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THAT SAID: A Handbook for Here and Beyond
contents I. Preamble:
What's in an MFA? Some
Helpful Articles preamble This handbook is meant to help you navigate some of the peculiar and perplexing tributaries of the MFA program, and meant as well and more thoroughly as an oar or a rudder perhaps for your journeying after. It's some help from students who've been around and suggestions from faculty too. We hope it provides a sense of how you might shape your present possibilities in the program so that you are better prepared for the often precarious-seeming years to come. Which is at once a tall order and a short one. By short we mean that it runs the risk of making the MFA sound like a vocational degree--mechanical, practical, mildly crass: a feather in the cap of the opportunistic. Don't get us wrong. We ( in this case, the faculty) are more than happy to see you publish, see you employed and applauded, but this is not the sum of why we're here, or why you are here, or even anywhere near the heart of it. Keep the heart of it in mind. The faculty is here to help you sharpen your axes, to honor and exult in your difference, make headway against the muchness and mediocrity that attenuates and distracts. We invite you and you invite each other to engage in aesthetic conversations of wildly diverse sorts; to sustain an atmosphere in which a writer dare aspire to faithfulness to his or her ambitions; to speak freely about disagreements artists' ways inevitably invoke. We're here to help you surprise yourselves, and us, and anyone who comes to a page you have written. That said: Part I. Whereby the lofty gives way to the practical what's in an mfa? MFA programs across the country vary greatly in their expectations and requirements. Some MFA programs are only one year long, low-residency, and consist almost entirely of writing workshops and private faculty-student interaction. Most are two year programs, many of which do not offer opportunities for teaching. The MFA here at the University of Massachusetts is designed to be a three-year program. Ideally, students spend the first two years completing most of their coursework and the third year completing a book. Many students spend a fourth year, and for good reason: The program is unusually rigorous (the sixty credits you need to graduate satisfy the requirements of a Masters of English); and most students elect to teach. Academic rigor and the opportunity to teach are good things, naturally--they likely bear on your decision to come here, and certainly they enhance your prospects once you leave. In an effort to disperse funds judiciously, and to keep the program attractive to the best applicants, the faculty has instituted a funding limit of 6 semesters. This limit pertains to English Department funding only, and includes teaching for the Writing Program (112); the teaching of creative writing for the department (254/354); and--although these are not counted as equivalent opportunities, since pay is dependent on enrollment--creative writing (254/354 and shadow classes) and literature (such as Man and Woman in Literature) taught for Continuing Education. Graduate School Fellowships and MFA Fellowships do not count toward the 6 semester limit. What all this means is that, if you come into the program with English department funding (most commonly in the form of a TA from the Writing Program), and you find you are unable to complete your degree requirements in three years, you will have to find funding elsewhere, or apply for an extension of English department funding. You won't be able to accept a position offered by the Writing Program, for instance, unless you have been granted an extension from the MFA faculty. You must form your thesis committee prior to a request for an extension, and have discussed your plans and your work with your director in detail: the granting of an extension depends greatly, but not entirely, on the recommendation of your thesis director. The MFA faculty as a whole makes final decisions about funding extensions (please note that a funding extension is not at all the same as an Statute of Limitations extension, which gives you more time to work but not financial support and as such is more readily granted); the faculty's decision is based on the evidence of your commitment to doing the real work you came here to do.Some kitchen-tested advice: don't, in the confusion of settling in, the fresh anxiety of teaching, let your first year come to less than it might. Loyalize, dig in; remember always that you came here to write. funding for your program Some students arrive for their first semester without funding. However, most students are able to find Teaching Assistantship or Graduate Assistantship positions fairly quickly. Graduate Assistant jobs may involve tutoring, office writing positions, academic advising, research, or a variety of other tasks. Before you sign a contract the Graduate Student Employee Organization (GEO, our union) requires that you be supplied with a detailed job description. Most jobs have flexible scheduling that takes into account your primary status as a graduate student. Obviously, if you are teaching you will be assigned a specific class time, and other positions require that you work during regular office hours, between 9AM and 5PM. Some tutoring positions require evening hours. Full-Stipend: These graduate positions come with an (official) workload of approximately 20 hours a week and pay around $5,000 per semester, or approximately $10,000 for the academic year. These positions also include a tuition waiver, which means that you will only be responsible for paying a graduate fee of around $365.00 a semester. If you are taking out school loans, this fee will be deducted automatically from your loans before you receive your excess check. Health insurance is also fully covered by your waiver. Call Health Services (577-5000) if you have questions about the extent of your coverage. (Teaching positions in the writing program all come with a full stipend.) Half-Stipend: These are also graduate positions, but with a scaled down work-load. If your financial position is such that you don't need a full-stipend, you may want to look out for these positions. They come with the same benefits (tuition waiver, health insurance) as the full-time positions, but the workload (again, officially) is 10 hrs. per week and the pay is approximately $2,500 per semester, $5,000 for the full academic year. Where to Look: If you're looking for funding the best thing to do is begin as soon as you hit campus. The Writing Program only hires once a year, in the Spring, so if you enter without a teaching position you will have to wait at least a year to re-apply. There is no guarantee that you will be offered a position in the Writing Program during your tenure at UMASS. Most MFAs do eventually teach in the Writing Program, but if you're counting on getting a position your second year, you may be disappointed. Check with Sylvia. Sylvia has a list of departments which have hired MFAs to teach their writing courses in the past. It is a good idea to send out cover letters and resumes to these departments, or at least call around to check on openings. Check the Graduate School Bulletin Board, located outside room 524 Goodell. (Goodell is the white, pillared building next to Bartlett). Notices change frequently, so keep checking. These boards are kept up by the Graduate Assistantship Office (524 Goodell) and they can also give you valuable information and advice. Be connected. Talk to other, veteran, MFAs, keep your eyes open for notices, and make sure you check your email on a regular basis. Sylvia frequently forwards graduate positions to the MFA list as they open up. It is important not to give up. Even if you find a funded position later in the semester, you will still receive a full-tuition waiver for that semester. Opportunities may seem invisible, but they are certainly there. If you did not come in with a TAship in the Writing Program, then you should continue to apply each subsequent year of your stay here. There are also other opportunities to teach writing through different schools at UMass. The School of Management hires MFAs to teach its own required writing course, and other departments also have required writing courses for which they need staff. If you're desperate to teach writing, the best idea is to keep an eye out for openings, and send letters to different departments along with your resume. The Continuing Education department also hires graduate students to teach professional writing and expository writing, and teaching such a class during the winter or summer can often help secure you a full time position for the following year. A Word About Financial Aid: If you plan to take out loans, it's a good idea to stop by the Graduate Financial Aid office as soon as you get to campus. Loans can get held-up for a variety of reasons, none of which ever seem to make any sense, and the best way to get your money sooner is by contacting the Bursar and the Financial Aid office as frequently as possible. Anne Peramba has been a godsend to many poor MFAs. She works in the Financial Aid Office and is also responsible for assigning Graduate Work Study. The only way to get work study is to call Anne Peramba and get on her waiting list. It is a good idea to do this before you arrive, but chances are good that you will get it quite quickly if you get on the waiting list as soon as you get here. Some graduate positions require candidates to have work study funds. If you receive work study and then find a position that does not require it, you can always decline the funding which will then be given to another desperate graduate student. Call the Financial Aid office for more details. CONTACTS: What follows are important numbers you may need for your funding search. We've included a list of other departments MFA students teach for, as well as a list of a organizations that hire graduate students for a variety of jobs other than teaching. (Beware: not all of the jobs for which these organizations hire graduate students include a tuition waiver and benefits: some are simply by-the-hour part-time gigs.) Graduate
Assistantship Office (524 Goodell): 545-5287 internships and independent studies Internships are a great way to gain experience without having a full-time job. There are many opportunities for internships at UMass, and new ones generally emerge every year. The MFA program regularly offers Arts Administration internships, such as the one which produced this handbook; these give you 3-6 hours of out-of-department credit. The program supplies interns to the Massachusetts Review (545-2689), and students have also worked on projects such as Poetry in Motion, a program funded by Mass Live which places poetry in the public bus system. The Paris Press in Ashfield typically offers one internship a year, and many small journals in the area also need/accept interns. Generally email goes out to the MFA list when someone is looking. There are many, many other possibilities, including those not yet dreamed up. So dream something up, and talk to the director about it. Many better known journals and magazines (The Paris Review, Harpers) accept interns, and getting experience in the field is a necessity if you think you may want to be involved on the publishing end of a literary magazine or review. Make sure to check our Summer Contacts section for more information, and keep in mind that, in order to acquire an internship outside the area, you'll likely have to start your search about a year in advance. However, just because you don't see an internship that interests you, don't assume that you can't create your own. If you're interested in a certain type of work, or in creating something that may be of use to others in the program or the community, contact an MFA faculty member. You will probably be able to get 1-3 credits for the work you do depending on the extent of the job you plan for yourself. Independent studies are another way to gain valuable experience or knowledge. Independent studies, however, tend to be more academic and less hands-on, so if you're interested in pursuing a specific course of study which fits in with your grand master plan for your graduate degree but for which no class is offered, approach a faculty member you think may be willing to sponsor you. Even if he or she doesn't have the time, they may be able to point you to another Professor who does. Faculty are generally willing to take this on with the understanding that, aside from some ground requirements you set up for yourself, and a few meetings over the course of the semester, you will be doing the work independently, with probably a substantial paper or project in mind. Once you decide on an internship or independent study, see Sylvia for the relevant paperwork. Try to do this as early in the semester as possible so that your credits can be properly registered. Delays may interfere with your full-time student status. (Also see: Summer Contacts for more information on summer internship programs). Independent studies are a way to keep the curriculum flexible. If you use them creatively, you may find ways to lessen the academic rigor of a 60 credit program; certainly they provide an opportunity to shape the curriculum to your particular wants and needs. If you have a compelling idea, you can fulfill more than the usual 6 credits of the program's requirements with independent studies. Your degree requirements give you leeway to design a concentration of some kind, whether in an academic field already on the books or something you want to engineer from scratch. As you select your classes, from among those offered (at all 5 Colleges), as you seek out independent studies, as you acquire experience, consider where your desires can lead you and make an effort to shape a constellation of classes and work which can be described as you see fit, and be useful to you as you apply for work. You can make use of your out-of-department requirements to engage internships which give you experience in areas hungry for the talents you possess. Just because we don't offer an internship in a given body doesn't mean one can't be invented. Propose something. Keep in mind that what makes your time here demanding--teaching, the 60 credit requirement, as well as any other profitable difficulty you have invited in the formulating of a concentration--all these things stand you in particularly good stead when you go