Market strategy
Where to apply, how to judge your chances, and where preparation pays off.
How to Help Your Advocate on the Search Committee
You are not in the room when the committee decides. Someone who likes your file is. Give them everything they need to argue for you, through your file and your visit.
How to Apply in a Hard Faculty Job Market: The Market Is Not Your Strategy
The news is frightening, and fear makes smart candidates do five predictable things wrong. You cannot control the market. You can control three things, and they decide your year.
Research School or Teaching School? Decide Which Job You Want Before You Apply
A research-intensive appointment and a teaching-intensive appointment share a title but not a working life. Decide honestly which one you want before you apply, because committees can tell when you have not.
Research vs. Teaching Schools: Where Your Preparation Actually Counts
At a research school, the file you send sets the range of possible outcomes. At a teaching school, what you do during the visit can still change the result. Spend your preparation where the decision can still move.
Are You Competitive? Study What the Recent Hires Looked Like When They Were Hired
Do not measure your file against a professor's CV five years into the job. Rebuild what recent hires had on the day they were hired, and use that range to plan your search.
Competing Against an Inside Candidate (and Being One)
At a teaching-focused school, the person already teaching in the department enters the search with evidence no outside candidate can match. At a research school, that advantage is much smaller. Here is how to compete from either side.