Contacting department before a job is announced....

[ebuckner]

I know a t-t job as assistant professor in my (very narrow) field is opening up at a good (but not super-elite) university in the exact city I want to live in (across the country from where my PhD is) -- I have at least 2 good sources for this opening and so I know it's happening, and my field is small so there aren't a TON of jobs out there.

I know that I am a competitive candidate for this position, but that competition for any job in my field is definitely fierce, given job market recently.

So, I just was wondering does anyone have any advice about contacting a department and just asking for more info. about the job and introducing myself and my interest...even before the job is officially announced. Is that seen as bad etiquette? Or too pushy? I just want to make myself known and express my interest even before anyone else does!!

Any advice on this?

Thanks!!

Edited July 6, 2012 by ebuckner

[TakeruK]

I don't have experience in this so I can't really give a qualified opinion on whether it's too pushy or not. But I feel like it would be.

But I wanted to write a reply because I would suggest that you contact the seminar/colloquium coordinator (or get your supervisor to help you make the connection) and offer to give a talk at their school about your work. At my school, the advice all students get is to make sure you get yourself well known in your last 1 to 1.5 years of graduate school. Attend national conferences, go on "talk tours" -- if you combine several schools at once it will save expenses (in the some fields, this will be paid for by your own grant/supervisor/or visiting school's money, or it could be paid for by your own money I guess). Don't mention the job at all -- they will remember you when you apply. This advice also applies to Post-doc fellowships too -- if it's funded by a school or an agency, offer to visit and give a talk.

Maybe this information is field-specific though. It is definitely the norm in the physical sciences. You didn't specify your field though, so it's something you can consider

[Sigaba]

Any advice on this?

Don't ever burn contacts.

You didn't specify your field though, so it's something you can consider

Yes, she did. Several times.

[TakeruK]

Yes, she did. Several times.

This post was in the "Jobs" forum, which doesn't specify a field. This is the post I read, where I don't see any field specified. Of course, the info on the left says this person has 12 posts so it's possible that ebuckner has specified their field in these other posts but I didn't read them -- I generally view each thread as an independent entity, unless I start seeing names often enough to recognize them

I know a t-t job as assistant professor in my (very narrow) field is opening up at a good (but not super-elite) university in the exact city I want to live in (across the country from where my PhD is) -- I have at least 2 good sources for this opening and so I know it's happening, and my field is small so there aren't a TON of jobs out there.

I know that I am a competitive candidate for this position, but that competition for any job in my field is definitely fierce, given job market recently.

So, I just was wondering does anyone have any advice about contacting a department and just asking for more info. about the job and introducing myself and my interest...even before the job is officially announced. Is that seen as bad etiquette? Or too pushy? I just want to make myself known and express my interest even before anyone else does!!

Any advice on this?

Thanks!!

[Sigaba]

This post was in the "Jobs" forum, which doesn't specify a field. This is the post I read, where I don't see any field specified. Of course, the info on the left says this person has 12 posts so it's possible that ebuckner has specified their field in these other posts but I didn't read them -- I generally view each thread as an independent entity, unless I start seeing names often enough to recognize them

If someone offered you career changing -- if not also life altering -- guidance without spending a moment to learn more about you, would you be inclined to take that guidance?

[TakeruK]

If someone offered you career changing -- if not also life altering -- guidance without spending a moment to learn more about you, would you be inclined to take that guidance?

That's a fair statement. You're right, I would definitely weigh the advice I received based on the person giving the advice, obviously favouring people such as my mentors, who know a lot about me and the field.

But in my opinion, the original poster made the explicit choice to not disclose this information (for example, by saying "my (very narrow) field" instead of specifying). Since there are many good reasons for someone to want to remain anonymous on the Internet, I assume that all posters know about Internet privacy issues and are taking whatever they consider due diligence in protecting themselves however they want. Thus, I assume that the OP provides whatever details they want their audience to see when asking a question and that they know that the advice they receive is based on whatever details they provide (and may be limited by what they chose to omit). If omissions are accidental, the OP can always post a followup in the same thread.

From the original post, I recognized a familiar situation and provided what I believe to be good advice based only on that post. I don't even usually provide the disclaimers for sciences/field because it's clear that as someone who is in the Physical Sciences (it says so in my profile information on the left of my post and in the signature below), my experiences are limited to that field. I assume the OP has a good reason to not disclose their field, so as people from different fields post their responses, the OP should give higher weights to those who might know more about their field. I'm not trying to convince OP to take any particular action -- I'm simply providing my opinion/a suggestion based on second-hand experience (which I clearly disclose). I would expect the OP to read my opinion, process it, decide whether it's relevant to their situation and act accordingly.

I guess it's clear that we don't use these message boards the same way! But as I said before, as long as we all abide by the forum rules and don't negatively affect other users' enjoyment of the message boards, I don't see how different methods of consuming/using/enjoying the boards can't coexist.

