SOME POINTERS ON FINDING A JOB IN POLITICAL SCIENCE Lee Sigelman

What Do You Want To Be When You Get Big?

The first and in many ways most important step in preparing yourself to get a faculty position is deceptively simple: Know thyself. That is, be very clear in your own mind what kind of job you really want and can realistically aspire to.

Imagine, first, a career as a faculty member in a small liberal arts school, and second, a career as a faculty member in a large, Research-1 university. Which sounds better to you?

For a small liberal arts school, your ability and experience as a teacher and the breadth of your preparation are vital. Interdisciplinarity is likely to be seen as highly desirable, and having a strong but narrow background within the discipline is likely to be devalued. Being broadly intellectually engaged and engaging – an interesting person to talk with about a wide array of subjects – is important. So is the capacity to be a “good citizen” of the college, to carry your load. Your potential to become a prolific research scholar isn’t central, and being preoccupied with pursuing your own program of research may be viewed as a distraction from your main tasks.

For a Research-1 university, the prime requisite is very likely to be your research potential. Your academic life will probably be centered in your department and will be highly discipline- oriented. If you have wide-ranging interests across disciplines or even within the discipline, you may well be viewed with suspicion as “unfocused.” Intellectuality and being an interesting conversationalist are fine, but secondary. So is teaching: Good teaching will be expected of you, but don’t expect to build a career on that basis. Having strong research skills and building and maintaining an impressive research record will be your focal concerns.

Getting Ready to Get Ready

Having decided which of these caricatures looks more like you, you need to orient your preparation toward building the types of strengths that would make you employable in your preferred setting. In the first case, you would obviously want to build as strong a teaching portfolio as possible, and you should resist efforts to turn you into a “specialist.” Departments in liberal arts colleges may have only half a dozen, or even fewer, political scientists, and faculty members in these departments are expected to offer a wide array of courses. A department may have, for example, only one faculty member who teaches American politics, so that person may have to teach everything from constitutional law through political behavior; and if a colleague who teaches, say, comparative politics goes on leave, then the “Americanist” may have to offer comparative courses as well. On the other hand, to make yourself attractive to a department in a large, Research-1 university, you would need to concentrate on honing your research skills. Presented with opportunities to support yourself by teaching while in graduate school, you should try to acquire some teaching experience but should, if possible, normally opt for gaining research experiences that would hone your research skills and produce publishable papers. In the real world, of course, many (most?) choices turn out not to lie at the extremes, but somewhere in between. In any given year, many of the positions that are advertised won’t fit neatly into the “either-or” categorization of departments in small liberal schools or large Research-1 universities, but will fall somewhere in between. So it’s wise, in preparing yourself for a faculty position, not to “put all your eggs in one basket.” Rather, hedge your bets somewhat. Keep your preferred type of position in mind, but also recognize that, realistically, you’re likely to find yourself considering possibilities that lie somewhere along a continuum between the extreme possibilities described above rather than at one or the other polar extremes. Don’t become such a monomaniac in preparing for a certain type of position that you end up disqualifying yourself from all but a tiny handful of positions.

Getting Your Stuff Together

The next step, after you’ve engaged in the sort of values clarification exercise described above, which would ideally be done very early during your graduate career (or perhaps even beforehand) and would be periodically rethought thereafter, is to assemble the best set of placement materials you possibly can.

The first element of the package is your cover letter. Write this letter to convey the message that you want to convey, and then read it from the perspective of a potential employer. Ask yourself at that point whether the letter provides the appropriate information. What the employer wants to learn, in a simple, straightforward way, is who you are, what you have to offer, and what your comparative advantages might be. This letter should be polished to a high sheen. Its tone should be professional. It shouldn’t be chatty. Neither should it be ponderous. This isn’t the place to chronicle the story of your life, to detail your coursework, to rehearse your pedagogical philosophy, or to walk readers through your dissertation research. Put the most fundamental information about yourself – e.g., that you’re an n-th year graduate student at X University, currently finishing your dissertation research and scheduled to defend in May; that your areas of strongest preparation are X and Y; and then, very early in the letter, flaunt anything that you think makes you stand out (e.g., that you’ve already published two articles in respected journals – especially important information if you’re applying for a position in a research-intensive program – or that you’ve already taught X courses and have won teaching awards – particularly important for a teaching-intensive program, or whatever). This letter shouldn’t be more than a page or a page and a half long. The point is to make a good first impression, and if that’s going to happen, it needs to happen in the first paragraph or two of the letter; it’s not going to happen on the fourth page, in the middle of a lengthy blow-by-blow account of your dissertation project.

