Job Hunting
Select Schools
- Job Sources
-
Choose mostly from the schools or labs in your
target range, but add a few “fliers” and a few “backups.” In
general, though, at this stage it is best to not be too
selective: applications are generally inexpensive and easy to
send out, so you should err on the side of too many rather than
too few applications. This is especially true in a tight job
market, as you will be facing more competition for fewer slots.
There are different views on where and to
how many places to apply. Some people think that application is
cheap (especially now that many places accept on-line
applications) and that you should apply to virtually all worthy
place -- even the ones
that you might only be remotely interested in. Furthermore, it
is nice to get in touch with people and promote yourself and
your research, and achieve cross-fertilization. Other people
think that it is appropriate to apply to only those places that
you are seriously considering, as otherwise you would be wasting
everybody’s precious time. I tend to agree more with the former
camp, not because applications are virtually free, but because
in most cases you cannot really understand how desirable a place
is without actually going there and talking with people -- after
all, it is all about people! I myself had a couple of pleasant
surprises in places that initially did not seem very attractive.
-
I initially came up with a list of
approximately 20 academic departments. My primary selection
criteria were, in no specific order, the reputation of the
organization, derivative of reputation (i.e., is the
institution getting better or worse?), collaboration
prospects, student quality, geographical area, and quality
of living in the area.
-
I sent my preliminary list to my
advisor, who made several suggestions. This feedback is a
good opportunity to get an idea of your advisor’s assessment
of you, if you have not already done so. It is virtually
impossible to land a decent job without your advisor’s
enthusiastic support. Some advisors go to great lengths to
create a market for their students by making phone
calls or sending mass e-mails that announce the student’s
entry into the market. Others may be unwilling to do this
for philosophical reasons or because of how they rank the
student. At any rate, if your evaluation does not match with
that of your advisor, the best approach would be to
reconsider your options and revise your choices.
-
You may want to send "cold call" email
asking whether a specific department is hiring, in what area,
and how to spin your application. The latter is best done with a
personal contact, however.
-
definitely apply even if there is no ad
or the ad appears to be looking for a different field.
Timing and contents of ads are highly political, in our case
largely to satisfy the dean, and may not reflect reality.
For example, two of the past three years when we targeted
hardware, we in fact hired in knowledge representation, vision
and databases.
Decide References
-
Resources
-
Do not ask more than four references. It is
better to have one or two letters that give detailed
recommendations about you than to have several letters that do
not say much.
-
Ideal letter writers will be established names
in computer science who know you well and who are impressed with
you (and most importantly, with your research skills and
potential). Obviously, it is often difficult to find many people
who fall into this category, so your next best option is a
letter writer who knows you well enough to be able to say
concrete things about you. Good candidates are people for whom
you’ve done research, an internship, or a teaching
assistantship. Letters from non-technical "character witnesses"
should be avoided.
-
Having letter writers from different
institutions (e.g., your internship supervisor) is also
desirable, as it demonstrates that you have sufficient depth to
successfully pursue topics not directly related to your thesis,
and that you have the ability to work in harmony with different
people.
-
If you have doubts about the kind of
recommendation a person would give, use a tactful approach: ask
whether he knows you and your work sufficiently and feels
comfortable about recommending you (strongly).
-
Tell your references all the places you are
visiting, so they can calibrate their letters (for instance,
when writing letters for multiple people to the same place, they
can put both in the best light). Don't blindside them with
requests for additional letters later on. It is also a good idea
to give him a heads up on the places you are considering and
request feedback. Make sure that your
potential referees have an up-to-date CV and copies of
publications so that their letters can resonate with these other
materials.
-
Don't just supply your letter writers with a
copy of your C.V. Also provide one or two pages, perhaps with
the main points in bulleted form, about things not in your C.V.
that you wish to have expanded in the recommendation letters.
Remind them of the particular way you approached and solved a
problem, the initiatives you took with colleagues, and the
feedback you received on your teaching evaluations.
If you are seeking a professorship, talk about the desired
balance between teaching and research, and graduate and
undergraduate emphasis. If you are looking for a position in
government or industry, talk about opportunities for both basic
and applied research, and about possible publication limitations
in a proprietary environment.
-
Strike the right balance in your approach. While
you don't want to appear to tell your recommenders what to say
or how to write letters, you do want to give them needed
background (and reminders) about points they will want to write
about anyway. Most recommenders appreciate this "assistance" if
it is presented in the proper way.
-
It is best to ask for letters early in your job
search process, perhaps even before you've seen interesting job
postings. At the very least, give your references 2-4 weeks to
write, edit, and send each letter.
-
Make sure your letter writers also send their
letters on time¾it is
not unusual to miss the first interview list because of late
references. Some places ask the letters to be sent to them
directly, whereas some prefer to contact your letter writers
themselves. Remember that your letter writers are also busy
people; they will need sufficient time to prepare and send their
letters.
