Join a webinar hosted by the Institute for Broadening Participation on Tuesday, April 30th at 6 p/m/ CENTRAL (7 p.m. Eastern time). An experienced panel (both current postdocs and faculty members) will share their perspectives on this topic, followed by a Question & Answer period. Preregistration is requested! Simply sign up for the event below, through EDGE and we’ll send you the information you need.

You can submit questions before the webinar, online at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VG86QR7

The Adjunct Project helps current and future adjunct faculty get a feel for salaries and what to expect as a cultural “norm” as far as work is concerned.  There is even an advice page.  Get suggestions and assistance from “near peers,” or colleagues who are a few years ahead of you.  They are blazing the path that is closest to your current experience so their advice won’t be outdated.

Here are a few good points:

1. GET ORGANIZED – Ask your supervisor about the skills you should expect to learn.  Ask for a meeting to create a list of learning outcomes; this way, both you and your supervisor know what is expected and there are no miscommunications.  The point of an internship is to get a feel for the work and to gain useful experience.  If you make coffee, run errands, and pick up dog poo (ok, extreme example) then you aren’t getting the life lessons you deserve.  If you are already stuck in an internship much like the one described above, then a 15-minute meeting could really turn things around or set you on the path to finding a new opportunity.

2. REPORT BACK – Find out who you report to and then…. report!  Make sure your team knows about your contributions.  If you are successful, then excellent.  If you need more guidance, they will be able to provide it before you veer too far off track.

3.  PLAN YOUR CAREER – Ask co-workers, peers, and network contacts what professional organizations they affiliate with, what parts of the job the like the most, where they plan to move next in their careers, and how they plan to get there.  There is no better career advice then someone with the job you want.

“A persistent criticism of the digital-humanities movement is that it is elitist and exclusive because it requires the resources of a major university…Academics and administrators at small liberal-arts colleges may read about DH and, however exciting it sounds, decide that it ill suits their teaching mission.” The Chronicle – Feb. 2013

The article goes on to list several reasons why small schools have an advantage over large schools with big budgets when it comes to the DH movement.

“How does this help me?” the liberal arts major asked, clearly communicating a jaded and dim outlook on the job market.

For starters – not all small schools know they have an advantage.  For the liberal arts major this means OPPORTUNITY! If a small college has a posting for a teaching position, you now have an edge on the competition.  Stating how you can bring the DH movement to a small school in a big way will definitely get the attention of an employer who has decided, “No thanks, to expensive.”

Further, you can show how DH can bring faculty together in their research efforts, a task that is notoriously difficult.

“A small college may not have many people who are openly experimenting with the digital humanities, but there are likely to be many who are interested in some aspect of it, especially the ways it can enhance teaching and learning. In particular, reach out to the library staff and the information technologists….Departments such as communication, computer science, and education often include potential allies as well, because they are interested in new media and social media, coding and Web design, instructional technology, hybrid pedagogy, and assessment.”
The Chronicle – Feb. 2013

One of the best ways to get a job is to show that not only are you the best person for it, but that you will add to the success of the institution overall.

Tips for the “how” portion of this post: Jobs on Toast has a great post about researching jobs in your industry.  However, you need industries of interest in mind before starting.  Good thing there is a post for that too.

Some suggestions:

• Read books, newspapers and magazines in your chosen industries.
• Read blogs and listen to pod casts – there is a wealth of information that didn’t make it into the top journals.
• Network, both in-person and online.  Email HR Reps, create a database of contacts you meet at events, and keep in touch with those people!

There is also an interesting post on creating a Career Roadmap that is broken into four steps: discovering potential, finding a niche, marketing yourself, and getting an offer.  Check it out.

On an unrelated note – LOOK!  It’s Steve Jobs on a piece of toast! Get it? Jobs on Toast? Like, Steve JOBS on Toast?

Most jobs are lost in the Q and A session of the job talk.

Why?  You need to prove yourself as a colleague of the faculty with which you expect to work.  Avoid graduate students – they don’t make the decision whether or not to hire you or burn your resume to heat the research lab during a coffee-induced delirium while trying to meet a grant deadline.  Also – get a practice session in.  Corner a professor; beg your committee members – do what you must.  Be BE PREPARED to apply your research in amazing and atypical ways.

No one wants another wheel!  Hello – we want hover cars like the ones in the Fifth Element.

Some wise words from those who know what it feels like to swim in an ocean of applicants:

“Our job is not to adjust our application materials to respond to needs at which we can only guess, but to present our own determinate scholarly identities in such an attractive way that some department will open the envelope and see, not just our past accomplishments, but its own promising future.”

Graham Bennett and Jason Lindsey

]]> http://blog.uta.edu/ogsstudentservices/2012/11/05/giving-employers-applications-they-want/feed/ 0 http://blog.uta.edu/ogsstudentservices/2012/10/24/genius-ingenious-i-admit-i-had-to-look-it-up/ http://blog.uta.edu/ogsstudentservices/2012/10/24/genius-ingenious-i-admit-i-had-to-look-it-up/#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2012 22:30:22 +0000 Ashley Horn http://blog.uta.edu/ogsstudentservices/?p=532 Even the best of us get mixed up every once and a while.  FYI – Genius is a noun.  Ingenious is an adjective.  Did you already know this?  If so, then bravo.  If not, thank you for not lying like those other people.

The point is – communicating with another human being is difficult.

The application is – when you promote your research in the hopes of finding career and research opportunities, not everyone is going to get it.

The fix is – practice.

Yes, the “30-second commercial” or the “elevator speech” sounds cheesy.  It is not my fault that an awesome and VITAL method of communicating with others has names like that.  If it were up to me, I would call it, “A Hitch-Hikers Guide to Preventing People from Avoiding You in the Hall.”

Business week has an excellent article about the important aspects this as a marketing tool and the functions it serves in effective networking.

However, if you really, really want your MIND BLOWN then visit the Harvard Business School’s Elevator Pitch Builder.

In most cases, your research probably won’t sell itself.

……unless your research resulted in a clone of Mr. Baby and your target demographic is people who don’t care about science.

Then you’re golden.

"Don't Call me baby, call me Mr. Baby"

“How can I do that?” you ask.  Visit a few of the sites below.  Type in key words from your field.  It is your responsibility to read job specs, know the qualifications most universities require, and then blow those requirements to smithereens with your awesomeness.

Inside Higer Ed.

Higher Ed Jobs 

Humanities and Social Sciences Net

Edu Cause

The recent emergence of Alternative Academic positions allows the best and brightest to use their teaching and research skills in specialist positions.  The term ”specialist” at the university level often gets a bad wrap for being strictly administrative.  WRONG! In today’s university culture, that is not always so.  Specialist positions encompass diverse tasks, including researching, assisting students, teaching and hosting workshops, and even fancy award dinners here and there.  Learn a lesson from a pro:

“#Alt-ac scholars interested in pursuing intellectual work that incorporates academic and professional citizenship is a positive trend.
                       - Tanya Clement Assoc. Director, DCC @ U of Maryland-College Park

So please remember to relax if you don’t make the cut for the associate professor position you and your 20 colleagues will all apply for the same day mechanical checks come back error free.  And, don’t feel like you need to hide the fact that traditional academia is only ONE of your MANY options. 

Get out. Explore.  Its OK.  You can even document your adventures via abstract form and submit them to Brian Croxall, one of the the brains behind the #Alt-Ac movement.  There are lots of positions that require an overdeveloped, super smart, highly intellectual brain in (and outside of) the university system.  How do I know this?  I happened to get one of those positions.