Not That Kind of Doctor - Job Hunting, Part 1

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10/17/2022 Added

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Job Hunting, Part 1 - Ph.D. discussions with Nicholas Husbye and Guy Trainin. www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor and https://mediahub.unl.edu/channels/42980

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[00:00:00.219](upbeat music)
[00:00:09.240]It's that time of year.
[00:00:11.340]Do you know what time of year it is?
[00:00:12.689]It's fall.
[00:00:14.520]It's the most wonderful time of the year, Guy.
[00:00:16.650]Is it? It is.
[00:00:17.507]Right? Not just pumpkin spice.
[00:00:19.830]Although that is important.
[00:00:21.210]I mean, is it? Okay. Depends.
[00:00:24.240]Do we really need to have like
[00:00:25.200]pumpkin spiced frosted flakes?
[00:00:27.240]No. At least Okay. But that's a thing.
[00:00:28.470]I don't. That's a thing.
[00:00:30.120]No, but it is job market time.
[00:00:33.720]And by like most wonderful time of the year,
[00:00:36.706]I mean stressful and confusing and
[00:00:42.960]not always awesome.
[00:00:44.850]And I think that's something
[00:00:46.860]that I've always thought about ever since
[00:00:48.510]I interviewed for the first time actually here,
[00:00:51.990]was that it's confusing and somewhat stressful
[00:00:55.644]both for the person looking for a job,
[00:00:57.570]but also for the institution who's looking for somebody.
[00:01:00.090]Because you're like, can we find the right person?
[00:01:02.490]I mean, this is a long-term commitment to somebody.
[00:01:07.020]And so everybody's stressed.
[00:01:09.240]So no pressure job market.
[00:01:10.893]No pressure.
[00:01:11.726]No pressure at all, right?
[00:01:14.069]And so if you are a graduate student looking to navigate
[00:01:20.696]the academic job market for the first time,
[00:01:25.230]we're going to in this podcast episode,
[00:01:29.670]talk a bit about how to do that in a way
[00:01:32.220]that isn't quite as stressful.
[00:01:36.180]I mean, it's going to be stressful, don't get me wrong.
[00:01:38.460]It is. It's going to be stressful.
[00:01:39.840]But I think if you have some systems
[00:01:42.870]and some ways of thinking about it,
[00:01:45.510]that it becomes a little bit more manageable.
[00:01:48.810]And so maybe you don't want to
[00:01:50.610]constantly throw yourself off of a bridge every single time
[00:01:54.030]a new posting comes out,
[00:01:55.260]because sometimes that's what it feels like.
[00:01:58.680]Yeah. And I think that there are two pieces to this.
[00:02:01.290]One is what are your systems?
[00:02:02.610]And the other one is how do you stay sane throughout that?
[00:02:06.150]So what are your strategies just as self care,
[00:02:10.492]new word we're all using right now,
[00:02:12.600]or somewhat new term,
[00:02:14.340]but really how do you find ways to survive
[00:02:19.710]when you're waiting, when you don't know,
[00:02:22.290]when you don't hear for weeks at a time
[00:02:25.470]and you're wondering if they ever got your materials,
[00:02:27.870]or if your rejected and you just didn't get that email,
[00:02:32.100]or if they just hate you or whatever it is that happened.
[00:02:35.340]You gotta have a strategy to deal.
[00:02:36.258]Right. Well, and and this comes down to time, right?
[00:02:40.893]Like the job market usually hits
[00:02:45.570]late stage graduate students.
[00:02:47.700]They're working on their dissertations.
[00:02:50.070]They are... They've got all these pulls on their time.
[00:02:52.380]And then to throw in one more thing on top of that,
[00:02:57.810]because you...
[00:02:59.799]One doesn't just do the job market.
[00:03:02.340]You have to do the job market.
[00:03:05.010]Like it becomes another job
[00:03:07.710]that's gonna take five, six hours a week
[00:03:12.660]on top of everything else that's already happening.
[00:03:14.820]And so I think having some realistic expectations
[00:03:17.790]around that is important.
[00:03:20.430]And starting on time is important
[00:03:22.230]because I think that what I often find
[00:03:24.839]with graduate students is sometimes
[00:03:27.570]because you're not sure where you are
[00:03:29.040]and you're not sure how-
[00:03:30.208]Are you gonna graduate this year?
[00:03:32.490]Is it gonna take a little bit longer?
[00:03:34.230]I have a sense that sometimes people start too late.
[00:03:37.920]And so you have to think about timing
[00:03:39.900]and you can start when you feel like
[00:03:41.940]I'm not fully feeling it.
[00:03:45.420]I mean, you can apply and just use it as a practice run.
[00:03:49.140]So thinking about timing, it's like if I'm doing it
[00:03:52.230]and I'm not gonna graduate on time,
[00:03:53.760]or I'm a little early to market,
[00:03:56.580]the practice is still good.
[00:03:57.870]You're not losing points.