out looking for a job. Which may be already precisely what you are doing. Moving along. Time's come. the job search: an overview This handbook provides information about the resources available to you, the kinds of jobs that are out there, and how to go about getting them. We've included tips about beginning your search and putting together your application, and several Tales From the Front. We hope to offer guidance which will not take away from your writing, but will leave you, upon graduation, with more options and less anxiety. Don't limit yourself. Poets and writers, as you know, graduates of this program included, become doctors, booksellers, lawyers, insurance salesmen, diplomats, chefs, freelance writers, farmers, welders, nurses, mechanics, foresters, clerks, cousins, heirs, technicians, musicians, pet cemetery operators, psychics, physicists, botanists, hermits, heretics, fathers, mothers; EMTs, ferriers, massage therapists, masons. They marry well and are kept. Spend years studying the biographies of Baudelaire and VanGogh. Be optimistic, or at least adopt an optimistic attitude which will help you remain open to the many many possibilities before you. If you decide you want to seek an academic job, start early: in the late spring of the year before you plan to graduate or in the very early fall of that year. The first step is to talk to your thesis director about your plans and desires; your director is your primary advisor. Ask him or her to recommend other faculty or alums to seek out for advice; ask him or her to look over your vita & sample application letters. (You may want two vita with different emphases for different sorts of jobs). Second, set up a placement file with the Mather Career Center (545-2224). At that time, early, very early in the process, collect recommendation forms and give them to former or current teachers, employers, etc.; you can ask more than three people for these letters. (Regarding the waiver of confidentiality: you should be aware that if you don't waive confidentiality the letters of recommendation are automatically looked upon with less enthusiasm. Rather than choose to forego the waiver it is much more reasonable to forego asking for a letter from someone you don't trust to write a letter in your best interest.) If you seek a referee to write about your teaching, you might consider asking him or her to visit your class, look at your course descriptions or at least talk with you about the teaching work you'd want to do. Give your referees the form for the letter, a vita of yours, and perhaps a page of notes reminding or informing him or her about noteworthy experience and/or interests, and an envelope, stamped, addressed to Mather Career Center for him or her to send the letter in. Check in with your referees a weeks or so after your request to remind them of what you need. Keep track of job openings through the AWP Joblist (of which Sylvia keeps recent copies in the office) the MLA Joblist (in the Graduate Office) or various on-line sources, including email notification. As you look at job descriptions don't shy away from applying for openings which appear to be just a little out of reach. Say, the description for a teaching position asks for one book, or significant publications and you've published a half dozen poems or several stories in recognizable magazines, journals or zines, you've got a book manuscript together and you're submitting it to publishers or contests--try for the so-described job. When you write application letters tailor them specifically to the job for which you're applying. For example, if it's an academic job, seek out the school's catalog and look into some of the work of the people you'd be working with if the job comes through. Schools and departments differ wildly in their styles, substance, needs. Perhaps your work would fit well with theirs. Perhaps you identify something they're lacking and can offer to add something to what they have, in addition to what they think they want. If it's possible and reasonable enough, mention a specific course they offer which you are especially qualified to develop, mention what you could bring to meet needs they apparently have; look into the requirements they specify for degrees, mention your expertise in an area (or areas if this doesn't stretch any claims too thinly); consider if you can offer any kind of administrative help, or if you can and are willing to advise a student journal or organization, etc. Likewise, if the position you seek is in the business or corporate world (in positions such as in-house editor, newsletter writing, staff development [writers working with employees to develop writing skills], technical writing, etc.) don't hesitate to offer to develop activities otherwise unimagined. Or, say, if the position involves arts administration, know about the organization (its history, evolution, current activities, read its past newsletters, whatever). And then if you are interested in it offer them your brilliance. If the job is editorial, show in your application that you know what their publication is about. You might find yourself in the position of boldly (or humbly) identifying work you could do to improve or add to their established work. For example, look also at their competitors works. Again, remain open-minded regarding both positions and locations. Even if you don't want to live in X, an interview is further experience, an offer from anywhere gives you further credentials; and X might astonish you. Apply for everything. Apply for jobs for which you believe your chances are slim. If you send out 300 job applications, as one alumnus reported doing, you may only get 3 interviews. But of those 3, one may be (as in the case of this alum) fruitful. One recent alum was hired, without a book, for a tenure-track position in a respected MFA program. If an academic job description asks for a Ph.D. but your experience and coursework equal or exceed that degree's pedigree, apply for the job. (Sylvia has a formal description of our program which you can attach to your letters of application. You can use it as is or edit it to fit the qualifications you want to emphasize, justifiably, of course.) It is only sometimes the case that you will be competing with PhDs for academic positions. More often you will be competing with other graduates of MFA programs; some of these may have PhDs in creative writing, but the MFA is still considered a terminal degree and as such makes you fully qualified. local guidance The department and faculty are a prime resource. They will soon be peers and have some stake in your doing well. Faculty--in particular your thesis director--will help you design your resume, revise your letters, answer questions you may have about conferences and interviews. You may want to check in with the Assistant Graduate Director (currently Nick Bromell) or the Director of Grad Studies (currently Don Cheney) for helpful advice outside the MFA faculty. Keep an
eye out for the job-related workshops offered by the department each semester More information on these workshops is available from the English Graduate Program web page at www.umass.edu/english/gradprogram.html. We have also had workshops on jobs in publishing, and in academia (for MFA's). If you want more information on a particular topic and think others would benefit, suggest a workshop or panel to the directors of either the MFA or MA/PhD programs--they are willing to find appropriate resources and to have professionals in the field come and speak with students. Conferences: Each year there is a Graduate English Conference at which you can read either a scholarly paper or poetry or fiction. (Other opportunities arise as well--one year we had performance art and music.) This conference is good experience, but don't limit yourself. There are many regional, national, and international conferences for which you can receive travel money from the university (ask Sylvia for the application). Relevant calls for papers are posted outside the MFA office, and outside the English department main office; check also on the Voice of the Shuttle (http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/shuttle), and the humanities web sites listed below under web resources. Talk to your professors and thesis director to determine which scholarly conferences (AWP, MLA, CCCC) would be useful to attend. Many students will go to the MLA conference before they graduate just to see the state of the market, try out the interviewing process, (many schools use the conference as a time for off-site interviewing), and check out possible employers, peers, and competition. There are local and regional opportunities to read your work, if you want to volunteer. Some of these are ready-made (Writers Against Hunger and other organizations which hold annual programs across the country); others are created by students here and writers in the area (LiveLit, made possible by Nat Herold at Atticus; The Odyssey Bookstore; the Bookmill in Montague; and readings by queer women writers and Asian writers at Beyond Words Bookshop). general counsel There are some general guidelines for what to do in the program and during your job search that are applicable to any job, whether it be freelance writing or college teaching. These are culled from our own experience, the experience of former UMass (and other) MFAs, and various career counseling workbooks. Ask Those Who Know: This is one reason for the existence of the book you are holding. It is, in part, a repository of alumni experience. But as specific as some of this information is, your best bet is to talk directly with people in the field. Set up formal informational interviews. You know from your own experience how difficult the first job is, and how, once you are working, you realize how easy it would be now--now that you know all the inside information about your boss and co-workers and the little world that is the workplace -- to get the job. If you get specific information before you start, you will no longer be working in the dark, and the job search and application process will be much less difficult. Forecast. In the time you spend here, go about collecting any material that may be useful for a job search. Keep all evaluations of your teaching, and any materials available if you have received prizes, or nominations for fellowships, distinguished teaching awards, etc.. Consider asking a student to write a recommendation for a teaching job for you. Be Prepared (including the corollaries Start Early, and Identify [and Record]Potential Employers): It would be terrible to find a position for which you are the perfect match, begin to apply, and realize you don't have the necessary materials -- you haven't worked on your CV for 3 years, you haven't asked for letters of recommendation, you are wildly interested in the field, but you haven't gained the necessary "resume-experience," you haven't ever articulated your goals in this area and are unprepared to interview. Start early and identify and record potential employers. Keep copies of job listings that sound interesting, and names of possible contacts. Contact the University's Campus Career Network and get their informational booklets (e.g. Humanities and Fine Arts Career Planning Guide) by your second year in the program -- now, is a good time. (Go on!) Articulate Goals: This sounds like the vague advice of self-help books, so here are the specifics: Clarify, in words/writing, your skills, values, and interests as they might apply to future employment. This is not just so that you can perform well in an interview. More importantly, this may help you to apply for the right jobs, instead of being sucked in by those that only seem right. It's great to get a job offer, but it's not so much fun when you realize, after spending time, money, effort, anxiety, on all the preparations and interviews, that you really don't want to do the job. When you get that job offer, all the adrenaline-charged desire that has been focused on getting the job may disappear and leave you looking at 40 real, rather than possible, hours a week. Keep up your correspondence: If you feel rapport with particular professors, editors, former employers, other writers you have met in conferences or informally, keep in touch. Interview as often as possible: Practice mock interviews; secure as many real interviews as possible. Practice, of course, improves your skills, reduces anxiety, helps you clarify your desires. Decide/Do: If you have decided what you want to do, do it. Don't be afraid to try to create your job where it doesn't yet exist, and don't be afraid to try cold-calling. Two success stories from UMass alumni: One wanted to try journalism, but had never worked for a newspaper. After looking in the paper and finding no positions for which she was qualified, she wrote down what type of job she wanted and what skills she had to offer, and went through the yellow pages and called every newspaper within 45 miles. The next day, she had a job at a small newspaper that included all aspects of journalism from editing to designing to writing copy, which, she says, she found very valuable as a learning experience. The second alumni applied for a position teaching creative writing and, although one of the hiring committee was very impressed, the committee as a whole decided on another candidate with more experience and a published novel. However, because she had a rapport with the committee , as well as experience which made her stand out from the other applicants (she has a background in visual art as well as writing), the college (after initially rejecting her), created a position specifically for her. a. Full-time University Faculty Positions Securing a full-time faculty position with your MFA degree is the exception, rather than the rule. The best thing you can do in the MFA program if you hope to enter this intensely competitive job-market is publish, publish, publish. The more your name's in print the more a given college or university will want to hire you. Keeping a clean transcript doesn't hurt either, as not many Universities want to hire a faculty member who got bad grades in graduate school or has Incompletes in her classes. It is always important, but perhaps even more so, in this case, to develop good working relationships with MFA and English faculty. Having glowing letters of recommendation in your file from well-respected professors can really set a hiring-committee's mind at ease. You might also want to consider shaping your academic classes to have more of a specialty period. (It is possible to do this within the confines of the MFA requirements.) Publishing Academic papers or attending conferences are also fine resume builders. Pursue genuine interests other than teaching. A recent MFA had a dozen or so publications, but no book contract, and was hired for a tenure track creative writing position which includes editing a university literary journal. Part of the appeal was personal, but one of the reasons they hired her was because she stood out from the crowd. The hiring committee was intrigued by her background in visual art, and felt she could teach a class outside of the usual poetry/fiction workshops, namely, art and literature. Your experience teaching, of course, will be important, and the more of it you've done, the better. If you are applying for Creative Writing jobs, then it is essential that you attempt to teach English 254 or 354 while you're in the MFA program. Should you be lucky enough to get an interview for a faculty position, most schools will require that you teach a class by way of demonstrating your skills and enthusiasm. Again, many faculty positions will require that you teach some literature courses, and any teaching you've done beyond the 112/Expository Writing standard will make you a more enticing candidate. Being "on the market" has been described as harrowing, stressful, hard work, and time-consuming, but hardly ever exhilarating, easy, quick, or the best thing since Cats. Still, the rewards are substantial, and there are jobs out there to be gotten, perhaps the perfect fit for you. The basic outline of the process is thus: 1) Start Early 1a) Have back-up plans so you are not desperate. 