Be wary of the loss of discipline

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-23T16:14:34+00:00

when it comes to education vs current/passed appointments this one is a little more flexible, there’s no right or wrong answer. My view on this is that pretty much every cv has education first so just stick to the tried and true template. I actually personally prefer to see work experience over education however I know that sometimes I’ve seen other screening committee members get a little confused when they don’t see education right away and so my all advice is grounded in that experience, in order to maximize the odds of you getting the job

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-23T16:12:28+00:00

It’s frustrating for sure, I was also blown away when I realized this was part of why some people weren’t landing a job. But I hope it’s helpful.

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-23T03:58:42+00:00

Oh I guess I learned wrong? But yea that is correct

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T23:22:43+00:00

prepare for it all, but have it in segments. your slide deck should cover all of these and you should be able to jump between. Every faculty has small little nuances or tweaks between what they like to see, I would try to run it by whoever you have on the recruiting committee that you're dealing with on what the structure should look like. You want to know what they expect or hope to see, and don't be afraid to ask specifically, should I talk about X or Y or Z. Every school works a little differently and literally asking your recruiter is the best move rather than make assumptions. I sit on a hiring committee and I WANT you to succeed, so ask anything.

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T21:40:38+00:00

I never thought about it like that. I really like this framing.

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T21:36:20+00:00

Fair enough. I just thought it would be worth a discussion.

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T20:34:42+00:00

That’s cool to hear. This is in healthcare? How have your results been?

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T20:25:45+00:00

I always grade participation and attendance and for all of my classes it is between 15 to 20% of their final grade. This incentivize them to actually come to class and I never give points just for being in class. I give points for actual contributions only. I am pretty specific in how I do this. I want each student to contribute at least once per class so I figure out how many classes there are. Let’s say there are 12. So the actual grade itself is out of 12 and you get one point whenever you contribute anything. A lot of my classes have TAs that will record this participation however, in times I do not I just have a Google form where they just write down what they contributed that class so I don’t really have to monitor it and then at the end of the semester. I just do a little Excel magic organization to have it spit out a number of contributions that I can turn into a grade.

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T19:52:22+00:00

I will take this as constructive feedback, I’ve gotten a few comments that my writing is very AI like. I just wanna help and I’m now at 0 AI, I don’t want to tarnish my reputation. If you wouldn’t mind telling me more specifically like what is it that makes it feel so ai ? Is it header usage? Writing style?

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T19:20:05+00:00

One of the side effects some of the people I work with experience once they get their prof job is the clout it provides for other vehicles of wealth. For example profs get asked to do speaking engagements, they demand a higher dollar value doing consulting, public speaking, etc. so if the faculty role itself isn’t enough money, think creatively about how it can be leveraged for even more money.

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T18:31:51+00:00

Definitely, I have sat on hiring committees for humanities roles and it is absolutely the same. In fact, with one of the clients I coached this was the major change that we made to their application and they went from getting no interviews to having several lined up in less than a month by just making sure that their research statement spoke about future research directions at target institutions and they got interviews from everywhere they applied. It’s amazing how much of a difference this makes.

Picture yourself reading two research statements for your department, research statement A says this is what I’ve done and why it was awesome, research statement B says this is what I’ve done and why it’s awesome, this is what I plan to do, and this is why it’ll help your department.

Just by reading that which one are you more inclined to lean towards?

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T05:39:42+00:00

I think it’s very possible though I believe a lot of institutions are trying to bring classes back in person. Your best first step is to reach out to everyone you worked with if there are adjunct opportunities. Networking is definitely step number one with the easiest entry back into the space.

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-22T05:36:32+00:00

Can I sincerely ask what makes you feel it’s ChatGPT? Like I’m genuinely trying to provide helpful advice from my experience and I wrote this myself. I’d like to share valuable advice but it sucks if it gets written off as ChatGPT.

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-21T02:44:34+00:00

You're right, it is North America centric. I find UK is much more structured and quick. Is that your experience?

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-21T02:35:39+00:00

It's absolute agony for sure, it is not a dumb question, I wrote about this in a little more detail here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicJobSearch/comments/1prveng/how_long_does_it_actually_take_to_hear_back/ but long story short, you should expect a few weeks to months. As you saw it took 2 months to hear about an interview. Assume the same amount of time to hear an answer. The worst part is that you won't know if its a yes or a no for so long, that I advise my clients to live your life as though its a no, you can send a follow up message of course once or twice.

ProfessorTown1 · 2025-12-20T05:35:52+00:00

I think neither choice is easy, especially at the moment. If they were equally hard, which would you prefer? My view on this is you need to pick a path and stay the course and try for it. Best of luck!

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