[00:03:59.910]And so the thing that we probably want to talk about first
[00:04:04.170]is this idea that the academic job market
[00:04:06.930]doesn't operate like a regular job market,
[00:04:09.870]although we have seen some shifts and changes
[00:04:11.700]because of the pandemic related stuff.
[00:04:14.190]But really there's two big seasons for job postings
[00:04:17.760]in the academic world.
[00:04:19.230]The first being in the fall,
[00:04:21.180]typically right around early September,
[00:04:26.820]up through probably about late October,
[00:04:29.820]things start to taper off a little bit after that
[00:04:32.310]as institutions get ready for the fall and winter breaks
[00:04:37.770]and then again in the spring.
[00:04:39.690]And so it's really important to keep in mind that
[00:04:44.430]it's not as though jobs are posted year round.
[00:04:47.130]Yeah, that is definitely true.
[00:04:48.420]There are dry seasons when there's nothing out there.
[00:04:51.197]Right. And so if you're thinking about a tenure track,
[00:04:56.070]academic traditional job, this is your time.
[00:05:00.750]Yeah. Right?
[00:05:01.703]And so right now, if you are looking at that job market,
[00:05:06.930]like one of the first things
[00:05:08.910]you want to really be thinking about I think
[00:05:11.220]is what are the things that are most important to you
[00:05:16.050]in terms of where you're working
[00:05:18.690]and beyond just institution?
[00:05:21.600]Like what kind of life do you wanna lead?
[00:05:24.330]Like how did you decide to come here?
[00:05:25.770]Like what were the big things that played out in your head
[00:05:28.474]as you're like, Nebraska? Yes.
[00:05:31.050]Yeah. So I came out into the job market
[00:05:35.157]in a really bad time, to be honest.
[00:05:37.800]So, and like many international students,
[00:05:41.310]I also had a big question in my head,
[00:05:44.040]am I going back to where I came from in my case, Israel,
[00:05:47.550]or am I going to stay in the United States?
[00:05:49.470]And it was not clear cut.
[00:05:50.790]I actually did a quite extensive job search in Israel
[00:05:55.290]and got a few kind of signals that were positive,
[00:06:00.990]but as I explore them, they were more negative.
[00:06:03.570]And the American job market is very different
[00:06:06.420]than other countries.
[00:06:07.530]It's much more definite and it's much more systematic.
[00:06:10.680]At least in Israel, it's much more connected
[00:06:13.680]to who you know and jobs on the way.
[00:06:16.470]So I got an offer for a non-tenure seeking job saying,
[00:06:20.730]well, one- at one point or another,
[00:06:22.680]this may turn into a tenure line job.
[00:06:25.230]And I'm like, no, I have kids to feed.
[00:06:27.990]I have life to think about.
[00:06:31.020]And so I need a place where I know there's permanence.
[00:06:33.870]And I think that was very important to me.
[00:06:35.790]So they are the most important things to me.
[00:06:38.760]Where am I getting a place where I can stay for a while?
[00:06:42.810]Because especially in my case, being with a family,
[00:06:46.500]you don't wanna start hopping.
[00:06:47.850]If I was single and interested in research,
[00:06:51.780]I may have gone for a postdoc, for example,
[00:06:56.940]to build up my research resume.
[00:06:58.740]It's really powerful.
[00:07:00.030]But if you're dragging kids who need to go to school
[00:07:02.400]and you're thinking, we're gonna be here a year or two
[00:07:04.380]and then move to somewhere else,
[00:07:05.670]and then job search and all of that,
[00:07:07.440]that was too heavy for us as a family.
[00:07:09.630]So we, and and it is,
[00:07:10.950]I would argue the minute you are a unit,
[00:07:13.320]you have to think with your partner,
[00:07:15.480]you have to think about your kids,
[00:07:17.526]other family members you're supporting potentially.
[00:07:22.140]So, for me, that was that.
[00:07:25.050]But I was coming out right after the dinosaur,
[00:07:29.400]there was the.com boom.
[00:07:32.400]And I, when that went bust,
[00:07:35.130]that's when I went into the market.
[00:07:36.690]Universities were struggling for money
[00:07:38.790]and there were very few jobs out there.
[00:07:41.070]And I actually had this decision point where
[00:07:44.430]I can finish my dissertation this year
[00:07:47.070]and go out into the market,
[00:07:48.300]or I can wait a year and kind of stay at the university.
[00:07:53.580]I had, there were enough things for me to do
[00:07:56.580]to get an assistantship and wait another year
[00:07:59.370]hoping that the market would open.
[00:08:01.557]But another thing played into the job I got here,
[00:08:04.560]and I've been here 20 years,
[00:08:05.610]so it obviously worked out fine.
[00:08:07.950]And that is, I had a colleague who graduated
[00:08:11.220]a year before me and came here and said
[00:08:14.070]you would be a really good fit.
[00:08:16.200]We're already working together, we're writing together.