The second and probably the most important component of your placement package is your curriculum vitae. My experience in assessing thousands and thousands of placement folders over the years is that you have roughly 30 seconds to make an impression. The first thing of yours that potential employers see will be your cover letter, but the most important thing they see will be your CV. Be sure that it’s attractive – nicely formatted, in a good-looking font, on nice paper, and crisply printed. At the same time, don’t make it look like you’ve hired a professional public relations firm to package your materials; materials that look too slick can be just as much of a turn-off as a sloppy placement package. Academic CVs generally present more or less the same information in more or less the same order; if you’re not familiar with a standard set-up, ask around your department. But don’t hesitate to deviate from that pattern in order to highlight your strengths. If, for example, you’re selling yourself primarily as a teacher, make sure that your teaching credentials are featured very early on your CV; do not save the best for last, because prospective employers may never get to the end if you don’t engage their interest at the start.

You’ll need to work closely with your department’s placement director to see that all the other elements of your placement package (generally, a cover letter from the placement director, a teaching statement, copies of teaching evaluations, a research statement, an overview of your dissertation project, copies of papers you’ve presented and/or articles you’ve published, a copy of your transcript, and several letters of recommendation, and any other materials that seem pertinent) are all in order. The placement director, your dissertation chair, and/or other faculty members may be willing to make some calls on your behalf, though my experience has been that at an early stage of the search process these tend not to be very useful. For the most part, your task after sending out your materials is to go about your life and await developments on the job front. It’s natural to expect your phone to start ringing a day or two after you send out a package of materials. Don’t. You may conjure up mental images of recruitment committees huddled around tables, poring over huge stacks of resumes around the clock for weeks on end, while you’re reluctant to step away from your phone for fear of missing The Call. Meanwhile, what’s probably been happening is nothing at all, until, finally, there is a sudden flurry of action and invitations begin to go out from departments all over the country, as if on cue.

Preparing for a Visit

If your phone is one that finally does ring, then the next stage of preparation – getting ready for your on-campus visit – should begin immediately. First, get as much detailed information as possible, as soon as possible, about the visit: what’s going to happen, when, with whom you’re going to meet, and so on. If you’re supposed to give a research talk, find out how many attendees there are likely to be; whether they’ll be political science faculty, faculty from various programs, a mix of faculty and graduate students, etc.; find out how long they’d like you to talk and how much time you should leave for questions and answers at the end; ask for a description of the room in which you’ll be speaking, e.g., whether you’ll be standing at a lectern in a classroom or sitting at a seminar table; inquire about the availability of whatever facilities you may need (e.g., blackboard, overhead projector, PC for running Power Point). If you’ll be giving a teaching demonstration, make the same sorts of inquiries.

Second, get as much detailed information as possible, as soon as possible, about the institution, the department, the faculty members, the students, and the community, and approach it as though you were studying for comprehensive exams. Don’t try to master all that information – you’ll be overwhelmed, and you’ll end up making a poor impression anyway if you come across as having spent the last few weeks memorizing the CV’s of all the faculty members. But you need to know enough to come across as informed and not to waste time or irritate people with ignorant questions (“Is this a public or a private school?” “What’s your field?”). In other words, try to get a good overall sense of The Big Picture and to pick up some supportive details along the way.

