Surviving Your Academic Job Hunt

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. How to Plan Your Job Hunt: Timeline and Documents

   • Kathryn Hume

   Pages 1-24

3. Conference Interviews

   • Kathryn Hume

   Pages 25-57

4. Campus Interviews and Negotiating Terms

   • Kathryn Hume

   Pages 59-84

5. The Economics of Being an Assistant Professor

   • Kathryn Hume

   Pages 85-99

6. The Politics of Being an Assistant Professor

   • Kathryn Hume

   Pages 101-123

7. Epilogue for Placement Officers

   • Kathryn Hume

   Pages 125-127

8. Back Matter

   Pages 129-215

   PDF

This book is a guide to securing an academic post in the humanities in a US University. It includes best-practice examples of application documents and shows how to work up answers to the questions posed in phone, conference, and campus interviews. Readers will also learn about bargaining for subsidies and start-up packages. The book can be used by Careers Officers to train students, or by job hunters training themselves. This short, lively read gives practical, solid advice which will help candidates to transform their mindset from student to faculty.

• interview
• politics
• Professor
• university
• work

"This 'survival manual' should be required reading for every doctoral student in the humanities who intends to pursue an academic career. In a realistic rather than idealistic approach, Professor Hume offers under one cover candid information not only for ABD's about to enter the job market but also for assistant professors during their first years in a tenure-track appointment. Written in engaging prose, this volume is a road map for success that stretches from sage advice for conference and campus interviews to departmental politics. The appendix contains many model examples of letters of application and of documents that doctoral students must submit when applying for their first faculty position." - Edward V. Williams, Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University

"Deft, detailed, unerring, candid, upbeat, and filled with examples (including sample CVs and cover letters appropriate to various fields in the humanities, with variations for applying to schools that emphasize teaching and institutions emphasizing research), this is the best book of its kind that I've ever seen. It will be essential to job hunters all across the humanities. Those who own a copy and follow its counsel will enhance their employment prospects about tenfold. Those who don't will find themselves at a tremendous disadvantage. Highly recommended to graduate students, untenured junior faculty, and their mentors." - David Cowart, Louise Fry Scudder Professor of Humanities, University of South Carolina

KATHRYN HUME is Distinguished Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, USA.

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