-
If a referee suggests that you write the letter
and he/she sign it (yes, this actually happens!), gracefully
decline. You should probably try to find someone to replace this
referee, as any letter you would get is likely to be useless.
-
Finally, be sure to write a formal thank-you
note to your letter writers. Keep in touch with them as well.
They are interested in the outcome of their efforts on your
behalf, and no matter where you go next, they will continue to
be your professional colleagues.
Prepare Documents
-
Before preparing your packet, gather
several successful packets from friends who have
recently gone through the same process. You can also expect
to find many nice samples on the Web (see Section 13).
-
There are no general rules regarding the
length of the individual documents, but it is wise to try to
keep them as succinct and focused as possible. It is common for
the institutions to receive hundreds of applications every
season; you do not want people to get bored halfway through your
statements. More concretely, try to limit your c.v. and research
statement to three pages and your teaching statement to a single
page.
-
After coming up with initial drafts, have
(at least) your advisor and someone outside your research
area to read it carefully and give you feedback, which you
should consider seriously and reflect into your documents. Also
make sure that your documents do not contain grammatical or
typographical errors.
- Research Statement
-
Resources:
-
Specifically, they target a general computer
science audience, not specialists in your area, and their goal
is not so much to convey knowledge as to establish that: (1) you
are working on interesting and relevant problems, (2) you have
addressed the problems in an innovative way, (3) you are
creative and intelligent, with great potential, and (4) you have
a future vision that is exciting and worthwhile.
-
Theme:
-
Choose an important topic:
Think of the overarching theme guiding your main research
subject area. You
need to convey in the statement that you believe in the
importance of your own work and persuade others that the work is
important too.
-
Be specific: Being too broad in
your descriptions gives the job committee the impression that
the goal is unreachable and unbelievable.
-
Keep it brief and focused on major
themes: Be concise and to the point when you state your
goals, describe why these goals are important, define your
approach to achieving these goals, and indicate the kinds of
evidence that will validate your approach.
-
Current Work:
-
Provide a description of your current research
and recently completed projects. Describe why you are interested
in the topic -- committees want to know you are passionate and
excited about your research. Discuss how your topic contributes
to your field -- why it matters.
-
Your plan might sound exciting, but will it
work? It's one thing to make it sound good; if you can show that
you've already taken the first, tentative but successful steps
of that long journey, reaching your destination will seem a lot
less like a pipe dream.
-
Demonstrate your awareness of other work
being done in the field: Don’t give the impression that
your research statement was produced in a vacuum. Reference
others in the field.
-
Be sure to mention any publications,
presentation, grant, and award activity generated by your
research.
-
Focus on the work, not yourself:
Your CV and letters of recommendations sell you. The research
plan should focus on contributions to the field.
-
Future Work: Put significant thought into
your ideas for the future. This section should build on the
above and be really really exciting to people both in and
outside your field. Don't sell yourself short. If you think that
your research could lead to answers for big exciting questions -
say so! You've already built up credibility in the previous
section, now reach for the stars.
-
Include both short-term (3-5 years) and long-term
(5+ years) goals. Your research agenda should be broad and
speculative enough that you don’t know precisely how it’ll be
done, but you also should have ideas about tackling the
problems, and you must be able to justify why you are qualified
to follow this line of work.
-
Present more than one good idea:
Even the best idea might fail, so you need to have a backup.
Your research plan should be coherent, with a theme common to
all your work, but not so close that they seem to be shades of
the same idea.
-
Your research should follow logically
from what you have done and how will it be different, important
and innovative.
-
There is a delicate balance between a realistic
research statement where you promise to work on problems you
really do think you can solve and over-reaching or dabbling in
too many subject areas. You probably want to select an
over-arching theme for your research statement and leave some
miscellaneous ideas or projects out of it. Everyone knows that
you will work on more than what you mention in this statement.
-
Be sure you can answer the question:
-
Given unlimited resources and students, what
would you work on?
-
How you will use your existing skills, how you
will expand them?
-
Most important, how you will differentiate
yourself from your advisor.
-
Who cares about the research area
you intend to pursue?
-
What are potential sources of funding?
-
Style:
-
The statement may be 2 or more pages, keeping in
mind that you want people to read it. So don't make it
too long, use informative section headings, don't use a tiny
font, don't make the margins ridiculously small, etc. It is
better to use a larger font and let it run over another page
than to squeeze it all onto two pages.
-
Include an Executive Summary:
Call it an abstract if you wish. The idea is to present, up
front, in half a page or so, the information that the committee
is most likely to be looking for in the early, screening phase
of the search: clearly stated research goals, the most
compelling motivation, and the general approach you intend to
take.
-
Use good graphics: A good
figure, displayed prominently and captioned carefully, is worth
a couple hundred words. Clear figures and illustrations can give
the reader a quick and clear idea of the proposed research.
Committee members will appreciate being able to understand your
research ideas from a figure rather than reading through five
pages of text.
