Scholarlyhires Blog

For those currently in a Higher Education careers search group keep this in mind: with your resume, less can be more.

Considering the large numbers of unemployed Higher Education professionals competing for the same college positions, and considering the multiple hats a hiring manager is likely to be wearing, time just will not allow the scrutiny required to read through one long resume after another searching for the key word or phrase demonstrating that you are a the best fit for the position offered. Reviewed also, either from the resume or at interview, are how you write and speak, your level of understanding of spoken words and written tasks, and will I have to send this person who holds a masters degree to a communication class at cost to the department?

A one page resume that pinpoints your skills and strengths, lists your previous institution’s name and your position, and one or two associations or activities (related or that show contrast to your work life and provide a snapshot of your well-roundedness), far outweighs the 2 or more page, bulleted 10 points showing what you did in all of your academic positions and situations. Save that information for special request or better yet, for the interview!

Additionally, if you’re smart (and I am going with the belief that you are and therefore on this site) you may decide to be more flexible regarding the direction of your career. In days gone by, one would only consider career movement upward or laterally. However, in today’s tough economic and employment climate it is not so far out there to consider less. If so, remember to customize your resume to highlight the particular knowledge skills and abilities, as well as experiences that position you as the best candidate because there are still hundreds, perhaps thousands, also applying for these college jobs. Everyone within academia, from Faculty Dean to entry level go-fer, is expected to multi-task and do more and to require less in salary to do it.

Have you ever wondered if advertised faculty jobs really exist, or if academic search committees are “really hiring”?

Believe it or not, we’ve all wondered this from time to time. Nothing is more frustrating than receiving sterile rejection letters stating, “Because we could not find a suitable candidate...” What do they mean by we could not find a suitable candidate? Aren’t we suitable candidates? Objectively speaking, we are. However, in the subjective world of university employment or college employment, even Nobel Laureates could be deemed unsuitable.

Why? Very good question... Perhaps a better question is whether higher education positions are advertised for the purpose of hiring someone, anyone, best qualified to fill a need, or create extra “busy work” during faculty search season?

How can you tell if a search is legitimately committed to hiring or not? Research your prospective employer. Investigate web sites for employment and academic departments, see if any historical track record of canceled or suspended searches exists. Graduate students at least a year before degree completion should start researching and saving advertised faculty jobs in an archive. When ready to start applying and interviewing for academic positions, go back into those advertisement archives and see if a new ad looks too familiar. This is how we collect valuable data on professional fields and patterns of “employment behavior” by different institutions of higher education and academic departments. Sometimes jobs are advertised with no intention to ever fill them, or with very unrealistic expectations of the ultimate candidate for hire. Sometimes a faculty job has chronic misfortune of attracting very unsuitable applicants, or being a cruel revolving door with little stability and security. Sometimes job searches really are legitimate but other factors sabotage hiring.

We’re applying for academic positions for our academic careers. Always do some research before applying.

What do you really know about your prospective employer? After 25 years as a university professor, I’ve done my share of applying for faculty positions and seeing applicants visit my academic departments. We generally follow the advice: apply for any and all academic positions, but do you ever wonder if some jobs simply aren’t worth applying for? Here is “food for thought” as you prepare application packets.

Do some real research on each department you hope to apply to. For example, is your “academic pedigree” compatible with that of your prospective colleagues? Did you all earn your doctorates from similar types of universities and graduate programs? How might that influence your motivation as a teacher and scholar relative to your prospective colleagues? If you’re highly motivated to do research, publish and write grant proposals, are you applying to an academic department where you wouldn’t be the only one engaged in such activity? More importantly, what kind of infrastructure is in place within this academic department and the institution of higher education to positively and genuinely support such activity?

Ask about your prospective colleagues’ areas of expertise. Could you genuinely collaborate with them, or would you be the only faculty member doing your area of work? Do you enjoy intellectual isolation?
Will you have sufficient opportunity to balance teaching and scholarly activity, or must you choose one role over the other? If you really prefer teaching to scholarship, perhaps applying to major research departments isn’t wise. If you really want to be known for scholarly work, perhaps you shouldn’t apply to 2-year and 4-year teaching colleges.

