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| Academic Job Placement Information |
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Introduction: Getting a job in philosophy
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The American Philosophical Association (APA) Jobs for Philosophers (JFP) |
Introduction: Getting a job in philosophy For graduate students seeking an academic career, it is never too early to start planning. Although course requirements and other requirements for the degree largely determine the path of your first years in graduate school, even here you should be proactive. If a professor gives you a choice of topics in writing a paper for a class, for example, consider writing on a topic that will "have a life" after the course is finished. Might it be a topic suitable for developing into a three-paper exam paper? If the professor liked it, what aspects of it does he or she find most promising and why? What do you find most philosophically intriguing about the topic? Does it have dissertation potential? Presumably, you will find the topics you pursue in graduate school interesting in their own right. However, if you aim to someday be gainfully employed in the pursuit of your philosophical interests, others will need to share your interests or be persuaded they are philosophically worthwhile. You would do well, then, to start early in developing a sense of the current state of the field. One of the best ways to do this is to read recent issues of the most respected philosophy journals. What are people writing about? What are the key issues up for discussion? Alternatively, why aren't people writing about X, when -- for reasons you can make clear -- it is so ripe for philosophical investigation? You should also familiarize yourself with philosophy job advertisements (in Jobs for Philosophers). What kinds of jobs are available? What areas of specialization and competence are represented? How do these relate to your own philosophical interests? After you've dabbled a bit in this way in the journals and JFP, seek out faculty members who might share your intersests. Ask them what they think about the current state of things in their areas of interest. What do they think of the job prospects for the areas of interest you are cultivating? The earlier you can get others on board for your research (ultimately, your dissertation), the better! You cannot overerestimate the importance of such early planning to avoiding false starts and fruitless research paths and to ensuring individual faculty commitment to your success on the academic job market. Ultimately, you will decide when to seek an academic job in consultation with those faculty members. To know what that decision entails, you need to know the details of the academic hiring process. |
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Once you have the qualifications, getting an academic job in philosophy is in one respect much like getting any other job: you need to check the "help wanted" ads. In philosophy, at least in the U.S., you consult a publication of the American Philosophical Association (APA) aptly titled "Jobs for Philosophers" (JFP). The APA publishes JFP in regular issues 4 times a year, as well as updated with summer ads and email job alerts. For access to the online version of JFP and job email alerts, you should become a member of the APA as early as is financially feasible. You may, and should, consult the password unprotected portion of the APA website for other useful information about the field. (You will need to be a member, in any case, to avail yourself of the APA placement system and member rates for conference registration and accommodations.) The majority of the best tenure-track jobs appear in the October and November issues of JFP and you should use the October publication date (typically, in the second week of October) as a deadline for having your application (aka, your job dossier) ready to mail. Because jobs continue to become available and are advertised though May and beyond, you potentially may find the search taking up the entire academic year. |
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You job dossier will be mailed in two parts: the part you mail to the hiring department and the part mailed by our department on your behalf. You will mail to the hiring department: Cover letter (a paragraph to a page in length) Minnesota will mail to the hiring department: Confidential letters of recommendations (typically, three to five; one should be a teaching letter) You should have two templates for cover letters: one for research universities and another for liberal arts and primarily teaching institutions. For tresearch universities, it is sufficient to compose a letter addressed to the person(s) specified in the JFP ad and stating "I am writing to apply for job #123 advertised in the October issue of Jobs for Philosophers. Enclosed are my c.v., writing sample, research statement, and teaching statement. Confidential letters of reference will arrive under separate cover from the University of Minnesota." If the job is advertised as open or variable rank, you want to further specify the rank at which you are applying. Also, if you are traveling during the winter break when departments are likely to need to contact you, provide the necessary contact info (usually an alternate telephone number). Close