đź’Ľ Job Market Materials & Resources

Hello! This is a collection of materials I created for the academic job market for the 2021 – 2022 season. Below, you will find some links to websites for finding academic jobs (relevant to my disciplinary purview in writing and rhetoric), questions to ask when fleshing out the details of an offer, and templates for negotiating offers. And reach out to me with any questions via email or on social media. Good luck out there, bestie! ✨

Job Market Documents

Some of these files are longer than what might be required of a job app. One thing to think about when drafting is writing in a modular fashion, meaning you can delete content or move it around as needed across different documents. This approach lets you adapt as needed given that every job application can look different.


Another thing I was also told—and this is also outlined in The Professor Is In, which, love or hate, does have some good tips—was to never tell the committee that you can contribute to their program, or that you’re a suitable or good candidate for the job. Apparently, that is up to the committee to decide for themselves. So you’re better off using that space to otherwise outline how you are a great candidate: the old adage of show and not tell. This all seems to be part of that so-called hidden curriculum of how the academy functions, so hopefully this helps you if you need it.


🗂️ Folder with All Documents

Screening Interview Questions

If you need some questions to help you get started with prepping for the screening interview, here are some of the questions I used in most of, if not all, the screening interviews that I did. Feel free to riff on these and such if you feel the need.


(Hunting them down, so check back soon!)

Figuring Out The Teaching Load & Salary

To preface this part, as I was getting mentored by faculty in the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures department at Michigan State University, I was told that you should *never* ask about the course load, salary, or any questions related to the actual labor of the position. Rather, in the screening interview portion, you might ask about the daily life of someone in a similar role, clarification on some of the duties, hopes and such that the committee has for the role, or other similar questions.


What that means is that, after 9 screening interviews, and 6 campus visits last market season, I never learned the salary or teaching load until I got to the campus visit, and that information was usually shared by the dean (or associate dean) or the chair of the department. Instead, we were taught how to glean that information—either through the job ad or other means. Below are some tips on how to do that!


Scanning The Job Ad


This might seem obvious, but scan the job ad for the salary and teaching load. Very rarely, sadly, will the salary actually be listed on the job ad, but the teaching load is often listed. That said, you can also look for codes and such that are specific to that university or state (if it’s a state school). From there, you can search out a location that gives you a glimpse into what that pay looks like (i.e., whether you are paid bi-weekly or monthly, what the  payment process looks like for a 9-month faculty position or a 12-month contract). For example, my current position is a 9-month faculty position, and we are paid 2x a month for all 12 months, meaning the overall salary is distributed across all 12 months.


Look at New & Current Faculty Teaching Loads / Salaries


This is super handy if you’re in a state school in a state with open salary data (e.g., Texas, North Carolina). What I did in the past to get a sense of what the starting salary would be like is look at which faculty member was the most recently hired. From there, I looked up their salary online to get a sense of what they were offered in relation to the salaries of staff who had been there longer. This method can be very illuminating and will show you how much pay non-white people get offered compared to white faculty.


Looking at the University or College Type


If you’re in the constellation of fields that comprise writing and rhetoric studies (i.e., Professional Writing, Technical Communication, Rhetoric and Composition), depending on what school you are applying to, the compensation and teaching load can look different. One quick way to access your teaching load is to look at the type of university you’re applying to in the first place, as well as the kind of department you’d be working in. Frankly, and sadly, if you’re going to be in an English department, your salary will almost always be lower than if you were in a standalone department. Below is a breakdown of common teaching loads for different university types.


R1 (very high research activity)


Teaching Load

Salary


R2 (high research activity)


Teaching Load

Salary


Small Liberal Arts College


Teaching Load

Salary


Regional Comprehensive


Teaching Load

Salary

Job Hunt Resources

If you’re in writing and rhetoric, subscribe to the Writing Studies Listerv and the ATTW Listserv to see when people are posting jobs. Depending on what you focus on, the mailing list for the Association of Internet Researchers can be pretty handy too. Below are some websites that are also useful for finding jobs in the field and across the humanities in general (for example, through H-Net, I interviewed at a pretty cool comparative studies job at Ohio State).

Email Templates

These are emails I built with the help of mentors and advisors at Michigan State University. The language of these emails can change, of course, depending on your specific needs and wants.