[00:08:18.570]So I had a research partnership and a teaching partnership
[00:08:21.570]because she taught the class.
[00:08:22.980]I still teach, actually, we both teach right now.
[00:08:25.710]And so I knew there would be somebody
[00:08:28.410]who could also help me organize
[00:08:30.390]and fit what I'm doing to what's happening here.
[00:08:33.360]So I had kind of a leg up.
[00:08:35.007]And that familiarity was critically important for me
[00:08:37.986]because I didn't know,
[00:08:39.870]even after four years of living in the United States,
[00:08:42.840]going to the University of California, Riverside
[00:08:45.150]I did not know enough
[00:08:46.980]about the American university system
[00:08:48.750]to actually make educated decisions.
[00:08:51.150]I needed this podcast to tell me a little bit about it
[00:08:53.684](Nicholas laughs)
[00:08:54.517]because I really was making decisions mostly in a vacuum.
[00:08:58.230]And unfortunately, to a certain degree,
[00:09:01.200]the faculty that were around me were not that helpful.
[00:09:07.620]We did not have a lot of conversations.
[00:09:09.300]I think nowadays in graduate school,
[00:09:11.250]we're having a lot more conversations with our students
[00:09:13.740]about what are the options?
[00:09:15.960]What does it look like?
[00:09:17.220]What do different jobs look like?
[00:09:18.720]How do you prepare?
[00:09:20.340]And if you are a graduate student
[00:09:22.830]and you're starting to think,
[00:09:23.857]"I'm getting closer. You- I'm in candidacy
[00:09:26.400]and I'm getting closer to the end,"
[00:09:28.170]whatever opportunities the university gives you
[00:09:31.260]to explore those things and get more insights, grab 'em.
[00:09:36.210]Right. Well, and so one.
[00:09:40.950]When haven't universities and/or colleges
[00:09:43.050]been strapped for cash?
[00:09:44.760]When is this stable time? They always tell that story.
[00:09:47.310]I don't know that it's always true
[00:09:49.440]that they're strapped for cash.
[00:09:50.400]They always complain.
[00:09:51.690]But at that point in time,
[00:09:53.040]there were two ads in the Chronicle
[00:09:57.660]for positions around literacy.
[00:09:59.700]Two. Two, that was it.
[00:10:01.423]Two. That was it?
[00:10:02.940]Yeah. Wait.
[00:10:03.773]So, I almost had not the exact opposite experience,
[00:10:08.670]but I was looking for jobs on my own.
[00:10:13.140]Like I had no one.
[00:10:14.550]I had a Boston Terrier that like all she wanted
[00:10:17.130]was a yard and like a walkable space.
[00:10:20.220]Like those were her, those were her deal breakers, right?
[00:10:23.190]So, some of the things
[00:10:25.770]that as I've gone through a series of jobs,
[00:10:31.170]some of the things I was thinking about were
[00:10:32.370]like, location, where do I want to live?
[00:10:34.620]Like what part of the country do I want to be in?
[00:10:39.060]Right? And I was very wide this last search,
[00:10:43.680]which is part of how I ended up here at Nebraska,
[00:10:46.895]because I was looking for...
[00:10:49.890]Location wasn't as important to me
[00:10:52.050]as feeling like it was a good fit.
[00:10:55.470]Yeah. Right.
[00:10:56.430]So, but the opposite is completely true.
[00:10:59.970]I know a lot of people who...
[00:11:02.827]"I grew up in this particular city."
[00:11:04.537]"I have this metro area as my like target."
[00:11:08.280]And that's a perfectly valid choice.
[00:11:10.110]But being aware that either of these choices
[00:11:14.460]is going to impact, right, the jobs that you look at
[00:11:19.320]and the postings that you focus in on.
[00:11:23.010]Same thing with affordability, right? Like
[00:11:28.800]there's some great schools out there,
[00:11:30.840]but can you afford to live there comfortably
[00:11:35.760]on what a college education professor makes?
[00:11:39.450]And so yeah. Question.
[00:11:41.100]And so I- My approach to that...
[00:11:44.580]I mean, I understand if you tie to a specific location
[00:11:47.640]because of family reasons and because of personal reasons,
[00:11:53.220]I would tie that.
[00:11:54.690]If you are not, I always advocate be a little bit wider
[00:11:58.920]than you think you are, because the golden offer,
[00:12:04.350]the offer that is the best fit for you
[00:12:07.314]might not be to take something
[00:12:09.270]from real estate in your exact neighborhood.
[00:12:11.940]So when you watch all of these shows
[00:12:13.200]and they're like, people say, I want that neighborhood.
[00:12:15.600]Well, you know, there might be great offers
[00:12:18.570]that are not that different that you're ruling out
[00:12:21.660]because you're narrowing it down
[00:12:23.370]and it also narrows down your options
[00:12:26.370]because then you have a few places to choose from.
[00:12:28.830]I mean, if you choose the...
