Helping the Minoritized Achieve in Academic Science

Posts tagged ‘cover letters’

Applications: Your CV and cover letter

TypingWell, it’s application season again – well, it’s application-reading season, anyway. The majority of my department, myself included, are currently serving on some sort of hiring committee. This means going through hundreds of applications. We are being very careful this year. The applicant pool is outstanding, and we don’t want to miss anyone. I am not sure how all committees are run, but the one I am on is going through a series of “cut-offs” to weed down to a set of applicants we will interview online and then fewer to bring to campus.

The first cut-off is to check that the the minimum requirements are satisfied. For instance, if the advertisement requires a Ph.D., we have to check that they all have Ph.D.s. A few people were cut out at that round.

The second cut-off was to read the cover letter and CV of each applicant and look for some set of preferred attributes. For instance, if we prefer that the applicant have taught for at least one year at the college level, but it isn’t a requirement, we might rate all the applicants on teaching experience. Then, we could have a cut-off based on that score from multiple people (we have 3 readers per packet for the first two cuts).

As I was going through the first and second cuts for the search committee I am on, I am surprised at people’s CVs. I have had a post on your CV in the past (here). This prior post is about getting your CV together for tenure. I think the same basic principles apply for getting your CV together for a job application, but I am surprised that people don’t spruce up their CVs as I would have expected. I have assembled some tips for your academic job application.

1. What are you applying for? Your CV should play up the aspects of your career that directly pertain to the position you are applying to. Does that seem obvious? Not to many of the applicants I have seen. If you are applying for a faculty job that will be research-intensive and require significant teaching, don’t discuss superfluous stuff up front. For a research-based faculty job, I want to see your research accomplishments up front. Don’t hide your publications at the end! Make it clear if you already earned some fellowships or grants. Showcase your invited talks at conferences or departments. If you are applying for a lectureship where you will be teaching and not doing research, don’t talk about your passion for research. Put your research accomplishments, but after your teaching experience and accomplishments.

2. Your CV should be well-organized.  It should be easy for people to find what they are looking for in your CV. You should use headers that distinguish different parts of your CV. The font should be clear and large enough to read. CVs can be longer, so just let it be long, if you have a lot going on with your work.

3. The cover letter and extras. In prior posts, I thought that cover letters weren’t as important, but I want to revise that. If you are applying for a position and there is no requested statements, the cover letter may be your only time to actually convey your desire and passion for the position to which you are applying. Also, almost all application systems allow you to upload extra documents. So, if an advertisement for a job does not ask for a research statement or a teaching statement, you should still provide one. If they don’t want to read it, they won’t. But, they might read it and want it. Now, if the hiring committee get a few of these and want them from all, they may come back to ask for it from all applicants. If you already have it in, you will have a leg up. If you get it in, they will likely look at it. Even if you don’t put in an extra document, you can always get your enthusiasm and excitement across in your cover letter, so use it.

On a similar note, I am also reading postdoc applications. Many of these same issues are important for cover letters, CVs, and extra documents are true for postdoc applications, too. Most importantly, putting your publications up front is essential! A postdoc position is (typically) a research only job, so you need to emphasize the research you did. Don’t hide your research accomplishments.

Anything that you have noticed that can be weird or awkward about job applications? These are my impressions from my limited view of this year’s applications, but perhaps others have advice from many other application seasons. Post or comment here. To receive an email every time I post, push the +Follow button.

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Applying, Career

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Dear Sir

Power of WordsToday’s post is again about application season. It comes from another WomanOfScience, and discusses an issue of sexism that applications should consider when submitting materials for graduate studies, postdocs, or faculty jobs. Enjoy the post! Remember that you can follow this blog by clicking the +Follow button.

It’s academic job application season and search committees are busy poring over applications to find the best candidates. As a repeat member of my department search committees, I am always surprised at how many cover letters are addressed as, “Dear Sir,” or “Dear Sirs.” Is it so inconceivable that there are women on the search committee or should their input just be deliberately ignored? Does the idea of a woman evaluating your application fill you with revulsion or fear? This bad habit of addressing letters only to my male colleagues is especially ridiculous given the goal, or in some places, the mandate, of gender balance or proportional representation on search committees.

Do people write “Dear Sir” because it is tradition? There are many traditions we have abandoned because they are sexist or exclusionary, or just because there are better ways to do things. How many people addressing their cover letters with “Dear Sir” are still characterizing organic compounds with a continuous wave NMR? You perform up-to-date experiments and theory, why not update your attitude about letter writing?

You might say, well, how else to address a letter to a group of people who are unknown to you? Here are some options: Find out who the chair of the search committee is and address your letter to that person. Or address your letter as, “Dear Search Committee” or “Dear Colleagues.”

I regularly receive letters of application to work in my lab, which are addressed only to me, with the salutation “Dear Sir.” I am a woman. Those get deleted or recycled immediately. Why would I hire someone who is not observant enough to figure out I am female? That doesn’t exactly indicate future success in science. Furthermore, why would I hire someone so unprofessional as to address a letter clearly meant for one person, who is known, with a generic salutation like “Dear Sir”?

We have to stop thinking of the default scientist as male. To examine your own implicit biases, you can take the Harvard Implicit Bias test at: http://implicit.harvard.edu. We all have biases. To overcome them, we need to be aware of them.

I have colleagues who don’t read the cover letters, preferring only to count up publications and evaluate the research statement and reference letters. I read the cover letter first. Cover letters generally give the committee members a good sense of what the candidate is like as a person, what they value by what they choose to highlight and how they describe it. Unfortunately in the case of candidates addressing their cover letters as “Dear Sir,” the sense I get of them is easily summed up as: “sexist.”

So, what do you think?  Post or comment!

Category:

Applying, Career, StereotypeThreat

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