with the usual niceties. For liberal arts and smaller or primarily teaching institutions, you may want to go a step further and take some initiative in demonstrating why you would be a good fit for them. For good liberal arts institutions, it is worth mentioning if you are especially excited about teaching at such an institution. For less generally desirable jobs, it may be worth mentioning any special reason for your interest. ("Being born and raised in New Jersey, I would especially welcome the opportunity to return to my home state as an assistant professor at Camden County Community College.") Of course, you shouldn't invent such motivations but if you truly are drawn to a position for reasons specific to your case, you shouldn't hesitate to say so. For your curriculum vitae, you should aim for a concise document (no more than four pages) consisting of: contact information area of specialization (i.e., the area of your dissertation) area of competence (i.e., the areas in which you are competent to teach -- avoid overreaching!) degrees granted or anticipated academic awards/honors one-page dissertation abstract (title, committee members, synopsis) academic publications (if any) academic presentations courses taught courses taken as a graduate student (if space permits) reference writers (name and affiliation ) Surveying some sample job market cv's will give you some idea of the usual format. Your writing sample is perhaps the most important part of your dossier (your advisor's reference letter is the other contendor for top spot). For this reason, you and your advisor should give careful thought to what work should serve this role. Typically, the writing sample is a version of a chapter of your dissertation, revised to meet the hiring department's page quota (typically 20-25 pages) and to render the argument self-standing. You must also ensure that is written in a way that will hold the interest of search committee members who are pressed for time and may be inclined to make hasty decisions to put your dossier in the "reject" pile. One way of ensuring that your main ideas get across is to preface the sample with a brief abstract that sketches your argument and, if relevant, places it in the context of your dissertation as a whole. Your research statement is another (brief) opportunity to highlight your research. Here you should aim for more than simply a dissertation abstract or summary of exsiting research (though you may begin with that). Rather, you should convey how you anticipate your existing research to develop over the coming few years (say, the next five years or so). In short, you want to demonstrate that you have an active research program that arises naturally from your dissertation work (is topically related) but which will result in important work beyond the dissertation stage. Your teaching statement is essentially a cover document for your teaching materials. Here, you should provide a statement of how you approach teaching. Be specific and use examples as much as possible - avoid vague proclamations of teaching philosophy. Do you use in-class exercises to good effect? Employ case studies from popular literature? Require or otherwise encourage collaborative work? Any memorable experiences of student accomplishment? Include as supporting materials some sample syllabi and assignments and any cumulative evaluation statistics you may have. Leave it to the writer of your teaching reference letter to summarize and excerpt any narrative student comments you may have. Avoid the temptation to send too much (it will not be read). It aids in presenting a professional introduction, and in organizing materials for your reader, if you arrange your dossier in a two-pocket folder. (If you are already academically employed and have a business card, you may want to choose folders that allow you to slip one into a slot designed for that purpose; choose a neutral color -- white, light beige, light grey, etc.) In the left pocket, place your teaching statement (on top) and supporting materials; in the right pocket, place your c.v. (on top), followed by your research statement and writing sample. Place the cover letter on top of the closed folder and plop in a manila or other suitable envelope. Although the placement commitee will handle the confidential letters of reference that you request, you need to do more than simply request them. Upon encountering your first advisor's reference letter for a job candidate (most likely, the first time you serve on a hiring committee), you may be surprised to learn that they are (ideally) very detailed, substantive accounts of the candidate's research and its philosophical import. Indeed, some very good advisors have a knack for describing their advisees research even better than their advisees manage. Vague letters, however full of praise, carry little weight with hiring committee members. Therefore, you need to ensure that your advisor has read enough of your dissertation work to be in a position to write such a letter. Ideally, the advisor should have a complete or very nearly complete draft of all dissertation chapters, an abstract, your research statement, at your job c.v. in hand when he or she sets out to write for you. Do the same for all of your other reference writers except the writer of your "teaching letter," to whom you will provide your c.v., teaching statement, and supporting teaching materials. You may ask one of your commitee members to focus their letter on teaching issues or approach another professor for whom you have TA'd or who might otherwise have first-hand knowledge of your teaching. (Indeed, at some point during your graduate teaching, it is worth asking someone to observe your teaching with this purpose in mind.) Finally, keep in touch with the placement committee as the deadline for reference letters approaches and do not hesitate to remind delinquent letter writers of approaching or passed deadlines. |
