This website offers strategies for navigating the academic job market. What follows are some tips and tactics and some examples of job materials, including cover letters, CVs, teaching philosophies, and diversity statements. We have divided the site into three separate pages, one geared toward finding tenure-track positions, one geared toward finding lectureships, and one geared toward finding part-time positions. (The page you are currently on is focused on tenure-track positions.)
Note that the samples are password protected and may not be copied or distributed without the owners’ consent. Email [email protected] or [email protected] to request the password to view the sample documents.
Table of Contents
Overview of the hiring process
Application materials:
Cover Letter
CV
Teaching Philosophy
Teaching Portfolio
DEI Statement
Writing Sample
Overview of the hiring process
Navigating the academic job market may be the single most stressful thing an academic has to do, and that is saying a lot! Preparing an application demands time, effort, and focus. And resilience. The process asks you to perform an inventory of your professional self that is deep, extensive, and psychologically taxing. A host of uncomfortable feelings, anxieties, and resentments will surface and they will likely require time to process. Teaching or completing a dissertation while preparing an application only compounds these challenges.
Crafting a cohesive and compelling application package specific to a particular job is all the more essential, given that the full time market has constricted dramatically in recent decades. In many fields, there are only a couple tenure-track positions across the entire country in a given year, with hundreds of highly qualified candidates competing for them. Though this is a painful reality to contemplate, remembering this will ideally help applicants take the setbacks and disappointments that come their way somewhat less personally. Always keep in mind that many exceptional, brilliant scholars and teachers are turned down for jobs every year.
Rejections, though no reflection of your qualifications for a position, can be discouraging. We encourage you to persist and turn to us, your colleagues, for support and advice.
An Insider Perspective
Academic job market handbooks abound and we have links to other resources, some fairly exhaustive, that you may want to consult. This page offers strategies and tips from people who have been on the other side—serving on search committees, reviewing applications, interviewing candidates, and participating in department discussions about job searches.
Our goal here is to give our adjunct faculty some insider-knowledge, some advice for setting themselves apart, and some models from candidates who have landed jobs in recent years.
Create Specific and Coherent Application Package
In consulting any model or guide, always tailor application materials for the specific job listing in order to best represent YOU. Generic materials suggest a lack of interest and are rejected quickly.
Your documents must engage the specific elements contained in a job posting. Read a listing carefully to determine the type of position and attendant responsibilities, timelines for the process, specific materials required of you, and for some sense of the institution, department, student body, and the research and pedagogical culture. If these are not indicated, do your research and reflect this through the details you emphasize in your documents.
Craft a coherent application package of mutually reinforcing documents. Each document in your application has its own focus while still engaging key ideas shared across all your documents. For example, elements of your history of inclusivity that you detail in your DEI statement will appear in your cover letter, teaching philosophy, and the sample syllabus that may be required.
Prepare templates of each document required in advance–teaching and research focused; generalist and area specialist–and adapt the appropriate one for an application. Create different teaching portfolios for these different positions.
Timing and Planning are Essential
Creating your application package is incredibly time and labor intensive and psychologically draining. To do this properly, know the timeline–when jobs are posted and the specific deadlines involved. Create a conservative timeline for yourself.
Job searches in English usually begin in the fall, with advertisements appearing in the MLA Job list and the Chronicle of Higher Education in September or October, with deadlines for applications in November and December. But advertisements may also be posted in late December, January or even February, especially on CUNY’s job list.
Given that in fall you may be focused on writing or have a heavy teaching load, try to get your materials together by the end of summer. This means drafts of your cover letter, CV, writing sample(s), teaching philosophy, and diversity statement.
Recommendations
Equally important, reach out early to request letters of recommendation from three or more professors who can speak in detail about your scholarship.. Let your referees know the type of position and the differing importance of the various elements they should cover: scholarship, teaching, and service. The earlier you ask potential recommenders, the more control you have over the process, the happier they will be, the more time they will have, and the more likely they will be to write the kind of glowing letter that is standard in job candidates’ dossiers.
Know Where, How and in What Format to Submit Materials
Read a listing carefully to determine where and in what formats documents should be submitted. Many listings will require you to submit materials through Interfolio; many others will require you to use college or university portals. Some materials may need to be submitted to search committee chairs or department administrative assistants.
