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December 21, 2001

To Whom It May Concern: Reading Job Applications
By Dennis Baron
Deadlines in our job searches usually fall in mid-November, and by
the time that you read this column our committees are well into
reading and evaluating the applications.

Initially we ask candidates for a letter, a vita, and a short description

of their dissertation. If we like what we see, then we ask a candidate
for more background materials, but before I get to that, let me start
at the beginning, with the job letter.

The job letter represents what Star Trek fans would call "first
contact." It motivates search-committee members to look at the vita,
and it sets the tone for how we read the short research description.
Our job applicants, with advanced degrees in English, are all
accomplished writers: They routinely construct and deconstruct
literary essays with ease. Some of them write and publish poetry
and fiction. But most of our applicants haven't had much practice
writing job letters, and writing a good one is no easy task.

The academic job letter is an odd genre that contains an

uncomfortable mix of elements. In content it is part intellectual
autobiography, part academic transcript, part probing and analytical
exploration of ideas, part list of accomplishments. In style it mixes
exposition, narrative, and theory-speak with the blaring hype of a
toothpaste ad and the quiet concision of a lyric poem. It is an
impossible combination to execute with grace, and we accept the
fact that most job letters fall into the category of a horse designed by
a committee.

When I read letters, I want to give every applicant a shot at showing

me what he or she can do, so I try to finish every letter that I start.
But I'm not immune to the frailties and distractions that beset any
reader, and when I'm faced with working through several hundred
applications in a short span of time, I remember the advice I give
my students: It's the writer's job to keep the reader reading.
Sometimes the applicant needs to motivate me to move on to the
next paragraph or turn to the next page.

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Every once in a while there's a job letter with a fatal flaw. My

attention flags when it's not immediately clear which of our several
vacancies a candidate is applying for; when it's evident that the
candidate's expertise does not match the field where our opening
lies; or when the candidate does not meet the minimum preparation
we require: a completed Ph.D. in the field, or other appropriate
terminal degree, by the time employment is to begin at the start of
the next academic year. I also stop reading, or seriously pause, if the
candidate's letter seems to speak to someone at another institution.
I fully expect candidates to apply for many jobs, but if they forget to
take out references to a different chair of a different department in a
different city, I may move along.

Misspelling my name is not a fatal flaw (my students regularly

butcher my name without penalty as well). Nor is failing to run the
spell checker (I forget to do that too). On the other hand, I work in a
discipline that hyperfocuses on the text, and letters written in an
offhand fashion and without rhetorical skill don't further the
candidate's chances. Nor do cliché, jargon, and long, ungainly
nominalized phrases. We conducted one medieval literature search
a while back where I remember thinking, if I read one more letter
about "writing the medieval body" I will scream. There's nothing
wrong with writing the body, but once it's been done, it's time to
move on. We're not looking to hire a prose replicator, but someone
whose work stands out above the crowd.

I shy away from applicants who "intervene in conversations,"

"interrogate hybridity," or "mourn alterity," but who provide no
examples to convince me that they can walk the walk as well as talk
the talk. There is nothing wrong with theory or with jargon: We
need and want to hire faculty members doing smart work, and smart
work requires specialized language. We expect the "subaltern" to
speak, but we also expect her or him to be able to write in ways that
move us forward, not back or sideways.

A good job letter summarizes the candidate's professional life in a

way that allows me to see whether there's a good match between
that person and my department. I want letter writers to tell me just
what difference their work has made, what is interesting,
innovative, field-changing, about their scholarship. I want to know
what the applicant has learned about teaching that will benefit our
students, that will help me to be a better teacher. There's an old
showbiz saw that advises performers to leave the audience wanting
more. The successful job letter leaves me wanting more.

Beyond the job letter, we ask candidates for a CV and a one-to-

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three-page description of their dissertation. With applicants who

have had the Ph.D. for a while, we ask for a description of their
current research project (as a department stressing both research
and teaching, we always expect there to be a current research
project). After reviewing the initial applications, we then ask the
candidates who interest us to send letters of reference and a writing
sample.

Candidates place great faith in their letters of reference. Search

committees tend not to. I admit that letters of reference can provide
us with useful information: They tell us if a candidate is working
efficiently, participates in the life of the department and the
profession, and has a positive impact on students.