Eastern Division APA interviews Hiring departments aim to advertise their positions in the October or November JFP and those that plan to interview at the Eastern Division APA meeting will make decisions on whom to interview prior to that meeting. You should plan to attend the Eastern meeting before receiving an invite, since departments are not always in a position to give you much advance notice of an interview request. As with every other aspect of the job search, be proactive: reserve a room in the convention hotel at the special student rate as early as possible, as these tend to fill quickly. Staying at the convention hotel will ensure you have a place to relax during interviews. Many students seek roommates to save money but in many cases it is less stressful to have a room to oneself or share only with a close friend. You will receive word that a department wishes to interview you by phone or, increasingly, email. You will be one of apprximately 10 to 12 candidates the department has chosen to advance to this stage. The person contacting you may be head of the search committee or a department secretary. In addition to the information they provide, it is useful ask who will be conducting the interview (e.g., useful to know whether when you walk into the interview you will be confronting two people or ten!) You may want to prepare an interview information sheet for this purpose. In the period between scheduling your first (of hopefully many) interviews and attending the Eastern Division meetings, you should familiarize yourself with the departments with whom you will interview. Take a look at their websites. Are there faculty on staff in your area? If so, will they be on the interview team? If so, what should you know about their research and what questions are they likely to have about yours? Peruse the department's class offerings. Which are you qualified to teach? Is there anything else notable about the program? Sometime soon after your arrival at the Eastern meeting, you will check in with APA placement services. Often, this is how you will find out the location of your interviews (that information isn't always available when you first hear from the hiring department). The APA also provides folders for registered candidates on-site in the event hiring departments wish to contact a candidate in this way. You will want to check your folder occasionally and otherwise avail yourself of on-site APA placement services. Come prepared with extra copies of your dossier (minus reference letters), as candidates sometimes secure interviews once at the meetings. Minnesota's on-site placement coordinator will also help you in this regard and it is important that you keep the placement coordinator informed of new interview requests and other "late-breaking" news. In the absence of your advisor, the on-site placement coordinator is your advocate, so keep him or her informed! Eastern division interviews typically are one of two types: those conducted in a hotel suite/room and those conducted at a table reserved by the department for this purpose. While you have no control over where the interview is conducted, you should be prepared in the first case to be walking into what is, in effect, someone's hotel room and, in the latter case, to do your best to filter out all the background noise/distraction. The interview format is fairly standard. It will range from 30 to 60 minutes in length (with 45 minutes to an hour being typical.) You usually will be introduced to the interview team, invited to have a seat, and offered a glass of water (you may wish to carry bottled water, as well). One of the members will open by asking you to tell them about your research. This is an invitation to present your dissertation/research "spiel." Your spiel should not, in fact, be very lengthy. You should instead prepare a very short, very persuasive, and very enthusiastic statement of your work. Ideal is to have a short (say, three-minute) version that allows you to ask if they'd like to hear more detail before proceeding to talk at, say, 10 minutes at most. This part of the interview is theater: you are to have prepared precisely what you will say but you are to present it in a way that suggests effortlessness (everyone in the room knows and expects that you will have prepared what to say but -- true story -- they will hunt down your advisor at the convention reception and complain that you sounded "canned" if you appear too rehearsed). The trick to carrying off this little feat is to rehearse your spiel more, not less. Mock interviews are helpful in this respect. As helpful, if not more, is rehearsing your spiel for fellow graduate students every chance you get. There is a second sense in which your research spiel is a piece of theater: you script it so that it gives way to what purports to be a