Useful practices in the job search

One of the most horrifying parts of the academic job search is the anxiety about what needs to be done. It can certainly seem endless, and at this point in my first academic job search, it often feels this way. However, this can be moderated by having a good idea about what will happen in the year on the market. Schedules matter and if you are prepared, then the job application process is more of a tedious compiling of materials than endless writing of new things for 50 applications.

The Schedule of Deliverables
So what do I mean? The Academic Job Search Handbook, among other good resources, has a nice schedule of the tasks you need to complete starting 2 years ahead of when you would plan to take a position, (assuming a fall start date.) This advice, and that of my department, is that you should have at least 2 good chapters or papers ready prior to about August. However, it was my experience that you should think about having drafts of all the job packet materials by about May. Why is this? Unfortunately, in business and management, the Academy of Management meeting is the major pre-screening interview venue. Many institutions that will interview there will want a number of materials, especially if they are European universities. (Some will even expect you to have the full package ready to send them by say, mid-July, so that they can look over all of your materials prior to that first interview.)

This is considerably earlier than the most often heard advice about having materials ready for about Sept / Oct, but think about the payoffs. If you can get a packet together by early summer, you can apply to any of these early jobs--don't confuse them with late-season 1-year hires/postdocs for the current fall though--and then you have reduced a lot of the pressure from the job search process. Moreover, when you do prepare packets for the traditional Sept/Oct deadlines, you will have had the chance to let these early materials sit, revise, revise some more and when you go to revise them finally for the fall deadlines, not only will they be more polished, but you'll be more able to notice any problems than if you had prepared them in a hurry.

What else is helpful?
For me, an Excel file listing all the positions. This is for me, and I will soon also be editing it to send to my recommendation letter writers so they can also stay organized. Another helpful thing is printing each job position announcement to PDF and putting in a position listings folder, and this can go into the folder for the specific job when I compile that packet. (I title them starting with the university name, as that seems quickest to search.) Also, since I've been getting a lot of announcements in email, I have an email subfolder called "fall deadlines to check" and when I enter the details into excel, that email goes into "entered into excel," along with--you guessed it--a PDF print of the page into the position listing folder. This all may sound compulsive, but the mindless task of organizing this material is kind of relaxing, not to mention the benefit of knowing that there isn't some announcement lurking out there that I wanted to look at but now can't find. Whatever reduces the stress, right?

What about postdocs?
Well, I'll apply for some of them, but I've decided to skip most of the ones that have the same Sept/Oct deadline and seem like a lot of additional work. I just don't think there will be time, so why put out some half-baked proposals? I'll see about whether I can manage some of themfor Dec/Jan deadlines. As with everything else, I'm trying to keep these organized. At first I listed them in a separate tab in my excel file, but then I realized that I might actually miss dates if they weren't in the same one, which can be sorted by post date or final due date....

What about UK jobs?
Indeed, I will also apply for jobs in the UK, but in this case, the calendar is a bit different, since UK universities post jobs much later. It seems they are posted about 6 months in advance, rather than the 1 year+ that happens with American jobs and some European jobs. So, I'll start to worry about these in December or so. (I wonder whether this is beneficial or not for the UK universities in the 'competition' for academic talent...?)

So, enough procrastination, it's time to get back to the job listings and organization.