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Text of the page (random words):
prone to laughter just another shout into the ether home about research into research funds prone to laughter just another shout into the ether 31 august 2011 quick update let s get it started posted by dance under body transition 21 comments at one point in early august i d had two finalist interviews one phone interview and surgery to remove a lump from my breast and i was just waiting to hear on everything luckily that only lasted two days labwork came back totally benign and just last week i accepted a position as a full time academic advisor at a bigger richer university in a bigger more expensive but new salary totally workable city it s pretty much a dream job and a perfect fit luckily since i had turned down an offer that would have been a fun job in a very small town with a big pay cut in order to hope for this one and the third job hired someone else i sent out six applications total so i was optimistic enough to roll the dice i actually had one more year with my current school but it s past time to be moving on although i would have used it if i had to they need me asap so i m moving real fast scrambled find an apartment cleaned out my office see recent twitter feed and now a week to pack my house new job new town new life 28 july 2011 on tailoring job letters academic and non academic posted by dance under market transition 8 comments so as you probably know if you are actually still reading this very intermittent blog i resigned my tenure track job in history and am looking for jobs in university administration discussed under the transition category and while i meant to blog the job search process more than i have i have lately been thinking about writing job letters as this summer has really been my first intensive attempt to find another job i tweeted that tailoring for non academic job applications takes more time than tailoring academic cover letters and jo van every academic career coach responded that maybe the academic ones should have taken more time to tailor but here s how i see it a history professor is a pretty defined job they want research teaching and service cover letters follow a standard formula introduce self dissertation paragraph teaching paragraph what i could do for your school paragraph that s the standard format it may not be the best but it is what committees expect my first year on the market i applied to 15 schools 6 conference interviews if i remember correctly although that seems very high maybe i actually sent out more than 15 applications 1 campus visit my second year 46 schools 7 conference interviews 3 campus visits i was applying in three fields so i described my dissertation slightly differently for each one my teaching paragraph didn t particularly change because i only had a certain amount of teaching experience and all schools pretend to be student centered even if they really don t care i had about 8 different hypothetical courses that i could teach each described in a different sentence but once i had established those base elements it took me about an hour to study the job description usually about a half page pretty entirely focused on specific research teaching fields research the website of the history department and make sure i wasn t offering things they already had determine which standard pieces needed to be included copy and paste and print out the cover letter by contrast tailoring for academic administration jobs requires a lot more tweaking and even writing from scratch i ve only sent about six or seven applications but even jobs that all fall into the same broad category say advising don t really allow me to re use base elements academic administration job descriptions are about one and a half pages they are not interested in three items teaching research service but in thirteen or more i just picked thirteen for the alliteration with three it s rarely the same thirteen some advising jobs also want me to update the website some want me to supervise other advisors some even want me to have research experience descriptions are often oblique about how they prioritize those thirteen and researching the positions is trickier websites often don t include staff profiles that would give me a sense of the existing personnel my skills based resume lists six areas of expertise advising undergraduate research diversity admissions international focus interdisciplinary focus and six skill sets project management instruction public speaking grant writing evaluation research data analysis publicity events current technologies it took me a while to get those twelve categories and the supporting bullet points right but i think they are pretty solid now but even so for every application i reorder my resume to put the things they ve mentioned toward the top for every letter i reconsider how i m going to tell the story of the things i ve done that correlate to what they want here s an example i worked on my department s web redesign sometimes i discuss that as a story about team leadership and project management sometimes it s about ability to communicate with the public sometimes it s about being tech savvy and i might need to do equivalent transformations for any of those twelve categories above depends on what the job description says and it s really different every time 25 july 2011 quick update things are happening posted by dance under body transition 3 comments per usual i have a multitude of drafts brewing in my mind and have not intended to abandon this blog but for those of you not on twitter a quick update this week offers me two extended final round interviews for jobs one of 4 candidates and one of 2 or 3 candidates after passing phone interviews of 6 candidates so that feels good even if i don t get anything and i ve got to prepare some presentations that will be a whole new world and a consultation with a surgeon to probably remove a lump in my breast that has substantially changed from last year yeah that doesn t feel so good but the internets say it s a very high probability of being benign busy week looking forward to saturday 1 july 2011 bathroom in fancy hotel posted by dance under pictures travel 4 comments i m standing in the shower to take this by the way back in singapore 29 