BACKGROUND: CairoSon is a newly minted PhD in physics looking for a job, preferably as a tenure-track instructor. He’s found one university position he’s over the moon about as it seems to him like a good fit.The research that current profs there do dovetails nicely with his own research background - though his real interest is in teaching, as he is deliriously in love with physics (has been since second grade) and enjoys sharing his enthusiasm at every level of student.
So, he has written a cover letter and a “teaching statement” (something I assume the application asks for) to his dream university. I have yet to read them, but he has asked for my input (before retiring, I was a professional editor, so even though he is a fine writer he likes me to look over things like cover letters). My husband has read them, and he reports that CairoSon’s cover letter is 3 single-spaced pages and his teaching statement is 5.
Umm … is that WAAAYYY too long?
If you respond, please include your background, if any, that relates to the hiring process for college instructors in STEM. I mean, I think the length is probably ridiculous and he needs to cut a lot, but I am not a university professor. While I tend to doubt that such lengthy exposition is desirable, I’d like to hear from people in the know. (Not sure we have much in the way of professors posting these days, but I know there were at least a couple - if I can remember their usernames, I’ll add a shout-out to them. Or others are welcome to do so.)
College professor here, humanities field, have served on multiple search committees.
That is a little long, but I’m not sure I’d say WAAAYYY too long. Academic cover letters do tend to run longer than in other professions. In my field at least, the norm is around one and a half to two single-spaced pages. It’s expected that in addition to the “here I am, here’s the position I’m applying for” intro, you will have separate paragraphs discussing your teaching and research, both of which should be pretty substantive, usually one discussing service as well (which can be shorter, especially for a grad student), and another fairly substantive paragraph discussing your fit for the school and why you want this job. If this is really your son’s dream job, it’s understandable that he would have a lot to say on this last point, and at my institution (regional public in a not-especially-desirable part of the country with lower-than-average salaries), we would be THRILLED to read it all – if someone genuinely wants to be here and we are confident they will take the job if offered, that is a huge huge plus. OTOH, if he’s applying to somewhere that everyone considers a dream job, it might be overkill.
Teaching statements can vary, but I’d say two to three pages would be a typical length. As a committee member, I am looking for specific, concrete examples of stuff the candidate does in the classroom, how they’ve handled common teaching challenges or tweaked what they do in response to student evaluations, new courses they could develop, etc. I would not be put off by a five-page statement if it was all substantive, sounded honest, and conveyed genuine enthusiasm. If there’s any edubabble and waffle (everyone is “student-centered,” tries not to be “the sage on the stage,” invokes Paolo Freire, etc.), those parts can be cut.
I’m a university professor in physics. I hire newly minted PhDs both directly into my group and as part of hiring committees routinely.
The most common university jobs for new physics PhDs do not include substantial teaching duties, but since a teaching statement is involved, I am guessing that this position has something else going on. You also mention that he likes the alignment with the research going on there, which leans the other way, toward a more typical research-focused postdoctoral position. Has your son also written a research statement?
If you are comfortable DM’ing me the job posting (or whatever you know about the specific position), I can reply here with a more targeted answer while not giving any specifics away. Or if you’d rather I just work from what you’ve provided, I can do that, but the framing as given is unusual for physics postdoctoral positions at universities. I am also assuming this is in the U.S.; advise if otherwise.
Pasta, I will DM you details after checking with my son to find out more specifics on the job and how it fits into the university system. (Yes, it’s in the southern United States.) I may have mischaracterized what he said a little; I’ll get more clarity and let you know.
I will say to be careful, since most universities these days hire adjunct professors to do most of the teaching, which carries very low pay and almost no status. If this really is a tenure-track teaching position, well, that’s a very good reason for him to be excited about it.
University Professor for over 20 years. That’s long, but not strangely long. They’re going to look at his CV and letters of reference much closer anyway.
