For 40+ RHD students at the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.

1. How to Get an Academic Job
Strategies that worked for me.

2. Before we start
 Thank you for coming!
 Today‟s hashtag is #AAJH
 YMMV – this is based on my
experiences
 Trigger warning: some people find this
talk depressing and/or overwhelming
◦ Please be discreet with the information we
will discuss today

3.  2006: Applied for 30+ jobs – one interview; no
offer
 2007: Applied for 20+ jobs – two interviews; one
offer
 2008: Applied for 12+ jobs – two interview; no
offers
 2009: Applied for 12+ jobs – six interviews; two
offers
 2010: Applied for 5 jobs – four interviews; two
offers
 2011: Applied for 2 jobs – two interviews; one offer
 2012: Applied for 0 jobs – no interviews; two offers

4. Outline
 looking for an academic job
 preparing an academic CV
 preparing a cover letter
 responding to selection criteria
 preparing for interviews

5. LOOKING FOR AN
ACADEMIC JOB
 The education industry
 The job market
 Different universities
 Are you qualified?
 Why applying is important
 How to be ready when the time comes

6. Know the education industry
• Education is an industry
• Understand how
Universities work as a
business
• How are they funded?
How is funding handled
within Universities?
• How they are audited
and measured by
external bodies?
• What are the key
developments in the
education industry?

7. Know the Job Market
• How do you find out about
jobs?
–Seek
–UniJobs
–Individual Universities Websites
–LinkedIn
• Network
• Talk to people in your field
• Subscribe to the relevant
disciplinary mailing lists

8. Which University?
 How are Universities differentiated?
◦ Suburban
◦ Rural
◦ Multi-campus
◦ G8
◦ Newer (ex-TAFE)
◦ ERA Rankings
 Why might some Universities be better
than others (for you)?

9. Can I apply for this job?
 Is there a difference between a good
and a bad job? How can you tell?
 What kinds of jobs can you apply for?
◦ What constitutes an „entry-level‟ position

10. Why apply for jobs
 Practice applying for jobs, so you can
practice interviewing for jobs, so you
can eventually get an offer
 You will need to refine your application
materials by applying for several jobs
◦ A great Letter/Selection Criteria
answers/CV etc. will emerge over the
iterations
◦ Try to get feedback on them if possible by
a more experienced colleague

11. What you will need
• Definitely
• Cover letter
• Selection Criteria
• CV
• Possibly
• Miscellaneous forms
• Organizing Referees/references
• Statements of teaching philosophy or
teaching portfolio
• Statement about research interests
• Copies of terminal degrees

12. Questions
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

13. PREPARING A CV
 Background
 Teaching
 Research
 Awards
 Referees

14. Background
 Education
◦ List the degrees, with the year awarded
◦ For PhD add the:
 Title
 Names of supervisors
 Names of Markers
 Current and past positions
◦ List, if any, with year

15. Teaching
 What unit/courses did you teach?
 How many students? How many
lectures/seminars?
 What was your exact role?
 Did you do marking?
 Did you do curriculum development?
 What was the student
evaluations/feedback like?

16. Research
 Publications
 Funding
 Environment

17. Research: Publications
 Divide into „peer reviewed‟ and „other‟
publications.
 Include an accurate citation.
 Include forthcoming pieces but show
where they are forthcoming
 Include works in progress along with
the target journals.

18. Research: Funding
 List all funding attempts you have
been involved with and if it is in a
group describe your role.
 List future funding ambitions

19. Research: Environment
 List talks (academic and public)
 Involvement in organizing events
 Involvement in research centres
 Other research contribution (e.g.
reading groups)

20. Awards

21. Referees I
 You will need three people who:
◦ Know you and your work well
◦ Have high external visibility
◦ Can speak well on your behalf from various
perspectives
◦ Can comment on your unique experiences,
strengths, and address any weaknesses or
issues that may be of concern
 Who are your default referees?
◦ Your PhD Supervisor
 Obviously it‟s much better if they have some kind of
reputation outside your particular institution (e.g. a
research record)
◦ Someone who you have recently taught for
◦ An academic colleague who can attest to you
general collegiality

22. Referees II
 Details to include
◦ Name, Title, University affiliation ,
Address, Telephone/fax /email
 Ask permission before submitting
referees‟ names
 When you provide reference
information to an institution:
◦ Advise referees that they may be getting a
request
◦ Send then a current copy of your CV