-
Pay attention to jargon. You want most readers
to understand everything in your statement. Make sure that you
describe your research in language that many people outside your
specific subject area can understand. Ask people both in and
outside your field to read it before you send your application.
Remember that the goal is to get the search committee excited
about you - they won't get excited about something they can't
understand.
-
There are no excuses for spelling errors.
- Teaching Statement
- Resources
- A philosophy of teaching statement is a narrative that
includes
- your conception of teaching and learning
- a description of how you teach
- justification for why you teach that way
The statement can
- demonstrate that you have been
reflective and purposeful about your teaching
- communicate your goals as an
instructor and your corresponding actions in the classroom
- provide an opportunity to point to and
tie together the other sections of your portfolio
-
Components
- Draw on your experiences as a student, a scholar, and a
human being. Think about how you would attempt to solve some of the
difficulties and frustrations you've encountered as a TA. If
you've been relatively lucky, talk about the ideas/techniques
that you've seen yield positive results and how you will apply
them in your teaching. Don't simply state how much you lecture
versus how many hours of class participation. Rather, talk
about how you have been successful in increasing the extent and
quality of student participation by...
- Frame your discussion in terms of how your teaching style
addresses salient problems or issues such as enhancing students'
analytical skills and ability to understand theoretically
sophisticated material or how to avoid teaching to the lowest
common denominator. If you can, illustrate your points with
examples; e.g., The following essay question taken from an exam
in early American literature asks the student to apply the
theoretical approaches we discussed in class to a text from a
different genre and think about the implications of the shift in
content.
- You may want to address one or more of the following issues
in your statement depending on your particular interests and the
nature of the expectations at your target schools.
- Increased undergraduate involvement in faculty
research. How would you integrate your research into your
courses and enhance student participation in your work?
- Increased use of technology in the classroom and
beyond. How would you use email and the web to have a
substantive impact on a course that you teach? Many schools
have wired classrooms with PCs and internet access available
for humanities and social science courses; how would you
take advantage of these facilities?
- Writing Across the Curriculum which requires students to
take courses with an emphasis on writing offered by a wide
array of disciplines and not just the English department.
How could you implement this requirement in a couple of your
sociology courses?
-
"If you say you work to encourage collaboration in the
classroom, then explain how you do that, or if you're a new
teacher, how you would do that," she says. "It's easy to
say, 'I want to encourage collaboration in the classroom,'
or 'I want to get students to think more critically' and
leave it at that. But who doesn't want to do that?"
- Write about the courses you would like to teach.
Remember, this needs to be institution-specific, so some
research into the institution you are applying to is helpful
here. What courses are already being offered that you might
teach? What new courses might you bring to the department? Don't
hesitate to contact the head of the search committee if you have
questions about the position's teaching expectations. The key
here is balance: You want to display some interesting ideas, but
don't be too adventurous. It's fine to express interest in
interdisciplinary teaching--and it's a good idea to point out
how the breadth of your training will allow you to teach a wide
range of courses--but don't propose an interdisciplinary course
among four departments before you know whether the department
that's hiring you is interested in those kinds of experiments.
- Before you start writing, look closely at the job ad and the
institution's Web site. Look to see if the teaching philosophies
of the faculty members are on the site. Find out how large the
institution is and what the institution values. You need to know
about class size and what kinds of students you'll be teaching,
so you'll know what to stress in your statement, because above
all, the search committee will be looking to see if you
understand what's expected of you at their institution
- The first rule of thumb is "to focus not so much on what
courses you've taught, but on how it is you go about teaching,"
he says. "Don't make the mistake of recapitulating what's
already in your CV."
- Be careful not to sound as if you know all there is to know
about teaching, warns Bill Pannapacker, an assistant professor
of English at Hope College. Most applicants believe they won't
be hired unless they already know everything, so "they tend to
glorify their successes and present a picture of seamless
perfection, which is unbelievable. I feel alienated from them
because I can't imagine myself being as perfect, even after
years of experience, as they present themselves as being with
only a few years of experience. It's pretty presumptuous, if you
ask me."
- Show what you're made of. For all their faults,
teaching statements do tend to illuminate the character
of the writer, which can work for you or against you. One of the
most important qualities an inexperienced teacher can display is
a willingness to learn, pay attention, and change. A statement
that reflects an open mind and eagerness to learn increases the
odds that you will be a long-term asset to the institution; it
shows that what you can become as a teacher isn't limited by
what you already are. Equally important: As a teacher, you must
know yourself and be able to perform, and learn from, honest
assessment. Blindly following a formula--or some online
template--for writing teaching statements suggests that you
don't have a voice of your own, or that you don't care to use
it. Be your thoughtful self.
- Avoid promising too much. At most institutions,
teaching and research compete for precious time during the first
years. Don't write a teaching statement that lays out an
astronomical amount of work, e.g., "I will meet individually
with all my students every week and do service learning projects
in the community and design projects for local science museums."
