Careers Café
You’re overworked. Swamped. Exhausted. You have five years of data filed that you’re just itching to get at. And finally, after years of struggle, you’re looking forward to the opportunity to catch up on everything that you’ve had to put aside while starting your academic career. You have a research leave, or sabbatical, coming up, […]
No matter what stage of an academic career you are in, you will always be developing your skills and knowledge. Whether it is improving how you do the core tasks of your job, learning how to use new technologies, or taking on new challenges, there are always things to learn and experience to gain. Needing […]
Since my last post was about staying in touch with your network, it seemed suitable to get back in touch with someone from mine. This past weekend, I had coffee and a conversation with one of my favourite profs. We talked about networking, particularly as it applies to the academic job search. Her take was that networking is […]
While most of my blog posts are aimed at all early-career profs, this is a special one for the conservation biologists out there. How do we engage students in understanding significant conservation concerns in environments and habitats that they – and perhaps we – have never visited? I’ve been working in conservation biology for about […]
Recently a woman contacted me with a question that was clearly causing her some distress. She’s applying for academic jobs. And she’s a mother. Being a mother has had an impact on her publishing record and means her career trajectory doesn’t look quite like the ideal. And yet she doesn’t want to engage in any […]
If you’ve visited your university’s career centre or read job search columns and books, you already know most of the common steps in the job search process: figure out what you want, determine what employers in your desired career path want, tailor your résumé and cover letter to specific jobs, spend less time applying to […]
I’m just getting ready to leave for a conference tomorrow. And I’ll admit it. When my students and I learned that the largest wildlife (part of my area of research) conference in North America would be held in Waikoloa, Hawaii, we were… what would be the best word… jubilant. Along with my laptop and external […]
If you are successful in your search for a tenure-track job, you are going to be with that institution for a long time. Your potential employer knows it. What are you telling a potential employer about what you’ll do once you get past the doorway? Try this exercise: Imagine you are successful What will you […]
A colleague and I were recently discussing the challenges postdocs face when writing résumés. One difficulty, we thought, lies in the difference between how CVs and résumés establish an applicant’s credibility. Much of the CV demonstrates what you know, whereas résumés focus on proving what you can do. In terms of structure, this means that some […]
The Tri-council funding system, made up of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funding councils, reminds me a bit of Fluffy. You know, from Harry Potter? It serves an important purpose and you feel safer knowing it’s around. […]
Apologies to the scientists. In some disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, publishing a book is almost expected, despite widespread debate about whether it is reasonable to do in the current publishing economy (e.g. this MLA report). A book may be required for you to get tenure but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the […]
In a recent workshop I did with a group of graduate students in the humanities, participants were keenly interested in knowing whether it was too late to embark on a career shift. Most were in their mid-20s to early 30s and had invested some time, effort and sense of self in studies that might not […]
Thank goodness it’s Friday! Is that because you will take a well-earned break? Or because you know you have at least 24 hours available for report writing and lecture preparation before students start banging on your door again at 8 a.m. on Monday? I’m going to push you to take a real break on weekends […]
Are you going to be teaching this semester? Perhaps you are a graduate student or you have recently earned your PhD but have not secured a tenure-track position. You might be teaching one class as a sessional instructor or a full-load on a contractually limited appointment. Teaching experience is important to your future academic career. […]
As far as the job search goes, confidence is overrated. It’s not evil, mind you, but it’s also not necessary to have loads of it in order to land a job. Like “passion“, “confidence” tends to be a loaded word when it comes to careers. It’s often seen as more than just an element of how […]
I am a young prof, currently in the same position that many UA readers might hope to be in a few years. I recently passed that key milestone of academic life: being awarded tenure. The experience of developing my 8” thick tenure application package has caused me to reflect on my first few years as […]
I want to come back to issues for those applying for academic jobs but at this time of year there is an important question to address for those who have cleared that initial hurdle and find themselves facing a whole track of other hurdles. Do you need to apply for a grant? This is going […]
While I intended to write on using professional associations for career research, Jo’s recent post on CVs has changed my mind. She pointed out that using generic CVs and résumés hurts your job search. On the plus side, it can help with your career exploration. As in earlier posts, I’m assuming that some of you are […]
There’s no such thing as a standard CV or résumé. For anything. Don’t make the hiring committee do all the work. Organize the information on your CV so that they can easily find what they need to evaluate your suitability for this particular position. Your aim is to have at least one member of the […]
Whether or not you read Carolyn Steele’s blog or job search guide, you probably know that comparing the job search to marketing makes for an awkward analogy. Nonetheless, most job search books and websites claim that you are a product and that you must market yourself. Small wonder that some of us are reluctant to […]