[00:12:30.210]I mean the greater Boston area gives you a lot of options,
[00:12:32.970]but the greater Milwaukee area starts limiting your options
[00:12:36.150]and the greater Nebraska area leaves you
[00:12:39.360]with very few.
[00:12:41.543]Right. And so, that matters.
[00:12:44.280]And I think if location is what is most important to you,
[00:12:47.430]I think you bring up a really good point
[00:12:48.660]around your location plus an extra like what,
[00:12:54.870]20 miles some arbitrary number, right?
[00:12:57.720]But if that's gonna be your most important thing
[00:13:02.190]so that you're not going through,
[00:13:03.870]let's say it's a really good job posting year
[00:13:06.840]and there's 80 different positions,
[00:13:08.520]it's gonna allow you to weed through those a a bit quickly.
[00:13:11.160]Remember, job market equals time that you don't have.
[00:13:15.750]So you need to have filters to figure out
[00:13:17.040]what you're actually looking at.
[00:13:18.060]And location is one of those filters, you know?
[00:13:20.610]Yeah, definitely.
[00:13:21.810]And thinking about affordability,
[00:13:23.580]what kind of quality of life do you wanna have?
[00:13:26.790]And then we've kind of been focusing on
[00:13:31.053]like tenure track jobs,
[00:13:33.000]but there's other kinds of jobs that are out there.
[00:13:35.190]Absolutely.
[00:13:36.023]So professor of practice positions are pretty common.
[00:13:40.353]Those tend to have a more of a teaching load
[00:13:43.320]than a research load.
[00:13:46.296]And so thinking about that as an option as well.
[00:13:51.090]So, and what that essentially allows you to do
[00:13:54.720]is think through, like I said before,
[00:13:59.010]what job postings you're looking at.
[00:14:01.620]'Cause you can't respond to them all.
[00:14:04.410]No, you can't. And you don't want to.
[00:14:06.540]It is overwhelming and it's a management nightmare.
[00:14:10.380]And again, as you just said,
[00:14:12.510]there are other things you're supposed
[00:14:14.040]to be doing with your life at that point.
[00:14:15.930]And it won't help if you've applied to 60 jobs,
[00:14:19.770]but then you do not complete your dissertation
[00:14:21.810]and now you're stuck on both ends. So.
[00:14:24.060]Right. This balancing act of
[00:14:26.790]you're taking time away from other projects
[00:14:30.330]to do this like work thing.
[00:14:34.320]So, I think tip number one,
[00:14:37.110]the biggest tip that I think I can offer
[00:14:40.920]is to know what you're looking for
[00:14:43.260]and to have your criteria really well defined within reason
[00:14:49.020]to help you understand what's most important to you
[00:14:52.830]in your job search.
[00:14:54.330]So thinking about location, quality of life, affordability,
[00:14:58.795]the type of job that you want for your future.
[00:15:02.280]I think that's the first big discussion you need to have
[00:15:04.620]for yourself even before you start digging
[00:15:08.940]into job market postings.
[00:15:10.020]Yeah, you definitely do.
[00:15:12.150]And one of the things that you can do to help that-
[00:15:14.370]And if you are on the job market right now, that's too late.
[00:15:18.060]But if you are a little bit earlier in the process
[00:15:20.970]and you're still in the middle of your program
[00:15:22.590]or even at the beginning,
[00:15:23.880]a few things that you can do a lot earlier
[00:15:26.190]is start looking at job postings
[00:15:27.930]just to see what's out there
[00:15:29.430]and what does it look like.
[00:15:30.690]What are people looking for in your field?
[00:15:33.540]Because that helps you to create the right opportunities
[00:15:37.410]to make sure that you can actually apply to those jobs
[00:15:40.740]and you have the right experiences.
[00:15:42.330]The other thing is-
[00:15:43.500]and this is where conferences-
[00:15:44.760]and we're gonna talk about the conferences
[00:15:46.650]and going to conferences at another time-
[00:15:48.600]but conferences are critical in talking to people
[00:15:52.020]from different institutions
[00:15:53.730]and try to get a sense of the institution.
[00:15:55.830]And I find for me personally, poster sessions are the best.
[00:15:59.400]Because when people are standing and delivering,
[00:16:01.770]they're not gonna talk about anything except the research.
[00:16:04.410]But if you are stopping by somebody's poster
[00:16:06.840]or any informal gathering and you just chat with them,
[00:16:10.530]you will get their sense of their institution
[00:16:12.861]and how happy or unhappy they are.
[00:16:15.600]Now, you cannot judge any institution by one person
[00:16:18.570]because at my institution,
[00:16:20.460]which is one of the best in the world, no.
[00:16:22.590]But it's a lovely place. Yes.
[00:16:25.380]And there are some people who are not happy.
[00:16:27.990]And there are some people who are really happy
[00:16:29.610]and a lot of people are somewhere in the middle.
