{"id":450,"date":"2009-10-20T18:32:04","date_gmt":"2009-10-20T22:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mathgradblog.williams.edu\/?p=450"},"modified":"2009-10-20T18:32:04","modified_gmt":"2009-10-20T22:32:04","slug":"if-i-could-do-it-over-id-make-the-same-mistakes-all-over-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2009\/10\/20\/if-i-could-do-it-over-id-make-the-same-mistakes-all-over-again\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Could Do It Over, I’d Make The Same Mistakes All Over Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tom Wright<\/a><\/p>\n

Andrew Obus’ post on how to do a job search inspired me to do my own post on how not to do a job search.\u00a0 As most are probably aware, the market was unkind last year, to the point where small schools were getting hundreds of applicants for one-year positions offered in April and May.\u00a0 I was one of the semi-fortunate ones, getting a one year position in late April; of course, this means that I’ll be back on the market this year.\u00a0 The good news is that now, I’m armed with all of the information I learned from all of the mistakes I made, as well as all of the mistakes that my friends made.\u00a0 In this article, I’ve listed some of the bigger ones.<\/p>\n

We’ll start with the ones I made:<\/p>\n

– Know the info on the school to which you are applying, but don’t go nuts<\/em>.\u00a0 If you get an interview with a school, it is a good idea to look at the school’s website and figure out the school’s philosophies (liberal arts? religious? engineering?), faculty interests, etc.\u00a0 Be careful of trying to memorize specific facts and figures, though; if you transpose a digit or mix up two figures, you’re going to look and feel pretty stupid. \u00a0\u00a0 It’s more important to understand how you would fit into the department than it is to know that the department graduated 17 math majors last year, and if it comes up in an interview, you’re far less likely to misspeak on the former than on the latter.<\/p>\n

An illustrative story:\u00a0 I was interviewing for a job last year, and the logical first question they asked was, “What do you know about our school?”\u00a0 Eager to impress, I said, “Well, it’s a school of 1,200 students…”\u00a0 I was off by a factor of four; I suppose that if I had quickly added, “per class,” I might have recovered.\u00a0 Anyway, they might as well have ended the interview right there.\u00a0 One of the interviewers actually spent the entire rest of the interview overtly staring at the clock (note to potential interviewers: please don’t do this – it’s just cruel.)\u00a0 Even if interviewers don’t see this as a death knell, it’s a terrible first impression.<\/p>\n

– Don’t be too timid to apply<\/em>.\u00a0 I crossed a couple of schools off of my list last year because I thought I had so little chance that it wasn’t worth my time in sending an application.\u00a0 I thought nothing of it until I was talking to a colleague at one such school and explained my reasoning, and he said, “I wish you hadn’t done that.\u00a0 We could have interviewed you, but it’s probably too late now.”<\/p>\n

If schools think that you’re not worthy of their position, they’ll be more than happy to put your resume in the recycling bin, but it’s not like they’re going to laugh at your application and blacklist you from ever applying again unless you wrote your cover letter in crayon and littered your teaching statement with expletives.\u00a0 If they don’t accept you, they don’t accept you, but if you would like to work at a school, well, there’s no sense in throwing away a lottery ticket just because it probably won’t win, and sending out an application doesn’t take very long at all.<\/p>\n

This is actually a sub-point of the more general point:<\/p>\n

– Humility has no place in a job search<\/em>.\u00a0 There’s no reason that you should be anything but flatteringly complementary to yourself, because if you don’t sell yourself, no one will do it for you.\u00a0 This seems obvious, and that’s because it is.\u00a0 What’s not obvious, however, is that this applies at all times <\/em>and in all places.\u00a0 You would never say, “My research stinks,” in a research statement or interview, but making a dismissive comment about your research in a talk (I’ve seen it happen), saying something particularly self-deprecating to colleagues at a conference, or putting an unflattering comment about yourself on your website can be just as bad.\u00a0 If you are on the market, you are a salesman for yourself at all times.<\/p>\n

I can be somewhat self-deprecating in my sense of humor.\u00a0 I’m sure it’s charming socially, but it’s a terrible idea on a job hunt.\u00a0 If you’re like me, it’s time to break the habit – at least for now.<\/p>\n

I also asked a friend about his mistakes, and he came up with the following:<\/p>\n

– Proofread everything.<\/em> Are there typos in your cover letter?\u00a0 If so, you can save the shipping costs and just throw your application directly into the trash.\u00a0 Did you spell the school’s name wrong, or forget to change the school’s name in one of the places where you were supposed to copy and paste?\u00a0 You won’t be working there any time soon.\u00a0 Does your research statement state your key theorems incorrectly? You will likely serve to confuse the hiring committee, and a confused hiring committee is an unreceptive hiring committee.\u00a0 The bottom line is this: your application is your way of introducing yourself to the school, and if your documents give off an “I rushed this and don’t care about quality” feel, you’ve given them a good reason to feel that they don’t want you as a colleague.<\/p>\n

This is another one of those things that sounds easy, but if you’re sending out 99 applications (which is the number I sent last year), submitting typo-free documents requires a good bit of concentration, so you have to be extremely <\/em>careful.<\/p>\n

– Personalize your letters<\/em>.\u00a0 In cover letters, give schools the sense that you want their job, not just any job.\u00a0 In particular, it’s good to make sure that it looks like you read what the school is looking for in the job advertisement.\u00a0 My friend had one cover letter for much of last year, emphasizing what a great researcher he was.\u00a0 Nevertheless, he sent this letter to numerous teaching schools.\u00a0 He never heard from any of them.<\/p>\n

This list by no means exhaustive; at some later date, I’ll write another one of these detailing what not to do when applying for jobs at the Joint Meetings.\u00a0 Regardless, if you avoid these mistakes, you’ll be in a better position than most, and certainly a better position than I was when I started looking for jobs.<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Obus’ post on how to do a job search inspired me to do my own post on how not to do a job search. As most are probably aware, the market was unkind last year, to the point where small schools were getting hundreds of applicants for one-year positions offered in April and May. I was one of the semi-fortunate ones, getting a one year position in late-April; of course, this means that I’ll be back on the market this year. The good news is that this year, I’m armed with all of the information I learned from mistakes that I made or that friends made. Here, I’ve listed some of the bigger ones.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

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