How to Have Been a Better Job Candidate

Oh, the ridiculous places in which we have academic conferences...

It just so happens that I am on the job market this year, which has made me look back on my academic career with an eye to figuring out how to construct myself as an even remotely qualified candidate. But in that process I've learned a few lessons, despite the fact that some of them I know I've heard before—I just didn't learn them in time.

To avoid the same mistakes in my next Ph.D. program, here are some lessons that I should have learned before my sixth year here:

1. Keep all teaching evaluations, organized and in one place. Seriously. Maybe even put post-its on your favorite ones. Just because you have to teach in multiple programs to get through grad school financially, and just because some programs have absolutely ridiculous evaluations systems, it's still your responsibility to submit a nice "teaching evaluation" package to schools when they ask for one.


2. Take notes on thoughts about teaching, both its theory and its practice. If you see an instructor doing something you like, whether for undergraduate lectures or graduate seminars, write it down—and figure out what you find effective about it. See if it reminds you of things you saw at other schools. And if there are teaching strategies that you think can be improved, jot those down too.


3. Write teaching and research philosophy statements early—like, a full quarter before actually going on the market. Actually, this process got me to realize that I was interested more in teaching than in research. Plus the process can be a great motivation for gearing up to teach and research in future quarters.


4. Stop reading; start writing. And I mean last week. It's like someone once said: one more book isn't going to tell you anything new, or give you that one answer you've been seeking. And like someone else said, reading is just an excuse for not writing—and we all know that's true. (Besides, no one takes you seriously unless you have two solid chapters done anyway.)


5. Submit job applications early. Don't procrastinate on writing up the cover letter, just to find out that the online application has disappeared because the position has been filled already—because it will be the position that you thought you were the absolutely perfect candidate for. (Even though it wasn't.)


6. Be happy with the present and past. If you are proud of who you are and how far you've come as a scholar, it'll come through in both the job applications and the dissertation. (Right??) So you didn't get that fellowship or get that article accepted—clearly you weren't just sitting there twiddling your thumbs; you made productive use of your time otherwise, and that deserves some spotlight. Think about what you have (to offer), not what you don't. 

One would think that a grad student would ask her advisers about these questions before they come up—but clearly this one did not. But you know, a lesson learned late is better than a lesson never learned, I say...