[00:16:31.590]So one person doesn't tell you,
[00:16:33.720]but sometimes you talk to people and they're like,
[00:16:36.690]this does not sound like a place I would like to go to.
[00:16:39.720]And so that at least gives you an indication
[00:16:42.420]about some places, do I want to be there?
[00:16:44.400]Do I not want to be there?
[00:16:45.750]And we haven't talked about this,
[00:16:47.610]but the kind of institution really matters.
[00:16:50.700]So, institutions as they get closer
[00:16:52.920]to the top of the ranking-
[00:16:54.840]I'm not a huge believer in the ranking,
[00:16:56.430]but they do play a role.
[00:16:57.750]And the institutions in the top 10 tend to...
[00:17:02.040]I'm probably gonna get email about this.
[00:17:04.080]I'm ready, bring it on people.
[00:17:05.790]Email him.
[00:17:06.623]But yes. Email- I didn't say this.
[00:17:08.370]whatever is about to be said here,
[00:17:09.960]but I did not say this.
[00:17:11.130]There seems to be a lot of pressure to perform early.
[00:17:16.110]And so those-
[00:17:18.810]Going to one of those institutions
[00:17:21.390]that I will not name right now because I don't want to.
[00:17:25.090]Baltimore University. Baltimore University.
[00:17:28.170]They're just-
[00:17:29.003]they're great places, but the pressure to publish,
[00:17:32.280]to get things out really, really early
[00:17:34.560]is really, really big.
[00:17:35.580]For some people that's how they thrive.
[00:17:38.160]And they have a lot of fun and they're hyper productive.
[00:17:41.460]And that's great for them.
[00:17:42.780]For other people, that's not necessarily for them.
[00:17:46.650]And they run away.
[00:17:47.880]I've known quite a few people
[00:17:49.110]who went to those kind of places
[00:17:50.490]and after a few years said,
[00:17:51.757]"You know what, this is too much for me.
[00:17:53.580]I'm going to be productive somewhere else
[00:17:55.350]that it's a little bit mellower.
[00:17:57.480]I'm still gonna be me."
[00:17:58.590]Because at the end of the day, you are you,
[00:18:00.630]and you're going to do your research.
[00:18:03.273]The different institutions can support you
[00:18:05.340]in different ways, but you are who you are.
[00:18:08.940]And especially for somebody like me,
[00:18:11.160]who also is thinking about family
[00:18:13.230]and trying to create some kind of a balance
[00:18:15.300]or some kind of a protected time,
[00:18:17.640]that matters because in places with high pressure,
[00:18:20.430]you're not gonna have that over the first few years.
[00:18:22.830]Quality of life is important.
[00:18:24.180]And quality of life.
[00:18:25.059]that goes back to that. Quality of life
[00:18:26.460]is important.
[00:18:27.660]And knowing what you're getting into, right?
[00:18:30.000]Before you apply somewhere.
[00:18:33.720]So we've talked a little bit about like the pre-work
[00:18:39.450]that you do before you actually start
[00:18:41.844]going into the job market.
[00:18:44.400]And now when we're thinking about finding jobs,
[00:18:50.190]it's gotten more accessible, I feel.
[00:18:54.930]Yes. I think it has. Like
[00:18:56.340]even in the 12 years-
[00:18:59.340]Wow, I'm old, oh my gosh.
[00:19:01.560]12 years since I first went on the job market.
[00:19:06.330]To like, now you have all these websites.
[00:19:08.340]You have Chronicle Vitae. You have HigherEdJobs.
[00:19:12.300]You have the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium,
[00:19:15.090]Inside Higher Education.
[00:19:16.260]There's all of these websites now that, you know
[00:19:19.770]post all of these jobs for academic positions.
[00:19:26.250]But there's also some other really interesting ways
[00:19:29.910]to discover and find out about jobs
[00:19:31.890]because of course, universities and and colleges
[00:19:34.440]have to pay for those postings, right?
[00:19:37.430]So different sites are going to offer different things,
[00:19:41.040]but there's also the ability to leverage
[00:19:44.100]those personal relationships that you build up
[00:19:46.260]within your network in order to make that happen.
[00:19:49.560]And it seems like that happened to you here at Nebraska.
[00:19:52.470]Yeah, definitely.
[00:19:54.270]And so what would be some tips that you would utilize
[00:19:57.720]to leverage your professional network
[00:20:01.110]in order to like help your job search?
[00:20:04.560]So I think that there are a few things
[00:20:07.980]that you can do really well.
[00:20:09.210]And one of them is conferences.
[00:20:11.790]Especially the conferences that really apply
[00:20:14.310]where you find your people.
[00:20:16.200]And again, we're not talking about conferences right now,
[00:20:19.260]but you have to find the people that are doing the things
[00:20:23.520]you're interested in doing.
[00:20:25.260]And then you go to the conferences,
[00:20:27.150]not necessarily the biggest conferences.
[00:20:28.980]So ARA is our big conference, but it is too big
[00:20:32.070]to really find people.
