expect gratitude.
— me Jul 18, 09:23 AM #
me: Universities have ridden on the generous coattails (and thrived by the pocketbooks) of their professors for hundreds of years. In medieval times, the university was wherever the professor hung up his hat, not wherever an administrator put his desk. Should we expect that to change now? I do not think so, because being a professor is still a calling, not a job.
— Shocked, more or less Jul 18, 09:30 AM #
“I do not think so, because being a professor is still a calling, not a job.”
Well…sorry to be disagreeable, but…in medieval times, professors were not evaluated on the basis of arbitrary student surveys. They were not told by deans to “provide value to the customers”. They were not hounded by legislators for being inefficient, underworked, and overpaid.
Maybe it’s always been that way. I don’t know. But I can say that when you get burned the way I and many others have been burned (“sorry, that was a verbal commitment only so we’re going back on our word”) it is just a way to earn a paycheck.
— me Jul 18, 10:48 AM #
A hearty amen.
— Abby Jul 18, 11:22 AM #
Ignoring the silly debates and angry rants here, I’ll chime in on topic. Having been an applicant twice and on search committees twice, my experience may be limited, my sense is that committees think it’s odd to get applications that are not on letterhead, but home contact information is pretty normal. I would say that it’s best not to use departmental postage unless you’re a grad student with an allowance for such things, but letterhead is expected.
I would also say that if you’re already in a position and hoping to move, you probably shouldn’t be shotgunning so many applications that you would need to worry about paper costs for the department.
— QuakerProf Jul 18, 11:24 AM #
Me: Re: the middle ages, you might wish to read more about the period. Eberhard the German and John of Salisbury would be a good start.
If you have ever worked in a regular office job, by contrast, university faculty have easy, pleasant jobs.
I’m sorry that you feel bitter about your situation — but in all businesses conversation is about possibilities (and is always non-binding). Only a written contract signed by someone with legitimate decision making authority counts. Get used to it — it’s been a standard of contract law for over 2000 years. Don’t let wishful thinking set you up for disappointment.
— historian Jul 18, 11:26 AM #
Please keep in mind that many (particularly younger) faculty and graduate students may have a .edu email address, but it is a front for a yahoo, gmail, or other free account. If I send you an email, it will appear to come from a .edu, but it is actually from my gmail account. As far as I know, this is a common practice, as most universities allow students and faculty to automatically forward incoming mail to an external account. (Actually, at my university, all of our mail is handled by gmail via a pilot project. We got rid of our mail servers entirely)
— AZProf Jul 18, 11:54 AM #
Historian: exactly.
— Shocked, more or less Jul 18, 11:56 AM #
Gosh, I’ve always used my school letterhead for job letters. I pay for the postage myself, but letterhead seems like part of the application, frankly.
Oh, and I have painted my own office before, and entertained at my home for school and made lots of other similar “donations.” And if there were a tally of how many pens in my desk at school had migrated from home and how many at home came from school I think it would be a wash.
I know people abuse the system but really, I don’t have the energy for nickel and diming in either direction.
— Susan Jul 18, 12:50 PM #
Not sure how we got so far off topic, but…
“Only a written contract signed by someone with legitimate decision making authority counts.”
Yes.
“If you have ever worked in a regular office job, by contrast, university faculty have easy, pleasant jobs.”
Not sure I accept that, but if that’s your opinion, okay.
The comment I responded to was
“being a professor is still a calling, not a job”
I do my research because I enjoy it. I teach some of my classes because I enjoy them. There are, however, many things such as going to faculty meetings, helping students, or working late reviewing applications for a faculty position, that I do not feel obligated to do. There is no calling to that, it is a job, no pay, I don’t do the work.
I’m not bitter about anything. I just don’t view the work I do as anything profound. There’s no good reason to do more than I’m required to do. God’s work is a calling. Working with students outside of office hours is not. It might benefit the student (to which I usually say “who cares”) but is largely a waste of my time. OTOH, a pastor keeping a marriage together or collecting donations for a soup kitchen is something valuable.
— me Jul 18, 01:01 PM #
You are representing yourself in your job search as a professor of X institution when you apply to another; using letterhead of that institution and department only seems to make sense. It is not the same kind of resource as postage stamps; it’s a professional representation of affiliation. I do not stop calling myself “Associate Professor of Y at Univ. X” during the summer when I am not on contract.
This is not a typical employer-employee relationship, so I don’t see the same compunction about letterhead that I do about not using the long-distance for personal matters, for example.
Finally, the fact that I do a TON of work at home and on my own computer (online course sites with students, responding to admin and student emails, grading, writing articles, etc) means to me that I am using my own resources for work the university employs me to do; I thus don’t feel at all out of place if I want to read the newspaper while in my office or surf the internet for recipes for okra. I give 60-70 hours a week to the institution each semester, and I do it from a number of physical places and at least 2 different computers.
Is the university under some ethical obligation to defray the cost of my new home software or my purchase of cd roms to back up my home computer? That would be an interesting question … especially in this time of increasing demand for faculty to be reachable online 24/7.