Some portals for materials may be clunky, finicky, or counterintuitive. Give yourself enough time to navigate and negotiate them, and, when problems persist, to request assistance or alternatives in a timely manner.
Know the format for materials, whether Word or PDFs, separate documents or a single combined one. It’s a nightmare to deal with these problems at the last minute.
The Review and Interview Timelines
Departments typically review materials in November and December, with the goal of doing interviews in January, but reviews of materials and interviews may occur over the spring.
While most search committees request a complete application package inclusive of all materials, some committees may require different materials at different stages of the review process. Be sure to know when specific materials are required, and do not include unsolicited documents.
There are usually two rounds of interviews–semi finalist and finalist. Semi finalist interviews used to happen at the MLA conference. Now most are done on Zoom. Usually only a small number of candidates reach the semi-finalist stage (between 12-20) but this varies from department to department and from job search to job search.
Job Talks and Campus Visits
Even fewer candidates are finalists (3-5) invited for job talks and campus visits. While they can occur anytime between February and April, they are usually scheduled fairly early in the semester, whether in person or virtual. The in-person or virtual campus visit will generally involve multiple events including the job talk, a teaching demo, meetings with different groups of undergrads and grad students, faculty members, and various administrators including the chair and dean, sometimes over meals.
If you make it to the job-talk stage, you can be confident that the search committee is very excited about your materials and eager to meet you and learn more about your research. Given that all finalists are highly qualified, the goal here is to identify who fits best as a colleague.
A job talk involves a 30-45 minute talk on a finalist’s research and scholarship typically followed by a departmental Q&A. During the talk and in response to the questions you will get throughout the day, you should try to demonstrate collegiality by sharing knowledge in terms accessible to an audience of both specialists and non-specialists. You will field questions from perspectives that may seem awkward from a specialist’s point of view. Remain engaging, thoughtful, generous, and gracious.
Waiting
One final piece of information: many departments will not communicate with candidates or notify them about the status of the search until it is complete. This means that job applicants may receive no communication for weeks or months at a time and may wonder whether they are still in the running.
A useful resource is the English Jobs Wiki page. There candidates offer updates about each job search. For instance, those who got invited to do an interview or give a job talk will often note that on the page, indicating when they received the invitation, which allows other applicants to have a sense of what stage the search is at and where they stand.
Application Materials
The application packet for a full-time teaching position commonly includes the following documents:
- Cover Letter
- CV
- Teaching Philosophy
- Teaching Portfolio
- DEI Statement
- Writing Sample (Tenure Track) or Narrative of Classroom Activity (Lectureship)
Note that all of the following samples are password protected and may not be copied or distributed without the owners’ consent. Email [email protected] or [email protected] to request the password to view the sample documents.
Cover Letter
A 1-2-page introduction to you and your job application materials, your cover letter is the very first thing most search committee members will read. It’s your way of introducing yourself as a scholar, teacher, and colleague.
Tip 1: Framing is essential.
Do not send a generic letter. Demonstrate your qualifications for that particular position in that department, and with the student population you may teach. Do your research and underscore details from your scholarship, teaching, and service experience that make you a good match for the department’s needs. Frame details positively. For instance, position your heavy adjunct teaching load across different campuses as the way you’ve developed an expansive skill set with different learners. Positivity and enthusiasm demonstrate the type of colleague you will be.
Customize your letter in the penultimate paragraph and with brief, apt references elsewhere in the body. In the penultimate paragraph, refer to specific courses you will teach or create; minors or concentrations you will introduce, or institutes, initiatives, or programs at the department or college you want to contribute to.
Frame for relevance. For some of us, especially those with extensive work histories, our CVs may reflect a range of employment, scholarly interests, and teaching experiences. Be sure that you indicate how important knowledge, skills and practices gained from these efforts strengthen your candidacy for the position you’re applying to. For instance, show how working as an editor or researcher informs your teaching or how your experience as a writing center consultant makes you more effective when conferencing with students.
Tip 2: Stick to the conventions of the genre.