[00:20:33.360]There are some strategies around that even.
[00:20:35.790]But you want to go to the smaller conferences.
[00:20:38.160]A side conference calls itself the friendly conference
[00:20:40.620]because it's a few hundred people
[00:20:42.450]and there's a pub crawl.
[00:20:44.910]And so, eh-
[00:20:46.380]Nothing says friendly like a pub crawl.
[00:20:47.910]I guess.
[00:20:48.750]But if it's friendly at the end of the night,
[00:20:52.350]it means it's really friendly.
[00:20:53.400]Okay.
[00:20:55.470]I did not go.
[00:20:56.303]So, you know, it's all good.
[00:20:58.560]But you want to find those opportunities.
[00:21:01.935]And this is really hard.
[00:21:04.440]You've got to learn to network.
[00:21:06.120]And that's sometimes uncomfortable,
[00:21:07.890]especially for international students.
[00:21:10.710]That's sometimes uncomfortable, I feel,
[00:21:12.720]because you are not as connected to the culture.
[00:21:15.570]You're not sure how to-
[00:21:17.580]How do you dress for a conference?
[00:21:19.830]What are the expectations if they-
[00:21:22.080]If Michigan State has a party, are we supposed to go or not?
[00:21:25.230]And all of that.
[00:21:26.550]And who do you talk to in these places?
[00:21:29.220]But you've gotta create these contacts,
[00:21:31.350]you've gotta learn how to do that.
[00:21:32.970]And you've gotta find somebody who's been there for a while.
[00:21:35.490]So it's- That goes back to what I said before,
[00:21:38.790]and that is the planning for getting the job
[00:21:41.610]actually has to start long before you are on the job market.
[00:21:44.850]You- If you want to rely on networks,
[00:21:47.370]those networks can't start
[00:21:48.900]in the fall you're starting to apply.
[00:21:50.820]You really want to have them before.
[00:21:53.070]So people send you a posting
[00:21:55.020]because they came to your presentation you gave,
[00:21:57.210]or they had a conversation with you
[00:21:59.070]and they really like you.
[00:22:01.191]I've been a member, this is actually an ARA example.
[00:22:04.740]I've been a member of the special interest group
[00:22:06.870]around motivation, research and motivation.
[00:22:09.780]That's been a great group.
[00:22:11.580]They have a dinner every ARA.
[00:22:13.560]So that's an opportunity to interact in a informal way.
[00:22:19.650]But even then you see that most people sit with
[00:22:22.320]the people they already know.
[00:22:23.520]It's like, this is the worst strategy ever
[00:22:25.770]to talk to the two people you already knew.
[00:22:28.080]It's like- And one of my strategies was, for example-
[00:22:31.380]and this is who I am is a social butterfly-
[00:22:33.270]but I actually changed my seat throughout dinner
[00:22:36.510]so I can talk to lots of people.
[00:22:37.430]Of course you do. Of course I do.
[00:22:39.225]Of course you do.
[00:22:40.058]And that also confuses the waiters,
[00:22:42.030]which is even more fun.
[00:22:44.580]But, but it's-
[00:22:45.900]The ways you find joy.
[00:22:47.670]Yes.
[00:22:49.320]We gotta find it where we can.
[00:22:51.330]But so conferences are a great way to start doing that.
[00:22:56.160]But you want to build on that.
[00:22:58.290]So the meeting at the conference
[00:22:59.730]and a chat for 20 minutes with somebody is not enough.
[00:23:02.220]If you can then email them, do.
[00:23:05.640]Write a paper together or start a project together,
[00:23:08.460]or just keep that contact going.
[00:23:10.650]That's what's gonna get you
[00:23:13.156]that somebody that sends you and says,
[00:23:14.527]"Hey, we have this offer,
[00:23:16.770]I think it'll be a good fit for you."
[00:23:18.600]That is where the magic is.
[00:23:20.505]Well, and even if it's not a direct connection.
[00:23:22.260]Like if you're-
[00:23:23.093]If your network knows that you're looking.
[00:23:25.050]Like this, like the U N L job posting,
[00:23:28.620]I got from multiple friends
[00:23:31.980]in my network who were like, "Hey, is this you?"
[00:23:34.380]Yeah.
[00:23:35.213]And that was, that was interesting.
[00:23:36.210]It made me really consider that this particular job,
[00:23:41.160]maybe more than I would have otherwise, right?
[00:23:44.850]And so again, work, this is work.
[00:23:48.720]This is time away from-
[00:23:50.490]Everything else.
[00:23:51.323]Other things that you are supposed to be doing.
[00:23:52.710]And so I think the first line of defense
[00:23:57.900]as you're looking for a job is that networking
[00:24:03.030]seems to be like a more passive,
[00:24:04.740]like you've done the work now you're hoping that,
[00:24:07.079]you know, people email you stuff.
[00:24:08.700]But like checking those websites, checking those listings.
[00:24:14.250]Not every day.