2) Research 3) Application 4) Response/request for additional information 5) First Interview (MLA, etc) 6) Campus Interview 7) Offer I. Start Early Beginning early doesn't only mean looking through job listings the year before you plan to graduate. You should be saving job information throughout your stay in the program, creating an academic teaching specialty, acquiring recommendation letters, attending conferences, and publishing. (Not that any of this should replace the time spent writing....). Get and keep in touch with professors who may write you recommendations. Recent alumni suggest that you get letters of recommendation which address your teaching abilities as well as letters which extol your competency in your field. Beginning early also means getting and keeping in touch with the career center and the people in Bartlett who can help you. (See General Information and Contact Info. for more details.) II. Research Start your search early. A recent UMass alumni who found a full-time faculty position at X University began her search in October of the year before the job began. A. Search job listings/use your network. 1. MLA and
AWP listings (see general information section and Contact Info. for details)
B. Narrow your options by visiting web pages, reading catalogs, visiting the university, and/or talking to the university's alumni. Philip Gerard, writing for AWP, suggests you "know what programs they offer, how may writers are on their faculty, and who those people are by name. Look up the committee members and find out who they are -- what are their fields, where did they do their graduate work, what have they published? You can't be comprehensive about this, but you can impress [your seriousness] upon the employers. . . . You might find common interests, backgrounds, and some insight into what the position will really entail." How many positions should you apply for? Alumni have applied to over a hundred, and to only a handful in their desired geographical area. It depends on how much time you have (researching and writing letters specific to each position is very time-consuming), where you want to be, how restrictive your requirements are, and how much money you have for postage and copies. The alumna who is working in Missouri applied to 35 schools (all advertised positions), got 5 preliminary interviews (2 at MLA), and 3 campus interviews. Another alumnus (with significantly more publications) applied to the same number of schools and got 5 preliminary interviews (1 at MLA), and 2 campus interviews. Only she got the permanent job, though he is currently working part-time for the department and is likely to be offered a full-time position there in the near future. Advice differs on whether to respond to ads that require more qualifications or publications than you have. Some people with MFAs and no books published have gotten full-time faculty positions with departments who advertised for applicants with book publications, but that is the exception. Since the definition of "significant publications" is varied and vague, it is worthwhile to apply. The department may be more impressed with your other experience and hire you on that basis. C. Do more detailed research on the colleges you've decided on. Research the university, department, and the faculty. Look up their publications. Most departments, and more and more faculty, have their own websites. III. Applications Apply according to the requirements in the job listing. Do not send more or less information than asked for. For instance, don't send a writing sample until they ask you for it. Most often what's required is a curriculum vitae and recommendation letters. Also important is your cover letter. Make it clear that you've done your research. Include information about yourself as well as information you've gleaned from your research. You might also include what you, with your particular skills, can add to their department. However, the letter should in most cases be no longer than a page. IV. Receive responses Some will be immediate rejections, others will request additional information, like writing samples, and others will set up a preliminary interview, which is typically either a phone interview, or an interview at the MLA conference. V. The Preliminary Interview Many colleges and universities interview at MLA. Most institutions will interview between 6 and 20 people for the same job, some of whom you may meet on your way to and from the interviewing site ("hotel room"). Typically, the hotel room or suite of one of the members of the hiring committee will be used for the interviews. This means that there may be personal effects around, but if you have a witty comment about the leather whip that is peeking under the door to the bedroom, you should probably keep it to yourself (unless you've really done your research...). Interviews are usually conducted by a 4-5 person committee, which, keep in mind, has been (or is looking forward to being) stuck in a hotel room all day; the chair person will make some preliminary remarks about the job requirements and advantages, and then the committee members will ask prepared questions. Most often, candidates will be contacted at a later date as to whether or not they have made the short list of invitees for a campus interview. Occasionally jobs are offered immediately, in which case you want to be sure you have done your research and know whether you want to commit to spending the next year in DC, New Mexico, or the Maldives. As preparation, Philip Gerard suggests getting together with other job hunters and interviewing each other so you can practice putting your qualifications into words. Write down the questions you're likely to be asked and visualize the interview in advance. He also suggests that you be sure you know the specifics of the interview arrangements before the committee chair leaves for MLA. That is, know at what hotel and under what name he or she is staying, and call to confirm upon arrival. Be sure, too, to leave early so that you don't have to climb 20 flights of stairs in lieu of waiting 30 minutes for an elevator overloaded with academics. Questions at preliminary interviews tend to be the fairly obvious ones. Gerard lists some of the most common: [They] usually ask about your own work, your teaching philosophy in general and in creative writing in particular, your ability to teach composition and/or literature, and any special courses or initiatives (reading series or grants, for instance) you are qualified to undertake. Probably they will want to know why you want this particular job -- and don't say, "To eat and pay my rent" -- they want to be flattered that you find their program attractive for some particular reason. They may ask other questions as well, but if you are stymied by the obvious ones they will mentally cross you off their shortlist. Answer honestly: don't try to be all things to all people. You aren't qualified to do everything, and they know it. Give concise answers. Leave room for the committee to chime in. Very important, and often most difficult -- distinguish yourself from the other candidates. This doesn't mean personal flattery or sycophancy. Rather, Gerard suggests, remark "on some special accomplishment of the program . . . or [leave] behind a one-page sample syllabus of an innovative course you'd like to teach. Your goal is that after you leave the room you want the committee to remember you: 'She was the one who had the great idea about the creative process course.... Not, Who was that guy in the clown suit and sandals?'" Refer to the interview section for more specifics on interview techniques and etiquette. Also, check out Philip Gerard's excellent article "The MLA Interview" published in the AWP JobList #4, November 1999. Sylvia should also have a copy. VI. The Campus Interview The campus interview is probably like no interview you've ever experienced. It tends to be from 1 to 3 days long, and includes meetings, question and answer sessions, and meals with various faculty, students, and administrators. It also includes some "performing." For instance, a recent 3-day campus interview included the applicant giving a reading for about 30 people, and teaching a class with seven people from the hiring committee in the room. This UMass alumnus described the process as informative, but exhausting, because, he says, "you are always on the interview." He says that he knew, intellectually, that the process was one in which he, too, was evaluating the institution, but that viscerally, he just felt as though he was the one under the microscope. VII. The Hire/The Rejection Though you may have "significant" publications, and have a terrific campus interview, you may still be turned down for the job. Often this is not because you are not qualified, or because you misread the hiring committee. Sometimes it is because the department already had someone in mind, but needed to make the search public. Other times, the department is looking specifically for a female or male, but does not make that clear. The recent alumnus referred to above went to two campus interviews and felt they went exceptionally well, but he was rejected, in one case for an applicant the committee already knew and had in mind, in the other case for an applicant who was older and had a novel out. Contacts and Information: Take advantage of the department's subscription to the AWP and MLA job lists. Browse through them long before you plan to graduate. The AWP list comes in the newsletter you get in your mailbox. It is also available online. The MLA job list is available online, and in the graduate office. You'll need the departmental password to access the online version. The Chronicle of Higher Education also lists job openings, and has an excellent running column on how to best perform your academic job search. Jobs show up online one week after publication in the CHE newsletter. With an academic job search, however, a week's wait is not a disadvantage. AWP Job
List (copies also available in MFA office): www.gmu.edu/departments/awp/
teaching part-time college or university, Adjunct Adjunct Teaching: The Up Side: Jobs as adjunct lecturers are plentiful in the academic world at large. They are also plentiful in the Valley and surrounding areas because of number of colleges here. That also means there is greater competition for the choice positions. According to the National Adjunct Faculty Guild, in 1998 there were 400,000 adjunct, part-time, and full-time temporary college educators--that is, temporary workers make up nearly 40% of the total academic work force, double the percentage in 1970. Many defend adjunct work as a perfect accompaniment to their lifestyle. Some do need the teaching experience and occasionally find that, because departments are parting with less money, they are sometimes more willing to fund experimental classes. Others see adjunct work as more permanent--they want the flexibility inherent in this "migrant" work, and they search and find great and supportive departments that encourage publishing, or reward excellent teaching over publishing, or fund adjuncts to attend scholarly conferences. Adjunct work does on occasion lead to full-time employment at a given university. Tim Coogan, an adjunct in New York City who teaches up to 18 classes a year at $3000 per class, has an office and health benefits. "I am liberated from the tedium of academic life," he says. He does not have to go to departmental meetings or deal with funding politics, and uses that time to write and publish the occasional scholarly paper instead (Salon.com). As with most jobs in the contemporary marketplace, it is not what they explicitly offer, but what you make of it, how you can transform what they need into what you need. The Down Side: Many teachers go into adjunct work seeing it as a transitional phase, as a stepping stone to tenure, and find themselves teaching 5 or more classes a semester (often at different schools), for low pay and no benefits, and with little or no chance for advancement. Many adjuncts and former adjuncts lambaste the adjunct system as one of slave-labor that saves colleges money while providing a second-class education. Adjuncts complain that, unable to get more than one or two classes at a school, they shuttle from campus to campus, forced to spend time in transit instead of preparing for class. Those in the profession tend to describe their work as demoralizing--they don't have the opportunity to develop new syllabi because they primarily teach introductory courses (e.g. Freshman Composition) and other general education courses that tenured professors refuse to teach; they often don't have an office (overcrowding was so severe at Hunter College that one adjunct took to the bathroom to prepare for classes). These conditions are not true of all