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No Missed Opportunities on the Campus Visit

By Karen Kelsky | March 10, 2017

Today I posted the biggest Job Market Digest I’ve ever put up in the three years I’ve been posting them.  I am so pleased to see how many clients got tenure track and other recurring/full time jobs, both in and out of the academy. Please take a moment to read. And if you have gotten a job, or had some other career-related success (including gaining the clarity to leave the academy entirely, which I view as great success!) please do write me at gettenure@gmail.com and let me know. I just love to hear from both readers and clients.  Always know that total confidentiality is assured.

People who write love to tell me stories of their searches, and I love to read them!  Because of space limitations, most of those stories do not end up in the Job Market Digest. But I read them closely and file them away as reference for myself in my future work with clients.

Here are two of my favorites this week. I love the first because of the “you annoyed me to no end” (LOL) and the second because TPII could help this immigrant scholar gain a small measure of security in these awful times.

TT offer, client, Dance: “I want to thank you for your help. After you had fixed my documents ( CV, CL, TS, and RS), I was back on the market this year got several invitations to campus and then got a retention offer at my current institution! Your methods do work… You annoyed me to no end, but you are a genius!”

TT job offer, client, Psychology: “Your advice was spot on every time and truly invaluable. Throughout my campus interview the faculty repeatedly told me that my application materials were “tight”, so tight in fact, they had almost no further questions! The job talk went well and even when the “intellectual” Dean gave me a tough time about omitting effect sizes (!), I was prepared thanks to your webinar. Your webinar also prepared me for a sticky illegal question regarding my ethnicity–altogether, I cannot thank you enough.

It has been a hellish emotional journey and you are a big part of my making it to the other side. I feel so fortunate to have made it to a tenure track position before they all vanish. I hope you know just how meaningful and important your work is to continued scholarship in this country.”

One of the listings this week included a story from a client’s search. I am going to share this story as a post, because it points to an important principle for the job search, especially the campus visit.

My client wrote that during her campus visit, the Search Committee Chair sent her a preliminary schedule that had blank time spots, and asked if she had other people she wanted to meet on campus to pencil into those slots. My client sent names of people in the Department and people across the campus with whom she saw strategic departmental growth potential. My client got the job.  She also later found out that none of the other candidates had sent names.  She told me, “This was reportedly a major point in my favor.”

There is a large principle at work here.  Just as the question of “Do you have any questions for us” is actually an essential and substantive element of the interview (as described in this post by Kellee Weinhold [and be sure and click through to my Vitae post that is linked]), any opportunity to demonstrate your interest in potential colleagues and collaborations in the department and across campus should be energetically maximized.  It SHOWS your interest in the job and the campus, and it SHOWS the kind of colleague you will be.  This kind of action speaks louder than words.  And so does the refusal.  Saying (or showing), “No, I’m not really curious about you,” is a mark against you that is quite difficult to overcome.

Don’t let any opportunity to demonstrate your substantive, educated interest in the department and campus pass you by.

Similar Posts:

  • Pregnant on Your Campus Visit–A Crowdsource Project
  • What You’ll Learn in the Campus Visit Webinar
  • Is the Search Committee Ghosting You?
  • Asking to Speak to Other People of Color on a Campus Visit
  • Breaking Down the Fit Question

Filed Under: Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes, Promote Yourself!, The Campus Visit

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Deb says

    January 30, 2019 at 1:35 pm

    This is great advice, thanks so much. What do you recommend if they do not ask? I am interviewing at a foreign university and the campus visit is a bit different, it seems, there, including only a job talk, a teaching demo, and a lunch. I have some extra time in the day, and some extra days in my visit. I’d love to meet with other faculty–it is an overseas move and I want to really know what I would be getting myself into (in the event that I got a job offer). Do you recommend asking for additional arrangements and meetings if they don’t offer in the first place?

    Reply
    • Karen Kelsky says

      January 30, 2019 at 3:16 pm

      Yes, given the circumstances, I’d ask for some arrangements along those lines.

      Reply

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