Tenure-Track Job Applicants, Google Yourself Before Applying: Tips From a Search Committee Chair

My friend and CSULB Associate Professor Ragan Fox posted some tips for folks on the job market for tenure-track positions. Good advice, much of which I'd recommend for writing cover letters for said jobs: know your audience, mention the department's courses and curriculum in your letter and link it to your own teaching strengths, note the impact of your research, etc. One tip I would add is to manage your impression, before even arriving on campus (provided you're fortunate enough to get an interview). The best way to do this: be aware of your online profile.

Managing Your Impression Online

I think most tenure-track applicants probably have some kind of online profile, whether it's a facebook account, a twitter feed, or a website. But what will the hiring committee see when looking for you online and, more importantly, what will they think about they find? Will they find your Walking Dead commentary as pithy as you do?

I've chaired and been on search committees, and I have Googled every single interview candidate as well as many of our second tier choices. Below I list the results I've encountered, from best result to what I consider the least desirable result:

Online Search Results of Tenure-Track Job Applicants: From Best to Worst

1a. Sometimes I'll come across a professional website that's near the top of the search results. As a search committee member, this is the best possible outcome of such a search: a decent-looking website with professional information on it: CV, publications, jobs, etc. This could also hold true for a person's listing on a faculty or graduate student page at a university. Mine's been around a while and isn't great, but it gets the job done. Search my name and it's one of the first sites to come up.

1b. An Academia.edu site. These seem to be taking the place of some faculty's professional websites. A good resource.

1c. A Linkedin profile. Yes, Jack Donaghy makes fun of it, but as a search committee member wanting information on an applicant, it's better than nothing.

2. The next best result is a listing of article links or publication titles. Sure, I could get this if I search Google Scholar, but having some kind of hit: citations for articles, popular press articles, mentions in the media, stories about awards given (maybe on a university's website), etc. tells me that this person is active academically-speaking. The same is true if I click on "Books" and search the candidate's name: Did they write a book? Awesome. Are they cited in books? Great.

3. A professional-looking Google profile is the next best result. Sure, it may not be "academic" in the sense of number 1 or 2, but it shows me that at least the candidate is aware of their online profile enough to care what people see in a search and to take care to manage that impression.

4. It wouldn't count as a negative (to me) to see a listing of facebook and/or twitter links in the search results. Not as good as the above, but not too bad. It doesn't show a lot of care taken to manage one's online impression, but it doesn't necessarily indicate obliviousness.

5. However, if I click on one of these links and get a facebook page with pics of partying with fraternity or sorority members, girlfriends at the bar, guys acting foolish (given particular privacy settings)... Well, I have to wonder. There's certainly nothing wrong with this, and I wouldn't think less of the person, but remember: this is a committee member researching a job applicant, and simply: This is my first impression of you as a candidate. Is that what you want?

6. Still, the worst possible result (provided there are no mug shots, arrest records, or news stories about the applicant running naked through the streets) is a listing of random links to random comments and sites that I can't tell whether or not belong to the job applicant. This tells me nothing about the applicant, and I don't have time to click every link and see if it the applicant. I'm not going to cyber stalk every one of our 100-plus job applicants.

So, numbers 5 and 6 above: Is that really what you want your impression to be for the person making decisions about whether to interview you and hire you? Granted, a strong vita and application packet would nullify any of that (usually except arrest records and mug shots) and get you into the interview. But as a committee member, I can't say wouldn't think about that first impression I had if the decision was a close one. Would this negative online impression be a deciding factor? No, probably not. Would it be in the back of my mind as I read your file? Definitely. I speak from experience.

Googling Yourself Isn't Just for Celebrities

What, then, should job applicants do? Create a website? Yes. That's my recommendation. Its too easy nowadays not to have a website.

Additionally, I suggest doing a search every so often by entering your name into multiple search engines. Try and get your desired site to come up first. At the least, know what others see of you and about you when they search your name as it appears on your vita. With all the applicants on the tenure-track job hunt, why leave anything to chance?

All Work and All Play: Reflections on Conference Going Part One

Every time I bring class work to a conference I find myself working on class work and research simultaneously, which leads to a strange, almost surreal swirl of worlds. Obviously, my research and teaching are connected, but they seem more separate to me the rest of the year. I teach, I go back to my office and, if I'm lucky or disciplined enough to make to the time, I write or research or both.

Then I go to class. Then I grade, write rubrics, assignment sheets, study guides, etc. Sounds glamorous, I know. But my compartmentalizing fails me when sitting in a hotel room, lounge, or bar, trying to do both. I've divided my scholarly world here and my classroom world so distinctly and, I think, erroneously and unnecessarily that the mix of the two never fails to jar me a little.

