The Early Career Blog

Dr Steve Joy Recently, I’ve been playing around with a good structure for cover letters. This is because I seem to have been reading too many letters of meandering, pandering prose that lacks any sense of rigour or clarity of purpose. Yes, the job description for a lectureship contains a lot of elements, and I agree that there is a lot to say. But that’s no excuse just to drone on for page after page, retelling every single research activity to which you've ever been even remotely connected. Your hard-pressed readers will not thank you for what I have elsewhere called encyclopaedic fervour . They will appreciate brevity. So, below is a skeleton structure for a two-page cover letter, suitable for lectureships & similar positions. I don’t pretend that it’s a one-size-fits-all template, but when you adapt it, I urge you to keep in mind the relative proportions here. Note, for example, the balance between recounting past achievements & pointing forward to what you intend ...

Dr Steve Joy [Here is the original (slightly longer) version of my most recent piece for the Guardian Higher Education Network.] For many, interviews represent the stress of the job market par excellence. Yet it is a fact not often acknowledged that interviews are generally predictable, and you can prepare for them without feeling as if you are submitting to a dark ritual in the face of which passive acceptance is the only option. My aim in this piece is to point out some of the rationale behind an interview, and a few ideas for practical ways that you can prepare for one. Talk to others about their interview experiences I’m starting with this advice, because I’m frequently surprised by many people’s resistance to sharing interview experiences with their peers and colleagues – except, that is, for the odd comically embellished horror story. Gathering anecdotal evidence from others will help you to spot patterns and anticipate potentially tricky questions. So, make a point of asking...