Job Market Series Part 3: prepping your materials
Material Prep
I will be honest, there is a lot of writing involved in the job market process!
Some general rules of thumb to think about:
Empathize with your audience - they are tired, overworked, and need to know all about you and how you’re great ASAP in your materials. Your materials need to be clear. This is not unlike grant writing.
Think about your “platform” —> I recommend reading the Professor Is In book and blog for ideas about how to think about your platform. Also, the Early Career Researcher’s Toolbox has a great structure for how to think about your research and context.
Write early, revise often, and get a lot of eyes on the materials. General resources for writing: Stylish Academic Writing and Air & Light & Time & Space, both by Helen Sword
Written Materials
Cover letter: 1.5-2 pages, giving an overview of who you are and why you are a fit with the position. I wrote a template based on one job, and then edited/tailored to each job I applied for. More here
Research Statement: 2-3 pages, should give an overview of your research question(s) (the why of what you do), your unique contributions to the field (what you’ve done), your methods (how you do what you do, with some specificity - how do you answer your questions?), funding/plans for funding (the how), and future directions. My general outline:
Paragraph 1: Who I am, what I study, and why I study it
I am a XXXXX who studies XXXXX. My research focuses on XXXX. WHY: _____. My broad research question(s) focus on XYZ.
Paragraph 2: I address these questions by XXXXXX (methods). How my research moves the field forward and why
Paragraphs 3 + 4: One arm of my research program focuses on XXXXXX. Why. How. What I found. Why it matters. (papers & grants noted throughout this section)
Paragraph 5: Future directions in this arm of research
Paragraphs 6-8: The second arm of my research program focuses on XXXXXX. Why. How. What I found. Why it matters. (papers & grants noted throughout this section)
Paragraph 9: Future directions in this arm of research
Paragraph 10: Wrap up paragraph
Teaching Statement: 1-2 pages on what you teach, your approach/how you teach, how you would teach at the institution (I tailored my last paragraph to each job I applied to) (see more here)
Diversity Statement: 1-2 pages on how you contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion in your current work and how you envision yourself contributing at the future institution (I tailored my last paragraph to each job) (see more here)
CV: Really review and edit this with the frame of a hiring committee - what do they care about and have you clearly communicated it? It may be worth looking at other assistant professors’ CVs to gut check your own formatting and what you include. A handy piece of advice from Moin Syed is to include links to your current work in the form of preprints - either as publicly available preprints or as private preprints that you can link to with your OSF account.
Guides on these materials, via Laurel Gabard-Durnam
Example materials from successful job searches, via Laurel Gabard-Durnam
Zoom Interview Materials
I was advised that I could get a zoom interview as soon as a week after the review deadline, and it was worth prepping for a phone/zoom interview right away after submitting materials (or before).
See Laural Gabard-Durnam’s resources on interviewing
General notes to myself:
Write out your answers and practice your answers to a whole host of questions (see resources above for example questions). Have your partner/friend/whomever ask a bunch of questions and practice your answers and see if they get the “point” you were trying to make.
Keep your answers to ~1 minute in length
Reduce jargon. Audience is highly educated but NOT subject matter experts
After - post-screening interview - send a thank you email to the search committee chair, express enthusiasm, “please extend my gratitude to everyone on the search committee”
Write down what you want to say about your program of research and practice getting that into your answers.
Example of my “General Platform/5 talking points”
I am a developmental psychologist who studies early life stress and its regulation
I focus on how early-life and intergenerational caregiving experiences shape neurodevelopment, health, and behavior – how does the developing brain and body mobilize resources and make physiological adaptations in response to early-life experiences?
(1) How do early experiences shape neurobehavioral development and/or physical health?
(2) Which physiological mechanisms underpin these experience-driven development outcomes?
(3) How do experiences, physiology, and context interact to produce different outcomes?
Productive scholar and continuously funded research program, including co-I on an R01 and PI on a K99/R00
Interdisciplinary, but grounded in developmental stress research - putting the “glucose” back into glucocorticoids
stress is not just a psychosocial construct with psychosocial loci but also arises from the material contexts of childhood, including those that create nutritional adversities
Teacher focused on bringing critical thinking, empathy, and applied learning into the classroom with experience teaching large and small groups of students.
Interview questions to prepare for/consider
These are a summary of the various general questions I prepared for, both for zoom interviews and for campus interviews. These questions provide insights into the applicant's motivation, research plans, teaching philosophy, and fit with the department's culture. Again, it’s good to keep your answers to ~1 minute. Here's a summarized version of the interview questions and additional advice:
1. Why Apply Here? Explain why you're interested in this specific job and university, considering their mission, department, and culture. Highlight why you would choose this job over similar ones elsewhere.
2. Research Overview: Discuss your current research and the broader motivation behind it. Explain your plans for expanding your research program, securing funding, involving students, and making practical/theoretical contributions.
3. Big Research Question: Describe the significant question you hope your research will answer and outline your short-term (2-year) and long-term (5-year) research plans.
4. Unique Contribution: Articulate what unique qualities you bring to the department and how you'll collaborate with other faculty members.
5. Teaching Preferences: Discuss your teaching interests, mentioning specific classes you’ve taught before and the classes you'd like to teach. Tailor your response to the department's needs (look through their course catalog!) and ask if there are particular gaps they're looking to fill.