— Agalma Jul 18, 06:08 PM #
If your working someplace that is so cheap that they are counting sheets of letterhead paper, then no wonder you are looking for another job! However, you should pay for your own postage. I worked in government for many years before becoming a professor and trust me, the university is much more relaxed and a better work environment. I’m glad to work with students and expect to play team ball for my department. No I’m not a serf. Yes I am a white male who was 53 when I went on the job market and found a TT position at a very nice university. It is all about attitude.
— Dr.E Jul 19, 10:15 AM #
Well, it’s not all about attitude. Luck plays a role too. Is your dissertation topic, or general line of interest, in vogue? Are your recommendation writers influential and well-connected?
Of course you don’t use department stamps for private mail, but you use letterhead for professional correspondence (including job letters) and plain paper for personal correspondence.
I pay for my home DSL. I pay for my home computer, which I use for work purposes as often as not. When at home I grade papers with my own pens. The department can therefore spare me a few paper clips or sheets of letterhead.
As for Shocked, who sounds so self-righteous and priggish, I have to wonder what made a notoriously difficult job market so easy for him, a person struggling with the painful stigma of Lower Middle Class Origins, to conquer.
Does Shocked seriously believe that while he deserves his good fortune, other applicants deserve their bad fortune?
No one is “looking for a handout.” How ludicrous!
— halcroves Jul 20, 01:04 AM #
I am fastidious about not using university resources for personal reasons— I use my home printer, phone & internet for university business all the time, but not the reverse. Job applications, however, are another matter entirely.
Faculty salaries at my university are controlled by a faculty union contract that severely limits merit raises. (It’s the standard union logic that no one gets a raise unless everyone gets a raise.) For this reason, the administration has made it clear that the only way faculty can receive compensation for professional merit is to get a competitive offer from another institution. Only then can the school legally defend a merit raise. In general, my colleagues in administration have encouraged me to develop myself professionally — including applying to institutions that might better support my research interests and needs.
This means that applying for other jobs is a sanctioned part of promotion and professional development. Applying for a job is a professional activity directly related to your work. It is not the same as using the office copier to make flyers for a yard sale, or using the office phone to campaign for a candidate. I’ve been on dozens of search committees over the years and I’ve only seen a few application letters that were not on letterhead—and they tended to be drop-outs trying to get back into the academic job market.
I’m at a state university with limited resources, so administrators can’t tell you that sticking around is the best professional choice. At least not with a straight face. Not all institutions are Princeton Dr Fant. Those applicants who use their university’s letterhead to apply for a job in your department may have full support of their colleagues at their home institution. Who would discourage someone from moving from State U. to Princeton if they have what it takes? After reading this niggling little article, however, I hope they know what they’re getting into. Sounds like it’s lonely at the top.
— DrJohn Jul 20, 08:37 PM #
I always thought it was appropriate to use letterhead, email, phone, etc. for job correspondence. It just gives your application more credibility. Plus, prospectives employers are going to call your institution about you, anyway. I pay postage, though. I would be paranoid working for/with Mr. Fant!
— xol Jul 20, 11:56 PM #
This is interesting. Perhaps for faculty positions, search committees expect to see application letters written on letterhead, but for administrative positions where I’ve worked over the last 30 years, it is looked upon with tremendous suspicion. It could easily be the one thing every search committee member recalls about your letter rather than your wonderful background. If you’re worried about people thinking you aren’t employed, your letter and CV ought to make that clear. I would also suggest that contact information be primarily personal, including email and your cell phone number, assuming you have one. Further, I would suggest that any bitterness candidates have about being indentured-servant faculty may be legitimate, but if that comes through during an interview, you’re toast.
— F. J. Jul 21, 07:39 AM #
I have served on many search committees, and out of hundreds and hundreds of vitas and cover letters have never once received one which used university letterhead. I think most people recognize that using materials and postage for such a purpose might be viewed as dishonest or unethical.
On the other hand, virtually all currently employed applicants have used their professional email account. It seems ridiculous to quibble over this.
— Nancy Jul 21, 10:35 AM #
This posting only seems to prove that academia really needs to come up with a “best practices” outline of rights and responsibilities for both sides in this process. After finishing my PhD I moved into one-year position, and from there applied for jobs… I used letterhead from the university in which I had been employed because I was told that if I didn’t I wouldn’t be taken seriously. It must have been true as I now have a good TT job in major university. Clearly others here would have advised me otherwise and apparently would have seen me as a poor candidate…
I myself have now served on search committees and have seen both applications using letterhead and not — I tend to find myself taking the former more seriously, I have to admit. Email generates similar issues of uneven impressions and unclear ethical considerations. These issues are to be considered alongside the lack of standards on the part of many search committees, many of which do not acknowledge receipt of applications, send out rejection letters, or otherwise show due consideration to candidates, generally acting in a manner that would be seen as unprofessional in any other setting in the “real world”. I think the academy is in great need of some code of practice on the matter of searches, so that the both candidates and those who serve on search committees know clearly what is expected of them and how to act towards one another.
— thresh Jul 22, 08:08 PM #