Career Talk

Hold Your Tongue

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By Julie Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong

Question: I am about to start my third year on the tenure track, but I'm not at all happy here and plan to go back on the job market this fall. My question: How do I explain why I'm looking for another position without either criticizing my current department or lying?

Answer: As the academic job market gears up, some candidates will be looking not to find their first position but to leave a tenure-track post before coming up for tenure. Their reasons are myriad, but most often have to do with either geography (such as a desire to be closer to family or to find a community where a partner can find work), or internal problems with their institution or department (such as a three-year review that went poorly, a bad relationship with a powerful department head, or an inability to do the type of research the candidate wants to do at a given institution).

If, like the reader who sent in the original question, you are looking to change institutions, you should focus on why you are attracted to the new opportunity rather than why you are unhappy at your current campus. Your cover letters should reflect enthusiasm for the new opening, rather than frustration with a current situation.

During your job interviews, you will most likely be asked directly why you are planning to leave. Don't be negative about your current department. If you find that you can't talk about your current job without anger or frustration, then you need to practice -- in front of a mirror or with someone -- until you can. Search committees don't want to hire people who are negative about their job and colleagues. They want to know why you are interested in their position.

In an effort to better answer our reader's question, we interviewed several faculty members in a variety of fields who have made the transition from one tenure-track position to another. Many of those faculty members said they were still on good terms with some of their former colleagues. They suggested that securing even one reference from the department you are hoping to leave (or from a related department) can make the job-application process much smoother.

We thought it be would be most helpful for readers to hear directly from the faculty members we interviewed, and two of them -- a humanist and a scientist -- allowed us to publish their responses to our questions. We are grateful for their frankness.

An Interview with a Humanist

Career Talk: Are you still on good terms with anyone from your former institution?

Answer: I hope so. There were many people that I respected and liked, and would like to maintain relationships with, but it's difficult to control people's reactions to your departure. Some people, I think, felt betrayed -- even personally. Plus, you get the "We're happy here; why aren't you?" reaction, especially when you leave after only a year or two. It's hard for it not to be taken as an insult by the institution and people you're leaving.

Career Talk: Did anyone from your old department serve as a reference for you?

Answer: I got the chair of another department, a very well-known person in my field, who had been influential in hiring me, to serve as one of my recommenders. He also tried to help me by seeking solutions to some of my difficulties from within the university. It was unsettling to put myself in his hands, not knowing what he would do with the information. He was very supportive in a kind of regretful way. Although I kept him abreast of my progress through the interview process, I did not tell him that I had an offer until the deal was sealed.

Career Talk: How did you break the news that you were leaving?

Answer: I told my chair first, as soon as I had accepted the offer, when everything was in writing, in keeping with what I had read to do in The Chronicle. Then I told people that I had individual relationships with, one-on-one. Then the chair sent out an e-mail to the department. There was an information leak during the period while I was speaking with people one-on-one, and one person who should have heard it from me heard it from someone else. That made me feel quite bad. If other leaks happened while I was interviewing, I am glad I did not find out about them.

Career Talk: At what point did you announce you were leaving?

Answer: After the offer was signed. It was mid-March. I wanted it to be as early as possible, but, again, these things aren't in your control.

Career Talk: Did anyone at your new institution ask why you were leaving your former institution? If so, how did you respond?

Answer: This was a question I had to face over and over and over throughout the process. I practiced answering, keeping it relentlessly positive. Coming to this new institution pretty much fulfills every hope I could have had as far as research, location, my spouse's chances for a career, everything. It was easy to focus on the attractions of the new opportunity.

An Interview with a Scientist

Our second interview is with a scientist. Her story illustrates some of the principles we discussed above. All job-changing situations are unique, and this one was particularly so given the troubles in the scientist's former department. Also, she had a gap year between her current and former positions, which is especially unusual for a scientist. Finally, in most cases, we would recommend notifying the department you are leaving a bit sooner than she did. Despite the unique aspects of the case, we think there is a lot to be learned from this situation and how the candidate handled it.

Career Talk: Are you still on good terms with anyone from your former institution?

Answer: I wasn't on good terms before I left. There had been a power struggle between the dean and the chair, and I got caught in the middle, and, as such, I couldn't wait to leave. I am, however, on good terms with the department faculty with two glaring exceptions. I did cultivate these relationships after I left, and am reasonably confident that they respected my decision and believe that I made a good decision and have landed in a much better situation.

Now I am still close friends with several people from my former institution. At least one faculty member and I plan to collaborate, and we exchange personal and professional e-mail weekly. Many of the behind-the-scenes people and I are likewise on good terms. I made a clean and amicable break with those with whom I worked directly.

