Jobs in philosophy

'Jobs in philosophy' is a lively topic. There are rightly worries about whether the market is fair (probably not), whether it's worse now than it ever has been (probably) and how to get a job. With a full disclaimer that I'm no expert, I have views.

When I was HoD at Nottingham, I oversaw 7 permanent hires and a number of temporary ones, too, as well as being a committee member on a range of others before and since. I've also chaired hiring panels around the University, in other Schools and Departments (at UoN we always require an independent Chair on each interview panel to ensure that everything is above board). I've also been involved in a couple of hires in Italy.

I'll focus here on full-time, permanent jobs (roughly the equivalent of tenure in the US). Please bear in mind I'm talking about, and only about, my experience of being on a hiring panel

I might write something about interviews another time, but let me just now speak to the CV/cover letter/teaching portfolio. With that said, and keeping in mind the narrowness of my experiences hiring, what are hiring panels looking for?

READ THE ADVERT. It will tell you.

In none of the cases I've ever been involved in has there been a secret agenda. We write, in the advert, what we're looking for. Your job, in applying, is to demonstrate that you are what we're looking for. I should also explain/clarify that at every stage prior to interview, the only people assessing your application to us will be academic members of staff within the Department. It's not the case that 'the administrators' are selecting for us, telling us what we need to do. Aside from checking that we're selecting against the criteria (that we decide in advance), they play no role.

In general, an advert will ask you to have an AoS--an area of research specialism. You need to demonstrate, convincingly, that you work in that area.

An advert will also ask you for a publication record 'appropriate to stage of career', or something similar. What does this mean? Well, if you're pre-PhD, it might mean that one good output would be enough to get us looking more closely. If you're 3 years out, we'll want quite a bit more. Of course, if you've been on a teaching focused contract for 2 or 3 years, that might lower our expectations a bit.

The point here is that there's no hard and fast means of calculating how many papers you need to have, or at which journal, in order to get an interview. Each person is different; each search is different. What you do need to do, though, is explain/demonstrate that, given your circumstances, your record is appropriate to stage of career. (Aside: this might be a part of what's going on when we don't interview x, who has 3 papers at good journals, and is 2 years out, but do interview y, who has 2 papers at good journals, and has yet to submit.)

It's also really really important to be aware that having a good publication record has been a necessary, but eye-wateringly far from sufficient, condition for getting an interview. As HoD I got a fair bit of correspondence from applicants (or their supervisors--stay classy folks) saying things like 'but I've got more publications than the person you hired, you asshole' (Top tip: don't call the HoD an asshole when there's a non-zero chance that they might be advertising another post in your area, that you then end up applying for.....that was fun). The point is that each of the conditions we specify as essential criteria, are essential. Fail to demonstrate that you meet them and we can't, legally, hire you.

Similarly, we'll ask about teaching excellence. Note: not 'have you taught'? But: 'are you good at teaching?' I've lost track of the number of applicants we've had to reject because they fail to address this; they just tell us that they've taught courses on the philosophy of .... I have shouted at the screen on more than one occasion. I am a bad person.

What counts as good, here, and what kinds of evidence you choose to use is difficult to specify. Really, I'd advise candidates to make the case that their evidence shows that they are an excellent teacher. For instance, suppose that (worries about teaching evaluations to one side) you're pleased with your teaching evaluation scores and think that they show you in a good light. Suppose that score is 4.5/5. If you write 'my teaching scores were 4.5/5'; well, that's something.

But it's not great. First, I don't know what that the question was that this was scored against (was it 'Instructor turns up on time'?). Second, I've no context. If the mean score in your locale was 4.7, you're not impressing me. If it was 3, then you really are. And if you don't tell me,... well, you're inviting me to read-in the worst.

So, whatever evidence of your excellence you're going to use, explain it. Make it clear to us that it shows that you're excellent at teaching. And for the love of goodness, show us, don't tell us. By all means tell us about your teaching awards, too, but again contextualise: how significant is it? How does one win the award?

I can go on. There will be many criteria that we're selecting against. You need to show us how you meet each.

Now there's an obvious problem for applicants here. If you're applying to 100 jobs this year (or more) you might not feel that you have the time to produce something bespoke, but might think that I'm advising you to do so. What should you do?

Of the applications I've read (across all of those hires, that's well over 2000), the best were ones that were to some degree made bespoke. I'm sure, though, that we interviewed people who didn't. But, if you don't, you take risks. So, I think that you need to do whatever you can.

Really what it comes to is simply this. Read the advert; through your materials, show us how you satisfy the criteria we've described. Stop. Submit.

Is this a pointless piece of advice? I'd hope so. But I don't think that it is. I'd guess roughly 75% of applicants fail to follow it.