This step is for you if:

You have followed the Preparing for a Faculty Career series and are ready to learn about the job application process for faculty positions.

Each faculty member on the search committee is likely to have 20+ applications to read. Most often, they will spend between 30 seconds and 2 minutes on their first read, to decide whether they want to commit more time to reading your application carefully. It is important to carefully assess your strengths (reasons to keep reading), so you can highlight them; it is important to carefully assess your weaknesses (reasons to stop reading), so you can avoid drawing unnecessary attention to them.

Visit our Exploring and Preparing for Faculty Careers page and follow steps 2 and 3 to use the Academic Career Readiness Assessment (ACRA) to estimate your strengths and weaknesses.

This step is for you if:

You know your strengths and weaknesses as a faculty candidate but you don't have an effective search process for a faculty position.

Faculty are an important process of your job search. Learn more about the three key ways you need faculty in your application process.

Set up an email digest

• General faculty job sites like Science and Nature
• Professional societies
• Other job search websites in your field

Leverage (and develop) connections

• Let faculty know you are on the job market
• Ask your PI to “sponsor” you
• Reach out to faculty in the departments that are hiring before applying

Do your research

Ask faculty to chat about:

• Their plans to re-open searches
• What they are looking for in a candidate
• How you fit the position
• How they perceive your application

Take it slow

• Send a short, specific email to faculty that invites them to chat with you for 20-30 minutes. Express interest for their background, their department or their institution.
• Make it easy for them by asking them to:
  • Discuss their own search experience
  • Provide advice on your transition to a faculty job
  • Share their experience being on hiring committees
  • Describe what they think their department is looking for
  • Provide advice on your research program ideas
  • Help you figure out if you are the right fit for the job
• Don’t give up if they don’t respond right away

Be prepared

• Prepare a 2-minute presentation of yourself
• Research their work, their lab, and their department
• Have a list of questions ready
  • What do they think made them competitive for a faculty job offer
  • What hiring committees look at when hiring
  • Specifically, how will your experience be perceived by a department like theirs
  • Who else you should speak to in academia
• If they offer to help, ask them if they would be willing to provide some feedback on your application

Follow-up

• Thank them for their time and advice, and highlight what you found useful in the conversation
• Maintain the relationship
  • Keep them informed of your progress on the job market
• Continue building the relationship
  • If they seemed open to it, ask them if they would have time to provide feedback on your application materials
  • If you had a great conversation, reach out to them again for other questions later on

This step is for you if:

You know your strengths and weaknesses as a faculty candidate and have set up an effective search for your faculty position, but haven't developed your application materials.

CVs

• Includes everything you have done
• No length limit (not a resume)
• First pages are “key real estate” - use it wisely
• Should be tailored to the type of institution
• In the US, no photo or personal info

Cover Letters

• Serves as a roadmap or an index to your application materials
• First paragraphs are “key real estate”
• Should be tailored to the type of institution
• 1-1.5 pages is common, unless asked to also include your teaching and research goals as part of the cover letter

Research Statements for Research-focused Institutions

• 1-4 pages, depending on importance of research for the position
• Often read in the second round of selection, after the CV/Cover Letter
• Is tailored very specifically to the type of institution

Research Statements for Research- and Teaching-focused Institutions

• Fit: Is this institution the candidate’s backup plan? Does he/she know what we are about (students)? Can he/she work effectively with our faculty members?
• Feasibility with resource limitations: Does the candidate understand our resource limitations, and can they work with them?
• Undergraduate research experiences: Is the research tailored to the range of capacity of undergraduates? Can it spark the interest of our students? Could the candidate mentor our students effectively?

Teaching Statements

• 1-2 pages, depending on importance of teaching
• Often read in the second round of selection, after the CV/Cover Letter
• Connects teaching vision, philosophy, knowledge strategies to personal examples, illustration of applications.

This step is for you if:

You understand your strengths and weaknesses as a faculty candidate, have set up an effective search, know how to develop application materials that emphasize your strengths, but don't have your letters of recommendation yet.

Recommendations is one of the three key ways you need faculty involved in your application process. Learn about all three ways from this short slide deck.

Q: Do letters of recommendation really matter?

A: Yes, they are required at all institutions but they are more important at R1 institutions:

1. Need to come from both your PhD and postdoc advisor
2. Best if it also comes from a well known faculty who knows you well
3. Ideal if it demonstrates that you will be a successful PI

Q: Do I need my PhD Advisor and my Postdoc Advisor?

A: Ideally, yes. It will make many faculty wonder why if you do not have recommendations from both. If you do not have both, use some space in your cover letter to explain why.

Q: Who else should I ask?

A: It is best if your letters come from a 1) well-known faculty, who 2) knows you well! The more specifically they can write about you, the more impact the letter will have.

Q: What should my letter writers write about?

A: 1) They should point your strengths out, 2) they should have clear examples to illustrate their statements, and 3) they can also justify reasons for gaps or weaker areas of your application that are out of your control.

This step is for you if:

You understand your strengths and weaknesses as a faculty candidate, have set up an effective search, know how to develop application materials that emphasize your strengths, and can get recommendations that confirm your strengths and address your weaknesses, but haven't gotten feedback on your application materials.

As part of preparing your application, it is always helpful to get additional feedback. To get feedback on your research plan, you’ll want to find someone who can critique your work with an ‘insider’s eye.’  Typically, this is someone in your subfield, who is not already closely familiar with your most recent work. You do not have to know this person well. You do not need to like this person. You just want to tap their expertise to determine whether your proposal is compelling. A sample request for feedback might look like:

Dear Dr. A, 

I know it’s been a while, and I hope you’re well. I’m applying for tenure track R1 positions and would like to ask if you would consider reviewing my research statement.

It would be extremely helpful to get perspective on my research program, because of your work on X. I would be grateful for any feedback you find necessary, but in particular your thoughts on the scope of my work and it’s potential fundability would be most welcome. 

Currently, I’m preparing materials for UC Berkeley’s Biology department and Harvard’s Biochemistry department. I’ve attached my materials to this email. If you are able, I defer to your preferred style of giving feedback (by email, in person, on the phone, etc.).

Thank you for considering my request. 

For other pieces of your application, you can follow a similar approach. Focus on getting feedback from someone knowledgeable who isn’t already familiar with your strengths and weaknesses (you don’t want them accidentally filling in the blanks themselves, and not realizing it’s not actually on the page!). Choose carefully- if you would like feedback on your teaching statement, don’t ask someone who is notorious for avoiding teaching and mentoring!