Focus on introducing yourself as clearly, concisely, and elegantly as you can. You want to come across as articulate, confident, and thoughtful. Given the desire to stand out, you may feel tempted to open with something unconventional. But it is easy to hit the wrong note, or seem desperate or self-congratulatory. Don’t risk standing out in the wrong way.
Tip 3: Address problem areas.
The cover letter is the place to address any problem areas in your candidacy. You may lack certain qualifications or teaching experience in the desired subject area. Or you may have changed the focus of your research. Succinctly acknowledge relevant gaps in your training or work experience and then quickly move on to the qualifications that you think are most important. Be creative, but not facile, in highlighting resources and experiences that you can draw from or will enable you to deal with problem areas. For instance, an abandoned book project could be described as the foundation for a series of articles. Similarly, you may not have taught an upper-level elective but were a TA to or gave a lecture for the instructor of record.
Tip 4: Cover your research, teaching, and service experience in that order.
Start with your research. Explain it in terms accessible to non-specialists. Offer an example or two of arguments/readings that you think are especially smart and relevant. Explain how your work builds upon and challenges other scholarship in the field. Talk about ongoing research and give a sense of what you’re planning to work on in the years to come.
After research, demonstrate your teaching strengths. In the cover letter, introduce your overall approach, which you will elaborate on in your teaching philosophy. But even in your cover letter, avoid vague generalities. Don’t just say, for instance, “I like engaging my students in dialogue,” or “I think it is important to encourage my students to question their assumptions,” or “I give my students careful feedback on their writing.” After articulating your overall strategy, offer a concrete, vivid example or two of what you do and how and why it works. Save some other anecdotes for the teaching philosophy, so you don’t have to repeat yourself.
Place service last.
Whether or not you have service experience, indicate what kind of service work you would like to do, being sure to articulate the values or ideals you think your work could serve. Some research might be helpful here: if you can find descriptions of particular committees or ongoing projects on the department’s website that seem appealing to you, then you might consider mentioning them and indicating how you could contribute to them.
Sample Cover Letters
Cover letter by Dan Libertz.
Cover letter by Stephanie Vella.
Below are additional resources from the Graduate Center’s Job Search Portal.
BMCC Cover Letter
Community College Cover Letter
Moriah Cover Letter
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CV
Tip 1: Do not overwhelm the eye with clutter.
CVs are tools for conveying professional information about yourself as efficiently and clearly as possible, so the best advice is simply to look at good models (including the ones on this webpage) and to borrow whatever strategies seem most effective. It’s better to take a couple more pages than to squeeze too much information onto the page.
Tip 2: Definitely play with the formatting.
Adjust the formatting to make sure the sections are clearly labeled and demarcated. Share your CV with others and ask them whether it reads well. Try to structure it so that readers can get the information they need in a glance or two.
Tip 3: Update your CV before you send it out.
Put your most recent publications at the top. One thing search committees look for is evidence of ongoing productivity up to the present moment. A number of publications five years ago but nothing in the past few years can be a red flag that you need to address in your cover letter. Do your best to make it look like you have been consistently productive and that you continue to be productive. Be sure to list publications that are under review. You want to give the impression that you are sending essays out and are on your way to building the kind of publication record that will make you a good candidate for tenure. You don’t need to be there yet, but you want to convince readers that you are headed in the right direction.
Sample CVs
CV by Jennifer Caroccio Maldonado.
CV by Dan Libertz.
CV by Stephanie Vella.
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Teaching Philosophy
Tip 1: Be as concrete and specific as possible.
Teaching philosophies can easily be boring and generic. Avoid this by telling succinctly and then showing: Articulate a key concept and then show how it manifests as actual classroom activities.
Use vivid details to describe what you did step by step–whether it was a creative group exercise, a classroom debate, a museum visit followed by a free-write, or a multimodal assignment. Discuss how the students responded, why an activity was successful, and how it accomplished stated learning objectives. If possible, use a central metaphor, a theoretical school or an important text to create a narrative that can hold your reader’s attention.
Make it detailed enough so that readers can imagine trying out the strategies you are describing. If they come away wanting to steal your tricks and use them in their own classes, that means you’ve probably written a good teaching philosophy.
Tip 2: Always include student-centered learning activities.