You will be more than adequately busy if you do your best to
teach well and simply while establishing a research lab.
- Format
- There is no required content or set format.
There is no right or wrong way to write a philosophy statement,
which is why it is so challenging for most people to write one.
You may decide to write in prose, use famous quotes, create
visuals, use a question/answer format, etc.
- It is generally 1-2 pages in length. For
some purposes, an extended description is appropriate, but
length should suit the context.
- Use present tense, in most cases. Writing
in first-person is most common and is the easiest for your
audience to read.
- Most statements avoid technical terms and
favor language and concepts that can be broadly appreciated. A
general rule is that the statement should be written with the
audience in mind. It may be helpful to have someone from your
field read your statement and give you some guidance on any
discipline-specific jargon and issues to include or exclude.
- Include teaching strategies and methods to help
people “see” you in the classroom. It is not possible
in many cases for your reader to come to your class to actually
watch you teach. By including very specific examples of teaching
strategies, assignments, discussions, etc, you are able to let
your reader take a mental “peek” into your classroom. Help them
to visualize what you do in the classroom and the exchange
between you and your students. For example, can your readers
picture in their minds the learning environment you create for
your students?
- Make it memorable and unique. If you are
submitting this document as part of a job application, remember
that your readers on the search committee are seeing many of
these documents. What is going to set you apart? What about you
are they going to remember? What brings a teaching philosophy to
life is the extent to which it creates a vivid portrait of a
person who is intentional about teaching practices and committed
to his/her career.
- “Own” your philosophy. The use of
declarative statements (such as “students don’t learn through
lecture” or “the only way to teach is to use class discussion")
could be potentially detrimental if you are submitting this
document to a search committee. You do not want to appear as if
you have all of the answers and you don’t want to offend your
readers. By writing about your experiences and your
beliefs, you “own” those statements and appear more open to new
and different ideas about teaching. Even in your own experience,
you make choices as to the best teaching methods for different
courses and content: sometimes lecture is most appropriate;
other times you may use service-learning, for example.
- C.V.
-
- Most science and engineering C.V.'s will contain several key
elements:
- Name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address.
- Education, beginning with your most recent or expected
degree. List degrees, majors, institutions, and dates of
completion (or expected date) in reverse chronological order.
Also list minors, subfields, and honors.
- Your dissertation or thesis, including the date it will be
finished. Provide the title and a brief description of your
work, its framework, and your conclusions, as well as your
adviser and committee members. Also include dates describing
your current status ("Completed coursework, June 2000," or
"Passed qualifying exam, March 2000").
Your thesis research is very important to your application,
so your thesis title and your advisor's name should appear on
your curriculum vitae.
- Postdoctoral experience. As with your dissertation, provide
the title and a brief description of your work and the name of
your adviser. Your description should explain how your postdoc
work differs from your dissertation.
- Awards. Examples include National Science Foundation
Fellowship, IBM Dissertation Fellowship, and Phi Beta Kappa.
- Experience. Some scientists and engineers like to include
their research and dissertation in this section. If you have
work experience, include your job title, the name of the
employer or institution, dates, your responsibilities, and
accomplishments. Use a consistent format. "Experience" works
best but you may want to divide things up by "Research" and
"Teaching." Stress what you contributed and accomplished by
using active verbs ("Delivered eight class lectures on composite
materials and developed five supporting problem sets and a
midterm examination" is better than "Responsibilities included
preparing class lectures, homework assignments, and exams").
- Publications and presentations. Put these last if you have
more than four or five entries. List items in standard
bibliographic form, classified by type (journal or conference).
While it is acceptable to list articles as "submitted," or "in
preparation," be selective about doing so. You will want to
balance these with articles that are either published, or in
press.
Publications and presentations are also important, but don't
try to pad your publication count! Several articles listed as
`in preparation' only means you tried to make the list look
longer. However, if you have an article that has been accepted for publication, you should definitely include it,
listed as ``to appear.''
- Other possible categories you could use are Academic
Service, Research Interests, Teaching Competencies, Community
Service, Professional Associations, Foreign Study, and
Licensure.
- Your C.V. can be arranged to fit different positions and
different institutions. Here are two versions of the same C.V.,
one written for an academic position at a
research university and the other for a position at a
university that emphasizes
teaching.
- In the C.V. with a research emphasis, the author makes
evident his success in acquiring grants and is also sure to
include his scholarly awards, one of which is a substantial
postdoctoral fellowship. His teaching experience is secondary in
this case and so is not given the same emphasis. In addition, he
may also compose a statement outlining his research interests,
as well as a short research proposal to accompany his C.V.
- The C.V. with a teaching emphasis is designed to impress
those institutions that are more oriented toward experiential or
applied education. Highlighted here is classroom and informal
teaching experience. Also included is his interest and
experience in other forms of teaching, such as outdoor or nature
education. Because he still wants to be active in research, he
also provides his research experience and some of his future
interests, even though he knows that at these particular
institutions, research opportunities might be more limited.