6. Knowledge about Location: Demonstrate your familiarity with the city where the university is located.
7. Future Grants: Explain the grants you intend to apply for to fund your research.
8. Mentoring Style: Describe your approach to mentoring students.
9. Lab Management: Explain how you plan to manage your research lab.
10. Diversity and Inclusion: Describe how you'll promote diversity and inclusivity in your work environment, classroom, lab, and beyond. Describe how you'd handle race/gender disparities during class discussions.
11. Lab Size and Collaboration: Think about the size of your envisioned lab and your collaboration plans with other faculty.
12. Initial Projects for Grad Students: Outline potential projects for your first few graduate students.
13. Field's Future and Challenges: Explain your perspective on the future direction of your field and how your research addresses upcoming challenges.
14. Factors for Success: Discuss the elements you need to be successful in your role (e.g., facilities? participant populations? staffing?).
15. Explaining Your Research: Be prepared to discuss your research in a clear and engaging manner to non-specialists.
16. Graduate Student Training: Clarify the training and expertise you expect your graduate students to develop.
17. Questions for the Committee: Prepare thoughtful questions about the department, faculty culture, initiatives, and the university's future. Look at university-level initiatives, ask about how that’s going, and show that you’ve done your homework. (Note - for zoom interviews, I would keep these positive and not critical of the department). MAKE SURE YOU ASK A QUESTION. Final Question for Committee: Conclude the interview with a positive question, showing your interest in the department.
Additional Advice:
- Research each faculty member and formulate a question that links your research with theirs.
- Dress professionally even for virtual interviews to get in the right mindset.
- Practice answering questions out loud but aim for a semi-rehearsed, not fully scripted, delivery.
- Familiarize yourself with the interview environment to feel more comfortable.
- Take a calming breath before answering questions if you're feeling nervous.
- Use your one question for the committee wisely, demonstrating that you've done your homework.
- Explore additional questions about student population, faculty collaboration, and local context.
Job Talk Slide Deck
Alright, I got to this point of the post and I feel exhausted thinking about the job talk. There is so much to say. Go see my blog posts about designing posters and designing with empathy for how to think broadly about communicating (with lots of resources!).
Overview of the job talk
The job talk provides an opportunity to showcase your research, teaching abilities, and overall fit with the department. Understand the expectations of the hiring committee and the department. Review the job advertisement, as it often outlines the desired qualifications and research areas of interest. Reach out to the search committee chair or any contacts within the department to clarify any specific requirements for the job talk (which day it happens, how much time is allotted, how much time for questions, will you be presenting on your own computer or a department computer, etc.).
NOTE: It takes time to put together a good job talk. I think I spent a full week on the first draft of mine, which I presented to my grad lab group for feedback. Then I spent another 2+ weeks overhauling that presentation and bringing it up to snuff. I have a professional design degree and it took 3 full weeks of work for me. I eventually went through 3-4 drafts. I say this not to scare you, but to give yourself time to really get this piece right.
My process:
I have more papers/research products than can fit in a job talk, so I focused on creating a narrative. For structure, I thought about the arc that Andres De Los Reyes talks about in film here and in his book.
Choose the relevant and engaging research to present
Select the research that aligns with the department's research interests and demonstrates your expertise. Consider the broader impact of your research and how it contributes to the field (i.e., the why!).
I sometimes find that I think more flexibly and creatively when I start on paper with pens. I actually printed out my publication list and cut each pub title into a different slip of paper, and then thought about how these publications fit into different research stories - NOT by when they were published but by general questions, methods, or themes/populations. What groupings told the most compelling story of both my research agenda thus far BUT ALSO my research agenda going forward? How can I use the job talk to set my future research trajectory up in the job talk to show the committee that I’m a slam dunk and have a coherent path and direction forward?
Plan the Structure
Organize your job talk coherently and logically. Begin with a captivating introduction that sets the stage for your research and highlights its significance. Additionally, provide a clear research question or objective to guide the audience throughout the presentation.
I personally started with a little bit of personal history of my journey from child of a construction worker to design student to researcher, focusing on the metaphor of architecture and building a solid foundation as my accessible metaphor for studying early life stress/adversity/nutrition. I spent a decent amount of time on the set up and the big picture WHY and theory of my research before diving in to the results of my work, so that the audience would come along with me throughout. Then I dig into three areas of my research, all that built on one another, before building to my future directions, where I outlined my funding plans and next step research questions before zooming out to the big career research questions.
Create Engaging Visuals
Use visually appealing slides to supplement your job talk. Develop concise slides emphasizing key points, graphs, and images. Remember, the slides should enhance your verbal presentation rather than act as a standalone script. Keep the text minimal, use bullet points to summarize key ideas, and incorporate visually engaging visuals to maintain the audience's attention. This is the slide deck and visuals that can keep on giving for future talks, so I found it worthwhile to spend time here!
Practice and Refine
Familiarize yourself with the job talk and rehearse it several times. This will help you refine your delivery, identify any potential stumbling points, and ensure that your presentation fits within the allotted time frame. Consider filming your practice sessions to objectively assess your presentation style, body language, and articulation. Seek feedback from mentors or colleagues to gain valuable perspectives for improvement. I practiced a few times (5-10? I can’t remember) — enough so it felt natural but not so much that it felt wooden.
Tailor to the Audience
It is important to adapt your language and content to the specific audience during your job talk. For example, I didn’t change my slides but I changed how I talked about certain slides depending on my audience and their background. Also, be prepared to answer questions with confidence and curiosity — how do you like your questions answered when you ask questions to a presenter at a conference? Embody your most thoughtful and collegial self.
