The Early Career Blog

Steve Joy “Please will you have a look at my CV?” “The thing I’m most worried about is my CV!” “If we have a few minutes left, I was wondering whether you could have a quick look at my CV.” I long ago lost track of the proportion of one-to-one appointments, informal chats at conferences, and even phone calls with friends that have included these words. The CV seems to be the idée fixe of the vast majority of early career researchers I speak to. You probably think that it’s perfectly reasonable. But I have news for you: stop obsessing about your CV. It’s rarely the real question. It’s often a cause for self-doubt. It’s almost always a signal of not having the right mindset. And it’s energy which you can much better channel in more productive directions. Let me explain. Not the real question The thing is, I don’t really believe 99% of the people who tell me that their CV is the thing they’re most worried about. Not literally. That’s because the real question, in most cases...

Dr Steve Joy This autumn, the Early Career Blog is undergoing various changes, not least in the colour & choice of font. Whilst we make further changes, I am expanding & updating for 2016 some of the most popular posts – starting with this advice on structuring a cover letter for academic jobs. Below is a skeleton structure for a two-page cover letter, suitable for lectureships & similar positions in the UK as well as at research-intensive universities overseas. If you’re applying to a research-only job, then you could simply omit the two teaching paragraphs. You will notice that I suggest  not  following the standard advice that you should have one 'fit' paragraph, usually the last, in which you say something about the particular job you're applying for. Empathise with the busy academics who will be reading your letter – that is, skimming it in a brisk 30-60 seconds. Don’t make them wait all the way until the end to find out whether you have an...

Dr Steve Joy At this time of year, many early career researchers are preparing job documents for academic applications. Lots of PhD students are in the throes of finishing up & preparing to move on; the competitions for Junior Research Fellowships are just around the corner; the US job market is about to go into full swing; and looking towards the autumn, which isn’t as far off as it might seem, there will be a spate of other deadlines. For all of these applications, you will need a persuasive, tautly worded pitch to describe your research. And this is the first place where most people go wrong. In my experience, there is a stunning consistency to the way early career researchers write about their research, and in the process they mark themselves out as inexperienced and lacking confidence. Here’s an example of the type, borrowing from my own half-forgotten research but modelled almost verbatim on a handful of real job documents from the past month: My research studies moderni...

Dr Steve Joy [An edited version of this article was also posted on the Guardian Higher Education Network .] A couple of years ago, I proposed ten irritating mistakes in academic CVs and ten suggestions for writing good cover letters . I think that those tips are still relevant today, but in the intervening years, I have noticed a pattern. Applicants get so wrapped up in worrying about how to present themselves that they stop seeing the wood for trees, and they fail to see what their behaviour implicitly communicates about them to the panel. Here, then, are five examples of such behaviours and why you should guard against them. 1. Inattentive You absolutely must pay careful attention to the details of your job applications, and this includes the formatting. One bizarre manifestation of inattentiveness that I keep seeing is the use, in the same application, of different formats for different documents, e.g. pairing a cover letter in boring old Times New Roman pt 12 and a CV p...

Dr Steve Joy At a recent talk to early career academics, I was arguing for the importance of engaging non-academic audiences in your research, when one disgruntled participant shot back that I was encouraging them to become celebrities. This wasn't what I intended, but the response isn't untypical. It reflects an unease among a lot of early career researchers: on top of everything else, do I really have to learn to become a media don or children's entertainer? Is this what I actually need to do to improve my career prospects? Advocates will counter, rightly, that this view of public engagement is unfair. They will say that the reason to do public engagement is not solely to advance one's own career, and that we have a duty to explain to the public what we do. However, motivations for engaging the public can feel more practical than ethical. We all know that it's simply what's expected by the Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessors, the funders, universit...

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...

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 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...