- Here is a list of questions to ask yourself when putting
together your C.V.:
- Is it well-designed, organized, and attractively laid
out, with appropriate use of bold and italic text?
- Are categories -- such as education, teaching, and
research -- clearly labeled?
- Is it easy to find sections of interest to search
committee members, such as publications, postdoctoral
experience, and professional associations?
- Has your adviser and at least one other person reviewed
and critiqued it?
- Have you avoided using acronyms?
- Has it been proofread several times to eliminate
typographical errors?
-
Resume
- Webpage:
-
Do I
Need My Own Web Page? By Mary Morris Heiberger And Julia
Miller Vick
-
Keep your professional web pages up to date,
because some search committee members will look up your
information there.
-
Cover Letter:
-
Resources
-
With 400-600 applications, you will be lucky to
get a few minutes scanning of your application. Write a
cover letter that emphasizes the unique or strong parts of your
application. Write your resume in a way that the strongest
things stand out first in a quick scan. Get some advice on
this from your advisor or other faculty. If you can
personalize your letter to somehow point out that this
department would be an especially good match with your
abilities, that sometimes helps. It also shows that you know
something about the department.
-
The letter of transmittal should be brief.
Remember -- whoever receives your letter will be receiving 199
others. Letters longer than one page will not be read carefully.
-
The first paragraph should identify the position
for which you are applying, how you learned of it, and that you
are, in fact, making an application for it. The next two
paragraphs (no more!) should identify salient points in your
curriculum vitae that the reader should know about, because they
make you the most appropriate candidate for the position. The
final paragraph requests the next step in the process, i.e., an
on-campus interview.
-
Some people customize cover letters (saying, for
instance, "I would fill this niche in your department or could
work well with X") and even research and teaching statements; I
chose not to do that, because of the dangers and, mostly, the
hassle. I wrote one thing that sold me and let the department
decide whether that was what they wanted. (If you are also
applying to industry, then you should have different application
materials and probably resumes for the two types of job.
-
When I applied to multiple departments at one
school, I wrote in each cover letter that I was applying to both
and would consider a joint position.
Make Applications
-
It is important to be organized,
especially if you are making many applications. I used a
spreadsheet to maintain information about the status of my
applications
-
school's name
-
rankings
-
city, state
-
the department's URL
-
related groups
-
faculty in the same field and
contact person
-
main projects
-
the job listing URL
-
number of positions
-
application date/deadline
-
required application materials
-
whether letters were supposed to be
sent directly
-
when applied and what sent
-
confirmation
received
-
interview date
-
expenses
-
reimbursement received
- The word processor I used supported address labels,
allowing me to type an address once and use it many times: on my
letter, on Keith's letter, on our mailing labels, on mailing
labels for our references, etc. Even when it's more work, you
should cut and paste an address instead of retyping it, to avoid
introducing typographical errors.
- In order to keep track of geographical constraints, I bought
and posted a road map of the United States and southern
Canada, putting different colored map pins wherever we were
applying. When one of us received an invitation to interview, I
replaced the pin with a thumbtack so it was easy to see the
status of our job search visually. The map also helped in
planning the order of visits. Also useful was the web service
How far is it?.
- You should create a default cover letter and then
personalize it carefully for every application. I sent
out at least one letter expressing my interest in "the
Department of <<FILL IN >>". You should save an online copy of
every letter you send out, in case you need to resend or review
it.
-
Make sure your application is complete. If the
advertisement asks for names of references or transcripts,
include them. If official transcripts are required and they are
to be sent directly from your university, then arrange for it
and so state in your letter.
-
Apply as soon as you see the ad. If you wait for
the closing date, you could end up in the second group of
applicants to be interviewed.
-
You should receive an acknowledgment of your
application letter within a few weeks after you mail it. If you
have not heard anything by the end of three weeks, it is not
unreasonable to call the department and ask if it has been
received. However, phone calls should be kept to a minimum.
Electronic mail may be more convenient than phone calls, but the
same warning applies - keep these communications to a minimum.
It is a good idea to find a personal contact in the department
to help you with this matter.
-
Departments may have (and in most
cases do have) objectives or priorities that are not clearly
expressed in their job ad. Try to find a contact within the
department who can give you the inside scoop¾this
might save you a lot of time and frustration later.
-
If your advisor knows someone in the department
to which you are applying, you might ask him or her to send them
a “heads-up” about the application and promoting you as a
candidate.
-
For every position you care about, you should
also find a personal contact. This is not optional. If
you know a professor in the department, contact him or her and
say that you're applying for a position and that you're very
interested in the department. If you don't know somebody, ask
your references, especially your advisor, to put in a good word
for you, or see if you can find someone in a professional
organization you belong to, such as
NOGLSTP or
Systers. I cannot stress
enough how important a personal contact is.
