If you haven’t listen to Episode 18 yet, you can do so here or check out other episodes you may have missed here.
Getting your job market materials ready is a job in and of itself. We will give you some tips and share some links below. On later shows we will do a deep dive on individual materials, but for now, we have general tips!
Tips
- The earlier you start the better!
- Get feedback from advisors, mentors, and peers!
- Send the documents as a .pdf if you are worried about formatting issues.
- Make sure your doc is error free– double check (especially to make sure you don’t accidentally send things to the wrong place).
- Use the “me, you, we” method for your cover letter!
- Put what you want to emphasize right at the top of your cover letter. Anything that you want them to see should be on the first page.
- Be clear and concise. Avoid common phrases (passionate, excited).
- Do not “pad” your materials. It is better to be short than to embellish.
- Do not change margins or fonts to fit the page. Edit and delete.
- Make sure you are clearly showing them what you can do.
- Try and review market materials for people in a job similar to the one you’d like.
- Don’t apply to jobs you are not actually interested in working at.
- Cater all of your materials to the place you are apply at.
- Examples and evidence used in materials should be from the type of courses they want you to teach!
Helpful Links:
What are your tips? What sites do you use? Want to keep the discussion going? Hop on over to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!
…And until next time…keep on surviving!
-Kristen
So when I finally did land that interview and turned it pretty easily into a job offer I knew immediately that I didn t want to go back on the job market because (a) the whole experience sucks and (b) my chances of getting a job are slim. Fortunately, I landed in a department where there s tremendous collegiality and a formal mentoring structure, so I don t need to worry much about being a non-History Ph.D. in a history department. Without that mentoring and collegiality and all the reassurance they provide I d be a total basket case regarding my chances for tenure because of my tendency toward impostor syndrome.