period of spontaneous questions and your answers. A well-scripted speil, that is, strategically sets up certain questions as the obvious ones to ask (and hence, easiest to anticipate and prepare to answer). For instance, you may want to say just enough about some aspect of your work to naturally lead up to a particular question but then leave it to the interviewers to pose that question. It is very easy, and potentially devastating, to allow the interview team to completely control the interview. While you have to allow them to ask questions and remain poised and polite throughout, this is not a time for "Minnesota Nice." You need to make sure that you convey what you need to convey about your research in the short time you have to convey it. The goal, remember, is to get a campus call-back. If you are lucky, interviewer questions will be to the point and concisely put. You may, however, find yourself confronting any, or all, of the following: the interviewer who repeatedly interrupts you, the interviewer who just won't let go of an objection, the interviewer who is hopelessly confused, etc. Consistent with remaining poised and polite, you need to steer the interview back on your predetermined track. (If you are lucky, one of the difficult person's colleagues will steer things back on track but you need to be prepared to do this yourself and you will earn points for being able to accomplish it yourself. It may take nothing more than a polite, while firm, "I see that you're not satisfied with my answer but, in the interest of time, maybe we can agree to pursue this further at the reception.") At some point, the interview team will want to turn attention to your teaching (how early this happens largely depends on whether the intervewing department is primarily a research or teaching-oriented department but even the most research-oriented departments tend to ask). As in the case of your research, you will want to have prepared something to say. It is useful to have some specific things to say about how you approach teaching and you should be prepared to answer questions such as: "How would you teach Intro to Philosophy?" "How would you teach (intro course in your subfield)?" "How would you teach (intermediate course in your subfield)?" "What readings would you assign?" "Given the choice, what would you take up in your first graduate seminar?" Finally, you should be prepared to answer "Would you be qualified to teach (esoteric subject having nothing to do with anything on your c.v.)?" In the latter case, the intellectually honest answer is "no" -- though you may well want to follow that by expressing an interest in someday being in a position to teach that course, if true. Most interviewers conclude by asking if you have any questions for them. Unless you've decided during the course of the interview that you no longer want a job with them (a rare occurence), your answer should be "yes." Here, your pre-convention research should serve you well. "I see you have an undergraduate program in (interdisciplnary concentration in a topic relevant to your subfield), I was wondering..." At a minimum, you want to ask about their schedule for making a decision and call-backs for campus visits. In addition to the formal interview, there usually will be an opportunity to talk to members of the interview team during the receptions held during two nights of the convention. In some cases, interviewers will explicitly invite you to visit them at their table during the reception. They are referring to the tables that departments may reserve from the APA for reception nights. Such tables serve as the "home base" for interview team members and any graduate students from their institutions who may themselves be on the market. The tables are identified by number, with numbers posted at the reception entrance, for ease in locating them. While you may decide that your time is better spent getting to bed at a decent time (you should ensure a good night's sleep!), in practice many candidates and interviewers use the reception as a kind of informal interview situation. If in doubt, consult with the on-site placement coordinator, as he or she should attend the receptions in any case. If you are feeling fresh, and motivated, by all means make the rounds of the tables where you have interviewed, following up on a discussion, asking any questions that may have slipped your mind at the formal interview, and so on. The Minnesota table will serve as your own "home base" and will be the location where you will find Minnesota's on-site placement coordinator when he or she is not off trying to help someone else get a job. Beware, though, that the receptions can be a mixed bag. At worst, it will feel like a public interview (with various candidates jockeying for the ear of the same hiring commitee members) or (another true story) you may find yourself trying to steal away from a silly conversation with an intoxicated philosopher. You yourself should leave the drinking for future conventions, i.e., for after you've succeeded in securing a job! At their best, academic job searches can be invigorating: you may find yourself with a captive audience of prominent philosophers actively interested in what you have to say. That, however, is extremely rare and only slightly more likely the longer you have been in the field (it is extremely rare indeed for an initial job