adjunct positions of course; there are some that do offer pension plans, offices, healthcare, scholarly support, and more, either immediately, or after some semesters of teaching. Salon.com published an excellent, if one-sided, article in 1998, focusing on the destructive nature of the profession. They interviewed Patrick Young, a graduate student at Columbia, who has found his departments apathetic and says that "The level of cynicism is harrowing....There's a constant temptation to avoid working hard because you're simply participating in your own exploitation." Check it out in the ivory tower section of salon.com -- search for "adjunct." Presumably, should you apply for a part time community college, college, or university job, you will be hired to teach composition, creative writing, or literature. The economy is good and these jobs are actually quite plentiful. Greenfield Community College, for example, is frequently searching for writing instructors. Getting these jobs depends less on the courses you took in the program than on your teaching experience and tenacity. However, if you organize early and give serious effort to taking classes which constitute a specialty, you will make yourself a more attractive candidate. To find adjunct work around the country, you can look at the web resource section below, under Higher Education and Beyond, and under Email Lists. However, direct is often best with adjunct work. Decide in what region you want to work, and then contact the departments of schools (universities, colleges, vocational schools, community colleges) in the area. The requirements differ widely with different regions and departments. However, most require at least a master's degree, some college-level teaching experience, a professional resume, and letters of recommendation. Some schools have their own teaching philosophies and programs, complete with set-in-stone syllabi and reading materials. Others want you to show them sample syllabi, former student work, and examples of classroom activities. As with all jobs, it's best to speak with someone who works in the department. Ask them the departmental philosophy; ask to see a sample syllabus. Even if you are able to get a job without such information, you might or might not like the department, its student body, and its practices. Tips for an Adjunct Interview: While corporate job interviews are more likely to follow the traditional interview pattern -- interviewer asks a standard set of questions and interviewee has time at the end to ask questions -- academic interviews can be considerably different. (See the Building Your Application section for info. on extensive (grueling?) campus interviews.) Interviews for adjunct positions can range from non-existent (you send your CV by email, they send you a schedule of classes from which to choose) to formal. But even the formal interviews tend, in our experience, to differ from corporate interviews in that there is a more back-and-forth conversational sort of questioning, where one question from the interviewee leads to one from the interviewer and vice-versa. In this sort of interview, the applicant is given more control over the structure of the interview and that empowerment can work to your advantage, if you are prepared for it. The advice in the interview section still applies, but here are some specifics to adjunct/part- time interviewing. Articulate your teaching philosophy before the interview. The interviewer might not ask, "what is your teaching philosophy?" but many questions she asks are likely to assume you have one and ask you how you will apply it in her program. What to bring: CV, references, sample syllabi, samples of student work, sample exercises/class plans. Even in the more formal academic interviews, give and take of questions and points of view is expected. They are most often not looking for clones, but for independent, creative, and energetic faculty. If you don't agree with everything they say about teaching, it is ok, and sometimes encouraged, to say so and respond with your own point of view and philosophy, explaining how your methods/theories would work well within their particular department. Common teaching/adjunct- specific questions include (See the Interviewing section for general questions to expect.): -Tell me
about teaching [class you have taught/listed on your cv]. Other questions might hinge on your knowledge of particular concepts or jargon in the field. Try to discover before the interview where your potential employer stands on the politics of the field, and read any previous class materials so that you will be able to participate at the appropriate level. In addition to answering questions theoretically, be sure to give specific examples, even bringing out sample exercises or student papers to underscore your response. Finally, be flexible, in your interview and in your correspondence. In applying for one job, you may meet someone who will later help you get another job. It is also possible that although a department rejects your application for one position, they will like you enough to hire you for another. teaching secondary school 1. Options for your tenure in the Program If you hope to pursue full time secondary school teaching in public schools, it might be wise for you to consider becoming certified while in the MFA program. Without this certification it is impossible to teach on a full-time basis in the United States Public school system, although you may be able to work as a substitute teacher. The school of education offers certification classes, and two three-credit courses may be used as your out-of-department credits to fulfill your MFA degree. Private secondary and boarding schools, as well as some parochial school systems, are less regimented about their hiring requirements. Many MFAs teach only English Writing 111 or 112 and creative writing during their time in the program. If you plan to apply for a secondary school position, it is wise to teach as many literature classes as possible. The Department of Continuing Education hires teachers for Fall and Spring semesters, as well as shorter, but more intensive, sessions during the Winter Intersession and the summer break. In addition, there are many other opportunities to teach secondary school students during the summer time. Many boarding schools in the area hold summer schools on their campuses (these are often low paying but include room and board), and several academic summer camps hire instructors for summer work on local college campuses. Again, the more experience you have teaching different courses, the more attractive a candidate you will be. Contacts: Continuing
Education: 545-0530 a. The key
organization in the independent school field is the National Association
of Independent Schools (NAIS). Their phone number is 202-973-9700. Their
convention is very important for networking and interviewing. Candidates
should call NAIS and ask for advice and informative booklets. 1.Carney,
Sandoe and Associates. 136 Boylston St. Boston MA 02116 CSA is the best-known,
and probably the largest, placement agency tailoring your application for academic jobs This section aims to help you get a better handle on the nuts and bolts of applying for a job in academia. The search presents some specific challenges. (Look to the section of this handbook titled Web sources for tips on applying for non-academic jobs.) The standard initial application for an academic job will include your cover letter, Curriculum Vitae (CV, or academic resume) recommendations, transcripts, and possibly writing samples. We've cribbed some information from different sources for you here on how best to go about this process, but there's also a lot of good information out in the world you'd do well to get your hands on. The bible of academic job application is The Academic Job Search Handbook, by Mary Heiberger and Julia Vick (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992). This book includes everything you need to know about fashioning your CV and cover letter, as well as the interview process. The following books also give more general information about the academic job search: Cracking the Academic Nut by Margaret Newhouse (Office of Career Services, Harvard University, 1997). On the Market: Surviving the Academic Job Search , Boufis and Olsen, (Riverhead, 1997). The MLA Guide to the Job Search, Showalter, et al, (Modern Language Association, 1996). The Academic's Handbook, Deneff, et al, (Duke, 1988). The following books are also helpful, but deal less with the basics of finding a job, and more about working in different areas of academia in general: Rhythms of Academic Life: Personal Accounts of Careers in Academia Frost and Taylor, eds. (Sage, 1996). A collection of articles on various aspects of academic life. Although most are written by academics in the fields of business, marketing, and organizational behavior, these articles nonetheless offer useful stories, tips, general information about shaping a successful academic career in today's college or university. Topics include: teaching at various kinds of institutions, the relationship between teaching and research, publishing research, working with graduate students, working collaboratively, becoming a journal editor or reviewer, becoming a department chair, crossing boundaries in government or industry, and integrating work and non-work lives. Scaling the Ivory Tower: Merits and Its Limits in Academic Careers, Lewis (Transaction, 1998). A scholarly look at the role of merit in the direction and ultimate success of college and university faculty. The Academic Career Handbook, Blaxter, et al, (Open University 1998). General guidebook for those thinking of a career in the British university system. Don't forget to check the end of this booklet for reprints of a few useful articles written by those who have first-hand experience with searching for a job in academia. the cover letter The most important thing to remember about the cover letter is that it will be the first view of you as a serious candidate that a prospective employer gets. If the letter is messy or seems unconsidered, then you may well lose a shot at an interview even though you're a perfectly qualified (or at least intriguing) candidate. The following article describes the experience of an MFA grad from Iowa, and includes a sample cover letter. " Writing Cover Letters for Academic Jobs" by Robin Hemley. From the August 1999 issue of AWP Job List. © 2000 Associated Writing Programs. Fresh out of graduate school at the age of 24, I once applied for the directorship of a prestigious creative writing program. I felt certain they'd hire me, even though I had one short story published in a good-but-obscure literary journal (that transposed the pages of my story, making it incomprehensible). I've never been the practical type, nor even reality-driven--I am, after all, a writer and a teacher. It wasn't really hubris that drove me to apply for that job, more like complete ignorance. I had no idea who my competition was or what the university was really looking for, though it was right there in bold print: Writer/teacher with national visibility. Years later, I was actually a finalist for the same job. I still wasn't quite what they were looking for, but I at least had a better shot than when I first entered the job market. I've taught at the tenure-track level since 1986 and am a full professor, but it took me four years out of grad school before I found a university willing to take a chance on me. I still didn't have that many publications, but in those four years I honed my letter-writing skills and became more realistic in my expectations. This to me is the first rule in writing a letter of application. Read The Ad. Pay attention to it. If it reads Creative Writing with a secondary interest in 18th-Century Literature, don't try to fake it. Writing that you once wrote a comparative analysis of Candide and Tom Jones is not enough to sway the selection committee in your favor. Really. Apply only to those jobs you're qualified for, even if you're desperate. For every job, you're going to have at least a hundred competitors, and even the most fanciful combinations ("We'd like a poet who can also teach in our animal husbandry program") will yield someone who has those qualifications. So don't waste your postage. If you're just starting out, I'd recommend applying for lectureships or one year replacements or teaching part-time, though part timers are often exploited. I started out teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a place that treated its part-timers humanely, even giving us health insurance. And when a friend offered me a chance to teach my first section of Intro to Creative Writing at nearby Roosevelt University, I took the opportunity. Now I had experience teaching Essay Writing, Creative Writing, and Intro to Literature from my graduate school days at The University of Iowa. It was sometime during this period that I, thinking I had mastered all there was to know about teaching, applied for the Directors job I mentioned earlier. So this is my second rule. If you want to teach, get experience anywhere you can find it. I also think it's important to be honest in every respect. Don't lie, exaggerate, or inflate your credentials. Don't act slavish and desperate for the job. Over the years I have done this in a couple of cases and was never offered the job I was most desperate for, nor did I feel good about myself after the interview. Address the specifics of the ad in your letter. Don't simply hit the copy button for all the jobs for which you apply in a given year. I've been on Selection Committees before and have been shocked by how naive some writers seem in their cover letters. You should remember that most selection committees are made up not only of writers, but of other English Dept. Folk (trolls, hobgoblins, and Composition specialists). So you must understand that they really don't care that you've been published in Granta. I care. I'm impressed, but not all of my colleagues care. In fact, their reaction might be the opposite of caring. The fact that you've been published in Granta and Harper's will addle them. Do not write as one famous applicant wrote for a job at my university, "As I am nearing 40, my family would like me to settle down permanently. I have set my sights on your school." This guy is actually a good writer, and despite the arrogance, I would have liked to give him a shot, but the committee hated him. What's more, he didn't