Academic cover letters: top ten tips
Dr Steve Joy
This is a re-posting of the second piece I've written for the Guardian Higher Education Network. You can read the original piece here.
The classic counterpart to a CV, cover letters are standard in almost all job applications. Academic cover letters are typically allowed to be longer than in other sectors, but this latitude comes with its own pitfalls. For one, many cover letters are written as if they were simply a retelling in full sentences of everything on the CV. But this makes no sense. Selectors will have skimmed through your CV already, and they don’t want to re-read it in prose form. Instead, approach your cover letter as a short essay. It needs to present a coherent, evidence-based response to one question above all: why would you be an excellent hire for this position?
This is a re-posting of the second piece I've written for the Guardian Higher Education Network. You can read the original piece here.
The classic counterpart to a CV, cover letters are standard in almost all job applications. Academic cover letters are typically allowed to be longer than in other sectors, but this latitude comes with its own pitfalls. For one, many cover letters are written as if they were simply a retelling in full sentences of everything on the CV. But this makes no sense. Selectors will have skimmed through your CV already, and they don’t want to re-read it in prose form. Instead, approach your cover letter as a short essay. It needs to present a coherent, evidence-based response to one question above all: why would you be an excellent hire for this position?
1. Start
with a clear identity
Consider
this sentence: “My research interests include Thomas Mann, German Modernist
literature, the body, the senses, Freudian psychoanalysis, queer theory and
performativity, poststructuralism, and Derridean deconstruction.” In my
experience this type of sentence is all too common. Who is this person? What do
they really do? If I’m asking myself these questions after more than a few
lines of your cover letter, then you’ve already fallen into the trap of being beige
and forgettable. To get shortlisted, you need to stand out. So, let’s start as
we mean to go on. Your opening paragraph should answer the following questions:
What is your current job and affiliation? What’s your research field, and
what’s your main contribution to it? What makes you most suitable for this
post?
2. Evidence,
evidence, evidence
It’s
generally accepted that, in job applications, we need to ‘sell’ ourselves, but
how to do this can be a source of real anxiety. Where’s the line between
assertiveness, modesty, and arrogance? The best way to guard against self-aggrandisement
or self-abnegation is to focus on evidence.
For example, ‘I am internationally recognised as an expert in my field’ is
arrogant, because you are making a bold claim and asking me to trust your
account of yourself. By contrast, ‘I was invited to deliver a keynote talk at [top
international conference]’ is tangible and verifiable. Moreover, if you can
produce facts and figures to strengthen your evidence, then your letter will
have even more impact, e.g. ‘I created three protocols which improved
reliability by N%. These protocols
are now embedded in my group’s experiments and are also being used by XXX’. Remember
what your readers most need from your letter: they need you to be distinctive
and memorable.
N.B.
Never cite the job description back at the selectors. If they have asked for
excellent communication skills, you’re going to need to do better than merely
including the sentence ‘I have excellent communication skills.’ What is your
evidence for this claim?
3. It’s
not an encyclopaedia
Because
everything you say must be supported with evidence, you can’t say everything. I
find that many people are prone to a sort of encyclopaedic fervour in their
cover letters: they slavishly address each line of the job description, mention
every single side project which they have on the go, every book chapter and
review article they’ve ever written, and so on. Letters like this just end up being
plaintive, excessively tedious, and ineffective. Instead, show that you can
distinguish your key achievements (e.g. top publications, grants won, invited
talks) from the purely nice-to-have stuff (e.g. seminar series organised,
review articles, edited collections). Put your highlights and best evidence in
the letter – leave the rest to the CV.
4. Think
holistically
Similarly,
there’s no need to try to make each job document do all the work for you. That
leads to repetitiveness. Let the documents work together holistically. If
there’s a research proposal, why agonise over a lengthy paraphrase of the
proposal in the cover letter? If there’s a teaching statement, why write three more
teaching paragraphs in your letter as well? Give me a quick snapshot and
signpost where the rest of the information can be found, e.g. ‘My next project will
achieve XXX by doing YYY. Further details, including funding and publication
plans related to the project, are included in my research proposal.’
