Helping the Minoritized Achieve in Academic Science

Posts tagged ‘CV’

How to Write About How Awesome You Are

1160px-Eleanor_Roosevelt_receiving_the_Mary_McLeod_Bethune_Human_Rights_Award_from_Dorothy_Height,_president_of_the_National..._-_NARA_-_196283I have said previously (a long time ago now, actually) that awards are important and publicity in general is essential (awards, publicity, publicity). When I wrote those original posts, I have recently gone through the tenure process. I was thinking about how you needed to publicize yourself to ensure that your letter writers can speak well about you. But, as you go along and get older, publicity is still important. Remember, being a PI is like being a pop star (PI Pop Star), you need to stay relevant and go on world tour to make sure your science is being heard. In that vein, getting awards is still important. Unfortunately, as I have said previously, once you get tenure, mentoring seems to more or less end (end of mentoring). That means that you probably have to try even harder to get nominated for awards. Further, since you no longer need mentoring or support, many people won’t even bother to write you their own letters. You will likely have someone request that you draft the nomination letter or letter of support for the award. This is for two reasons: (1) People are busy and we are getting busier every year, so providing the letter is essential. (2) You actually know all the great stuff about yourself way way better than anyone else. When people ask you to write your own letter, they often are thinking it will be better for you – especially if they are someone you do not know all that well. I recently did this to someone. I felt bad, but the letter this awesome WomanOfScience provided was way way better than anything i could have written.

So, the question remains: How do you write a letter about yourself? How do you nominate yourself for an award? What is you have to write letters from multiple people and make sure they are different enough? Obviously, you expect people to edit the letters, but in case they don’t?? Below, I give my advise:

Drink alcohol and get a bit tipsy before you start. This will help to lower your inhibitions about things, especially about talking about yourself. OK, I get that not everyone drinks, but what I am really saying is try to get to a less inhibited state. Our self-inhibitions make it really difficult to talk about ourselves in the awesome light you deserve. WARNING: Do not get drunk. You will get sleepy and actually do nothing. Just get tipsy.

Open your most recent and updated CV.  Do not use a biosketch! A biosketch is just that – a sketch – you should have a long CV. If you do not know what should be in your long CV, click here: Your CV. OK, now that you have your CV open (an updated) do the following:

Make a list of all your awesomeness in all categories: research, teaching, mentoring, service to field.  Now, what of these things would this person for whom you are writing the letter, know about? How would they know? What example can you provide that verifies the awesome attribute you are trying to write about? For instance, if you are trying to say you are creative, give an example of a particular time when someone could have observed your creativity. If you are trying to say that your work is paradigm-shifting, cite a particular paper or topic that is paradigm-shifting. What have you done for education or mentoring that goes above and beyond?

Stick to important things. I would not discuss how hardworking you are. You are not trying to get into grad school or a postdoc. You are trying to get an award. Awards are given for being smart – a genius even. I KNOW! This is so hard! Because (1) society tells us that women cannot be geniuses, (2) what does it even mean to be a genius?, and (3) even geniuses probably don’t think they are geniuses. Presumably as soon as you think you are a genius, you probably stop pushing yourself. That is why winning the Nobel Prize of Field’s Medal too early in your career is the kiss of death for your career. Think about someone in your field who you think is awesome. What would you write about them? Can you say anything similar about the same attributes about yourself?

Multiple letters. If you have to write multiple letters from multiple people:

(1) Pick a few things you think every single letter must highlight. Make sure that goes into all letters.
(2) Pick 1-2 important things that it would be reasonable for each of the people to know about you. For instance, if someone is from your home dept, they might know more about your teaching and mentoring activities. They could comment more on that. If another person is a big mucky-muck in your field, they should stress your research and your service to the field. More than one person can talk about these extras, but make sure it is reasonable. For instance, a big muckety-muck in your field won’t know about your mentoring per se. But, they might know you taught at a cool summer school or something that is higher profile teaching.

Have someone who is good at promoting others read it after you. Hopefully the person you are giving the letter to can do this. But, just in case, see if someone else can read it and help out.

Submission. When you send the letter to the person who is supposed to have written it, also send your complete CV. If they want to pick and choose a few extras, they can. They will have to submit the letter themselves, or the nominator will, so make sure they have all the information they need about how and when to submit it. You don’t want to lose out because they didn’t push the button in time!

Try again and again. Will you win every award? No. You do not get every grant awarded, and you will not win every award. But, your chances of winning are zero if you do not get nominated. There is NO DOWNSIDE to being nominated! People see your CV. They see people care enough about you and your work to nominate you. People will get to know your name. Even being nominated is actually great. Plus, awards committees often complain that very few qualified and excellent women are nominated. This is code for ZERO women who are qualified for the award are nominated. Yes, we have an uphill battle to win awards – especially awards where we are competing with men. Study after study show that women are always seen as less competent. Yet, we have to keep pushing and trying. We have to put ourselves out there. If enough of us are nominated (more than one woman), they will have a very hard time justifying only giving awards to men. When only one woman is nominated, it is easy to write her off. But, if 20, 30, 50% of the nominees are women, they will have to give it to a woman more often!