23. Questions

24. BUILDING UP YOUR CV
Thinking about

25. Build Your CV
• What experiences do you need (or be able to
demonstrate that you can do)?
– Grant Writing
• ARC
– Publications
• Conference papers
• Non-refereed publications
• Refereed publications
– Service
– Supervision
– Teaching
• Guest lectures
• Coordination
• Unit development

26. Publish
• Currently the industry is skewed to favor
publishing peer-reviewed research.
• Publishing your research is the only way
to show you exist to those outside of
your institution.
• It is the only way of gaining a reputation
independent of your institution.
• Publishing is also valued by your
institution.
– Universities like to have „experts‟ on their
staff.
• Publishing is the key to gaining grant
funding and PhD students.

27. Network
• Its pretty hard to Network without
publications.
• Tell people you think will be interested about
your publication.
– Especially the people that you have cited
• Do stuff, be proactive
– Organize a symposium, edited collection, or
journal special issue
• Fulfill all obligations promptly
• Talk to people (about common interests)
– Don‟t just network „up‟, try „down‟ and „sideways‟
• Apply for jobs

28. Developing your teaching
 It is not about quantity, it is about
genre of teaching activity
 Reflexivity is an important metric
 Request a peer-review of your
teaching from the unit coordinator
 Focused informal student feedback
dealing with particular question

29. Questions

30. COVER LETTER
 Finer details
 The „next‟ project
 The slogan economy

31. Finer details – Cover Letter
 It maps/narrates your CV onto
◦ The job description
◦ The institution
 The cover letter is a space where you
can address weaknesses
 What will you bring to the institution?
 What does the institution have that
you want?
 How will you contribute to the
scholarly community?

32. Have a „Next Project‟
 Having a PhD is not enough.
 You need to have a new project that
can be clearly articulated in a couple
of sentences.
◦ Should explicitly build on your PhD
◦ Will be the basis of your new post-PhD
research, leading to publications and
grants
◦ Have a clear way of explaining how it will
fit into the existing grants scheme and
what kinds of partners you will/might need

33. Join the Slogan Economy
• Like all businesses Universities have
slogans, plans, visions etc. that they
share on their website
• Even at the departmental/school level
there may be statements about how they
regard teaching, research etc.
• Find some keywords and work them
back into your materials
– „student centered‟ learning
– „research led‟ teaching
– „practice led‟ research

34. Questions

35. SELECTION CRITERIA
 Anticipating possible criteria
◦ Essential criteria
◦ Desirable criteria
 Style
 Approach

36. Standard essential criteria I
 A PhD or other doctoral qualification in
[discipline x] or a closely related field.
 Demonstrated expertise in and capacity to
teach [subtopic x] at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels.
 Demonstrated expertise in and capacity to
teach at least one, and preferably more
than one, of the following at undergraduate
and postgraduate levels: x; y; z.
 A track record in research and publication
commensurate with the position.

37. Standard essential criteria II
 Demonstrated ability to supervise
Honours and higher-degree research
students.
 Capacity to contribute to flexible
teaching and delivery of [discipline].
 Ability to undertake relevant
curriculum development.
 Demonstrated ability to undertake unit
coordination and School
administrative duties.

38. Standard essential criteria III
 Capacity to engage with other
research/teaching programs within the
School such as x, y and z.
 Demonstrated experience of working with
others in a team-teaching environment.
 Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively
in research teams and proven ability to
work independently with minimal
supervision.
 Demonstrated oral communication skills
including presenting research findings in
seminars and conferences.

39. Standard essential criteria IV
 Demonstrated capacity to apply for external
competitive research funding.
 Demonstrated ability to communicate
effectively and work productively as a team
member.
 A willingness to participate in annual
performance planning and review.
 Commitment to EEO and OH&S principles
as they relate to this position.

40. Standard essential criteria V
 Proven ability, commitment and passion for
engaging in research activities in a multi-
disciplinary environment.
 Ability to develop innovative approaches to course
delivery and student-centred learning that
successfully exploits new technologies, with a
commitment to continuous quality improvement
through ongoing training and development.
 Sound knowledge of computers and standard
software packages, eg Microsoft Office suite and
Adobe suite.

41. Standard desirable criteria
 Relevant professional/industry experience
in [discipline].
 Experience in online curriculum
development.
 Experience in preparing research proposal
submissions to external funding bodies, for
projects relevant to the position.
 Involvement in professional activity.
 Experience in collaborative industry
projects.