Job Talk
-
Although flattered, the assistant professor was taken aback,
since in her mind she hadn't really done anything all that
special. "I just asked myself what were the three things I
wanted them to remember from my talk and then told them those
three things over and over in as many different ways as I
could," she recalls. "I wanted the audience to leave my talk
talking about my talk, and to be able to grab anyone in the
hallway who had not attended and say, 'You won't believe what I
just learned.'"
In short, she succeeded by following a simple, yet often
forgotten adage, "Tell them what you are going to say, say it,
and then tell them what you said."
When you write out your talk in advance, focus on what you want
people to be thinking about as they leave; it will help you
concentrate on the essentials. And make your talk interesting
with good examples, relevant anecdotes, and significant details.
- It's almost impossible to overstate how general and
repetitive your description of what you've done must be.
Tell them what you're going to describe. Tell them that
you're describing what you told them you would describe.
Then tell them that you described what you told them you were
going to describe.
- As with the research statement, it must justify your work
and solutions, and it needs to excite the audience about your
potential and your research vision. The goal there is not to summarize your thesis work, but to give
people a good idea about the kind of your research you do, make
a solid argument about it, and seem enthusiastic about it.
Ideally, the talk should also provide a vivid picture of your
present research approach and agenda, and demonstrate that you
have good taste (i.e., show that your work addresses
important/relevant problems). The talk is also your opportunity
to demonstrate your teaching abilities and reveal what kind of a
teacher you might be.
Your seminar should answer the following questions:
-
What
problem have I worked on?
-
Why would
anyone work on this problem? why the problem is interesting (why
should the audience care?)
-
Why the problem is hard? What is significant
about what I have done?
-
How has my
work made progress on the problem? how you have solved it (and
that you have solved it)
- I have seen many good candidates who underestimated the
importance of "future work". I believe that you should have a
good idea about your future work and spend at least a couple of
slides on it. Your ideas need not be ground breaking, but they
should go well beyond simple extensions of your thesis work. A
well-articulated future work goes a long way towards
establishing that you have a good vision and you are ready to
become your own person. Academic institutions specifically look
for this quality, as the successful candidate will be required
to establish himself as an independent researcher.
-
Some people in the audience will know very
little about what you do, and some will know a lot. Make sure
that everyone who attends your seminar learns something. The
people who know very little about what you do will probably be
trying to judge how good a teacher you are. The people who know
a lot about what you do will be judging how deep your knowledge
is.
The point of the talk is to convince people not in your area;
those in your area are already convinced or you wouldn't have
been invited for a visit. Open by targeting
the general audience; towards the end, you can get more detailed
(and more difficult to follow for non-specialists).
I believe the entire talk should be clear and accessible to a
bright computer scientist not in your area. This shows that you
will be a good teacher and that you are fully in command of, and
can disseminate, your research results. Other people (with whom
I disagree) argue that you should split the talk into: 15
minutes accessible to everyone; 15 minutes accessible to half;
and 5-10 minutes that only a few understand. They argue that it
is bad if everyone understands your entire talk: you seem too
shallow. The problem statement needs to be clear, but the
solution need not be (put in a few equations); naturally, you do
need to show that you nailed the solution. In a research lab,
the audience might well all be specialists in your field; but
for an academic job talk, the audience will be much more mixed.
Plan to have something for everyone.
Be glad you have an hour, since you have to spout all these
generalities and still convince the specialists (by providing
details they want to see) and everybody else (by confusing the
hell out of them) that you're smart and have done a substantial
and interesting piece of research. Confusing the
specialists is a very bad idea.
- It should be
well-structured with a clear roadmap and signposts (in case an
audience member zones out for a few minutes).
Do not make word slides with sentences on them,
because you will invariably turn your back to the audience and
simply recite them. Instead, make each point with two or three
words. These will mean something to you, but the audience will
have to pay attention to find out their meaning. Try to have no
more than three or four points per slide. Don't use too many
overheads or slides. Every phrase on an overhead or slide should
"say something" or summarize the main point of what you will be
saying. Also, be careful not to just recite the phrases on your
overhead. Overheads should not be your notes.
If you make color word
slides, make sure you use no more than four colors on any slide,
lest they look like ransom notes. The slides should be
consistent; i.e., the title on every slide should be in the same
place, and the same size, font and color. If you use bullets to
highlight your text items, they should all be the same color,
perhaps different from the title. Do not use fancy or shaded
backgrounds, or other meaningless adornments. They make the
slides look overly produced and detract from the content.
- Do not overdo PowerPoint graphics, animations, clip art,
background shading/coloring, fancy slide title or borders, etc.
“Overdoing it” means even considering incorporating any of these
elements, the punishment for which should be removal of the
mousing hand. (I get compliments on my (very simple) slide
layout; people find it refreshing, and they are able to pay
attention to the content rather than the formatting.)
Resist the temptation to use special effects, like cute
transition effects between slides. Above all, never use
sound effects to accompany the appearance of text on the screen.