Make it clear that you do not just stand at the front of the room and either lecture or ask questions to the whole class for the entire period. Even if you do this kind of traditional pedagogy well, it doesn’t make for a convincing teaching philosophy.
Talk about the particular activities you have introduced, the hands-on workshops you have created, and the small group discussions and activities you have facilitated, showing how you enable students to practice the skills you are trying to teach.
Detail how you ensure that these activities are effective. Don’t just say you break the students into groups. Explain what you do—the kind of questions, independent assignments, quality control measures, the formal and informal check-ins that you use—that make group work meaningful.
Tip 3: Acknowledge challenges you have faced.
Overconfidence is a bad sign—it suggests you may be unwilling to troubleshoot your classes and grow as a teacher. Discuss assignments or activities that did not go as anticipated and problems you have confronted that you know other teachers can relate to. Address how your reflection upon these experiences and challenges inform the way you have changed assignments, activities, or current practices.
Sample Teaching Philosophy Statements
Teaching Philosophy by Jennifer Caroccio Maldonado.
Teaching Philosophy by Dan Libertz.
Teaching Philosophy by Harold Ramdass.
Teaching Philosophy by Constantin Schreiber.
Teaching Philosophy by Stephanie Vella.
Below are additional resources from the Graduate Center’s English Department Job Search Portal.
Albracht Teaching Statement
Greco Teaching Philosophy
Huang Teaching Statement
Moriah Teaching Statement
Sample Teaching Statement 1
Sample Teaching Statement 2
Sample Teaching Statement 3
Sample Community College Teaching Philosophy
Teaching Philosophy Samples Brown University
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Teaching Portfolio
Generally, an optimal portfolio includes:
1. All the other docs included in the website (teaching philosophy, DEI statement)
PLUS
2. Major assignment sheets from one course.
3. A narrative of some activity used in class that demonstrates one’s teaching philosophy.
4. Peer Observations (including most recent)*
5. Student evaluations (3-5 years)*
Tip 1: It must pertain to the listing.
Your teaching portfolio must pertain to the specific job listing and courses you’ll be asked to teach. Create a portfolio of materials for such a course or courses. If you’re not teaching that area currently, give your most recent teaching materials on that area that reflect assignments, texts, and pedagogies that you currently use in the classroom.
If you haven’t taught in that exact field, give materials from a course or field closest to it. Demonstrate through these materials that you know and use relevant strategies and assignments to achieve similar course goals and learning outcomes. For example, if a listing is for first year writing but you’ve never taught it, give materials from a writing-intensive literature course.
Tip 2: Be kind to your readers.
Avoid excessive or extraneous material. They’ll just skip it altogether. Include 1-2 representative syllabi and the very best assignments/exercises you have. Always remember: search committees are reading dozens if not hundreds of applications.
Make it obvious what you have to offer. If you’ve got a particularly creative project or assignment that readers will remember, include that. Even if they forget everything else, if they can say, “That’s the person who has their students do x,” it will be to your advantage.
Tip 3: Collect your student evaluations and peer observations.
Collect 2-5 years of your student evaluations and student observations since some searches may ask for these materials, and they can be hard to assemble on short notice. This can be a longer and more frustrating process than you can imagine. You may have to track down hard copies or copies of originals and digitize them, or request copies from your department.
Even if you have access to a portal such as myEvalCenter, which makes it easy to obtain student evaluations, you’ll still need time to navigate such a system.
Some committees may not request student evaluations and peer observations because of concerns over possible biases, particularly regarding race and gender.
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DEI Statement
The DEI statement shows your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as a teacher, colleague, potential supervisor, committee member or chair, or any other position or role that you may assume while employed.
Tip 1: Think broadly, give specifics.
Whether or not you are from an underrepresented category, use this statement to articulate your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity.
As much as you can, focus on concrete steps you have taken, work you have done, and decisions you have made to help empower people from underserved communities.
These concrete steps may include DEI statements included in your syllabi, inclusive practices to create safe learning environments, support for colleagues from underrepresented or minoritized groups, or reparative efforts such as volunteering, mentoring, or teaching in prisons and hospitals, or serving as an immigration assistance service provider. Give a clear sense of what you’ve done and why.