5. Two sides
are more than enough
There
is no reason why your cover letter should need to go beyond two sides. In fact,
I’ve seen plenty of people get shortlisted for fellowships and lectureships using
a cover letter that fitted onto a single side of A4. It can be done – without
shrinking the font and reducing the margins, neither of which, I’m sorry to
break it to you, is an acceptable ruse. Besides, please have some sympathy for
your readers: they have jobs to do and lives to lead; they will appreciate
pith.
6. Writing
about your research: why, not what
In
almost every conceivable kind of academic application, fellowships included,
it’s very high risk to write about your research in such a way that it can only
be understood by an expert in your field. It’s far safer to pitch your letter so
that it’s comprehensible to a broader readership. You need to show a draft of
your letter to at least one person who, as a minimum requirement, is outside
your immediate group or department. Do they understand your research? Crucially,
do they understand its significance? Before the selectors can care about the
details of what you do, you have to
hook their interest with why you do it.
Bad:
‘I work on the lived experiences of LGB people in contemporary Britain [why?]. I
look particularly at secondary school children [why?], and I use mixed methods
to describe their experiences of homophobic bullying [vague]. My PhD is the
first full-length study of this topic [so what?].’
Better:
‘In recent years, significant progress has been made towards equality for
lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people living in Britain. However, young
people aged 11-19 who self-identify as LGB are more likely to experience verbal
and physical bullying, and they are at significantly greater risk of self-harm
and suicide. In my dissertation, I conduct an ethnographic study of a large metropolitan secondary
school, in order to identify the factors which lead to homophobic bullying, as
well as policies and initiatives which LGB young people find effective in
dealing with it.’
7. Mind
the gap
Be
aware that ‘nobody has studied this topic before’ is a very weak justification
for a project. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but the academy does not. Does it
even matter than no previous scholarship exists on this precise topic? Perhaps
it never merited all that money and time. What are we unable to do because of
this gap? What have we been getting wrong hitherto? What will we be able to do
differently once your project has filled this void?
8. Writing
about your teaching
Avoid
the temptation of list-making here, too. You don’t need to itemise each course
you have taught, because I’ve already read this on your CV, and there’s no need
to detail every module you would teach at the new department. Similarly, you don’t
need to quote extensively from student feedback in order to show that you’re a
great teacher; this smacks of desperation. A few examples of relevant teaching and the names of some
courses you would be prepared to teach will suffice. You should also give me an
insight into your philosophy of teaching. What do students get out of your courses?
What strategies do you use in your teaching, and why are they effective?
9. Be
specific about the department
When
explaining why you want to join the department, look out for well-intentioned
but empty statements which could apply to pretty much any higher education
institution in the world. For example, ‘I would be delighted to join the Department
of [Subject], with its world-leading research and teaching, and I see this as
the perfect place to develop my career.’ This won’t do. Deploy your research
skills, use the internet judiciously, and identify some specifics. Are there
initiatives in the department to which you could contribute, e.g. research
clusters, seminar series, outreach events? What about potential collaborators
(remembering to say what’s in it for them)? What about interdisciplinary links
to other departments in the institution?
10. Be
yourself
It
often feels like slim pickings when you’re job hunting, and many people feel
compelled to apply for pretty much any role which comes up in their area, even
if it’s not a great fit. But you still need to make the most of who you are,
rather than refashioning yourself into an approximation of what you think the selectors
want. For example, if you have a strong track record in quantitative research
and you’ve spotted a job in a department leaning more towards qualitative
methods, you might still decide to apply, but there’s no point in trying to
sell yourself as what you’re not. They’ll see through it, and you’ll have
downplayed your genuine successes for no reason. Instead, make a case for why
your achievements should be of interest to the department, e.g. by
demonstrating how statistics would complement their qualitative work. At the
end of the day, the best way to get shortlisted is to highlight bona fide
achievements that are distinctive to you.