I don't know if you want to use all of this or cut and paste the parts you like, but I'm happy to reply to the naive little booby who sent in his pathetic "thirsty" question yesterday.
There is no way to completely explain how job searches work. They vary tremendously, but as a veteran of about 30 searches at 3 different institutions I can tell you this much:
Your pedigree matters, but only in that it needs to match our own. Coming from Big Dick Private Research University doesn't do much if we're at the Kansas Barber and Auto Mechanic College. Sure, I guess it seems we should fall over dead at your wonderfulness, but instead we just think you're too damn dumb to find a job at a real school, and you're slumming with us. Same thing works the opposite way, but not as severely. My colleagues in the past have shown a curious excitement about folks from Small Nondescript College because at least we think you won't be as smart as us, and that makes you a good candidate!- Your letter has to address our ad. Otherwise it gets shuffled off to the side. But the bad news is, most of the job committee doesn't like the wording of the ad anyway. So, the key is to address the ad but NOT to appear too in love with the idea that we want someone who can parse sentences, split atoms, and do HVAC repair. If you buy in too much to the ad, it looks phony, and worse yet, those committee members who don't like the ad will just shuffle you off anyway. Really, the first and only rule of the letter is - do no harm. Don't fuck yourself up. Don't tell us how wonderful you are or how wonderful your students think you are. Be business like. Address our needs, show a little of your stuff, and make sure you reveal something that you know about our job.
- Your vita? Good grief. Nobody reads the vita. We might cruise the dates of your degrees to find out how old/young you are, and then we might compare your publications to ours. Of course if you're in a bunch of journals that we aren't, we aren't going to like you. If you're in publications that we've never heard of, that's bad, too. Just put the fucking thing on white paper, okay?
- Student evaluations are worthless. Nobody would ever send their mediocre ones, so whenever I'm on a committee that asks for them, I just throw up my hands. "Hey, Joe Stumblefuck has a 4.8 in 'grading,' and Jill Dunderknuckle has a 3.6 on 'textbook usage.' Holy shit. Call the Dean's office. We have our man!" If you've got good student evaluations, terrific. They mean nothing.
- Writing samples are a different thing. My field doesn't use them a lot, but I like them. These are clips from published articles or pieces in manuscript. I like seeing both kinds, especially the new stuff. Even though I've generally worked at teaching-intensive colleges, I'm always prone to support someone who's active and working. But don't send clips or samples until asked. When the first-call application comes with 80 sheets of paper, I know you're someone who will tire me and the students out. We don't want you.
- Now on to interviews. Don't be a suck up. Don't be full of yourself. Imagine that you're going to be having lunch with us for the next 5 years, that we'll need a ride from you one day, that your kid will get sick and I'll have to go to the hospital with you. Be natural. Be normal. Most search committees are made up of folks looking for someone who'll be nice and pleasant to have around. Not a sycophant, and not someone eyeing the chair's job. Just a regular person who knows the field, is willing to learn about our college, and willing to pull a load. 95% of all interviewees fuck themselves in the first few minutes by forcing things. Just be normal. You're stopping by our table to say hello and share what you like about teaching. Anything extra special, your very tight trousers, your humongous black framed eye glasses, your European styled bangs...all of that makes us think you're a nutjob. If we finish the interview and I feel like having lunch with you, you're in.
- Campus visits. Most of the rules from above reply. Don't be alarmed at our tiny town or the bad streets of our big city. Don't say, like one recent visitor, "Good God there are a lot of strip joints out here by the airport." For God's sake, don't you have an atlas or the Internet. Acting alarmed about the college is not a good thing. Being confused about whether we're in Indiana or Ohio is not good either. And don't overreach either. If you've lived your whole life in Croton-on-Hudson and find yourself in Peanutburg, Mississippi, don't holler out: I CAN TELL I'M GOING TO LOVE IT HERE. I'VE NEVER SEEN SO MANY BOWLING ALLEYS!" Learn about the place BEFORE you come and visit us. One guy came once and said, "Oh that must be your new library. Looks nice." We hired him, and I can tell you it was about 40% of the reason.
- Regardless of the hoops that Human Resources and the Dean's Office puts in front of applicants, we're really just looking for someone who'll be a good member of the community. Someone who loves doing the job. Someone who's interested in learning from the rest of us. Someone we want to hang with. Someone who comes off as a regular person, free of insecurity, ego, greed, and pretension. Have you ever spent any time with a group of academics? It's a wonder anyone gets hired at all.
- One bit of bad news is that some of your fears are probably real. I've been in search committee discussions where we've openly wondered about applicants' sexual orientation, age, religion, race, etc. It's verboten, we all know it. But it happens and I can't imagine anything that would ever change it. The good news is that it hardly ever makes that much of a difference. Ageism is the thing I see that is abused the most. One nice colleague of mine said, about an applicant, "My God, she must be over 50 years old!" I said, "So?" And then there was quiet.
- Hey, Google yourself, okay? I mean, we will. If you don't have a professional page somewhere, either on your own or at your current institution, start one somewhere. If we find that, we'll be happy. If all we can find are pictures of you and your cat on your blog, it's a wasted opportunity. Listen, some of us have cats, okay? But they're not the be-all, end-all of our existence. Same goes for pictures of you with a mojito and a big stain on your pants. Or ANY kind of Facebook page. Grow up, get it? And listen, we have a job open this year at my college. And who do you think is the committee chair? Bring it on.