Tip 2: You can self-out.
If you are from an underrepresented background, the diversity statement is a good opportunity to indicate this and to explain how your background has shaped you as a scholar and teacher, and how it has enhanced your ability to support your students and colleagues. Remember, unless you identify your background, it may not be obvious to committee members.
Tip 3: You can identify social barriers you have faced.
These may not be apparent to the search committee. If you have an invisible disability, you should discuss it here. If you are a first-generation college student and/or from a working class background, mention it and explain how it has influenced your scholarship and your approach to teaching.
Sample DEI Statements
Diversity Statement by Stephanie Vella.
Diversity Statement by Harold Ramdass.
Diversity Statement by Dan Libertz.
Diversity Statement by Constantin Schreiber.
Below are additional resources from the Graduate Center’s Job Search Portal.
- Developing and Writing a Diversity Statement
- Rubric to Assess Diversity Statements
- Sample diversity statement 1
- Sample diversity statement 2
- More sample diversity statements and guidelines
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Writing Sample
Writing samples are generally 20-30-page essays or excerpts from a longer research project that showcase your skills and methodology as a scholar, critic, and thinker and demonstrate your expertise in the advertised field. We are not including examples of writing samples here, since the texts candidates submit vary widely from one field or position to another. We do, however, have some advice. Your writing sample will ideally be the most polished piece of writing you have that is directly relevant to the area advertised. If possible, send in a published article. If you don’t have a published article that is relevant to the job listing, then submit a section of your dissertation, a chapter of your book manuscript, or a final draft of an article. The sample should not read like an excerpt that has been torn away from something longer. It should read like a coherent argument with a clear beginning and ending. If you choose to submit an excerpt from your dissertation or book manuscript, consider offering a note that explains how the sample fits into your larger project.
Tip 1: Submit something that is both accessible and striking.
Committees will be looking at dozens, if not hundreds, of writing samples, and they will not always have time to read through the entire piece. They may not reach the conclusion. Though they will try, they may not have time to make sense of every step in your argument. What they will notice from reading the first couple pages is your style: whether your writing is graceful or clunky and whether you explain ideas in a lucid fashion. Keeping this in mind, pick a sample that you think will be both accessible and enjoyable to nonspecialists. Ideally it will open with a memorable image, anecdote, close reading, or provocation–something your readers will be able to remember and that demonstrates your interpretive acuity.
Tip 2: Be sure your sample articulates its central claim and intervention early on.
Given that readers may not get through the whole piece, make sure you indicate what your central argument is early in the sample–within the first couple pages. You may want to start with a more specific close reading or example to get your readers’ attention, but make sure you step back after that and indicate what your essay is seeking to accomplish. Ideally, your intervention will be in conversation with scholarship in the field while also challenging prevailing views or offering a new perspective on a particular topic.
Tip 3: The closer your sample is to a published article the better.
If possible, submit an actual published article using a PDF of the publication. A published article will automatically seem more impressive than an MS word document. Even if it hasn’t come out yet, and you only have proofs, consider sending those. The closer your piece looks to a published work, the more your readers will think of it as a vetted, polished, significant contribution to scholarly conversations, and the more professional you will seem. Unconsciously, readers will approach published essays with greater respect and fewer reservations than pieces that look more like drafts. No matter what format you submit, be sure to edit it very carefully so that is as streamlined, smooth, and error-free as possible. Though search committees may not read the piece in its entirety, they may jump around and look closely at different sections that interest them, so the whole sample needs to be consistently strong.
And Finally…
It really helps to have your advisor or a trusted colleague review your documents for content and tone. If you want an extra pair of eyes on your materials, feel free to write to the chair of the Baruch English Department ([email protected]), the Writing Director, ([email protected]) or Harold Ramdass ([email protected]), a long-term adjunct professor who was recently hired as a full-time lecturer and has played a central role in putting together the mentoring program for adjunct faculty. They will be happy to review people’s job materials. One of them can also set you up with a departmental mentor who can work with you on your application and discuss various aspects of the job market.
(These materials were put together by Timothy Aubry, Harold Ramdass, and Molly Mosher in consultation with numerous other faculty in the Baruch English Department.)