The Early Career Blog

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? 1.        Start with a clear identity Consider this sentence: “My research interests include Thomas Mann, German Modernist literature, the body, the senses, F...

Dr Steve Joy This post is the working through of a personal bugbear - one which only riles me so much because I am fully aware that every piece of academic writing I have ever produced has fallen victim to the same syndrome. Even so. Do not as I do, but as I say. The pesky syndrome is this: woolly, imprecise phrases when describing the importance of one's research, i.e. its contribution or significance. It happens in cover letters, grant applications, articles and papers, research statements - it's reached pandemic proportions. Here's an excellent example of just such offensive wooliness: "There has not yet been any attempt to survey the senses in a more comprehensive fashion [in Thomas Mann's work]. This study aims to begin that (re)appraisal, which will hopefully give rise to a more nuanced conception of Mann’s bodies, and demonstrate that the corporeality of his fiction is at the core of the author’s aesthetic project." In the words of Mary Poppins: ...

Dr Steve Joy Many of the early career academics whom I’ve met over the years have talked, some almost wistfully, about a desire for more collaboration in their professional lives. Perhaps, in some cases, this was a strategically motivated wish – after all, there’s grant money to be won for interdisciplinary & inter-institutional projects – but I think that, for most, the desire was authentic. Yet I have frequently encountered the perception that, in the flooded academic job market, there isn’t room for too much collaboration. Amassing individual successes to go on the CV is what it’s about; selfish need must always trump collegial spirit – at least until one has snared that elusive permanent post. It’s difficult to see how to square these two sets of needs & wants – the collaborative versus the competitive impulses, or, put rather more cynically, optimism versus realism. But one thing which strikes to me is that we often struggle to be honest with ourselves about whether we ...

Dr Steve Joy This piece also appeared on the Guardian Higher Education Network . ***** Applications to academic jobs are notoriously convoluted, particularly to posts which combine teaching and research. Typically the CV will be one document among a groaning dossier that might well comprise a cover letter, a research statement, a teaching statement, sample courses or syllabi, and even (on occasion) a diversity statement. Where do you start? And with so many elements to worry about, how important is the CV? The answer is that it is very important. Many selection committee members say that the first document they look at is the CV. It shows that you're fundamentally eligible to do the advertised job, and it offers a run-down of your career to date. It's the scaffolding on to which the selectors can hang all of the other information contained elsewhere in your application. Yet, for a host of varied reasons, many people persist in writing truly awful CVs. What follows is my...

Dr Steve Joy ‘You need to love what you do, so seek out projects that challenge you and make you excited to go to work!’ This post is based on the results of project I co-conducted with Dr Sharon Saunders from Cambridge’s Researcher Development Programme . We asked academics & PIs to answer, in no more than one sentence, the question, “What advice would you give to a postdoc looking to make it in academia?” The rationale for the project came from the various national & Cambridge-specific evidence which has consistently shown that the advice most wanted by those aspiring to make it in academia is – quelle surprise – from those who have already made it themselves. Yet a wide range of factors mean that, in reality, it can be difficult to access advice from outside one’s own immediate group & hence to hear a multiplicity of viewpoints. The intention was never that individual sentences should stand alone – as one respondent put it (with a not-so-subtle hint of sarcasm)...

Dr Steve Joy A few years ago, a friend told me a story about an academic interview. After she had given her research presentation, things inevitably moved to a Q&A, where, eventually, someone piped up with this question: ‘Why do you work on Mussolini? Surely, Stalin killed many more people.’ Well, erm... quite. My friend was professional & stoical about the whole experience – just another story from the job market – whereas I have often reflected unhappily on it during my work with researchers. I mean, how could anbody ask something so fatuous & obviously designed to trip someone up? How does that question help the panel to assess the calibre of my friend’s research? No one could be expected to prepare for that. Yet, recently, I’ve been wondering whether the question was really so unreasonable. Granted, there are better & worse ways of asking such a question, just as there are better & worse motivations for wanting to ask it in the first place. But what would ha...

Dr Steve Joy Last week, I had the pleasure of being a guest at Cumberland Lodge , an academic retreat that is elegantly sequestered in the Great Park, Windsor. Just to be at this gloriously peaceful venue felt restorative for mind & body. And my reason for being there? I was speaking at this year's Life Beyond the PhD conference. Here are some reflections on that experience - particularly around the theme of perseverance . The conference was attended by PhD students & postdocs - at all career stages, from all disciplines, from institutions all over the UK. The aim was to prepare participants for 'an increasingly interdisciplinary academic life' as well as to show them 'that PhDs have demonstrable value both inside and outside academia'. I was there, you won't be surprised to learn, to contribute to the latter objective. And, happily, I was the bearer of good news: evidence shows that people with PhDs are employable outside the academy, provided that...

Dr Steve Joy After a brief summer hiatus, let the blogging resume - where we left off, no less, with interviews & teaching questions. In this second post, I want to comment both on some of the simple principles & on some of the political pitfalls of discussing your teaching contribution. In other words, how do you position yourself in terms of existing courses which you could teach & new ones which you would like to develop? I would like to propose four golden rules. Golden rule #1 As with any interview preparation, the best possible way to get answers to your questions is to ask them. No, really. Speak to someone in the department to which you're applying. In most cases, this means that you should, at the very least, speak to the contact for informal inquiries named in the job description. I can't emphasise strongly enough what a mistake it is not to take up this opportunity when it's offered to you. You can & should be asking, in effect, why this pos...

Dr Steve Joy Everyone knows the rules of academic interviews: you get research questions, teaching questions, and a few admin/service-type questions. True, there may be a tricky icebreaker ("How well do you know Aberystwyth?") or a real googly at the end ("What else should we have asked you?"), but the bulk of the interview is given over to this tried-and-tested triptych. The three categories can certainly be subdivided further - e.g. past research, future projects, funding, publications, collaborations, and so on - but we know what we're dealing with overall. Frankly, it's rather comforting. Yet, despite their predictability, I often encounter a lot of anxiety about teaching questions, even from early career academics who are already hugely experienced pedagogues. So, today's post is the first of a series in which I am going to attempt to demystify some of what's going on in these teaching discussions & to offer some tips which you can put in...

Dr Steve Joy Today's post is in response to a phrase that has always been ubiquitous but seems to have crossed my path much too frequently in recent months. You will no doubt recognise it yourselves. "This project will be the first book-length study on [insert your topic here]." Seriously, this won't do. Why not, you ask? Surely, what anyone who has successfully completed a PhD learnt from that process is that research projects need to make an original contribution to scholarship. In other words, here is a gap (as proven by the fact that no book has been written on this precise topic before), and this project will fill it. Sorted.  But here's my question. Does it even matter than no previous scholarship exists on this precise topic? It might well do, but you must say how & why. What are other academics unable to do because of this gap? What has this lack of understanding been leading us to get wrong hitherto ? What will we be able to do differently once ...