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How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters

Academic Job Search Live Webinars Start Friday!

By Karen Kelsky | October 25, 2022

Our Academic Job Market Webinar Series Starts this week! While the data is mixed, some fields are seeing a rebound in academic hiring to pre-pandemic levels (which are not good levels, but are better than the last couple of years). If you're … [Read more...] about Academic Job Search Live Webinars Start Friday!

Filed Under: Academic Job Search, Graduate Student Concerns, How to Interview, How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, How To Write CVs, Landing Your Tenure Track Job

Leveling the Academic Playing Field: Our Mission

By Karen Kelsky | August 15, 2022

I periodically publish a Careers Digest on Facebook, and here is the one for August 2022. We'll start a whole new one for the '22-23 academic year from this point on. Our individual goal is to help you advance in your career; our overarching … [Read more...] about Leveling the Academic Playing Field: Our Mission

Filed Under: Academic Job Search, How to Get Grants and Fellowships, How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, How To Write CVs, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes

Spring 2022 Career Outcomes Digest

By Karen Kelsky | February 24, 2022

I just gathered up a new Spring 2022 Career Outcomes Digest, with updates from both clients and readers. Lots of great updates on interviews, job offers, negotiations, and grants, plus one successful client tenure case! The negotiators make me … [Read more...] about Spring 2022 Career Outcomes Digest

Filed Under: Academic Job Search, Advising Advice, How to Get Grants and Fellowships, How to Interview, How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

Nihilism Was Inevitable

By Karen Kelsky | December 12, 2021

A genre of tweet has been gaining steam the last couple weeks, about the complete meaninglessness of academic job application documents or processes. It's all a crap shoot, argues this line of thought. Further, the collapse in hiring has only exposed … [Read more...] about Nihilism Was Inevitable

Filed Under: Academic Job Search, How to Interview, How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, How To Write CVs, Major Job Market Mistakes, Mental Health and Academia, Ph.D. Poverty, Post-Ac Job Search, Quitting--An Excellent Option, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

#Dispatches From the Front, What Candidates Are Doing Wrong, Part III of III: “Don’t Forget the Basics”

By Karen Kelsky | February 10, 2020

In our new Dispatches series, we crowdsource responses to questions we see about the academic job market and career. Last week we put out the question: “Search committee members–what mistakes do you see candidates make? What do you wish they … [Read more...] about #Dispatches From the Front, What Candidates Are Doing Wrong, Part III of III: “Don’t Forget the Basics”

Filed Under: Dispatches, How to Interview, How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

Workshop Summary: Hacking the Academic Job Market

By Karen Kelsky | September 19, 2019

By Katie Harling-Lee This post and a companion post on the Non-Academic Job Market are summaries of two talks I gave at the University of Durham in the UK, generously compiled by Katie Harling-Lee, who attended. For anyone curious about my … [Read more...] about Workshop Summary: Hacking the Academic Job Market

Filed Under: How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

How to Turn Your Teaching Duds into Memorable Statements

By Karen Kelsky | July 31, 2019

Sharing another post in our new semi-regular series, "Missives from the Editing Trenches" written by long-time TPII editors. They are the real MVPs, working in the trenches to catch you in all your job document pitfalls -- from the self-deprecating … [Read more...] about How to Turn Your Teaching Duds into Memorable Statements

Filed Under: How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes, Strategizing Your Success in Academia, Teaching and Research Statements, Teaching Portfolios

Trailer Park Professor: On R1 Success and Learning to Value Yourself (A Guest Post)

By Karen Kelsky | March 30, 2019

I got the chance to meet a client-turned-R1 assistant professor at the AAA meetings, and I asked her what she found most helpful about the work with me.  She took the time to write it out. This is what she wrote. I finished my PhD in Anthropology … [Read more...] about Trailer Park Professor: On R1 Success and Learning to Value Yourself (A Guest Post)

Filed Under: Advising Advice, Graduate Student Concerns, How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes, Mental Health and Academia, Shame, Strategizing Your Success in Academia, Yes, You Can: Women in Academia

Your Academic Cover Letter: Don’t Fall into the Cliché Trap About Teaching!

By Karen Kelsky | November 18, 2017

By TPII editor extraordinaire, Verena Hutter This is a continuation of our 2017 series on the Academic Cover Letter. Verena is walking us through the paragraphs of the cover letter.  Scroll back through the blog over the past 10 weeks or so for … [Read more...] about Your Academic Cover Letter: Don’t Fall into the Cliché Trap About Teaching!

Filed Under: How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes, Writing

The UK Job Market, Part III: “I Beg Your Pardon, But May I Have This Job?” (The Winning Cover Letter)

By Karen Kelsky | November 3, 2017

By Alice Kelly, Ph.D. Alice Kelly is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. She completed her PhD in English at Cambridge in 2014, with a year as a Fox Fellow at Yale, and before that she studied at Sussex, Reed College … [Read more...] about The UK Job Market, Part III: “I Beg Your Pardon, But May I Have This Job?” (The Winning Cover Letter)

Filed Under: How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters, International Perspectives, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

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