By the third slide, this “feature” becomes amazingly annoying to
the audience. Also resist the temptation to add one line of text
at a time to your slides. You’ll end up paying more attention to
the laptop than to the audience. This approach also gives you a
lot more slides to skip through if you need to shorten your
talk, and makes it more difficult to go backwards.
- Practice your talk several times before your
first interview, and have people from outside your field come
and give you comments. Be sure they look for annoying mannerisms
in your presentation as well as the content: problems with
delivery, odd mannerisms, etc. Many people find that videotaping
themselves (and suffering through watching the tapes) is
helpful.
Practice your seminar before you go. Practice in front of your
adviser, some fellow graduate students, and at least one person
who knows nothing about what you are doing. Get their comments,
and practice it again. Make sure that your seminar is at a level
where each of these people comes away with a good understanding
of the issues and the approach that you took. Practice it again
with a different audience, if possible.
- Make sure that your seminar lasts no more than forty-five
minutes, because it may take longer when you present it for
real. Practice it again. Figure out which slide corresponds to
halfway through, and learn to notice the time when that slide
appears. That way, you can tell whether you are going too slowly
or too quickly—while you still have time to do something about
it! Have a few slides that can be put in or left out, according
to how your time is going. Don’t plan to tell jokes; you never
know who might be offended.
-
During the presentation, be sure to maintain eye
contact with the audience. Choose people at various locations in
the room, and systematically sweep your eyes around to be sure
that you engage the entire audience. Find a friendly-looking
person in the audience to look at frequently. It's better for
your morale to look at smiling than scowling faces.
-
Avoid standing right at the
overhead projector and pointing at it with a pencil. You may
obstruct the projected image, or the view of people near the
front, and you also will be partially blinded by staring into
the bright light. If you use a wooden or metal pointer, keep it
by your side except when you are pointing at the screen,
otherwise you may look like one of the Three Musketeers. If you
use a laser pointer, use both hands to steady the light when you
point with it, and then let go of the button! Most laser
pointers won’t last more than 20 minutes, or so, if you overuse
them.
-
Seem excited. If you don't care about your research, why on
earth should anyone else? Remind yourself of the excitement you
have felt about it, even if you are now sick of it. If you're
ordinarily laid-back and low-key even when you really care, pump
up the volume so you seem dynamic and interested.
-
Try to relieve their
major concerns before they're brought up.
-
Shortly before you give your seminar, ask to go
to the room where it will be presented. Make sure that the
audio/visual equipment that you need is there, that it works and
that you know how to use it. Run through some of your slides to
see how they work in the room; make sure there is a pointer; and
stand where you will stand to give your presentation so that it
will not feel foreign to you when you actually begin. If they
haven’t provided a time for you to do this, ask for it. If you
use 35mm slides, make sure they are loaded properly in the
carousel before you begin.
Be sure to check ahead of time to ensure that your hosts will
have the necessary equipment to connect to your laptop. Consider
sending your presentation by email before you arrive, allowing
your hosts time to ensure that it displays properly. You should
also bring a disk or (better) a memory stick, so that you can
easily transfer your presentation from one machine to another if
hardware problems arise. One thing to be aware of is that in
some poorly
designed presentation software, certain fonts do not
display properly on different platforms. Having all of your
symbols turn to empty boxes, for example, is an unpleasant
experience to say the least!
Always bring a
backup hard copy of your presentation in case something goes
wrong. If you can’t get the projection system to work, you still
have to give a seminar!
Learn how to export the display from your laptop to an external
projector. If you use a Mac, learn the difference between the
primary and secondary displays, and how to mirror the displays
if necessary. Be sure to place the computer someplace where you
can change slides without stepping into the path of the
projector. This is distracting both to you and to the audience.
Become facile with the software you are using, so that you can
easily find a particular slide in response to a question.
Nowadays you shouldn’t need hardcopies of slides, but I
was always careful to have backup copies of my PowerPoint slides
on a CD-R and theWeb.
-
Tips on Fielding Audience Questions
Invariably, the talk will be followed by a
question-and-answer period. While it is tempting to relax once
you've finished the presentation, don't. The Q & A is often the
most critical part of the talk, an opportunity for the audience
to see how you think on your feet and how well you defend your
research. Take all questions seriously, and answer as directly
and concisely as you can. Don't be long winded, especially if
there are lots of hands raised and not a lot of time. If someone
asks you a string of questions, answer the one or two you like
best and then move on, saying you'll be happy to discuss the
others afterward. If you are unsure of what someone is asking,
try and rephrase the question back to them for confirmation. If
you really don't have an answer, it's okay to say so (but not
more than once or twice). Whatever you do, try not to be evasive
or defensive-even in face of a hostile question. Acknowledge
that it is an important issue and one that you are continuing to
grapple with as you revise the manuscript. Following the last
question, take the opportunity to thank the audience for coming
out and sharing their comments.
In addition to the slides you plan to use in
your talk, have a few extra slides in reserve that you can use
during the Q&A period to elaborate on your research.