What do you think? Are there any more helpful hints about how to do this? If so, post or comment here. To get an email every time I post, push the +Follow button.

Category:

Career, Networking, Research, Self-Promotion, Service, Teaching, WomenRock

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Application Season: Advice on the PUI

Science on a Sphere exhibitThanks for this post on Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs)  – what they are and how to apply from an excellent WomanOfScience:

In honor of the most recently passing holiday (Halloween), I thought I would try to demystify the application process for tenure-track appointments at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs). Over 85% of professoriate jobs are at PUIs, so more than likely and right about now, you are weighing your options and trying to decide if that second or third postdoc is right for you. I know that some people have a misconception about what it means to be a professor at a PUI, and I’ll admit my family does too. They think that professors at small schools don’t do research, they only teach and that they only have to work for 9-10 months of the year. This is just not the case! We do teach, we do research and we perform extraordinary feats of service. We just can’t usually do research at the pace of a research one school, or like we did when we were postdocs. At PUIs, we usually don’t have access to graduate students, lab technicians, or postdocs to run our labs while we teach. There are at least three tiers of teaching institutions and maybe more depending on whom you ask. Here’s the skinny on what I know…

There are the elite liberal arts colleges, where one teaches on average two lecture courses per semester, about 8 contact hours. At these schools, one is definitely expected to conduct research with students. There’s the middle-tier school where one has about 12 contact hours per semester. A typical schedule maybe split over some combination of one to two lectures, along with the labs associated with that lecture course and an advanced majors lab type course. There is still an expectation that one will perform some student-centered research. Here’s an option which might be a nice bonus if you are at an institution or in a department where they built-in research release time into their teaching load. This is the case at my institution. And then there is the high-contact-hour liberal arts college department. At these schools one is in contact with students for about 12-15ish hours. At these schools, there is not the expectation of research. Some professors have even told me that they are even discouraged from doing research. Here’s some application material to think about in preparation…

You will need, at the least, a curriculum vitae, a teaching statement, and a research statement, all wrapped up in a cover letter. Some schools will ask for names and contacts of references to phone later, others will ask for formal letter. Some will also ask for student evaluation forms or course material, as well. If you are going to a place where you are expected to start a new class, you should feel free to submit your syllabus along with any course outline or material you may have on hand.

Although the vita is pretty much self-explanatory, I will share with you a few tips to adjust your vitae depending on type of teaching institution you are going for. First of all remember to highlight your teaching. You should probably not really change the order from highlighting the research first, especially if you are applying to the upper-tier liberal art institutions. Just remember, “This group of schools really want good researchers who can learn how to teach.” Move the teaching sections right below your educational background. If you don’t have any teaching, which is pretty much a must have for the middle and lower tier school, you should try to highlight any TAing or guest lecturing you’ve done in the past. If you have been associated with any outreach, perhaps it can be mentioned there or if you’ve lead any activities. The biggest difference for the two resumes for elite and middle is that the closer the institution is to the elite schools, the more they will be interested in your research and deciding if it fits into their department. For the lower tier school, they want to see that you can teach and that you can hit the ground running. So make your resume reflect that.

The teaching statement should reflect that you’ve given some thought to teaching. It should show that you are conscientious and care about your students and it should convey how you intend to get this point across to your students. It’s basically a statement of how you teach, what techniques you use in your teaching (pedagogy), how you reflect and improved in your teaching, and perhaps a summarized list of your courses taught throughout your teaching career. I also like to include some statement about how I also use my lab to mentor and train students in research. If you have been asked to teach a new class at the institution you are applying to, I would integrate that into my teaching statement as well. You can also add any teaching ideas you would like to introduce or classes on the books you would like to teach from. This will show your diversity.

The research statement should reflect projects that are student centered.  Then you should introduce the reader to your line of research and detail, without being jargonny or overwhelming, noting the fact that the reader has a Ph.D. in your general field, but perhaps not in your specific topic. Use the opportunity to teach them about your research. Being careful to convey how you would interact with a student in your research group. If you have supervised or mentored any students’ prior, you should highlight your achievements. You should convey how students can access your work and list specific projects they can work on in your group.

The cover letter should tie your application together. It should highlight your activities from you resume, research and teaching statements. And most of all remember it has to speak for you to the application reader.

So get your interview suit cleaned and get ready to start interviewing. Carpe diem!

Thanks for this great post! Do you have suggestions for applying to PUIs? Comment or send a post!

Category:

Applying, Career, Mentoring, New Job, Research, Service, Teaching

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