Here come the lame responses too…
Last time, I wrote about how you need to be prepared for any kind of crazy response for materials that may come your way after your initial application. So it seems like it would be a good time to give you a head’s up that you’ll likely be getting some lame responses to your oh-so-conscientious effort to send in a strong job application. We’re strolling down memory lane for some of our greatest hits from earlier posts before you probably knew we existed, along with a few new entries to this hall of shame. Some of these are garden-variety, out-of-anyone’s-control deals, but some of the others are in such dubious taste that you wonder what people are (not) thinking.
Sorry, but the search was cancelled after you invested time and money in applying: Back in the Dust Bowl markets of 2008 + 2009 — which must seem like ancient history to a fresh-faced batch of first-time applicants — it was a fairly common occurrence to find an email message noting a cancelled search or log on to the job wiki to get the bad news before you personally received it. But there’s still a few of these that might pop up, like what happened to this Af Am lit search at well-heeled Wesleyan. Courtesy of the Academic Jobs Wiki:
Note 9/13: Received email that search has been postponed.
Subfield/description: “The African-American Studies Program and the English Department at Wesleyan University seek a specialist in African-American literature and culture for a tenure-track appointment at the assistant professor level….Expertise in one or more of the following areas is particularly welcome: diasporic and transnational studies, cultural theory, performance studies, gender and sexuality.”
Deadline: Completed applications received electronically by November 1, 2010, will receive full consideration.
Hey, at least they seemed to notify potential candidates fairly early in the game, even if it’s a bummer that a prime job got cancelled. What’s worse is actually putting in the time, effort, and sometimes money to send in an application, only to have the rug pulled from under you via a terse but apologetic email. What’s even worser is the situation I’ve heard of but haven’t experienced first-hand of a search that dropped after the interview stage, which calls for even more psychic and material investments from all parties.
Have you heard of BCC?: More than a few years ago, at the advent of the digital job correspondence era, I received either a mass acknowledgement or rejection email — with all the hundreds of applicants’ names and emails present in the “to” field of the message! It must have been a rejection e-letter, not because that seems more dramatic, but because I remember not feeling so bad about being rejected because of all the good company I had, which included friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and some people whose pubs I had read. And come to think of it, I recall it being a job at…Wesleyan? If this jogs anyone’s memory back to, what, 2006, please comment below!
Even lamer examples from the Post Academic archive below…
And that’s a wrap–at least for this year (Part 2)
So I left off yesterday with a decision looming before me about whether to attend MLA in Philly. Here’s what I was weighing…
Pros
* Actually having a job interview
* Seeing some friends I haven’t caught up with in a while
* Eating an authentic Philly cheesesteak, which I missed the last time MLA was in the City of Brotherly Love because I didn’t want to emit an oniony smell during my interviews
Philly cheesesteak by Cessator (Creative Commons)
Cons
* Paying over $1000 for airline tix and a hotel and spending parts of 5 days in Philly for basically a 30-min interview
* Packing during Christmas for my flight early on 12/26
* Not being able to do family stuff before and after Christmas because I’d be stressing out prepping for my interview and getting ready to travel
When you put it like that, the decision was a lot easier to make: I cancelled my hotel reservations, took the $150 penalty on my plane tix, and stayed home. Pretty much none of my academic friends thought this was a shrewd decision, but I really couldn’t stomach spending the money and the time for a single half-hour interview, even if my career hung in the balance. Moreover, I’m pretty sure the interview request was made on the strength of a single tout by a very supportive, very helpful faculty friend, so I didn’t know if the whole thing was a courtesy deal or if I was blowing a really golden opportunity. After all, I was offered an interview before they even *asked* for a writing sample or official recs, so it was a situation that was hard to read.
Once I settled on my decision, though, I was more than happy to be watching The Princess and the Frog with my family peeps the day after Christmas, instead of worrying about whether I’d be snowed in making a connection in Denver.
But surprisingly, the story doesn’t end, quite yet! Continued, below the fold…
To whom it may concern: Rejection letter do’s and don’t’s, part 2
As I mentioned the other day in this post, I have received a late spate of rejection letters this week. I’m assuming it must have to do with HR compliance or something, so maybe a few more will be on their way soon. Yesterday, I received a new kind of bureaucratic B.S. rejection, one that is actually sent from HR but masked as if it’s from the (unnamed) “Search Committee Chair.” (OK, at least it’s not as brutal as the prom rejection pictured to the left! Ouch!)
In this follow-up post, I’m dealing with some of my personal pet peeves when it comes to application correspondence, along with some of the nicer touches I’ve experienced in the past. Let us know in the comments if you have anything to add to the list or if you have your own stories you’d like to tell.
Post Academic 