If you believe my post contains inaccurate information, I'd be happy to change them. But otherwise I don't think I have done anything wrong, despite my post here "defending" my actions.

Note: I'm not really objecting the fact that you've pointed out I did not read through all of the OP's other posts before commenting -- it's a fair thing to say. But I think the way I write my posts (described above) is a reasonable approach to writing advice to semi-anonymous people on the Internet. In other words, as with everything else one might read on the Internet, "reader beware". I give everyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their ability to critically think about semi-anonymous advice based on limited information.

[Sigaba]

What would your mentors say about operating under a set of unvetted assumptions?

[ebuckner]

Hi all --

This discussion got a bit intense. I'm in an internationally-oriented social science discipline. We definitely don't do "talk circuits" -- I think publications, teaching experience and other forms of research and consulting are main factors in social sciences.

I am friends with people who know faculty of this department well and I didn't think it would be too awkward to just write up one of the faculty members in the department and say..."so and so told me there was a job opening..." and see what additional info. I could get.

[Sigaba]

I am friends with people who know faculty of this department well and I didn't think it would be too awkward to just write up one of the faculty members in the department and say..."so and so told me there was a job opening..." and see what additional info. I could get.

E--

If you do go this route, I think you should do what you can to scrub from the internet your outspoken take on the ethics of your field.

My $0.02.

[TheFez]

Darn. If I would take that $0.02 each time I would now have $16.74. It adds up!

My anonymous, offhand, advice based on unvetted assumptions is not to jump the gun as it will most likely not improve your outcome and has a risk backfiring somehow. Most schools I know of follow a formal procedure for posting jobs, especially TT positions. So you won't realistically be able to keep them from advertising the position.

If you've got well-respected embedded contacts - maybe they can be advocates for you and help your cause. Be on top of the job posting and respond with everything you have. Your motivation may put you in good stead if you are truly well-qualified.

[Sigaba]

Darn. If I would take that $0.02 each time I would now have $16.74. It adds up!

My anonymous, offhand, advice based on unvetted assumptions[. . . . ]

Are you sure you want to take things in this direction?

[TakeruK]

Hi all --

This discussion got a bit intense. I'm in an internationally-oriented social science discipline. We definitely don't do "talk circuits" -- I think publications, teaching experience and other forms of research and consulting are main factors in social sciences.

I am friends with people who know faculty of this department well and I didn't think it would be too awkward to just write up one of the faculty members in the department and say..."so and so told me there was a job opening..." and see what additional info. I could get.

Ah, okay, it's interesting to know that talk circuits are used in the social sciences. Obviously jobs in the physical sciences are strongly correlated to your research experience and publications (teaching seems to be less important -- as long as you have experience, it seems to be okay!) but talk circuits is one way for us to get people to notice our work, especially to get the attention of people outside of our subfield (there's little chance someone working with lasers would notice a student/post-doc's work on galaxy formation, for example).

In my opinion, if I asked the department about the job opening, I would feel like I am outing my friends for spilling the beans, so to speak, since the job posting is not announced yet. If your friends are in academia, then maybe it would be even better if your friends vouched for you when talking to the faculty members -- they can say something like "hey I know a person who would be a great fit for your department, I'm going to encourage [ebuckner] to apply for the position". Of course it depends on how close your friends are to you whether or not you'd feel comfortable about asking them.

What would your mentors say about operating under a set of unvetted assumptions?

I use the information made available to me in the thread ("X") to write a response ("Y") based on this information, i.e. my posts are "if X then Y". By limiting X to this thread only, anyone else who reads the thread knows exactly where I got X from. The OP, or anyone else in a similar situation can evaluate if "X" is true for them and then decide whether or not "Y" makes sense to them.

I think this is a reasonable approach to writing on gradcafe. You may or may not agree, but if you don't, I'm not sure why you can't write the way you would like to and allow others to write the way they would like to. As far as I know, my posts are not in violation of any Gradcafe rules.

[Usmivka]

Everyone has given some good advice, and the poster gets to see a spread of views, which is great. I think many posters on the Grad Cafe are doing their best to be helpful within their own framework of understanding, and I really respect that.

I lean in the general direction of TheFez's advice. You know the job is coming up, so keep on top of it and have everything ready to go. You have people in the department who know you and can advocate for you aboveboard (I mean that they should disclose that they know you--nepotism is bad, but I think a committee would be interested in personal opinions of you from people they know).

My particular program (in an unrelated field) puts a lot of stock in first hand experience of potential hires, e.g. how they interacted with the faculty during an invited seminar and what current faculty think of them from previously working together. Although, my program seems to hire an abnormally large number of its own graduates (they all know each other...), so this may not be a good indication of how things could or should work elsewhere.