This is the first post of a new series, "Notes from Search Committee Members." As recent discussions here and elsewhere indicate, people have a lot of opinions about what it takes to do well on the academic job-market–views about what search committees look for in terms of a publishing record, letters of recommendation, and so on. Yet a lot of these speculations are just that: speculation! And so I figured it might be good to seek out notes from search committee members themselves. After all, if anyone knows what search committees at different types of institutions actually look for, surely, it seems, they do.
What follows is the Cocoon's first submission–by a search committee member at a mid-sized liberal arts college (MLAC) in the Western US. Please note that the search committee member's self-report is just that: a self-report by one search committee member in one department at one school. It is anecdata–no more, no less. The Cocoon, and myself, do not "endorse" the search committee member's statements, or offer them up as advice. They are simply presented as "food for thought"–as anecdata to provide job candidates, grad faculty, etc., insight into the mind of one search committee member.
Here is the full submission:
I’m at a middle-sized, mid-range liberal arts college. We have graduate and professional programs in a number of departments, though not in philosophy. We had 107 applicants for our current tenure track-position, most of whom were very good.
When it comes to giving advice to applicants it might be more useful to focus on what turned me off rather than what turned me on.
Gimmicky covering letters turned me off. One applicant, an attractive woman, included a picture: big mistake. A few applicants made a point of mentioning department members (including me) by name and noting the areas in which they would like to work with us. I think the idea was (1) that this showed they had enough interest in the job to research the department and (2) that this would be flattering to people who were named. I found this tacky and was completely turned off. My advice to applicants: don’t do it! We know your interests because we have your dossiers; we know that you know we know your interests; and so we know that you’re just trying to flatter us and suck up. One applicant confused our university with one that had a similar name. This didn’t bother me. Poor jerk, I thought—I can certainly understand that mistake. This applicant, for independent reasons, got on my short-list.
I liked covering letters that were just generic and a paragraph long, since all the information we needed was, after all, in applicants’ vitae, or alternatively letters that gave an account of the applicant’s work and research program. Whether in the covering letter or elsewhere I was looking for candidates who could say where their current work fit into a larger, on-going research program. I did not like self-promotion—e.g. first person statements about how enthusiastic they were or how much they especially wanted a job at my place. I especially disliked pious goody-goody self-promotion, in particular remarks about how committed and enthusiastic they were about teaching. First of all, I didn’t believe it. Secondly, putting this in a letter was just sucking up: we had course evals and other evidences of their classroom performance in their dossiers. I looked mildly askance at applicants who indicated that they were particularly interested in moving to our area. Why should we, in hiring, care about this? I tried to remain neutral about such remarks, but the idea that they even considered location suggested a lack of commitment and desperation that didn’t sit well with me.
Since screening applicants was a communal effort, after identifying the excellent candidates—the majority of applicants—I trusted the Wisdom of Crowds. I picked the candidates who appealed to my idiosyncratic tastes, judging that my colleagues would do the same, and that this would even things out. It did.
As for my idiosyncratic tastes, I looked for applicants who were working on problems that interested me. This evened things out, since no one else in my department is interested in the stuff that interests me. I paid very careful attention to applicants’ accounts of their dissertations: even if an applicant wasn’t doing work in my field, if I found what s/he was doing in the dissertation grabby, original, and significant, I went for him or her. I skimmed some applicants’ papers and, again, if they were interesting I liked it. But there wasn’t time for much serious reading. If an applicant submitted a paper that was published in a prestigious journal (many did!) I looked at the abstract to see if it was interesting but didn’t read it: I trusted the judgement of the referees and the editor who accepted it. But I kept some to read later, for my own interest.
I also looked at whom applicants working with and from whom they had letters. I didn’t read the letters very carefully: most recommendations are very positive and so almost useless. I did look at the length and substance of letters: if the writer had a detailed account of the applicant’s work, and made the effort to write about it at some length, that was good. If an applicant was working with people I knew or whose stuff I followed, that was good, but by no means sufficient to get them on my list. Again, I looked for narratives about where their research was going and promise that they would be professionally active.
I did not look at course evaluations or any other material concerning applicants’ teaching at all. Again, trusting to the Wisdom of Crowds, I knew that my colleagues would look at this stuff. Candidates should be aware that at many mid-range colleges, including my own, there are serious research expectations and that, like me, many of us at ‘teaching colleges’ are primarily interested in research. I liked it when applicants made a big pitch about research rather than teaching because, to me, this represented the recognition that I and my colleagues followed work in our fields and had serious research interests.
Finally, speaking from the Other Side, I want to assure applicants that getting interviews is something of a crap-shoot. We have, in the past, declined to interview candidates who subsequently got jobs at much better places, who now have impressive publications, and whose names you’d recognize. I made bad decisions because I didn’t understand this. I assumed that everything was by the numbers, that grades, acceptances and rejections, rankings and other ‘objective’ measures, were absolutely correct—and that I should never aim higher than what the numbers told me. Speaking from the Other Side, after participating in many hiring decisions, I can now assure people on the job market, that this is dead wrong. I wish someone had told me—so now I’m telling you.
I hope you all found the submission illuminating. If you have been on a search committee and would like to submit a post to this series, or know someone who might, submissions should be sent to marvan@ut.edu or helenldecruz@gmail.com.
Leave a Reply to postdocCancel reply