Many professor job applications this year are requesting a “dossier.” This seems awfully vague, and all the sources I’ve looked at seem to have a different idea of what it means. Further, most of the places requesting dossiers express it like this: “CV, dossier, dissertation (or project) abstract, brief writing sample (25 pages) and sample course syllabi.” What would go in the dossier if not a CV, writing sample, etc.?
In my field (English), “dossier” generally means three or more letters of recommendation and, possibly, a transcript. It’s a horribly vague term, though, so if you’re any doubt about what an individual school wants, I’d recommend contacting them.
In my field (philosophy) a dossier consists primarily of 3-4 letters of recommendation, a writing sample, and teaching evaluations. Also, a CV, but I always send that separately, along with my cover letter (my grad department always photocopied and mailed the other elements of my dossier).
If the instructions are worded like that, then a Dossier would contain your letters of recommendation. Here’s how they are probably expecting it to work:
My university, like many universities with large graduate programs, actually has a Dossier Service.
When you’re almost done with your dissertation and are ready to go on the job market, you approach your adviser, and other professors with whom you have been working, and ask them to place a Letter of Recommendation at the Dossier Service for you. Then, when you start applying for jobs, you make requests to the Dossier Service, asking them to send your Dossier to the places where you’re applying. At my school,you pay the Dossier Service $5 per application.
So, when you’re putting together your job application, you (yourself) send a CV, dissertation abstract, writing sample, cover letter, etc., and the Dossier Service sends a package of your letters of recommendation under separate cover. This removes any concern that the hiring institutions might have about whether or not your Letters of Rec have been forged, and it also saves you and your professors a bunch of time, because you don’t have to ask them to print out and seal a new letter for every job you apply to.
My partner is currently on the job market, and is in the middle of the application phase. By the end of December, she will have applied for somewhere between 30 and 40 jobs and postdocs. This isn’t an unusual number for someone finishing grad school, and having to organize each letter of recommendation separately would make an already stressful process unbearable.
Of course, one potential disadvantage of a Dossier Service like this is that your letters of recommendation are not tailored specifically for each job you apply for, but that seems not to be expected in academia anyway. As long as your professors give a good account of your intellectual strengths and abilities and your potential as a colleague, that’s the main thing.
When you begin compiling your dossier, you can also allow certain professors (generally your adviser) to view all the letters of rec that it contains. My partner granted permission for her adviser to view the letters, and he then visited the Dossier Service and looked at all her letters to make sure they were strong enough to support her applications. He gave her no details about any of the letters, of course, but told her that it was a strong dossier, and that she could feel confident that it would help her in her job search.
Dossier is for letters of recommendation and teaching evals from department heads or the dean of your college. Not hard to get, and usually profs. leave with a dossier in hand - that is if you haven’t a job prospect when you leave. IIRC, when I left I made sure I had my dossier (psychology dept.) before I moved on. It wasn’t difficult to get.
This isn’t a universally used (or understood) term in academia. I work at a large-ish state university in Illinois and we never used that word in my department. A few years back we hired an administrator who had previously worked in Georgia, and right away she started making frequent references to “dossiers.” Nobody knew what the hell she was talking about.