[00:24:15.360]'Cause every day will drive you crazy.
[00:24:18.150]It's kind of like watching the stock market every day.
[00:24:21.360]You can't do anything about it.
[00:24:23.220]And it makes you feel great or terrified
[00:24:27.840]and with no productive output.
[00:24:30.600]So I would say once a week is like,
[00:24:33.630]as frequent as you ever want to go.
[00:24:36.120]I mean, so for me, the, the system I set up
[00:24:38.940]was I would look at a different site every day.
[00:24:42.030]Oh, okay.
[00:24:42.863]But with like, I should be able to get through it
[00:24:45.110]in a half hour, right? Like-
[00:24:47.430]And I would just pull the listings that I was interested in
[00:24:50.730]that fit the criteria that I already laid out,
[00:24:53.062]add them into my system of organization.
[00:24:56.088]Are you surprised? Was a spreadsheet.
[00:24:58.920]Huge surprise.
[00:25:00.030]Huge surprise.
[00:25:00.863]Huge surprise.
[00:25:01.696]This, this is a quick explanation.
[00:25:03.930]Always a spreadsheet.
[00:25:08.970]Sometimes a spreadsheet.
[00:25:10.890]But always causing problems for wait staff.
[00:25:13.560]Yes. And I apologize to all the wait staff.
[00:25:16.353]That is- As you should.
[00:25:17.640]Big tip.
[00:25:18.690]Yes. Big tipper.
[00:25:19.523]I am a big tipper.
[00:25:20.610]That's excellent. That's all we ask for.
[00:25:23.400]Like if you're gonna cause the trouble, rabble the rousing.
[00:25:27.497]Gotta pay for it.
[00:25:28.770]Right. So- Agreed.
[00:25:29.670]But I had a- I would look at the position.
[00:25:33.690]Have my spreadsheet.
[00:25:34.770]Layout my spreadsheet in a way
[00:25:36.840]that I understood what was being asked of me,
[00:25:39.930]why I was interested in the position.
[00:25:43.208]And what the deadlines were,
[00:25:45.870]what the various pieces of it were.
[00:25:47.220]So that I could at a glance,
[00:25:49.770]like in a good job market year,
[00:25:51.750]you could be working on
[00:25:54.870]up to like 10 applications at one time.
[00:25:57.650]And there's pieces that they're gonna have in common.
[00:26:00.810]Like, I don't want to say,
[00:26:01.897]"Oh, every packet's gonna be individualized."
[00:26:05.130]Like that's not sustainable. That's not possible. No.
[00:26:07.097]Right. Like, that's not possible.
[00:26:08.970]But there's gonna be some deviations
[00:26:12.270]between all the different postings.
[00:26:14.190]And that was my way to catch it.
[00:26:16.950]Was this a sometimes spreadsheet moment for you?
[00:26:19.410]Like what did you do?
[00:26:21.360]Well, my- The simplicity of my job market
[00:26:25.440]was that there were so very few actual postings,
[00:26:30.390]that it was not a long process.
[00:26:32.940]I did have actually a Word document
[00:26:37.380]that just kind of copy and pasted the requirements.
[00:26:42.000]And my challenge was that I came from a program
[00:26:47.899]that my personal program, but also the institution,
[00:26:53.160]where I was partially in special education,
[00:26:57.420]partially in educational psychology,
[00:26:59.190]and partially in what is classically called
[00:27:01.740]curriculum and instruction or teacher education really.
[00:27:06.810]Which I proudly call myself now.
[00:27:09.000]And so I had a few avenues I can go down.
[00:27:12.930]And so the two job postings that I actually responded to,
[00:27:16.740]one was in curriculum and instruction, which was here.
[00:27:19.530]We were still called
[00:27:20.700]the Center for Curriculum and Instruction.
[00:27:22.710]And the other one was special education
[00:27:24.660]at the University of Minnesota.
[00:27:26.400]And so I could still leverage myself in different ways.
[00:27:30.553]This was a better fit for me.
[00:27:32.700]So, that being said, to be completely honest,
[00:27:36.240]the search in Minnesota was canceled at the last minute.
[00:27:38.790]They just had to scrap it for lack of funds
[00:27:40.475]and they were going to reboot it for next year.
[00:27:42.780]So they actually asked me if I would apply next year.
[00:27:45.750]And I'm like, well, I kind of have a job.
[00:27:48.870]And with- And again, that has something to do with,
[00:27:52.530]once I decided that I'm going into the market
[00:27:55.620]when there was a job, I was going to grab it and go
[00:27:58.710]and start taking care of my family in a way
[00:28:01.680]that you can't as a graduate student
[00:28:03.390]because you're not getting paid much.
[00:28:08.130]Right. Well, and I think that brings up another point
[00:28:11.220]that is important where-
[00:28:16.920]Don't just apply to a job because it's practice, right?
