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The Summer Olympics are later this year. No matter when you’re reading this article, it’s doubtful that any serious competitors are just now starting to train. The same thinking should apply to your academic job search.
“If you want to become a professor, you should spend your time in a graduate school doing what it takes to become competitive in the academic job market,” wrote Jason Brennan in his book about succeeding in academia, titled, “Good Work If You Can Get It.”
Brennan shared an Olympics analogy about graduate students from philosopher and economist David Schmidtz. It goes like this: An athlete intends to win gold at the Olympics four years from now. But when asked about their training regimen, they respond, “I’m not training yet. The Olympics are years away. I’ll start training when the time comes. I expect the Olympic committee to exercise due diligence and find the best raw talent. It’s not my job to do their job for them, to help them select the best people. I work best under pressure anyway.”
Graduate school must be treated like a professional school, according to Brennan. You must hit the ground running. But what is the first step?
Well, actually, it’s beginning with the final step in mind with some backward induction. Brennan recommends asking yourself what you will need to have a competitive CV five years from now, and then what you need to be able to do in year four, year three and so on, all the way back to the present day.
“You’ll realize your job search begins on the very first day of your first year of graduate school,” Brennan said. “Start doing what it takes.”
If that’s getting published in top journals or presenting at certain conferences, start with a seminar paper. Don’t wait until the end of the semester and submit it to pass a class. Get feedback you need to turn it into an article for a lower-tier journal or to present it at a regional conference.
How you build up your CV will tell a story to future employers about how you intend to pursue tenure. If you only publish in years four and five, you’re signaling to your institution that you plan to do the bare minimum to get tenure and then never publish again.
This is just one of many stories that your CV should tell search committees. It shows that you understand what your academic discipline requires and that you’ve made it a priority. It shows progress.
An overused requirement for administrative job postings asks for candidates who show “progressive experience,” meaning they are taking deliberate steps to becoming a manager, director, or vice president. There must be evidence of a career trajectory on applicants’ resumes.
Aspiring professors, on the other hand, only need to land one job. Still, search committees are looking for early progress and initiative.
Progress doesn’t have to be limited to writing. You could do service work, give talks, or teach classes, including courses outside of your specialty.
Don’t wait for perfection and getting published in that one journal that will single handedly clinch your candidacy. You have to take more swings for singles and then doubles before hitting a home run.
Yes, graduate school is a full-time job, and half the students fail or quit. But as Brennan notes, it is the easiest time you’ll have during your entire academic career, in terms of responsibility. You have mentors feeding you research ideas and telling you what to read, and you have more time to write. You might be a teaching assistant and cover a few classes but you’re not in charge of writing syllabi, tests, or assignments.
“However much teaching you do in grad school, you’ll do more as a professor,” Brennan said.
So, take advantage of your time as a graduate student and start your job search now. You’ll regret not being prepared for the Olympics that await you.
Although faculty job postings are available more than once every four years, there aren’t silver medals awarded in academia.
“The good news is that all it takes is one gold medal — a job offer — to have a happy, fulfilling life-long career,” Brennan said.