Apply to jobs making most sense for YOUR academic careers, not for the sake of getting a job. If you apply for jobs for the sake of getting one, it probably won’t be THE RIGHT ONE.

A 2011 research report, “The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas” published by Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, stated that some people have covert biases against creativity when there is a level of uncertainty about the imagined result. I thought of academic leaders who do not appreciate creativity. By creativity I am referring to diversity of all types (e.g. race, ethnicity, geographic background, and free thinking).

In recent years I have noticed that higher education sometimes places greater emphasis on personal qualities than on skill set and experience. Are we stifling administrative creativity at our universities by hiring individuals for higher education jobs with whom we feel comfortable (e.g. friends, colleagues, and sometimes family)? We sometimes overlook individuals who may be better qualified for positions based on education, training, and experiences. In higher education, administrators often rotate among universities – establishing leadership teams comprised of longstanding trusted advisers. It is important to also interject individuals already employed at these universities who have studied and trained and dreamed of advancing in university positions. Can a person enter the pipeline by virtue of skills and knowledge and not only the ability to make someone feel comfortable?

I encourage academic administrators to weight the selection criteria for higher education positions in favor of education, training, and experience. These are the qualities that we have espoused as essential to career success. The covert criteria of making the supervisor feel comfortable or knowing someone who knows somebody should be nonexistent. Institutional and personal growth occurs when there is diversity of opinion and method. Have the strength to endure and appreciate differences for the sake of creativity and growth.

Are searching for dean jobs or faculty jobs? You can now refine your search at Scholarlyhires.com where there are numerous postings of new college jobs every day. What’s more, if you search for faculty jobs on the site’s online journal your search results will be specific to the keywords you input. This means that you won’t get any search results which you do not need. Universities often post details of vacant positions on this online journal seeking applicants for executives, administrative management, professors and post-docs positions.

As an applicant you can create an account so as to easily apply to any post including higher education jobs and post doc jobs. You can thus also easily monitor all the jobs that you have applied for. Universities can also create accounts to post available jobs for which they can then receive all the applications via the website or via a mail-in or email option. Viewing the backgrounds of the applicants is also possible if the applicants choose to make their background descriptions visible to the public.

For all the above mentioned and a lot more, visit www.scholarlyhires.com

So you are beginning an Academic Job Search.This is the time of the year to find university jobs, particularly faculty jobs.

Quantity of job responses, particularly in higher education, is not nearly as important as quality of job responses. Fit between you and academic institution is most important as you search university jobs, and accentuating the hot points of the job will get you much farther in the process.

When you search academic positions on a university job website, be aware that not all university jobs are listed in an organized fashion. For instance, at some schools faculty openings may show up in a different area than university administrative jobs. When you search for community college jobs, they may show up as adjunct jobs or part-time positions, rather than faculty jobs.

For adjunct jobs, ask what the recurring opportunities to teach are. Some schools turn adjuncts over continually, to get a breadth of teaching skills.

Academic Deans jobs may be listed in a variety of places, so do not give up easily. Higher Ed recruiting is clearly an inexact science, but the reward of getting good college positions can be a lifetime of fulfillment. Whether you search community college jobs or search jobs in university environments we hope you have the best of success in fulfilling higher education careers.

For Postdoctoral positions, we wish you a lot of success, and some luck. University positions for post doc jobs generally are not listed, or are listed haphazardly. We suggest that you contact the departments directly, or even contact the Provost or Academic Affairs departments to find out the proper procedures for applying.

In general, university administrative jobs choose the “promote from within” concept first unless significant change management is a prerequisite. Faculty recruiting often keys on finding the candidate who best fills the particular void in the department.

When you search higher education job opportunities think of marriage. In many ways it is similar. There is a courtship, then you decide if you can live with the other party, then you look for the good, the bad and the ugly. Then you fall in love. Isn’t that simple?  Of course it is not simple.

Happy job hunting!