[00:28:22.194]And because at the other end of that,
[00:28:28.080]like it's work for the grad student,
[00:28:30.210]it's work for the person who's searching for the jobs,
[00:28:32.280]but it's also work for the committees
[00:28:35.100]that are pulling these job postings together
[00:28:38.580]and who are sorting through all these materials. And
[00:28:43.950]unless you're-
[00:28:45.930]if they were to offer you the job,
[00:28:48.810]would it actually-
[00:28:49.890]would you consider a yes, right?
[00:28:52.110]Like if that question is automatically no-
[00:28:55.260]Then don't it.
[00:28:56.093]That's not a good use of your time.
[00:28:59.385]And not a good- not a good recognition
[00:29:02.610]of like the faculty labor that goes into a job search.
[00:29:11.137]So I think really having a specific idea
[00:29:13.321]of which jobs you're most interested in is important.
[00:29:20.610]But sometimes just to balance that,
[00:29:26.760]you also don't want to reject outright.
[00:29:29.370]So if you're never gonna say yes to that place,
[00:29:31.800]please don't.
[00:29:32.730]Yes.
[00:29:34.166]If you're never gonna-
[00:29:34.999]If you're not going to entertain the possibility of a yes.
[00:29:36.800]So I have a geography, my partner and I,
[00:29:40.277]have a geographical agreement about places I can apply to
[00:29:43.500]at jobs and places I can't.
[00:29:45.240]This has been going on for 20 years.
[00:29:47.100]So, it's well established.
[00:29:48.720]I've never applied to a place,
[00:29:51.180]that was on that list of we will never go and live there
[00:29:54.780]for a variety of reasons.
[00:29:56.400]We each have our personal reasons,
[00:29:58.320]but when you have that list, yeah.
[00:30:00.510]I've never applied.
[00:30:01.860]I've never applied for a job in Mississippi
[00:30:04.290]because we are not going to live in Mississippi.
[00:30:07.140]And some people-
[00:30:08.430]I mean I have graduate students who've graduated
[00:30:10.920]and became professors at Mississippi State
[00:30:12.990]and in other places around that state.
[00:30:14.550]And they do just fine.
[00:30:16.050]It's a personal choice, but our choice was not.
[00:30:18.120]So I would never apply to that.
[00:30:19.650]But sometimes when it seems like,
[00:30:22.020]I don't know if they will take people,
[00:30:24.089]if they will take my file, but if they make me an offer,
[00:30:27.480]I would say yes.
[00:30:28.313]Sometimes you need to try
[00:30:29.550]because you don't know who else is going to be in that list.
[00:30:33.390]So you don't know if you are really coming up
[00:30:36.150]or exactly what they're looking for.
[00:30:37.650]So try, because applying doesn't mean
[00:30:40.800]they're going to call you and ask you
[00:30:43.350]for a phone interview or a physical interview.
[00:30:45.480]And if they do it doesn't mean you have to say yes.
[00:30:47.580]But if the answer is no before everything,
[00:30:51.990]don't waste your time and theirs.
[00:30:54.330]Yes. No, and that's- I mean,
[00:30:55.680]and time is the name of the game.
[00:30:57.090]Like I have, I think I've said that what,
[00:30:59.430]five times already?
[00:31:01.170]Like this is another job
[00:31:02.820]on top of what you're already doing, right?
[00:31:05.935]And so you don't wanna be wasting it
[00:31:10.920]'cause there's no replacing that.
[00:31:12.000]Like, once you're 24 hours in the day are up,
[00:31:14.220]you don't get them back.
[00:31:15.240]Like there's no, there's no coupon to get those back, right?
[00:31:19.337]So we're particularly loquacious on this topic obviously,
[00:31:26.730]because I think it's one of the pieces like in,
[00:31:31.140]if you have a solid understanding of this process,
[00:31:33.390]this allows so many other things-
[00:31:35.820]To happen for you. Yeah.
[00:31:36.810]Right. To be able to happen.
[00:31:37.980]And so we are, we're going out-
[00:31:40.290]We're going over time.
[00:31:41.160]And so in order to make this
[00:31:42.030]unmanageable bite size episode-
[00:31:45.210]We're thinking about portion control.
[00:31:47.010]Podcast portion control.
[00:31:50.400]See doctor,
[00:31:51.233]I do listen to you when you talk portion control.
[00:31:53.190]It's in my head.
[00:31:55.260]We're gonna come back to
[00:31:56.850]and expand upon these things in the next episode
[00:32:01.290]because we need to work on our time management.
[00:32:03.210]Yeah.
[00:32:04.560]And so we'll see you We should have set a timer.
[00:32:05.815]in the next episode.
[00:32:06.648]See you in the next, yeah.
[00:32:09.390]So if you're feeling a little exasperated
[00:32:13.290]and has some shortness of breath, don't email us.
[00:32:16.650]Call your general practitioner
[00:32:17.670]cause we're not that doctor.
[00:32:20.198](upbeat outro)

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Not That Kind of Doctor - Job Hunting, Part 1

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