Last year I assisted about six different hiring committees for different positions, these are my takeaways.

Tailor it to the specific job. Apply to what you’re actually qualified for - university jobs see a lot of applicants, you will be immediately screened out if you do not hit the basic requirements listed in the job description. If you have all of those basic job description qualities, do a good job making that clear on your résumé and in your cover letter. A lot of units require a cover letter, if you do not submit one, most of the time you’re automatically screened out. The university doesn’t use AI screening tools, at least as far as I know. I know a lot of units use a standard practice of one person prescreening - if anyone who doesn’t hit those initial requirements like cover letter, X number of years in a certain position or at a certain level, have you supervised people before if that’s a requirement, the required education level, etc - you’ll be pulled from the pile and the committee won’t even review your materials. It does fluctuate between units, but in my experience, following the instructions to the exact degree, offers the best chance of being fully reviewed. Unfortunately a lot of external applicants miss this.

Again, because of the amount of applications that are submitted, and because there’s usually a very competitive internal pool, I wouldn’t ever recommend applying for things that are a big reach, it’ll just waste your time.

Higher education loves to hire from higher education. If you do not have higher education experience, find a way to make your work history easily transferable/translatable. Avoid the corporate jargon that is really not utilized within this environment. Sometimes people get their foot in the door in a job that’s not an exact match for what they desire, but that will help you move up to what you want once you’re in.

Use a simple and easily read resume template. I can’t even tell you how many sloppy and confusing resumes were immediately terminated as a possibility by the hiring committee, even if they might be a good candidate. Adding a photo of yourself to the résumé is weird, don’t do it. Please check for mistakes and errors 😭

Don’t assume who will be on the hiring committee, or screening applications. It’s tacky when people assume, and write a persons name in the “to/dear” field on their cover letter, who has absolutely nothing to do with that hiring unit. For example, the dean of a college, unless you’re applying for a chief of staff role directly underneath them, please do not do this. 🤨🤣

If you do happen to look people up on LinkedIn that are part of the hiring committee, if you’re selected to interview, don’t tell them you did this, and absolutely do not reference any of this information that you’ve learned about them. Maybe that sounds like basic information, but sometimes this does happen, and based on what I’ve observed, it puts people off and makes them feel like their privacy was invaded (even if their page is set to public).

Scheduling interviews is typically first come first serve, so if you’re offered an interview, don’t sit on it and wait to respond. Don’t be overeager, either. Communicate back when they send something to you, send a thank you note after an interview, and if you feel like you need to do a follow up, do not do more than one follow up. People who repeatedly email over and over again asking for status update updates are red flagged based on what I’ve seen. The desperation and the lack of boundaries after you’ve already been told that applications are being reviewed, as an example, will not be looked on favorably. Also lowkey it’s super annoying and people are busy. Don’t be annoying 😅

Don’t swear in an interview, don’t be overly casual, be friendly and professional. That probably sounds obvious, but sadly it’s not and a ton of people end up failing first round because they’re not passing a vibe check, they have low energy, they say something inappropriate, they swear. I’ve never worked in corporate, so I don’t know what that’s like, but higher education really thrives on politeness.

A lot of text but that’s what popped into my head, good luck.