So, I'm sitting here prepping for a presentation, breaking some of the rules I teach in my undergrad communication classes, reading what I've written about grieving my brother's death 10 or so years ago (see my blog Long Canyon Lost for more on this), and I come across a passage in which I describe going to an academic conference right after he died. It's like standing in front of a mirror with a mirror behind me, watching my copied image get smaller and smaller until I can't make it out. I wonder: am I teaching what I write and research, truly? If so, how? Because I can't quite make it out from here.

I guess I'll pack up and go to the presentation, deciding to keep things separate a little while longer until I can make more sense of the relationship. It's an ongoing and invigorating journey, though, so I don't expect it to conclude just yet. Maybe I should write about it, or write about writing about it. That makes sense, right?

Epilogue
Presentation went well, inspiring and educational. Back in the room, grading papers. Transition wasn't as abrupt, probably because of invigorating communication with colleagues at lunch. Amazing how the social support networks can ease the transition from one sphere to the next.

Bursting the Bubble, Knocking Down Silos, and Other Metaphors We Live By

A while ago I came across this provocative interview with Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, who's so adamant that school no longer teaches us what we need to know to succeed in the "real world," that he gives money to schools' best and brightest to leave school and start a business. Such a move implies that colleges aren't teaching students what they need to learn in order to succeed "out there."

I consider this now well-trodden metaphor of the "bubble." The dotcom bubble burst a while ago. The housing bubble just recently burst. When thinking about this metaphor, a few aspects of a bubble come to mind. First, a bubble obviously isn't sustainable. It floats in the air without the ability to avoid something that might break it. The thin membrane filled with air is bound to either land then burst, or pop in midair. But watching a bubble can be mesmerizing and peaceful, a seemingly undisturbed journey that ends suddenly (if one can't see what pops up in the bubble's path). The bubble can't last forever.

Have we, as Thiel argues, become so mesmerized with the seemingly undisturbed "journey" of higher education? Hardly. Some of us have gotten pretty good at spotting things in our way and have begun to adapt.

In the midst of considering this, I came across this news story regarding an open letter from the University of Texas-Austin Student Body President, Natalie Butler. She accompanied some UT regents on a trip to Arizona State University, my alma mater, about which I've written before. The trip was apparently an effort to learn how to increase UT's online learning program. The letter, however, warns the regents about becoming like ASU, who practices a "use-inspired" research, rather than the "intellectually-inspired" research practiced at UT-Austin.

While I admire this Tempe native's dedication to rigorous study, I take umbrage with this dichotomy of use-inspired versus intellectually-inspired research. All communication research should solve problems. Period. Granted, to some people, some of the problems we're tackling in higher education and communication research may seem needlessly esoteric or theoretical. That's to be expected. But whether we're building on theory or out in the streets with protesters, we're solving problems. Unfortunately, we often think of certain types of problems as being the domain of a particular discipline. We've built these silos around ourselves and claim ownership over problems, issues, approaches, etc. I think part of what Ms. Butler is witnessing is a move away from these silos.

ASU President Michael Crow's move what toward he calls a "New American University" has been accompanied by, at times, seismic shifts in the symbolic identities scholars craft for themselves. This includes changing the names of departments whose presence on the university campus has been a mainstay for perhaps as long as higher education has existed in its current, more-or-less, publicly accessible form. For example, ASU no longer has an Anthropology department (or school); instead it has a School of Human Evolution and Social Change. No longer is there a Political Science department; there is, however, a School of Politics and Global Studies.

For all the flak ASU President Michael Crow has gotten, I appreciate his move toward issue- or problem-oriented research. I also understand and appreciate the resistance toward such a move. For those unfamiliar with academia, talk of solving "real-world" problems often includes applying for grants--external funding from philanthropic, private and public not-for-profit agencies.

What's wrong with that? Getting money for your research is a good thing, you might say. Yes, but. The "but" is that often these granting institutions and the grant application evaluators expect reports that quantify results. Many in the communication discipline don't use a quantitative approach to gathering and analyzing data. This leaves some of us forced to employ methodologies we're either not familiar with or disagree with on an epistemological level. Sure, this thinking might be akin to the silo metaphor I invoked earlier, but I can empathize with these folks. The communication field is broad and deep, and those more humanistic researchers who qualitatively analyze texts of all kinds may not identify a place for them in this "problem-solving" approach.

Some have managed to cross this divide in interesting and uncompromising ways. I've been taught well by these folks and strive to incorporate it into my own research. Selling out? Compromising? Tacitly accepting the devaluing of humanities and reifying the place of the almighty dollar in academic research? I suppose some might say that's where this line of thinking leads. But I prefer to view it optimistically as an opportunity to begin chipping away at these calcified silo walls.