If you’re going to give a research talk, arrange to do several run-throughs beforehand with groups that have somewhat, but not entirely, overlapping composition. These groups should be fairly diverse. Having some specialists in your subject matter is important, but so is having some people who know little or nothing about what you’ll be talking about. Having some friends who will be supportive is a good idea, but so is having some people to whom you have no close connection. Before your first run-through in front of an audience, practice, practice, practice by yourself. Get thoroughly familiar with your material, so you don’t find yourself groping for words or – even worse – reading your presentation. Get your timing down, so that a talk that’s supposed to last 25 minutes doesn’t run 45 instead. Then do your first run-through for a small group of the very best critics you can find. Because it’s the first run-through, the criticisms are likely to be very wide-ranging. You need substantive feedback, but also stylistic and presentational advice. Listen carefully to what people are saying, but also recruit a friend to take notes on what you’re being told, and/or record both your presentation and the follow-up session. Take this advice seriously, and make as many of the suggested changes as you can. Then practice, practice, practice. Several days later if possible, schedule another run-through, this time for a larger audience that has a couple of carry-overs from the first session. At the end, again get as many comments and suggestions as possible, and approach them the same as in the first session. Then rework the presentation again, practice, practice, practice, schedule a third session, and do it all over again. The very same type of advice holds if you’re scheduled to give a teaching presentation, of course.

Prior to your on-campus visit, go into training. Get plenty of sleep – not just the night before, but in the week leading up to the visit. Eat well. Exercise. You need to be at your best, not tired out or stressed out.

Be thinking about questions you’re likely to be asked. (If you can’t imagine what these might be, ask some faculty members what kinds of questions they ask prospective colleagues during in- office interviews.) Think about how you want to answer these questions, and try out these answers on someone more experienced than you are. Also think about questions you’d like to ask the people you’re going to be talking with. Some of these will probably be specific and factual (though, again, if you’ve done your homework well, there shouldn’t be all that many of these). The more useful ones will probably be broader and more impressionistic (e.g., “Is this a department where you can get your work done?” “Tell me what it’s like to live here.” “What are the biggest problems the department is facing?”).

You needn’t (and shouldn’t) give the appearance of having just stepped out of the pages of GQ or Vogue, but do tend to your appearance. Plan to dress conservatively. If you don’t have any clothes that would be appropriate for a job interview, the time has come to borrow or buy some; if you show up looking like a slob, people will think of you as ... a slob! On the Visit

On the visit itself, you obviously want to create a favorable impression of yourself, but don’t overdo it by overselling yourself or trying to come across as something you’re not. That is, to thine own self be true. When you’re asked a question, try to answer it honestly rather than strategically. Also, don’t think of yourself as the object of the interviews. You are gathering information about them, just as they are gathering information about you. So treat your meetings as opportunities for exchanging information, not simply for answering questions. (And by the way, if you get people talking about themselves, they’re likely to come away with a very favorable impression of you.) Try to relax – or at least to do an acceptable imitation of being relaxed – without becoming too casual. Keep your energy level up (that’s what all the sleep beforehand was for) and your enthusiasm high. At dinner, don’t order anything in a red sauce, because you’re going to spill it down your front, or anything with noodles, because just as you start to suck them in somebody is going to ask you a question or crack a joke. Don’t drink alcohol or smoke tobacco products.

At the end of your visit, be sure that you’ve established a clear understanding of what’s going to happen next, and when you can expect to hear. Those are reasonable questions. Don’t hesitate to ask them.

Afterwards

Afterwards, if you’re not offered the position, learn what you can from the experience. Think about what went well and what didn’t, and try to make appropriate adjustments for the next time. If you developed a good relationship with someone on the visit, contact him or her and solicit feedback about what were seen as your strengths and weaknesses, what went well and less well, what you need to work on. Don’t take rejection personally. (This is very difficult.) As a department chair, I’ve almost always told those we’ve rejected that the most important matter was “fit” with what the department needed, and I’ve almost always meant it. Finally, be gracious and friendly. Some of my closest professional friends have turned out to be people I’ve met on job interviews, whether for jobs they didn’t get or for ones I didn’t get.