Navigating the academic hiring process
(🇺🇸) 🇬🇧 (🇨🇦)
Guilherme D. Garcia (gdgarcia.ca)
Université Laval
2022-08-17
My timeline
- PhD at McGill (2012–2017)
- 1 semester at Concordia (LTA)
- 4 years at Ball State (US, TT)
- 1 semester at Newcastle (UK, TT*)
- Now at Laval (TT)
- About 50 TT applications between 2016 and 2021
First things first
There’s a lot of “randomness” in academic hiring
“Best candidate” is a highly subjective term
The actual process is at least in part a black box
Of course, a great CV is key
But there are things you just can’t control
Applications: UK vs North America
Overall, applications aren’t that different. But:
Faster and simpler process (= less tiring)
Less waiting after you apply/are interviewed
Applications: UK vs North America
- More objective/transparent (or less subjective?)
- Also less flexible (little to no negotiation)
- Typically required:
- cover letter, statements, writing samples, course evals
- Job talks often on the same day
- My case: job talk + discussion of a course I’d propose
Some important points (you can control)
- Visit these regularly: linguistlist.org and jobs.ac.uk
- Also professional associations related to your subfield
- Have a strong web presence (self-marketing)
- In interviews/job talks, read the room:
- Approachable - fancy - approachable structure
- Sweet spot depends a lot on the department/position
- Knowing faculty and student profile will help
Some important points (you can control)
- Get papers out asap (e.g., OSF)
- But also materials (handouts, tutorials)
- What’s the current/next big trend? E.g., data science in the past decade or so for linguistics. This helps you “package” and sell your application
- Teaching can matter a lot depending on the dept
- Technical skills → good for research and teaching
Reading suggestion
- Some links and extras here: gdgarcia.ca/graduate
- One very useful book to check out:
Thanks!
Extras: Academia in the UK (vs US)
- Russel Group (🇬🇧) = R1 (🇺🇸) = Medical Doctoral (🇨🇦)
- Lecturer > Senior lecturer > (Reader) > Professor
- Much more homogeneous (salaries, teaching loads)
- Less teaching than an R3/R2, but more service
- Also more bureaucratic
- Tenure doesn’t exist (technically): contracts are open-ended
- In practice, basically the same thing
Navigating the academic hiring process (🇺🇸) 🇬🇧 (🇨🇦) Guilherme D. Garcia ( gdgarcia.ca ) Université Laval 2022-08-17