Why I prefer rejection from academic journals to rejection from literary journals

I entered but didn't win (or even place) in NPR's third round of Three Minute Fiction contest, for which a contestant sends in an up-to-600 word fiction piece based on a prompt. The entries are first given a green light by students in the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Those pieces are then sent up the ladder to the guest judge, who presumably selects the winner as well as the honorable mentions and runners-up. At least, I think that's how it works. Despite the official rules on the website, the whole process is pretty vague.

At any rate, no big deal. I've had my writing rejected before, from both academic journals and literary journals. And NPR's contests usually have thousands of entries, so it's kind of a crap shoot. Most of my time now is spent submitting to academic journals, but my recent experience got me thinking about my "other life" submitting to literary journals.

Here's why I prefer rejection from academic journals: you get a reason. Even if you don't agree with the decision or you believe the reviewers' and editor's reasoning is flawed, at least you get feedback.

It would take too much space to recount the reasons given to me for rejections on submissions to academic journals. But I can cite by memory, verbatim, some of the handwritten feedback from literary journals--and handwritten comments are prized, as it's most often a form letter one receives. Here are some of those comments: "Good stuff, wasn't right for this issue. Please send more." "I like this, just didn't have room for this issue." "This one almost made it in."

You may be reading this thinking, "What? That tells me nothing" (particularly if you submit regularly to academic journals). Or, if you're familiar with literary journals, "Yeah, that sounds about right." Either way, you get the point.

First, let's consider an idea that that's probably common sense to many who submit to academic journals. If an editor did really like something, he could accept that piece for a future issue, right? Well, not in the realm of literary journals. If an editor is awash in submissions, accepting everything she liked would mean filling two years' worth of issues in three months--assuming there were actually that may worthy submissions.

There are many, many outlets for creative writers nowadays, from small press print journals to online journals. This is due in large part to the many, many MFA programs that now exist. Low-residency programs, established "old school" programs, new programs, etc.; all these graduates have to publish somewhere, right? So, they and their colleagues sometimes start journals to make this happen. I've argued this point before, though I'm certainly not the first to make this observation.

So, yes, editors are no doubt sifting though piles of submissions, thousands of e-mail attachments, and probably have little time to make substantive comments, provided they're adept at making such comments and have actually been trained to "read" as opposed to just write--let's not forget that the MFA is essentially a terminal degree in craft, not theory or pedagogy (although many argue that to write well you must be able to read well). So, aspiring poets and fiction writers who may count on editors' comments to help them better develop a piece of writing will likely never receive such feedback. Unless they enroll in an MFA program, which perpetuates the cycle of which I write above.

Which brings me to my second point. What exactly constitutes a "worthy" submission? That seems to be, in many cases, as vague as the editor's notes to me I've summarized above. Considering the number of submissions most journals receive, I'm sure it's nearly impossible to provide substantive feedback to those who submit.

"Why not ask reviewers to be on an editorial board?" you may ask. Academic journals do this. I serve on the editorial board of Text and Performance Quarterly. I've had the pleasure of reading, reviewing, and commenting on many submissions and have learned a lot from the process (hopefully the authors have as well). Some literary journals have editorial boards that resemble academic journals. I was an Editorial Assistant for Sulfur when pursuing my M.A. in English Language and Literature. The editor, Clayton Eshleman, assembled an editorial board and consulted them when he wanted another take on a submission or received something he thought fell outside his realm of expertise.

However, most literary journals don't use an editorial board (or, at least, don't use several reviewers for one genre), and certainly not to the extent that academic journals do. The ones affiliated with universities sometimes have graduate students sift through reviews early in the submission stage as does NPR's Three Minute Fiction contest. While they may have good intentions, these reviewers may not have the expertise nor experience to effectively comment, judge, or evaluate submissions.

While I hesitate to call this process "unethical," the lack of many safeguards that are in place for academic journals can sometimes lead to nepotism in the literary world. Many literary contests have now instituted what is colloquially known as "the Jorie Graham" rule, which stipulates that contest judges must be identified in contest guidelines. A scandal some years back involved the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet anonymously judging a contest and awarding the prize to her romantic partner (and now husband and colleague at Harvard).

This hasn't stopped other scandals from happening. A more recent scandal involves the editor of a poetry series who allegedly paid to have his own book included (not vetted, not reviewed? one wonders) in the same series.

Now, I admit it's a leap in reasoning to argue that the current state of literary submissions and publishing contributes to the alleged scandals mentioned above. I'm not saying one causes the other, rather that both are qualities of the literary publishing world that, to my mind, make the academic publishing world preferable.

We academics are no doubt familiar with the old adage that no one reads our stuff. I think we should be glad that at least reviewers have read it before it makes it print.

Update

Just read Anis Shivani's interesting piece on why poetry book contests should be abolished. A worthwhile read if you're interested in the above topic.