even mention teaching in his letter and we specifically wrote in the ad, "We are seeking writers with a demonstrated commitment to undergraduate teaching." Do you think maybe it might be a good idea to at least mention teaching in such a case? Of course, there are some schools where you could get away with such arrogance. If you're the most famous writer of your generation, fine, some MFA program will hire you for your name. It doesn't matter if you write a two sentence cover letter or not. It doesn't matter if you're a good teacher. You certainly don't need this primer. But short of that, you should actually act as though you care. Not desperate. But caring. That's all I'm saying. Try to keep your letter to a little over a page and address the main points of the ad. If the ad emphasizes teaching, do the same. If the ad emphasizes reputation, then start off with your writing. I always think it's best to start off with your strongest card to get their attention and don't just prattle. If you're asked to say something about your teaching philosophy, do it honestly. If you believe writing should be taught as a craft, say that. If you believe it should be taught while holding hands around a Ouija Board (God forbid) say that. Someone somewhere will like it, and you'll have found your creative writing heaven. Robin Hemley's most recent book is Nola (Graywolf, 1998). He teaches creative writing at Western Washington University and is the former editor of The Bellingham Review. Writing the Academic Cover Letter When writing an academic cover letter, be sure to address all the aspects of the position outlined in the job advertisement. When a hiring committee evaluates the candidates for an academic position, they will read your cover letter and application materials with only the criteria from the ad in mind, assessing your credentials according to your adherence to the job description. To illustrate, the following is an example of a simple cover letter that clearly addresses the various aspects of a job at "AWP University." The Ad: The English Dept. at AWP University seeks to fill a tenure-track position in Creative Writing/Fiction, at the rank of Assistant Professor. Teaching load 4/4; likely courses will include all levels of creative writing and literature courses in contemporary literature. Minimum qualifications: 1) an MFA or PhD in English/Creative Writing; 2) demonstrated excellence in teaching at the university level; 3) publication in literary magazines. Candidates with at least one published book of fiction are preferred. Salary is commensurate with qualifications and experience. Application deadline: August 24, 1999. Send letter, original transcripts, and c.v. (no writing sample) to Ron Smith, Chair, English Dept., AWP University, 1 AWP Lane, Fairfax, VA 22031. AA/EOE The Letter Dan Chere 4293 Rusk Rd. Little Rock, AK 25241 July 25,
1999 Dear Mr. Smith: My name
is Dan Chere, and I would like to apply for the position of Assistant
Professor in Creative Writing/Fiction at AWP University. I hold an MFA
in fiction writing from Brooklyn College, where I studied creative writing
and contemporary literature, especially the work of contemporary European
novelists. I have taught several sections of composition as an adjunct professor at the New School, as well as two sections of fiction writing and three literature survey courses at SUNY campuses, a 4/4 load. My teaching evaluations have been consistently excellent, and I was awarded with the James Agee Prize for Undergraduate Teaching in 1998. I am the author of the novel Fragmentary Desire, which will published by Doubleday in 2001. I have also published stories and criticism in magazines as varied as Harper's, TriQuarterly, Granta, and Time Out. My current projects include a collection of linked stories and a memoir. My dossier is being sent to you from Brooklyn College. Please feel free to call me at (530) 354-2954 or e-mail me at dchere@ozark.net if you need more information or if you would like to set up an interview. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, the curriculum vitae, vita, or CV The CV is a special type of resume usually used within the academic community. Compiling your CV is an art, just like writing your cover letter. You may want to have one or two CVs on hand that emphasize different aspects of your experience. The most important rules are 1. To get the formatting right and 2. Don't beef-up your CV with irrelevant experience. It's time to excise that two-year food-service job you had in college from your work history. Even if you don't have much to include, it's better to be honest and not waste a hiring committee's time (Not to mention your own). The following information is taken and adapted from: http://synergy.as.cmu.edu/career/CareerBriefs/academic.html and The University of Michigan Career Planning and Placement Career Briefs What is a VITA? A vita is a written summary of your educational and professional experience which is submitted as part of the academic job application process. A vita is used by search committees as an initial screening device to see if the applicant possesses the qualifications necessary for the available position. The vita, therefore, should reflect the position for which you are applying. Most likely, you would submit separate vitae for positions in teaching, research and administration. A vita sometimes differs from a resume in name only. However, a resume is more often used in business settings and tends to be brief and skills/accomplishments oriented. Format There is no one correct and proper format for every CV. Format should be determined by the amount of information and the choice of strengths and achievements to be emphasized. Realize that once you are a serious applicant, your vita will need to withstand very close and careful reading; however, initially it may receive no more than a 30 second skim. To promote easy skimming, avoid long sentences or huge blocks of text. Typographical errors or misspellings can remove you from consideration. Overall appearance, paper quality, neatness, and readability must all make a positive impression. What to Include in a Curriculum Vita 1. Name
Address and Phone Number *State these items at the top of the first page.
*Include your work phone number in addition to your home number if you
want to be reached during business hours. *State your name and page number
on subsequent pages at the top left corner in case the pages come apart.
*Some vitae begin with the title "Curriculum Vita". This is unnecessary.
1. Omit References To. . . * health, physical appearance, marital status, children, age * social security number * geographical preferences * reasons for changing jobs * salary requirements * date available NOTE: We recognize that employers are often interested in personal information. However, legally most employers are prohibited from seeking out this type of data. If an employer receives Federal money they are an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. Use your own discretion concerning volunteering personal data. Salary requirements and date available are best left to the interview, or if requested, to the cover letter. 2. Seek Feedback *Show your vita to colleagues and your thesis director *Consult your professional organization for vita models specific to your field. 3. Sharp Appearance And Style Can Make A Difference *Appropriate length: 1-3 pages for recent MFA recipients. The length of the vita normally corresponds to the amount of experience you have. Six pages is a recommended maximum. *Maintain adequate side and top margins as well as sufficient space between categories to allow for ease of reading. *Proofread. Have at least one other person proofread it also. *Choose a conservative paper color (shades of white, gray, tan) and good quality paper. Because your CV will be required for many other purposes other than a job search, it is important to keep it updated. the interview The academic interview process is far different from that of any other job. Unlike an office job, where you may have two or three (fairly) brief interviews over the course of several weeks or months, getting an academic job interview generally means a significant investment of time, energy and, perhaps, money. Candidates are expected to spend one to three days at the University or College, and to meet a variety of professors and administrators. It is also likely that a candidate will be asked to teach a class, or address a group of professors from the department. There are different types of interviews -- informational interviews and employment interviews. The informational interview is useful in determining the direction of your job search in terms of which fields on which to focus, and it can also help you tailor your application materials to a specific field or even a specific employer. For any interview, be prepared. Know something about the person who will be interviewing you. Read their work. Decide how you want to present yourself, what you will say as an introduction, how to articulate your goals (for the interview and for the future), and what questions you will ask. You might write the questions down before-hand, whether or not you actually refer to them during the interview. In addition to asking about the typical work-day, the person's own experience and education, the type of people who tend to work in the field, the possibilities for advancement, and depending on the rapport you have with the interviewer, you should also ask for specific advice on entering the field, ask for the names of other people or organizations who do the same thing (or something similar, if you've indicated that your interests are tangential), and ask if you can use their name when contacting the other organizations. If you are interviewing with a person who may do the hiring at an organization, and if you feel comfortable, ask if you might contact him or her if you decide later to apply for a job there. When you have finished the interview, summarize what has been helpful. Send a thank you letter and emphasize what you learned as well as any specifics that will make the interviewer (positively!) remember you and the interview at a later date. The Employment Interview a. First, the advice you already know: be on time,prepared, and professional. It is acceptable, and encouraged by academic departments, to ask about information and materials that aren't easily available. The more you know, the better you will perform in an interview, and the more useful it will be for both of you. For instance, if you are applying to teach an introductory writing class, ask for a copy of the common syllabus or the name of the common reader (if they use one); if you are applying to a website development company, ask for a list of the sites they have designed. On the other hand, don't ask questions (in the interview or during earlier contacts) which have easily found answers, e.g. how many students attend the college. b. Before the interview: gather your materials (extra copy of CV, work/writing sample, references, letters of recommendation if available), organize them, and practice the interview. This latter is important --imagine and answer the questions you expect them to ask, and write down those that you want to ask. It is always difficult to remember all pertinent questions under the pressure of the interview; prepare them ahead of time so you won't forget anything. Be sure to schedule enough time for the interview; the typical office interview can last anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours. Others, which include tours or orientations may take longer. c. Ask questions which demonstrate your knowledge of the employer/position, e.g. "Having ten students in a class leaves more time for individual conferencing. Is that something you encourage?"
d. You aren't expected to agree with everything they say. Employers know you have your own agenda, and it is better to be honest and make it known how that agenda works with theirs, rather than try to "read" exactly what they want and pretend to comply. After all, if you get the job, you'll probably have to work with them daily! If you are being honest, you might discover mid-interview that you are no longer interested, which will save you time and anxiety.
Some common questions: -Tell me about yourself. [If the interviewer ask a general question like this, assume it means "in relation to this job" and be sure to focus youranswer carefully, outlining your skills and interests as they relate to the organization.] -What are your long/short range goals and objectives? Why/when did you establish them? How are you preparing to achieve them? -Why do you want to work in this department? -What do you see yourself doing five years from now? -Why do you think you will be successful in this field? -Why did you choose our organization?/Why did you apply for this job? -What can you do for us? -What are your strengths and weaknesses? [The typical suggested answers to this question include listing weaknesses that also have advantages (but be subtle), listing weaknesses which are not relevant to the job at hand, and listing past weaknesses which you have fixed or are in the process of addressing.] -What are your career goals? -What are your salary expectations? [If they put you on the spot like this, you can avoid a specific answer by asking if there is a salary range for the job and what it is.] -What have been your most significant achievements? -What qualities should a successful [job title] possess? -How do you work under pressure? -Do you prefer working by yourself or as part of a team? -What criteria are you using to evaluate where and for whom you want to work? -How did you like your last employer? -What kinds of people do you not get along with? Some suggested questions for you to ask: -Do you have a mentoring/training program? How closely will I be supervised? -Could you describe in detail the responsibilities of this position? -Could you describe a typical workday? -What are your future plans for the department? -What would you say are the department/company's philosophy/objectives? -What is the best/worst thing about working here? -Tell me what you look for in a candidate. -Are there opportunities for advancement, and what are some ways to advance? -How are decisions made in this organization?
Of course, you'll have more specific questions based on the research you have done. There are also more specific questions listed in this booklet under Adjunct Teaching and Tenure Track Teaching.