search). More commonly, the experience is unpleasant and for obvious reasons: candidates are understandably nervous, interviewers themselves are on a grueling schedule at a time of year when they could be home with their familes, and there hovers about the conference hotel an atmosphere of collective dread. Some departments -- some of the top-ranked -- do not have convention interviews at all, presumably because no one is at their best in the circumstances. (Other departments, for largely financial reasons, conduct phone interviews.) Short of mass exodus form the convention process, however, the convention interview is a necessary rite of passage in your academic job search. The best you can do is to ensure that you are well prepared for those aspects of the process within your control. First, you have to know your stuff. There is no excuse for being philosophically unprepared and no one is going to excuse you for it. Second, you should project a professional image in matters of dress and etiquette. (Here, people may excuse you if you are sufficiently brilliant or if they are persuaded of the superficiality of dress and etiquette - but why risk it?) Beyond these, however, many significant variables just aren't up to you (Professor X didn't read your writing sample, the committee is divided on whether they really need an X-ologist, a fire alarm sabotages your interview...) There is one variable, however, that may appear to be beyond direct control but nonetheless is amenable to prior planning: nervousness. Placed in the academic interview situation, the rare candidate is all smiles and confidence. At the other extreme are those who react like a deer caught in the headlights. While being academically prepared will for many people go a long way toward avoiding the deer in the headlights phenomenon, some people are simply unable to put themselves at ease in such circumstances. Spend enough time in the profession and you inevitably meet or hear about philosophy PhDs who, for all their brilliance, simply can't interview well. To return to the metaphor of job interview as theater: such people may suffer from stage fright. If you have reason to think you are such a person, be sure to incorporate into your job search planning whatever stress-reduction measures you are likely to need: join a gym, consult a doctor, schedule a convention massage. In short, do whatever you possibly can to enable you to perform at your best. |
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Following the convention, departments will contact approximately 3 of the candidates they interviewed to invite them for a campus visit. Some departments make their decisions before leaving the convention, meaning you may be called as early as New Year's Eve. More commonly, they make contact the first weeks of January and schedule the visits for January and February. In some cases, you simply convey your availability to the hiring department secretary and he or she makes all the necessary arrangements. Other times, you have to schedule flights yourself with the dates you agree on and the hiring department schedules your accommodations. In most cases, you will need to pay travel expenses in advance and be reimbursed by the hiring department -- so be sure to save the necessary receipts. This all happens very quickly and, as always, you should be prepared in advance. This means that you will need to have a job talk ready to deliver as early as early January. (You are strongly encouraged to avail yourself of the opportunity to give a practice job talk, arranged through the Placement Director.) |
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Your job talk will be the highlight of what is typically a two-day visit to campus. You want to find out as early as possible the details of your schedule, so don't hesitate to ask a secretary to email you a copy prior to your arrival. Departments display varying levels of sensitivity (or insensitivity) to candidate comfort in making their scheduling choices. It is not uncommon to arrive early morning, have various meetings before lunch, talk philosophy over lunch, have a campus tour, give a job talk, and talk more philosophy over dinner -- all in the first day. The second day may include a housing tour, meetings with administrators, and teaching a sample class. You want to know just what is in store in advance and, if necessary, lobby for some free time to collect your thoughts in the half hour to hour before delivering your job talk. You also want to ask who the main audience will be. Although in most cases this will be the philosophy faculty and graduate students, some schools (particularly smaller and liberal arts institutions) expect you to speak to an audience drawn from across the institution. Typically you will have 45 minutes to an hour to deliver your job talk, with approximately another hour set aside for questions and answers. This is one of the details you will confirm in advance with the hiring department. The desiderata for your job talk are much the same as for your writing sample. Your job talk should: demonstrate your philosophical conribution to your research topic (ideally, in the form of a positive proposal rather than simply finding fault with others' views) convey that contribution in a way that allows any educated audience member to grasp its significance (even if the details are too technical for the