Where are the Ads?
First, job ads in English Studies fields are posted on two general sites, the MLA Job Information List (www.ade.org) and the Chronicle of Higher Education (www.chronicle.com/jobs). The ADE site needs an ID and password. E-mail Cheryl or I to get the department login info that you need to initially get in. Then, with their new system, you can create a personal ID and password.
There is still some debate about whether it is helpful to look at the print version of the MLA joblist in addition to the online list. Five years ago some ads regularly showed up in the print list that weren’t online, but that may not be an issue anymore with everyone having crossed the digital divide. It’s up to you whether you want to pay to order it. You might ask Irene if the English dept. gets a copy — I don’t remember seeing one, though.
Other job ads are listed on more discipline-specific sites. There really aren’t any for literature generally except for area listservs and area websites (which you should definitely be a member of or looking at!). We’ll post what we know of on the sidebar to your right.
When Do the Ads Come Out?
The big MLA job list premieres on the last Friday in September. However, check the list earlier that week because sometimes they let you in a bit sooner. If you can’t get in on Friday morning, just wait a while. The site is being swarmed with jobseekers and is just running slowly.
The Chronicle starts publishing ads much sooner, so you can start looking over the summer. September and October will see the most ads on the Chronicle. The Chronicle and MLA lists overlap quite a bit BUT be sure to check both. Since schools have to pay to post, many cut costs by only publishing in one or the other. The MLA list is more expensive, so schools with lower budgets often opt for the Chronicle.
Other sites and listservs may start running ads sooner or later, so keep looking for them.
After the September and October surge, keep looking! New ads come out every week. There’s also a wave of new ads the beginning of the spring term and even into the summer. It can take some schools a bit of time to get positions approved, get funding worked out, decide what they want, etc. Our ISU grads have particularly good luck with spring ads.
What Information is in an Ad?
- the school
- the department/field
- whether it’s tenure-track, NTT, temporary, a postdoc, a lectureship, etc.
- rank — assistant, advanced assistant, associate, full, or “rank open.” If you are a grad student on the market, you’re looking for assistant. Advanced assistant usually means with a few years at assistant rank already under your belt. “Rank open” may be worth a shot but, generally, if a department is approved to hire someone advanced, they’d rather do that. But again, may be worth a shot if it’s really up your alley.
- the teaching load (3/2 is very good and most common for schools that want a balance of research and teaching, often with a heavier research agenda; 2/2 is for top research schools; 4/4 common for teaching-focused departments)
- the disciplinary specifics (if they’re hiring in New Media, for example, they will outline some specialties within New Media they’re looking for, like multimodal composition, rhetoric background, etc. — (Cheryl, help me out here!). In ads for literary fields there will be a period or area focus (say, Renaissance/Early Modern Drama with expertise in Shakespeare and interests in textual studies and history of the book, queer theory and sexuality studies, or psychoanalytic theory.
- the materials you need to send (I’ll say more about this below)
- the deadline
- the contact person
Departments know exactly what they want to get from you. Here are some terms: (each of these also has a separate post for further explanation)
- Letter: aka the job letter or cover letter. You send this with every single application.
- CV: you send this with every application.
- “Dossier“: this means your set of letters of recommendation and that’s all. JUST your letters. Read closely because not all schools want these up front. Many do. It’s ok for this to reach them separately; in fact, it usually does and they often want it to. See my post on using the Career Center here to send your letters. I also hope to write a post on using online digital recommendation centers, which are becoming more popular.
- Writing Sample: most don’t want this up front, so don’t send it if it’s not solicited. A few schools do want it up front; in that case, pay close attention to the page length they want. If they don’t say, aim for 20-25 pages. Nothing too long, nothing too short. See my post on writing samples. Schools that don’t ask for writing samples up front will usually contact their first pool of candidates and request samples. They often only give you a couple of days to send it, which means you should always have some ready to go.
- Teaching Philosophy Statement: becoming more common in ads. Very few ask for them up front but, again, you have to have it written because you never know. Some will request it later.
- Teaching Portfolio: pretty rare in my field but probably more common in writing positions.
- Syllabi: not so common.
- Research Agenda: will see this requested by heavy research schools. This is basically a 2 page document, approximately, single-spaced, detailing where your research is now and where it’s going. You’ll want to map out a timeline for publication and show you have a lot up your sleeve and know how it’s all connected.
- “Application“: schools that just ask for “applications” mean the cover letter and CV.
- Dissertation summary: no one asks for this but it is the one document you CAN include in your application without them asking. One of my former professors recommended sending this with every application no matter what. It’s a 2-page single-spaced summary of your dissertation that lets you speak in more depth than you do in your cover letter. You should use your best judgement with this. Teaching-focused schools (which my former professor didn’t think about) may interpret a diss summary to mean you are misidentifying what they value most. Schools that are very clearly research-centered may like that you sent a summary.