Finally, make yourself -- specifically, your ideas -- memorable. That is, dress conservatively, act appropriately formal/informal according to the situation, and volunteer ideas/ information which will set you apart from the others interviewed. One good method (depending on the flexibility of the job), is to suggest ways in which you can use your unique skills and experience (those different from other applicants) to the advantage of the company/school. For instance, if you have experience with disability access and counseling, make it clear that you would be available as a departmental consultant in that area. Sometimes you don't know which of your other skills your interviewer will be interested in, but if you mention a few skills and interests tangentially while answering other questions, you might find yourself in a spirited conversation about the possibilities of science fiction, or the need for more awareness of learning disabilities. A connection! (One warning: Allow the interviewer to change the tone of the interview before you do, and be careful that you return to the topic of the interview at any indication from the interviewer.) The end of the interview is as important as the beginning. At the end of the interview, you might establish how the selection process works, and request a business card from the interviewer. Thank the person and summarize why you want the job, your qualifications, and what you, in particular, have to offer the organization. For more information on interviewing: In this booklet, refer to sections for Full-Time University Teaching, and adjunct teaching, and check out the articles appended at the end. Otherwise, ask MFA alumni (of course!) and your friends, and check out the Campus Career Network's Career Planning Guide, and talk to your thesis director. The director and assistant director of graduate studies, (currently Don Cheney and Nick Bromell) are also helpful. Until this point, we've only covered the fairly traditional face-to-face interview. However, often interviews are conducted either formally over the phone (in which case, similar suggestions apply), or informally over email, and sometimes informally in person. In the latter cases, they might not be called "interviews," but you should be aware of your self-presentation, because the prospective employer is aware of it. This does not mean writing formal cover-letter prose in an email (that just sounds sycophantic); rather, as above, pay attention to the attitude and formality of the other person. First of all, it can help you judge whether the attitude of the employer suits you. Also, as we well know from our undergraduate experience-- the way you tell someone what they want to hear is by repeating what they just said. In this case, the content requires more individuality, but paying attention to their style and tone will allow you to respond in kind, so that they will pay more attention to your ideas than to your lowercase letters and emoticons. Corporate Writing Positions The corporate world has many jobs with decent to awe-strikingly high salaries for qualified writers. Many of these jobs are for technical writers, employees who write, among other things, the text to accompany software programs or systems, or who create text for websites, etc. You get the picture. There is a distinction here between corporate jobs and specifically internet work--much of the writing for the internet is still freelance or part-time, and this section deals more specifically with full-time corporate jobs, although much of the advice is helpful if you're planning on pursuing more high-tech venues for writing after you graduate. Options for Your Tenure in the Program If you think you may be applying for corporate writing jobs, the best thing you can do is to use your out-of-department credits wisely. UMass has a Professional Writing and Technical Communication Department, and classes in this department can help you gain experience and knowledge that you simply will not find in standard MFA classes. There are also many other opportunities to take classes in things like Web Design which can be valuable resume builders--the more you know about computers these days, the better your chances of getting a corporate job, even if your position ends up mostly entailing word processing. A recent graduate who found work as a technical writer after a short but productive job search advises checking job boards like Monster, even just to see which of your many skills might be in demand. Head hunters: if anyone is looking corporate (or even semi-corporate) at all, she should talk to a headhunter for ideas, because they will have some. "Well, there's this company here"....They love hypotheticals. Teaching Obviously, if you're committed to a job in this field, teaching may not be as important a part of your resume as it will be for other fields. However, you may want to look into teaching technical writing courses around campus. If you can teach it, then the assumption is that you are somewhat skilled at it. The Continuing Education Department offers technical writing courses, and certain departments, like the School of Management or Engineering, have more technically-focused required writing classes. If you do teach Writing 112 or a literature class, it might be a good idea to set up a web-page for your class. This shows that you have a familiarity with the internet, web software, etc. Our recent (and gainfully employed) grad also pointed out that, in this day and age, employers are more comfortable hiring someone who looks tech savvy than otherwise--even if your job doesn't involve using too many software systems. Contact OIT (Office of Information Technologies) to find out how to access your personal web page. Contacts: Office of Information Technologies (OIT): 545-9400 John Nelson, Head of the Professional Writing and Technical Communication Department:
Two Great Websites for "Internet and Information Professionals": Clear Point http://www.clearpnt.com Winter Wyman http://www.winterwyman.com These have many, many listings of job openings, and some very good links. Monsterboard: http://www.monster.com Monster.com has a thousands of job listings around the world and offers an email search client, called Swoop, that will search for specific jobs and email them to you when they are submitted. A similar job search engine is www.flipdog.com.
Fellowships and Grants The good news: there is money out there to be had. If you're finishing up the program and you want to take a stab at buying more time to write, you may as well apply for some of them. Most of them are awarded based on the merit of your creative work, and applications generally tend to include three things: a writing sample, a statement of purpose, and recommendations. Assuming you already have your writing samples in fairly good shape (finish that thesis!) getting your statement of purpose together shouldn't be that stressful. In order to find out about potential fellowships and grants, you can go to the Graduate Student Grant Service, 517 Goodell Hall, 545-573. The staff there is quite helpful, and they have a large library of binders for you to search. You have probably heard of many of the bigger fellowships--the Stegner, the Wisconsin fellowship for MFA graduates, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, The Bunting Institute, NEA, Mass Cultural Council, he Nicholls Fellowship in Screenwriting. We include here a sampling, with contact information. More comprehensive sources include Grants and Awards Available to Writers, published by PEN; AWP newsletter; Poets and Writers magazine. A quick search on the web will turn up a long list. Common sense dictates applying to as many as you can. 1. The Stegner Fellowship Contact
Information: The Stanford Creative Writing Program offers new writers the company of their peers and the guidance of experienced and accomplished writers in a supportive literary environment. Unique among writing programs, Stanford offers ten two-year fellowships each year, five in fiction and five in poetry, for a total of twenty Fellows. Fellows in each genre meet twice a week in workshop with faculty. Fellows are regarded as working artists, intent upon practicing and perfecting their craft. There are no curricular requirements other than workshop attendance, and the program offers no degree. In awarding fellowships, we consider the quality of the candidate's creative work, potential for growth and ability to contribute to and profit from our writing workshops. The Stanford Creative Writing Program's students are diverse in ethnicity and experience, with talent and seriousness the true common denominators. To be a Stegner Fellow: * we
do not require a degree for admission 2. Provincetown Fellowship (Fine Arts Work Center) Contact
Information: The Fine Arts Work Center offers a unique residency program for writers and visual artists in the crucial early stages of their careers. Located in Provincetown, an area with a long history as an arts colony, the Work Center provides seven-month fellowships to twenty fellows each year in the form of living/work space and a modest monthly stipend. Residencies run from October 1 through May 1. Fellows have the opportunity to pursue their work independently in a diverse and supportive community. An historic fishing port, Provincetown is situated at the tip of Cape Cod in an area of spectacular natural beauty, surrounded by miles of dunes and National Seashore beaches. Eligibility: Fine Arts Work Center Fellowships are open to writers and visual artists in the emerging stages of their careers. Juries of professionals make the admissions decisions. Writers may apply in fiction and poetry. In the visual arts, painters, sculptors, installation artists, printmakers and photographers are considered. The Fine Arts Work Center actively seeks applicants from diverse cultural backgrounds. 3. NEA Literature
Fellowships Contact
Information: Through fellowships to published creative writers and translators of exceptional talent in the areas of prose and poetry the Arts Endowment advances its goal of expanding the opportunities for artists to interpret, explore, and create work. This program operates on a two-year cycle with fellowships in prose available one year and fellowships in poetry available the next. Fellowships in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) or poetry are available to published creative writers of exceptional talent. Fellowships enable recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. Creative writers who meet the publication requirements that are listed below are eligible to apply. Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States. You are not eligible to apply if you have received two or more Creative Writing or Translation Fellowships (in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, belles-lettres, or for translation) from the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition, you may not apply in Prose if you have received any Arts Endowment Creative Writing or Translation Fellowship since October 1, 1990 (FY 1991). You may not apply in Poetry if you have received any type of Creative Writing or Translation Fellowship since October 1, 1991 (FY 1992). You are eligible to apply in Fiction if, since January 1, 1994, you have published: *At least five different short stories, works of short fiction, or excerpts from novels in two or more literary journals, anthologies, or publications which regularly include fiction as a portion of their format; or *A volume of short fiction or a collection of short stories; or *A novel or novella. You are eligible to apply in Poetry if, since January 1, 1995, you have published: *A volume of 48 or more pages of poetry; or *Twenty or more different poems or pages of poetry in five or more literary journals, anthologies, or publications which regularly include poetry as a portion of their format. Up to 16 poems may be in a single volume of poetry of fewer than 48 pages. This volume, however, may count as only one of the required five places of publication. 4. The Nicholls Fellowships in Screenwriting Contact
Information: This is the most prestigious there is. Competition is keen - you can count on at least 4,000 submissions. Up to five fellowships are awarded each year, in the amount of $25,000 each. If you're fortunate enough to be selected, you will be expected to complete at least one feature-film screenplay during the fellowship year. You may not have earned money or other consideration as a screenwriter for theatrical films or television, or for the sale of, or sale of an option to, any original story, treatment, screenplay or teleplay for more than $5,000. Also, your screenplay can not be sold or optioned prior to submission or during judging. Applicants may not have received a screenwriting fellowship or prize that includes a "first look" clause, an option or any other quid pro quo involving the writer's work. Entry fee: $30
5. Walt Disney Studios' Fellowship Program Contact Information: Program
Director Call for specific deadlines and application. †If selected, you'll be offered one year salaried work at Disney. Overseas Work They're the bylines that bite--you're either jealous or inspired by those dream descriptions at the end of even the most innocuous of articles or stories: "Aaron P. is writing and traveling in Asia." "Lana G. writes from Eastern Europe for [insert prestigious magazine and list of hip, "progressive" websites]." "Althea Q. plays in a rock band in Amsterdam and writes travelogues about her Russian adventures while traveling with her handsome Spanish loverboy and his wolf. Their co-written screenplay is being filmed by Miramax, directed by Martin Scorcese, and is due out next year, to rave reviews." Dream on, you think, and turn back to page 1 of 25 of that paper for Comparative Lit. But these are true bylines (ok, not the last). But how do you get such a job? Again, the same technique applies. Ask those who do. Books on jobs overseas are piling up in libraries. The ones listed here are relevant primarily to those wishing to teach or work within the liberal arts. There are many other terrific general resources, not included here, but found at the library or in The Alternative Travel Directory, a great resource book for resource books. Contacts and Information: The Alternative Travel Directory: The Complete Guide to Work, Study, and Travel Overseas, edited by Clayton A. Hubbs. .375 pp, $20, Transitions Abroad Publishing, Amherst, MA, (800) 293-0373, www.transabroad.com, trabroad@aol.com. (They also publish a bi-monthly magazine on work and travel abroad.)