nonspecialist to appreciate at their fullest) provide a lead-in to an engaging Q and A period Distributing a brief handout that outlines your argument and/or contains key quotations will help your audience focus on the points you want to emphasize (it will also show you to be well-prepared and potentially speak to your teaching skills). A common question is whether your job talk should be the same or different from your writing sample. Opinions vary but if you have two equally worthwhile and polished pieces of work, presenting something new will demonstrate greater accomplishment. Among the risks of presenting your writing sample as your job talk are giving the impression you have nothing else to say and the concern that some faculty member will have spent the intervening month picking your writing sample to pieces and is savoring an opportunity to pounce. You may, in any case, be asked for an advanced copy of your job talk as your visit approaches and should bring extra copies along on the visit for those who may approach you for one. Teaching a sample class is most common at liberal arts and schools with a teaching focus. In the worst case, you will be expected to step in for a meeting of a regularly scheduled class on a topic remote from your area of competence. Don't be shy to advocate for yourself in a way that will show your skills in the best light. You may suggest, for example, a way of bringing the content closer to your own interests. In the best cases, you will be asked to give a sample class of your choosing. This isn't just another opportunity to highlight your research -- if the institution goes to the trouble of asking for a sample class, they truly do want to assess your abilities as a teacher. Something as simple as bringing along nametags and then using them when calling on students can demonstrate that you are someone who cares about students. At a minimum, you want to teach the students something in the period given (a common error is to try to cover too much) and engage them as you do so -- leaving time for them to ask questions, asking questions of them, etc. Finally, remember that your campus call-back is, in effect, an extended interview. It is easy, particularly during meals and over drinks, to be caught off gaurd. This is not the time to drink too much, engage in petty gossip, or to complain. Save that for the trip home! |
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Whether or not practice makes perfect, it certainly helps. As in the case of your dissertation speil and mock interviews, you should practice your job talk as much as possible before your first campus visit. Often, candidates round up some friends for this purpose and that isn't a bad idea. Even better is to present your job talk to an audience of faculty and graduate student peers. The placement committee will aid candidates in scheduling such talks for early January. |
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Given these rigors of going through an academic job search, the decision as to when to commence such a search is a serious one. Moreover, it is not a decision that a candidate should presume to make alone. In consultation with your dissertation advisor, you need to objectively assess your market readiness. Different advisors will have different opinions, to be sure. Some will want to have read a fairly polished draft of the entire dissertation before writing a reference letter, so that they will be in the strongest position to convey the value of your work to their peers and to assure them that you will defend your thesis before taking up the job. Others will allow otherwise strong candidates to search even though a final chapter remains to be written, provided -- again -- that they are in a position to convey the value of your work to their peers and to assure them that you will defend your thesis before taking up the job. The risk of commencing a search too early is that you are unlikely to be in a position to present and defend a compelling research program during an interview. And even should you pull off that feat and find yourself with a job, you don't want the tenure clock to be ticking as you complete our dissertation. Tempting as it may be, entering the market to early risks self-sabotage. Moreover, although some people advise that "there is always next year" in the case of a failed search, it is rare to find cases where a candidate previously rejected by an insitution is interviewed and hired by the institution the next year (though it has happened). A more common phenomenon is to find the best institutions scurrying to find the best of that year's new candidate crop. You don't want to render yourself obsolete prematurely, before you've even had a chance to present yourself at your best. |
Placement services and schedules In addition to your advisor, your main faculty and staff resources for placement are the Department Placement Director (assigned annually) and the Assistant to the Director of Graduate Studies. Placement services include an annual Fall placement workshop, receiving and mailing your confidential letters of reference, arranging for mock interviews, sending a faculty representative to the Eastern Division Meeting for on-site support, and scheduling practice job talks. Be sure to consult the placement schedule early and often! |
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