Be prepared. There may be hundreds of applicants for the job. The chance that he gets even an interview are slim. In academia one application is nothing; he needs to apply widely and be prepared for the process to take several years. If he’s a newly minted science PhD he should be looking at postdoc positions, not faculty positions; the chance that he’s competitive for a tenure track position at this stage is minimal. Possible, certainly, but unlikely.
Yep. He’s already applied for and been rejected for a few positions, though he’s just starting to look more seriously now as he has been preoccupied with his dissertation. While I know nothing about physics academia in particular, I do know that the job market in general is tough for a whole lot of reasons right now. And with college enrollments dropping overall, that can’t help.
He’s competing with people that have been finished for years, stuck in the postdoc loop. And maybe even more established folk. Almost nobody gets a Science tenure track position right out of their PhD. Most do a postdoc (or 2, or 3) first and get a permanent position 3-10 years post-PhD.
Oh, small bit of semi-related good news: he just got an interview for a job (not the dream job) - it’s not tenure track, but hey, if you need a job, you need one. And it’s in Hawai’i (on Oahu, not Big Island) which obviously his parents would enjoy.
Based on the DM info, I have in front of me what is surely the job posting. If so…
On competition: I do agree with @mozchron, even for smaller schools or for schools with a liberal arts focus. I sussed out the career trajectories of all the physics faculty at the university in question, and they all had a postdoctoral position or other staff position somewhere else after their PhD and before joining this university’s faculty. The most common duration of that postdoctoral work was three years, but the range was from two to six years. So, no current physics faculty there were hired straight out of their PhD.
I know of exceptions to this in the field at large, but they are very rare. The job posting itself implies that they are considering people right out of their PhD, but that’s typical language and not reflective of usual outcomes.
This isn’t in any way meant to discourage your son from applying, of course! It will be at worst a great learning experience, and at best maybe he’ll be the exception.
For the statements:
The research statement and the teaching statement will both be important. I would expect three to maybe four pages for each statement for this position given the balance of research and teaching expected. Five is not necessarily obscene but it should be avoided. I doubt someone coming out of PhD has five pages of meaningfully distinct things to say, and I agree with you that it should be tightened way up. Given that the application will involve other forms of teaching evidence beyond the statement, three is probably the sweet spot for that statement, spilling into four as needed.
The cover letter does not need to be three pages. Much of what is said in those three pages should probably show up in the other statements. One page to a light two pages is about right for the cover letter.
The reviewers will be slogging through tons of applications and will likely be numb by the time they are reading your son’s prose. There should be clear section breaks and section titles and maybe some bolded key take-away sentences here and there (things he wants the reader to definitely “know”, even on skimming). It needs to not be (say) five straight pages of non-stop paragraphs. Fortunately he has a professional editor to help on this front as needed!
That’s great news! If it involves any sort of teaching or research, then it’s exactly the sort of intermediate job that would set him up to apply to this sort of tenure-track job again in a few years (if he doesn’t land the dream job this round, of course!)
Thank you so so much. I’m passing along all this great advice to our son. Too bad that the dream job sounds hugely unlikely, but honestly, we’ve all been there - job hunting is grueling and usually comes with the occasional dose of dashed high hopes. (I know I’m still faintly disappointed that I didn’t get a couple of jobs I really really wanted, decades ago.) It’s be good practice to apply, regardless of the outcome.
The interview isn’t such a great opportunity, on closer inspection - they want an in person interview in Hawaii next week, three days before his defense (which he told them about in his cover letter). He’s ready to drop everything and fly down anyway, but his dad and I are recommending he take a deep breath and maybe just say, “no, I cannot interview in person on that date, but I’m available after Thanksgiving.” Up to him, of course.
A job applicant, in general, should be willing to shift a few other commitments around in order to make an interview work…
But yeah, three days before a thesis defense is not something you want to do. And if they think that expecting that is reasonable, then they’re not an employer that you actually want.
If this is also a position in the academia sphere, they won’t mind if he asks for a reasonable practical delay. Things usually aren’t on such a rush at that timescale. (If it’s industry, the risk is anybody’s guess.)