42. Okay that‟s a lot of stuff
 Remember
◦ people don't really know what they want –
they are created by „committee‟
◦ or if they do it's not realistic – they are
dreaming about an „ideal‟ candidate

43. Responding to selection criteria:
Style
 Length up to a page for each, aside
from key criteria that cover teaching
and research (where you may have to
go over)
 Some criteria may be dealt with a
sentence
 Look carefully at the wording
 Remember „sloganomics‟

44. Responding to selection criteria:
Approach
 “Narrativise”
◦ Project-Action-Result
◦ Setting-Plot-Ending
 These are called „PAR‟ statements,
they are used to create narrative that
feature your strengths, skills, and
accomplishments

45. Project
 Establishes the “setting”
 What problems are you trying to
solve?
 What research/teaching [or whatever]
area are you working in?
 What impact might this have in the
“real world”?
 Write this in a manner that is not
discipline specific.

46. Action
 The plot
 Use verbs to reflect your skills
 Be specific
 Which actions?
◦ Transferable activities:
◦ E.g. collaborated, wrote, presented, lead
a team, supervised
 Look over selection criteria to see
what actions they are interested in.

47. Result
 What happened in the end?
 What impact did you have?
◦ Doesn‟t have to be conclusive
◦ Quantify your experience when possible
◦ Convey size/scale of project, budget,
results
 List relevant accomplishments and
skills rather than duties and
responsibilities

48. The future
 Remember don‟t just make the SC
answers about what you have done,
talk about your plans for the future
◦ You need to show your future colleagues
that you have you own plans and don‟t
need to be told what to do

49. Questions

50. INTERVIEWS
 The process
 The actual interview
 Other issues
 Sourcing information
 Negotiations
 Hard feelings

51. The process
 Position description created
 Job advertised
 Selection committee formed
 Applications due
 Selection committee establishes a
shortlist
 SC has first round of interviews
 SC recommends a candidate

52. Interviews
• Generally speaking absolutely standard questions:
– Why should we hire you? A kind of how will you fit in around here
question.
– What are your current and future research plans?
– What is you teaching philosophy? Tell us about a difficult situation
you had in the classroom.
– How will recruit and supervise postgraduate students?
– How will you handle administration in relation to the demands of
teaching and research?
– What kinds of courses would you like to teach?
– Do you have questions for us?
• Important:
– Wear „interview‟ clothes
– Phone interview – have a mirror and smile
– Make eye contact with everyone while talking
• Interviews are chances to network even if you don‟t get the
job

53. Help me I‟m a weirdo
 there's no way to know what someone
is like either way in 20-30 minutes
 but if you can manage to be charming
it's fucking dynamite
◦ because unless there is an iron-clad
quantitative case for some other
candidate some people will always be
swayed by it

54. Other issues
 Research talk
 Teaching demo
 Meetings with various people
 Meeting other candidates

55. Get the dirt
 Who are your potential colleagues?
◦ Especially the people on the interview panel
◦ Do you want to work with these people?
◦ Mutual research interests?
◦ Potential mentors?
 What else can you find out about the
department/school?
◦ New head?
◦ Restructure?
 Get some inside information if possible.

56. It doesn‟t end with the offer
• Never accept a job without negotiating
• They can always afford to pay you
more
–They can move around within the scope
of the position description
–But there are often other factors in play
• Put a case as to why you are worth
more than their initial offer
• You don‟t have to say yes to any offer
– but try to stay „friends‟

57. Don‟t Take Things Personally
• There will be a lot of rejections (at all levels)
– Never be in a situation where you have to get „that‟ job
– Don‟t be needy (its normal to never hear back from an institution even if you
have had an interview, its also normal for them to take 10 weeks to get back to
you)
– Respect institutions that have processes in place to notify you that you haven‟t
got the job
– Giving you feedback is a genuine favor
• People often have a very particular vision of what they want the
position to be.
– This is often a site of conflict/negotiation within the search committee.
– Someone might have thought you were great.
• Its not that they think you are bad (necessarily) but that they thought
someone else was better (for what they envisioned the job to be).
• Acknowledge that there is a certain point that you will „get the
message‟ and stop applying for jobs at that institution (until there is a
restructure or whatnot).

58. THANKS FOR LISTENING
Tom Apperley
IBES Research Fellow
School of Culture and Communications
ta@unimelb.edu.au
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