(Includes not only excellent, well-researched, book and program recommendations, but also good general and specific advice for options ranging from international work-camps and volunteer options to ESL sites and long-term international careers. Check it out first. Other general resource books include: NAFSA's Guide to Education Abroad for Advisers and Administrators, edited by William Hoffa and John Pearson. 492 pp. $45 (non-members), from NAFSA Publications, (800) 836ƒ4994. Also, Job Registry, NAFSA: Association of International Educators. 10 issues/year. $30 (non-members). (202)462ƒ4811. Comprehensive job listings for international educational exchange. Financial Aid for Research and Creative Activities Abroad, edited by Gail Ann Aschlachter and R. David Weber. 440 pp. $45, from Reference Service Press, (916) 93909626; findaid@aol.com. Over 1300 funding sources, useful for graduate students, postdoctorates and professionals. Directory of International Internships: A World of Opportunities, by Charles Gliozzo, Vernicka Tyson, Adela Pena, and Bob Dye. 1994. 168 pp. Michigan State University. $25, MSU, (517) 335ƒ9510, ext. 371. Teaching Abroad (Secondary school and university levels) College Teaching Abroad: A Handbook of Strategies for Successful Cross-Cultural Exchanges, by Pamela Gale George. 256 pp. Longwood. $35. Allyn and bacon (800) 278ƒ3525. Also consider fellowship programs. Aside from the Peace Corps, the most prominent is the Fulbright.
The Fulbright Teacher Exchange advise@usia.gov/ (800) 726ƒ0479 / free information from the U.S. Information Agency, Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program. Ask for the pamphlet Fulbright Teacher Exchange: Opportunities Abroad for Educators. Includes description and application.) The Fulbright Scholar Program This program gives grants to faculty and professionals for research or lecturing abroad; it is highly competitive, especially for grants to research/lecture in English-speaking countries. Also, see www.cies.org and www.usia.gov for information on Fulbright programs, research fellowships, and teaching exchanges. The International Educator ñ a quarterly newsletter which includes classifieds for international Kƒ12 schools. $25 Annual Subscription. (508) 362ƒ1411, tie@capecod.net. Overseas Academic Opportunities. Monthly. $38 Annual Subscription. Overseas Academic Opportunities (908) 774ƒ1040. Jobs for new Kƒ12 teachers, second language and teaching certification not required. (For those with teaching certification, there are more opportunities and more books available.) Overseas Employment Opportunities for Educators. Free annual information from the Department of Defense Dependents Schools, (703) 696ƒ3255. Teaching English as a second language is especially popular with English grads and post-grads. Again, The Alternative Travel Directory has a great listing of resources, with descriptions of each. Teaching English Abroad: Talk Your Way Around the World, by Susan Griffith. 368 pp. $17 from Peterson's Guides. Extensive worldwide coverage, and in-depth advice on all stages of the process. Teachers of English as Foreign Language: www.tefl.com ESL CafÈ: www.eslcafe.com Web Resources We've included websites as well as books to save you the countless hours in front of the computer sifting through articles on Microsoft's latest job offering and sidetracks into the (fascinating) cultural wasteland that is the web. The English department web page includes links to humanities search engines and useful pages for The National Endowment for the Humanities, The National Research Council Fellowship Office, and state humanities councils. But don't stay at the UMass departmental page--many other university humanities web pages are overflowing with information, including links for pages on fellowships, resume-designing, and the job search. Because the web changes quickly, you are well advised to use general search engines to do up-to-date research. Make use of general search engines (you can find search hints and lists of these at www.writerswrite.com, as well as on the UMass library web page), to find other general jobs pages. These are not specifically for jobs dealing with writing or language, but you might find some job that you can transform into your dream job.
General information on using the web for job searches: (Compiled by Nick Carbone) Rebecca
Smith's Resumes and Resources Archeus'
Pages How to conduct a job search, with advice on how to investigate a company and the job market. Useful especially if you decide to work outside academia. http://home.golden.net/~archeus/reswri.htm Archeus's Resume Writing Tips, a compilation of samples and online articles for writing resumes. Both sites are maintained by Gary Will, a business consultant from Waterloo, Ontario. Some websites that you may find useful for writing/language related jobs: Writers Write: www.writerswrite.com It is a bit disheartening to be in such close (virtual) contact with all the other riff-raff out there, but don't feel sullied. With this site, you must be determinedly discerning, as some of it is lame (win a free copy of Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul), or ambiguous, or obvious and a waste of time (you should be writing instead). But there are useful pages--information on different job markets, book recommendations, sections on screen writing, business writing, tech writing and more; job listings; message boards; and other resources, including newsletters, articles, more web pages, groups, links, et cetera. The Riley
Guide A great general guide that lists (with discrimination) web page information resources on various careers, as well as job list pages, help with interviewing, salary guides, and more. Net Read Includes resources, events, job and resume listings; they advertise primarily publishing jobs, but there are also openings listed for editors/writers/web editors in a variety of fields. Associated
Writing Program Offers a variety of resources for writers, including job listings, online and offline resources. See below for more info. Modern Language
Association Poets and
Writers Similar to AWP, but with less academic and more community focus. Publishing-Related Jobs Publishers Weekly: www.publishersweekly.com/classifieds BookWire: www.bookwire.com Publishing-Jobs.com www.publishingjobs.com (minimal at present) Educational Related Online Job Searching National Education Network: http://www.nenet.com/ Educational jobs for teachers in various academic positions. Teacher employment teaching in educational elementary and secondary schools, k12, college. Academic
Jobs (Academic Employment Network) This is
a free service for schools and teachers. You can place your resume For Teachers and Writers, From the Mining Company (www.miningco.com) Early Childhood http://earlychildhood.miningco.com/mbody.htm Elementary http://kƒ6educators.miningco.com/mbody.htm Secondary http://7ƒ12educators.miningco.com/mbody.htm Private Schools http://privateschool.miningco.com/mbody.htm Freelance Writing http://freelancewrite.miningco.com/mbody.htm Newspaper Jobs http://usnewspapers.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa032199.htm Nonprofits http://nonprofit.miningco.com/mbody.htm Publishing http://publishing.miningco.com/mbody.htm Tech. Writing http://techwriting.miningco.com/mbody.htm Writers Exchange http://writerexchange.miningco.com/mbody.htm Educational Placement Service, at http://educatorjobs.com/, is, as the title suggests, a professional (and therefore you pay), job placement service. It may not be a bad investment, but try looking on your own first. Email lists or Listservs There are email lists for every conceivable occupation and hobby. They can fill up your mailbox with unwanted info, but they can also be valuable resources for networking and for finding out about jobs before they are publicly announced (if they're ever publicly announced). Nick Carbone, the Writing Center Director at Colorado State, who compiled the list below, writes: "There's nothing like going to your first conference and having people you haven't met come and say hi because they know you from a list. It's a great ice-breaker." To search lists for professionals, go to Diane Kovacs Web Directory for Professional Email lists at (http://n2h2.com/KOVACS/). For example, doing a global search with the term 'journalism' returns 15 discussion groups: 1: alt.journalism
Contacts for Summer Work and Internships What follows is a list of assorted contacts for schools, newspapers, and journals that offer internships. If you're interested in more information call or send a query letter to the following addresses of your choice. Some of these are paid positions, many offer only experience. If you're looking for a resume-builder position for your summer, it would be wise to check reference books such as The Internship Bible. Most major bookstores carry many of these types of informational books. In addition, keep an eye on your email for local opportunities. Internships.com Lots of listings for all kinds of internships. The New
Republic Phillips
Academy Seventeen
Magazine Sussex Publishers Harpers
Magazine Magazine
Publishers of America NMH Summer
School Choate Rosemary
Hall Summer Session New York
Newsday The Washington
Post The Wilson
Quarterly Writers
Guild of America, West SOME USEFUL ARTICLES Helping with the Internship Search by Supriya Batnagar From the October 1999 issue of AWP Job List. © 2000 Associated Writing Programs. From ancient times to the Industrial Revolution, the term "apprenticeship" was used to describe what we call an internship. According to the dictionary, it was a "system of learning a craft or trade from one who is engaged in it and of paying for the instruction by a given number of years of work." This practice was known in ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as in modern Europe and the United States. In medieval Europe, a master craftsman agreed to instruct a young pupil, to give him shelter, food, clothing, and to care for him during illness. The apprentice would bind himself to work for the master for a given time. After that time he would become a journeyman, working for a master for wages, until he set up as a master himself. Today, internships are bridges from the classroom to the workplace. They provide temporary work where students acquire business experience in their area of interest, and they provide crucial references and recommendations for building your career. A fascination for computers might place an intern at a technology company, while a student who loves to write might seek an internship with a newspaper. In either case, finding the right internship takes takes planning, preparation, research, and, most importantly, some soul-searching. If you're advising a student searching for an internship, or seeking an internship for yourself, the following questions should be addressed: * What is your purpose for seeking this internship? What do you want to learn on the job? What do you hope to gain from this experience? * Would you like something close to home, or are you willing to travel for the position, or live in another city or state? Should your internship be in the government? The university? In the private sector, or for a nonprofit? * Should it be for a large company, or a small organization? * Do you want to work for money, or will a volunteer or for-credit position suffice? * Are you seeking an internship to bolster your work skills, or something you can use to pad your resume? Once all these questions are sorted out, the next step in obtaining an internship is preparing a good resume. According to Pamela Crivelli of The World Bank, good organization is key to an impressive resume. Every employer knows that a recent graduate's resume contains little work experience. Ms. Crivelli always notes how professional a resume looks, and then what it contains, which influences how it impresses the employer overall. Internship recruiters at the American Psychological Association (APA) note that GPA can help any internship seeker, naturally, but broad and varied experience noted on the resume is invaluable. At APA, online publications interns are hired if they have 2-3 years of undergraduate experience and knowledge of HTML, as well as an interest in the field. Marty Langley at the Violence Policy Center (VPC) recruits interns who are government or sociology majors and knowledgeable about gun control issues. Along with the resume, cover letters are vital. When putting together a resume and a cover letter, job seekers should make sure that they address the needs of the company and what they want to learn on the job. If the employer notes specific job skills in the internship advertisement, mention your experience and refer him or her to your resume. Be sure to note your computer skills on your resume. The employer has to visualize each candidate's specific abilities before they can call you in for an interview. Armed with a great resume and an even greater cover letter, don't forget the importance of the job interview. Employers find the interview more important than a great resume. According to Mia DeMezza at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, an enthusiastic personality overshadows everything else. She does take an applicant's resume and GPA into account, but is drawn to the enthusiasm and interest shown by the prospective internee, which tells her how each candidate will perform on the job--especially when the interns are still developing necessary skills. Also, be sure to include references on your resume. Most employers will call your references in order to confirm their impressions from the interview. The best internships always address the specific needs and talents of each intern, further developing their understanding of a field. When seeking an internship, be sure that it will be a good match to your interests; otherwise, you may not enjoy the work. Your local college or university should have a career center whose resources are free. The county library is another great place to start. The Internet also contains a great deal of information on internships. Often you can go to a particular company's Web site and search their employment opportunities online. This process of thinking, researching, and applying takes time, so be patient and be sure to