During your talk, if you are interrupted with
questions, try to answer them as directly as possible. If the
questions become too frequent, ask the audience to hold them
until you finish, otherwise you may run out of time. If a
question isn’t clear, rephrase it to be sure you understood it.
A phrase like, “I’m sorry, do you mean ...” can be very helpful.
Never argue with the questioner. If the discussion on some point
seems to be going in circles, suggest that you and the
questioner meet afterwards to discuss it further, then go on to
another question.
It is crucial to appear that you considered all aspects of your
work thoroughly and to not get caught off guard by any question
or comment. Also remember to give credit to good questions
(i.e., those that are non-trivial and that you have a good
answer for). If someone points out a limitation of your work,
admit it and use it as a stepping-stone to discuss a relevant
positive point
It is always a good idea to respond to questions politically
(regardless of how hostile or silly they may sound) and try to
interact with the audience productively and agreeably. For
instance, if someone asks you a question you have already
answered, simply restate your answer without pointing out the
repetition (others in the audience might do this for you). More
attentive people will hopefully notice this and appreciate your
attitude.
Few speakers reach every listener all the time, so don't focus
on unresponsive audience members. In fact, you may see a lot of
unresponsive listeners. Be aware that in many science and
engineering fields, there is a tendency for much of the audience
at a job talk to act that way, either because they're trying to
make the experience more challenging or simply because they're
concentrating on critiquing the presentation. Try to stay in
touch with your audience, but don't try to decide the success of
your talk while you're still giving it.
There will usually be a question-and-answer period. There is no
way to predict all the questions you might be asked, but you can
practice by having friends listen to your talk and then ask you
the hardest questions they can think of.
Take a drink of water when someone asks a question. Not only is
it a free moment, but it keeps you from looking as through you
might be about to interrupt.
Deflect less relevant questions with "Let's discuss that
off-line."
-
If speaking to a mixed audience, avoid highly
technical or specialized terms.
Science is changing and increasingly includes previously
underrepresented groups. Use inclusive language -- "she" as well
as "he," for example -- and language that is respectful of all
groups.
Using humor in your job talk can be risky, but if it comes
naturally to you, go ahead and be funny. If it doesn't, don't
try to fake it.
-
Practical Dos and Don'ts for the Industry Job Talk
- Do remember the fine points of visual aids. There is
just no excuse for poor quality,
impossible-to-see-from-the-back-row slides.
- Don't start into your subject matter without knowing the
audience's level of understanding of your topic. Oftentimes,
company attendees include an engineer or two, perhaps even
an H/R person or management member.
- Do use a spell checker on your PowerPoint slides, even
your trusty old favorites.
- Don't use goofy cartoon characters on the slides that
detract from your professional message.
- Do have your presentation loaded and ready to go before
stepping to the podium. Projecting a Windows boot-up process
is not a great way to start your talk!
- Don't concentrate only on "me, me, me" when describing
your research. Show some team involvement as well and use
the occasional "we."
- Do show that you are enthused and interested in the work
you are discussing, by tone of voice and eye contact with
the audience.
- Don't run much over 45 minutes with your talk, and leave
plenty of time for your Q&A session.
- Do discuss topic options with your host in advance for
his or her thoughts on what would be most interesting to the
firm.
- Don't use a lot of jargon in your talk, unless you are
certain that the audience participants comes from the same
area of expertise and will be familiar with the use of the
lingo.
Interview
End Game
-
Negotiate offer deadlines. You want to get
all your offers within a few days so that you can
make your decision information with all the offers valid.
You don't want to have to turn down an older offer just
for the chance of being able to accept an upcoming
offer that may not happen.
-
Negotiate startup packages. Think about:
A. Salary and summer support (some professors don't get
paid over the summer).
B. Support for RA's
C. Travel budget
D. Equipment
E. Get the results in writing. Act as though
they won't give you anything unless you have a letter from
them guaranteeing it.
F. Moving expenses
-
Negotiation is important for salary and stuff.
It is much
easier to negotiate before your job
starts than afterwards.
Negotiation will mostly
happen after your offer (None of
the lecturers had had
experiences where negotiation for
salary, etc. was done before the
offer.)
Make negotiation explicit
and plan what your needs are.
Figure out what you need and
also what you want and tell
them that.
Even though as a
graduate student you are very grateful
for a job, try to hide that.
Don't let them know that you
are so so so grateful just to
get any job that you'd work
for pennies. They're not
mind-readers and they won't know
that. And showing it really hurts
your ability to negotiate
for a good salary.
-
There are numerous sources where you can find
salary information. If the university is a public institution,
salaries are a matter of public record, and may be available
through your library. Many professional societies also have
information about average salaries at various institutions. This
could be quite informative. If average salaries at the
institution where you plan to interview are significantly
different from the average for your discipline, you need to find
out the explanation during your visit.
Salary: Talbee Survey (CRA)
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