Job Search for Faculty Positions

There are three things you need from faculty as part of your job search process: feedback, insider information, and sponsorship/recommendations. Learn more about what you need from faculty and how to get it in our Networking for a Faculty Position slides. Here are some examples of what networking for a faculty position can look like:

• Give talks at meetings, and tell people who are enthusiastic about your work that you’ll be going on the market.
• Your PI or other mentors can ask their colleagues at other institutions if they plan to hire someone in your field over the next year or two. There is often a long delay between a department’s decision to hire someone and the actual posting of the position, so this strategy may give you advance notice of suitable jobs.
• Conduct informational interviews with people familiar with the type of academic setting you seek. These could include former postdocs you know who have gone on to faculty positions.

Each of these job boards has a slightly different emphasis and enables you to search in different ways. As you sift through these sites, closely examine the job descriptions for the types of positions that interest you, noting the salary ranges, and application materials that they typically request.

• Chronicle of Higher Education
  Positions in every field, mostly in the U.S., good source of jobs with teaching emphasis, can be narrowed to include only community colleges.
• Nature Jobs
  Searchable by zip code, salary range, degree required, type of position.
• Science Careers
  Positions in many scientific disciplines, predominantly in North America.
• New Scientist Jobs
  Positions mostly outside the U.S.; some academic positions but more non-academic positions; searchable by subfields of life sciences, chemistry, engineering, and physics.
• Northern California HERC (Higher Education Recruitment Consortium)
  Faculty and administrative positions within public and independent schools, colleges, and universities in Northern California. Searchable by member institution or by specific region of Northern California.
• Moving somewhere else? There are 11 other HERCs covering different parts of the U.S.
• California Community College Registry
  Faculty, support staff and management jobs in California’s 112 community colleges.
• Professional societies in your discipline.
  But note that different societies have different ways of advertising academic jobs. The International Society for Computational Biology hosts a job board, for example, while academic chemistry positions often get posted in the Chemical & Engineering News.

What is the institution/department looking for?

• Analyze the job description for key words,
• Contact faculty in your network to find out the information that's not listed on the job posting, such as size of start-up funds, research/teaching priorities,...
• Read up on the department, its faculty members and on the institution itself,
• For teaching-focused institutions, become familiar with the mission of the institution.
• Check out our short video about putting together a successful job search.

We find that trainees often skip this very important step. As a result, their application materials often miss the mark.

1. What are your strengths as a future faculty, independent of a given position?

• For research-focused positions, you may want to ask yourself the following questions:
  • How can I demonstrate leadership in the field?
    • Clear vision for your research
    • Extensive expertise in your area
    • Ability to conduct research independently
    • Recognition by peers
    • Ability to recognize potential areas for collaboration
    • Ability to mentor and manage others
  • How can I demonstrate fundability of your proposed research?
    • Previous success at getting funding,
    • Past contribution to funded grant proposals in your lab,
    • Innovative ideas,
    • Relevance of your research for particular NIH funding programs
  • How can I demonstrate productivity?
    • ​Publication rate
    • Impact factor
• For teaching-focused positions, you should ask yourself the following questions:
  • ​How can I demonstrate my breadth of expertise in teaching?
  • How can I demonstrate my depth of expertise in science?
  • How can I demonstrate my experience with mentoring students?
  • How can I demonstrate that I can serve the educational needs of a teaching-focused institution like this one?

2. What are your strengths as a candidate for this particular position?

• How can you demonstrate that you fit the needs of the department in terms of research and/or teaching focus?
  • Tailor your materials to the posting, and possibly to what you found out about the position through your research/discussions with colleagues at that institution.
• How can you demonstrate that you fit in as a colleague?
  • This may transpire through the way you portray yourself and through your tone in your CL.