june 2011 view from abroad 3 posted by dance under pictures travel leave a comment i think the ones where we climbed and got a view and a breeze were my favorite 28 june 2011 view from abroad 2 posted by dance under travel 2 comments we had to break out the compass to find our way out of ta prohm 25 june 2011 view from abroad posted by dance under travel 10 comments 12 may 2011 might be a problem posted by dance under uncategorized leave a comment i live in a 1928 house built from a sears kit and while the landlady renovated the kitchen the bathroom seems pretty close to original so it s got a shower conversion that consists of hanging some metal racks from the ceiling to hold a shower curtain around the clawfoot tub yesterday a screw fell from somewhere into my shower matching a previous screw that had mysteriously appeared in the bottom of the tub i cannot see any empty screwholes on the shower curtain rack but i am concerned 22 april 2011 when is the essay due posted by dance under teaching 2 comments when i was at my slac essays were generally due to the professor s department mailbox at 4pm or 5pm on a friday so fridays were always full of people frantically rushing from computer lab to the faculty office building worried that turning it in at 4 02 would carry a penalty or if it was due at 4 30 that the office would close small college i think most of the social sciences and humanities were all in one or two buildings later i realized that was a trick the slac only had a thirteen week semester professors couldn t afford to give up a day to a class full of brain dead students who had their essays to turn in but brought nothing else to class my graduate university with a fifteen week semester never did this so now when i teach twice a week classes i borrow this technique but i do upload to blackboard by 5pm which is a bit easier and doesn t assume a residential college where everyone lives within three blocks students seem to appreciate it even 17 april 2011 i was so proud of myself posted by dance under academic life money 2 comments i actually did my taxes five days early on wednesday i haven t done my taxes that early for years once i took them with me to a conference and then last night chatting with a friend about how she d actually gotten paid for translation and how i d gotten a check for reviewing a textbook proposal i realized i had forgotten to report 250 of income i got for reviewing some grant applications here s the sad part on wednesday night before doing my taxes at dinner with a friend i spent a good five minutes talking about how external academic income such as honorariums can be balanced against unreimbursed expenses my only hope was that i had received the check in january even though the grant application was due at thanksgiving i d been slow about my paperwork checked my bank history deposited 12 21 argh 27 march 2011 view from spring break 4 posted by dance under travel leave a comment forgot i had this one watched the sun set on the pacific 24 march 2011 view from spring break 3 posted by dance under travel 2 comments i m on a boat 22 march 2011 view from spring break 2 posted by dance under travel 3 comments i am refusing to pay for internet but suddenly appreciating my choice to drive to this restaurant more oh and the buildings aren t really that color i hit the right sundown hour 19 march 2011 view from spring break posted by dance under travel leave a comment not so springy but a nice break 25th floor guesses on the city are fine 13 march 2011 last remnants of application snark posted by dance under admin leave a comment i m finally done with applications the last step i was locked in a room all week with a few other people to read the review sheets and make final decisions but here s a last few random thoughts from reading to keep my blog from seeming completely dead love the teacher who wrote she does not need you or any university to succeed to the schools putting a nature picture in the school profile that goes out with the transcript does not make your student look any better to me reading online it s just some smudgey black and white crap seriously you re using comic sans on the transcript i don t know why there are 4 copies of the transcript but i m only gonna look at one also private schools that send like six recommendations quit it i m only reading the required two and those counselor letters not gonna win me over who knew there were ap classes in lit of the grotesque and renaissance lit um are you creating additional student body elected positions entertainment chair so that your students look better on college applications next page search for subscribe via rss twittered tweets by pronetolaughter a partial blogroll cult 1 academia acadamnit bardiac confessions of a community college dean dr four eyes easily distracted historiann jo e s page learning curves lucky jane moria new kid on the hallway not of general interest notorious ph d paragraph city quills quod she scattered random temporary professor tenured radical the age of perfection the doctor isn t the salt box unbalanced reaction university diaries cult 2 mac daring fireball tuaw cult 3 sports page 2 at espn truehoop cult 4 california edge of the american west halfway there unable to compartmentalize a dress a day fear and loathing in georgetown go fug yourself one good thing zealous surfers only arts letters daily slate things i blog about academic life 337 admin 22 edtech 7 market 18 research 50 students 36 teaching 117 grading 23 transition 16 ads 20 america my america 179 pop culture 32 race 45 best 8 cats 21 empire 6 food 28 links 92 me 132 body 25 money 26 packrat 15 sewing 6 metablog 36 music 9 pictures 28 reading 23 romance 15 sports 27 basketball 12 tech 85 mac 18 travel 55 uncategorized 17 useful 16 july 2026 m t w t f s s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 aug create a free website or blog at wordpress com prone to laughter blog at wordpress com subscribe subscribed prone to laughter sign me up already have a wordpress com account log in now privacy prone to laughter subscribe subscribed sign up log in report this content view site in reader manage subscriptions collapse this bar loading comments write a comment email required name required website design a site like this with wordpress com get started