Unfortunately, many letters of reference present what one of our

veteran searchers calls a "general testimonial." They have lots of
positive adjectives, with the odd superlative thrown in, but such
testimonials give us little in the way of detail, no specific examples
of achievement in research or teaching to let us see the candidate as
a potential colleague. Sometimes, it's true, a phrase like "best
student I've had in 30 years of teaching" catches our eye --
especially if that letter writer doesn't say that about everyone, or if
one of the search-committee members knows the referee
personally. Even so, such statements need detail to back them up.

Some job candidates seem to think that it's better to have a

big-name referee writing a brief paragraph than a lesser-known
mentor who can provide a detailed and nuanced account of their
strengths. But given the choice, our search committees prefer the
latter. We also prefer that candidates waive the right to see their
letters of reference. That's not because we want letter writers to
have the chance to trash their graduate students with impunity (no
letter writer does that, anyway), but because letter writers who
know that the candidate has access to the letter usually verge
toward the lukewarm center. Their letters tend to be shorter, and
they provide much less positive detail, which in turn makes their
reference worth even less.

While letters of reference have a weaker rather than a stronger

overall effect on advancing someone's candidacy, our search
committees do put an extraordinary amount of emphasis on the
writing sample. We begin by specifying to candidates the kind of
writing sample we want them to send us. Some applicants for a
beginning assistant professorship have already published short
pieces while they were graduate students, perhaps a book review or
an essay in a newsletter. That's great, but it's not what we want to

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see. We look for a chapter- or article-length piece, something long

enough to allow candidates to show off their best work to the
committee.

If it's a published article in a high-quality, peer-reviewed journal,

fine. But most beginning candidates don't have that kind of
publication. What we get, then, is a chapter from the dissertation. In
this case, we prefer that it not be the first chapter: A later chapter
confirms that the writer is likely to finish the dissertation before
joining our faculty, and it shows us that the candidate is able to
think well beyond the planning stages of the work.

At this stage in our deliberations, the writing sample provides the

single most significant measure of a candidate's intellectual ability
and research potential. A strong writing sample can shore up a
candidate whose interview does not go well. On the other hand, a
strong interview never trumps a weak writing sample. Finally, the
writing sample can serve as a predictor for a candidate's ultimate
tenurability. We find, when searching at the assistant-professor
level, that being tough at the hiring stage results in greater success
six years down the road, when it's time to make a tenure decision.

A number of our candidates provide, or ask if we want to see, their

teaching portfolios. The idea of a teaching portfolio is a wonderful
one. I've actually conducted a number of workshops both at my own
institution and at a number of professional conferences, about the
value of a teaching portfolio for professional development, and, to a
lesser extent, for assessment. I must say that while we place a lot of
emphasis on successful teaching when we do a search, we get more
useful information about that teaching from a candidate's vita --
showing the courses he or she has taught -- and the interview, if
things proceed to that stage, for it's at an interview that candidates
have the opportunity to teach us what they can do.

Once we've read through all the materials, I ask each member of the
search committee to rank those candidates for whom we've
requested references and writing samples. Typically we work with
three categories: (a) definitely worth an interview; (b) may be worth
interviewing; and (c) do not interview. We then meet as a
committee, go over the individual rankings, and talk about each
candidate. We go back and forth, comparing and commenting, and
eventually we arrive at a list of applicants to interview at the
Modern Language Association conference.

Our goal is roughly 10 interviews for every search, although we

move this number up or down depending on the depth and strength
of the candidate pool. Our decisions are influenced in large part by

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the writing sample, the one best indicator of a candidate's ability to

do significant, field-enhancing research, and to write it up.

We find, looking back over our recent history, that candidates who
barely make it into the "definitely worth an interview" group are not
candidates we wind up hiring. Nonetheless, we want to interview
the full range of finalists to ensure both fairness in the search and
our own confidence as we determine whom we will recommend for
a job offer.

Job candidates rank their success first by the number of dossier

requests they receive, then by the number of interviews they garner
at the convention. In my next column I'll talk about how we conduct
job interviews, and how we prepare our own graduate students for
that rite of passage.

Dennis Baron is chairman of the English department at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is writing a
regular column this academic year on how the academic job search
process works from the hiring side of the table.
Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
The Chronicle of Higher Education 1255 Twenty-Third St, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037

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