Career Talk: Did anyone from your former institution serve as a reference for you?

Answer: I actually had two people write letters for me. They are both faculty members and people of high integrity. They both agreed that I would be better suited in a more active department. They encouraged me, kept me updated on the search process from their perspective, and were very helpful when the questions came about why I was leaving.

Career Talk: How did you break it to your bosses that you were leaving?

Answer: Not too well, I fear. I was already embroiled in a miserable situation that required outside mediation so I simply let my contract expire and never signed the subsequent contract. I tried to wait until the very last minute, hoping to make the person who was making me miserable even more miserable. In retrospect, I should have been more professional, but I was already so wounded by the administration that I had lost track of what was good for the whole and had decided to focus on what was good for me.

Career Talk: When did you tell other people you were leaving?

Answer: At the end of the spring semester. I had planned to wait until August, but my senior faculty friend pleaded with me to give early notice. In retrospect, I should have waited until August; things got very ugly in June.

Career Talk: Did anyone at other institutions directly ask why you were leaving your former institution? And how did you respond?

Answer: Almost 100 percent of the 15 schools that interviewed me asked this in the phone interview. For most of them, I replied that my long commute was no longer bearable. I received 15 campus interviews. I tried very hard not to say anything negative about my former institution or the nasty politics that had occurred. My references were also asked to use my commute as my primary reason for separation.

I am chatty by nature so on a couple of campus interviews, I might have indicated that the commute was not the only factor. This was a huge mistake. I would counsel anyone who is leaving because of ugliness (i.e., politics) in the department to find some other scapegoat. Don't lie, but do some research and find the one standout difference between the old institution and the new one, and limit your response to that. Also, be sure to clue your references in on this. The better prepared they are, the better they will support you.

Go into the interview as if you have never had a job at a previous institution, as if you have no "baggage." And have that fallback line as to why you want to be at the new place. I would also encourage people to practice so that when the question of "Why are you leaving?" inevitably arises, you respond like it's no big deal; you just want a change. Practice it also so that your body language doesn't give you away.

Never say anything negative! You want to come across as generally happy but looking for something different. People think that unhappy people will be unhappy wherever they are and generally will write you off the list without a second thought. Once when I was the interviewer, a tenure-track candidate was looking to change institutions, and her biggest reason was because her office didn't have a window, and she was really looking for a larger city. We made her the offer; in fact, she was our hands-down first choice. As it turns out, [we found out that the real reason she left was because] she had had a bitter power struggle with a colleague who later became chair.

Career Talk: What happened to your lab and your research during this time? Were there any disagreements about equipment, supplies, etc.?

Answer: I packed up all the lab equipment and supplies that I had purchased on my private, personal grants. Since I was leaving with no apparent home, I brought it all home and stored it in my attic. Luckily, I had kept a careful record of what had been purchased on what grants, and so I really had no disputes. The research was not complete so I don't know what will happen when it gets published, but I'm going on the principle that when the time comes, the journal editor will advise me on that issue.

I was urged by my more senior colleague to take everything, but I suspected that would have caused some major issues, so I took what I knew to be mine and left the rest. I did, however, make sure to clean everything up and appropriately label the waste; I adopted the "broom clean" attitude toward my lab. I did feel like I was leaving in the dark of the night a few times though, although in my opinion it was all out in the open what I was doing.

I didn't have students; I didn't have too much in the way of university equipment; and I got everything I wanted out before I told anyone I was leaving. I personally think that that saved me from losing some very expensive but privately purchased equipment. Or at the very least, from having to go to court to keep it.

My only caution here is that I didn't take much. If someone is leaving with a lot of accumulated materials, then they should probably write a letter to the "powers that be" and clearly decide what is theirs and what is the university's. I was counseled to do this by an outside source; my inside advisers thought it would result in my losing everything.

All in all, I left with very little disagreement and on good terms and with the respect of the "important" people in my department.

In Closing

Leaving one faculty position for another can be tricky. It's important to keep in mind that when a new faculty member is hired, the department is making a huge investment in the future of the department. It can be disappointing to find that that investment is not going to work out, especially if there were no warnings of unhappiness. Try to give as much notice as you can, and try to leave on as positive a note as possible.

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Julie Miller Vick is associate director of career services at the University of Pennsylvania. Jennifer S. Furlong is a graduate career counselor at the university. Vick is co-author of The Academic Job Search Handbook (University of Pennsylvania Press), along with Mary Morris Heiberger, who was associate director of career services at Penn.