We don’t have to tell you that it’s a hard time to find a postdoc or faculty position. It has never been easy to find an academic position. But shrinking funding for research, shrinking academic departments, and increased restrictions on work visas and employment authorization programs have all made it especially challenging in the past couple of years.
What can help? Having standout application materials, a deeper understanding of the academic job search process, and a community of job seekers to lean on. ELSO offers a course that offers all three: ELSO 6630 Preparing for the Academic Job Search.
In this course, graduate students from across Cornell come together to explore the job search processes for postdoc positions, non-tenure track faculty positions, and tenure-track faculty positions. Under the guidance of instructor Dr. Michelle Crow, students gather samples of application materials and analyze them to learn what to do, what to avoid, and what the options are for writing these important documents.
Crow stated, “Sometimes students have never seen application materials when they start writing their own. Or they may have found generic examples online but haven’t seen authentic documents. The crowdsourcing of real application materials in this class is one of the highlights of the course.”
The course includes weekly write-ins so that students can make progress on their job search and application materials during class. Crow noted, “In this course, the weekly write-ins are especially important as it can be so hard to make time to focus on the job search, given all that is on graduate students’ plates.”
Also important is the community that develops. Crow noted, “The job search is often an emotional process—a real roller-coaster of emotions. Some of the students take the course while in the midst of the job search and share their triumphs and disappointments. We really come together to support one another.” She also noted that students often stay in touch with one another after the course ends.
Students don’t have to be actively looking for a position to take part in the course. Some students take the course to prepare for job ads that come out in early fall, with the goal of starting application materials during the course and then refining them over the summer. Others take the course earlier in their degree programs to learn what would make them a more competitive candidate, so that they can fill in the gaps in their CVs before they start applying for jobs. Still others take the course as a way of exploring whether even they want to apply for academic positions or whether it would make more sense to focus on industry positions.
“This course has a flexible design. Students set their own job search goals each week. This way, students with different goals and at different points in the process can tailor the course to meet their needs,” said Crow.
To enroll in this course, select ELSO 6630 when registering for courses through Student Center. ELSO 6630 may be taken for credit more than once.
