The Academic Job Search Handbook

8. Learning About Openings

Chapter 8 Learning About Openings Once you have decided what kinds of jobs to pursue, there are several resources you can use to ensure that you learn about all the opportunities that might interest you. Scholarly Associations Every discipline has a scholarly association that serves its members in many ways. The association functions as the recorder and critic of scholarship in the discipline by producing one or more scholarly journals of refereed articles . It normally also holds a conference, usually on an annual basis, where the most recent research in the field is presented. There are many forms of conference presentations. Individual scholars, seasoned Ph.D.s and advanced graduate students, present papers they have prepared for the conference; groups of scholars participate in panel discussions; and individuals or research teams participate in poster sessions or other small group discussions of their work. Such conferences or conventions provide an opportunity for formal and informal communication on research and are crucial for keeping the discipline dynamic. If you do not know which association is appropriate for your field, ask your advisor and other faculty in your department, check the subject index of the Scholarly Societies Project, www.scholarly-societies.org, or check Appendix 1 of this handbook for selected listings. Scholarly associations sometimes provide job-related services that may include the following. Job Listings Sometimes as part of a journal, but more often as a separate bulletin and on a Web site, most scholarly associations regularly publish a listing of postdoctoral and tenure-track academic job openings. When an academic department has an opening, it is customary to advertise the position in an 46 Planning and Timing Your Search association job bank, in print or online. The institution pays the association a fee to place the advertisement. In many cases, the job listings are available to members only. However, most associations offer membership to students at a reduced rate. Sometimes it is possible to subscribe to the job listings separately. Your department probably receives job listings from the corresponding association and possibly listings from related associations as well. Find out which job opening publications your department subscribes to, and how to access them. Better still, get your own subscription. Also find out whether the listings are available electronically. When there are active electronic discussion lists in a field, jobs are often posted to them as well. Job Placement Many scholarly associations provide some kind of job placement program at their annual conventions. This can range from simply making interview rooms available to maintaining files of recent job openings to running formalized placement operations with scheduled interviews for employers and candidates. Check with your association to see what kind of placement program it has. Of course, individual institutions also conduct interviews in their rooms or suites during conventions (see Chapter 15, ‘‘Off-Site Interviews : Conference/Convention and Telephone Interviews’’). Resources for Job Hunting Some associations produce job hunting guides for their members. These can range from a single sheet of interviewing techniques to a well-developed Web page to a published book covering all aspects of the job search in that field. Such guides often cover nonacademic careers as well as academic employment. Regional Associations In addition to a regional chapter of your national association, you may find additional relevant local and regional associations. These usually have an annual meeting on a smaller scale and often offer some sort of job placement . Check with your advisor about these. National and Local Publications The Chronicle of Higher Education, the national newspaper of higher education , lists faculty openings at all types of institutions across the United States as well as some international ones. Most college and university libraries and campus career centers link to it and some receive it. Its job listings Learning About Openings 47 are searchable on the Chronicle Web site at www.chronicle.com/jobs at no cost to readers. In the print version, job openings are listed in two ways: an alphabetical listing by job title; and display listings, indexed by subject at the beginning of the section. The bimonthly Diverse Issues in Higher Education, www.diverseeducation .com, is a newsmagazine dedicated exclusively to minority issues in higher education. It has an extensive job listing section in both the print and the online editions. Never to be used as the sole source of job listings, but useful to those seeking part-time teaching jobs or positions in small...