start early, at least six months in advance, if not sooner. Good internships should benefit both internees and employers. The benefits to the internees are great, but employers that have internship programs have much to gain. The student develops interests in a field, and the intern's supervisor gains management experience and extra help on the job. The hiring of interns is also a good advertising and recruitment tool for the company. Ethel Rackin of American Poetry Review (APR) says that an organization which hires interns projects the image of being more accessible. In organizations that are seeking to add staff, internships often result in an improved selection process. Ms. Rackin began as an intern at APR, and now she is Associate Editor. As a supervisor, she learns more about interns in the course of their internship than by looking at their resumes. But there is a darker side. Money, or rather the lack of it, plays an important role in internships. For-credit positions require students to pay for the experience, credit by credit, which makes it difficult for a student to make ends meet. A stipend for each intern or tuition reimbursement is reasonable, unless it is a nonprofit organization working on a tight budget. Employers often satisfy their short-term staffing needs by hiring interns; many of these interns harbor hopes of landing a permanent job when no such job exists. In addition to the acquisition of new skills and a keener overview of a particular field, the hard-working intern gains an extremely important asset that his or her fellow classmates may not possess: good recommendations from employers. Recommendations from professors are great if you're applying to graduate school or teaching jobs. But if you are seeking employment as an editor, grant writer, technical writer, etc., a good recommendation from a business supervisor has more weight than academic references alone. When you begin your internship, keep in mind that you will be asking your supervisor for a recommendation. Don't assume a relaxed attitudeóthat you can be late for work since you are not being paid, or paid so little, in your internship. David Fenza, Executive Director of AWP, has served as a reference for many former interns. "What the employers sometimes ask is rather basic: Was so-and-so reliable? Did she show up for work on time? Does she collaborate well with others? Does she work well with little supervision? It's pathologically ironic, but it seems most supervisors are seeking employees who need no supervision. Sometimes, though, the employer does look for confirmation of certain working skills: experience in desktop publishing, customer service, development, or whatever. But it's true--mostly they're looking for energy, affability, reliability, a good attitude from young hires." While researching this article as a publications intern at AWP, I searched for information on writing internships. I found over and over again that GPA does not matter as much as attitude. "An intern who is a self-starter, quick to learn, and with the right skills, would automatically have been a good student," said Ms. Crivelli of The World Bank. Good typing skills, knowledge of basic word processing and Internet software, and a driver's license are an intern's best friends. Writing courses are necessary; studying a broad spectrum of subjects is important too, since it demonstrates a student's wide range of experience. Samples of writing are also of the utmost importance. A clip from a school newspaper, freelance writing assignment, or previous internship is invaluable. A previous internship? Isn't an internship supposed to find you a stable, permanent job? As with any system, the idea of an internship is continually abused. Andy Dehnart, in Salon, puts it bluntly: "To get an internship at a daily newspaper, I had to have already been an intern at another daily newspaper. How the hell was I supposed to get a summer internship at a paper if I hadn't already had one? However ridiculous and silly it might be, it's a common requirement." All the rejection letters Dehnart received from prospective employers had one sentence in common: "The successful candidates had at least two previous summer internships." This Catch-22 situation is happening more and more often, but it is contrary to the idea of an internship. Despite the challenges, low pay, or no pay, an internship is a good step in securing nonacademic employment. The Crisis in the Academic Job Market by David Sherwin & Katherine Perry AWP Job List. © 2000 Associated Writing Programs As adjunct teachers continue to displace the tenure-track, those who desire a stable, full-time job are beginning to worry--and with good reason. How many academic careers end in tragedy? In the 1998 issue of Profession, Sandra Gilbert describes the plight of Robert Griffin, one of her former colleagues. While in his mid-sixties, Griffin had "eked out a precarious living as a part-time composition teacher at a community college," with absolutely no benefits or "fringes" such as an office or even an e-mail account. For his two or three courses per semester, plus work in a writing lab, he received $15,000 a year, not including the extra money he might gain from teaching a summer class.(1) This part-time appointment came on the heels of 17 years as the director of the University of California at Berkeley Faculty Association, as well as assistant and associate professorships at Yale and California State University, Hayward, respectively.(2) "How my friend came to this pass," Gilbert writes, "had partly to do... with his own personal decisions and crises, but I think it also had to do with developments in public, institutional history that [we] had been studying for the last two years." While the Modern Language Association (MLA) was finishing a comprehensively bleak report on the academic job market in November 1997, Griffin died of cancer.(3) Gilbert offers the dictionary definition of adjunct--"something joined or added to another thing, but not essentially a part of it"--and is quick to point out the "profoundly ironic disjunction between our use of the word adjunct" and what it actually means. "On the contrary," she says, the work of adjuncts "is every bit as essential as the contributions made by their more appropriately rewarded tenure-track colleagues. Indeed, where would the rest of us--who blithely theorize and historicize as well as enthuse about great literature--be without the thousands of 'adjuncts' whose dedicated but all too often oppressed labor makes possible so many of our apparently more sophisticated accomplishments?"(4) In Gilbert's eyes, Griffin's story dramatizes "the pain inflicted by the kind of academic downsizing" that has replaced tenure-track positions with adjuncts.(5) Although many universities confer increasing numbers of graduate degrees, these same universities continue to replace full-time, tenure-track positions with part-time adjunct positions with low pay and meager benefits. Universities are minting more graduates to compete for fewer full-time jobs, and the surplus of qualified workers enables universities to keep compensation minimal. With more than a hundred applicants per tenure-track position, and with a steadily growing pool of qualified teachers, the academic job market could only be described as terrifyingly fierce. Although many campus leaders, like Gilbert, have made the argument that adjuncts deserve more, university administrations are hardly convinced they must raise salaries or improve benefits when so many accomplished candidates compete for each low-paying position. A case in point is a recent strike at University of California. On December 1, 1998, hundreds of teaching assistants refused to grade final exams for fall courses--"the largest labor action by teaching assistants in the history of U.S. universities," according to The Nation.(6) These adjuncts seek recognition as unionized labor, which will allow them greater leverage for benefits as well as the support of the Teamsters. But the university is steadfastly opposed, "maintaining that grad student employees are primarily students."(7) The current stance of the University of California--including claims that California's higher education collective bargaining law does not apply to TA unions--have ominous implications for anyone seeking employment in academia. They discount the Bob Griffins of the world. In describing the crisis, the MLA prefers the term job system over market in order to emphasize the scope of an intricate cycle so delicate that "if we tweak it in one place, the effects will be felt in other, apparently distant spots."(8) The future of higher education was shaped by the tension between extending undergraduate access to education and advancing faculty members' research, both of which are tied to the U.S.'s economic policies during the Cold War. From 1958-1972, the number of PhDs in English increased 310%, due to the apparent endless need of a greatly-expanding higher education system.(9) Higher education's expansion, however, began to slow, and the retirement of older generations of scholars did not create the expected good prospects for new graduates. Some full-time, tenure-track positions were eliminated as institutions downsized; other tenure-track positions were broken into many new part-time and temporary slots. Nonetheless, the numbers of new graduates continue to increase. In the past five years (1991-1995), PhDs in English language and literature have increased 45%, while MAs have increased by 19%.(10) Most graduates with advanced degrees in English literature, composition, and creative writing will not find full-time tenure-track jobs in academe. Last year, AWP Job List included notices for 232 academic jobs, of which 66 were tenure-track creative writing positions. This number is an increase from the previous year's 46 positions in creative writing, but to put these numbers in perspective, AWP surveyed its member programs to see how many graduate degrees were awarded in the 1997 academic year. Fifty percent of AWP's member schools responded to our survey. Out of 138 member institutions, 368 MA, 543 MFA, and 37 PhD candidates were awarded degrees in creative writing, with 19,813 students enrolled in undergraduate programs and 3,075 students enrolled in graduate programs. From these numbers, we can see that the number of qualified candidates for tenure-track creative writing jobs are on the rise. For the aspiring professoriate, competition in the fields of language and literature is even more disheartening. In the 1994-1995 academic year, 7,845 masters degrees in English were conferred to 2,764 men and 5,081 women, while 1,561 PhDs were conferred to 665 men and 896 women.(11) The MLA's recent report on professional employment notes that "fewer than half [of] the seven or eight thousand graduate students likely to earn PhDs in English and foreign languages between 1996 and 2000 can expect to obtain full-time tenure-track positions within a year of receiving their degrees." Even though this MLA report rails against the increasing use of adjunct hiring practices in academic institutions, the words "fewer than half" have dire implications for academic job candidates. According to MLA statistics, 55% of the 7,958 English PhDs who graduated during the early 1990s "failed in the year the degree was awarded to find the kind of employment for which they had presumably been trained."(12) During the 1996-1997 academic year, of the 72.4% of English PhDs teaching in higher education, only 33.6% found a tenure-track appointment. The placement of English PhDs in tenure-track positions is lower than it has been in the past two decades. Forty-six percent of English PhDs found tenure-track positions in 1976-77, 45.1% in 1979-80, and 51.1% in 1991-92, compared to only 35.0% in 1996-97.(13) Writers who want to teach often stand a chance of finding adjunct employment in the fields of composition, literature, and other areas of the liberal arts. However, this places them in direct competition with those who hold MAs and PhDs in English language and literature. Those that do find a temporary position often find themselves shuttling between several campuses, earning a few thousand dollars per course taught and receiving no benefits--much like Bob Griffin. For some adjuncts, the harsh realization is that one is in a "dead-end rather than an entry-level job," reports Salon. The dismal conditions in academia today have even prompted one over-employed and underpaid adjunct to write a screenplay called The Adjunct--a horror movie. In the script, the job market has driven an unstable part-timer to fantasies of violence and revenge, until she finally finds herself "going adjunct."(14) Or, as another graduate student describes it, the chance of finding "a satisfying English teaching position compare[s] unfavorably with the proverbial lightning strike."(15) "It seems that when people get admitted to graduate programs, they think, 'Oh, I must be different,'" says Matthew Mauch, an adjunct lecturer at Minnesota State University at Mankato. Mauch earned his MA and MFA at MSU-Mankato and taught at a community college while finishing his MFA program. His familiarity with the local job market, the advice of his teachers, and his breadth of work experience helped him to land his first two adjunct appointments. "After I got my BA in English, I started a biweekly arts and entertainment magazine like the Village Voice, except for a small community. I also edited some children's publications. Because of my professional experience, I could teach technical and business writing courses. Experience outside the program got me the position at the community college, but the graduate studies prepared me to perform in the position. One teacher had said, 'You should get the graduate degree because you want to grow as a writer and immerse yourself in a writing community, not because it will lead to a job.' They said the job market was difficult, but helped us with vitas and the job search. They had seminars about setting up a dossier, and we would talk to the faculty about the process." Ruth L. Schwartz's job search also depended on her breadth of experience. "I came to academia in a roundabout way," Schwartz says. After attending the University of Michigan's MFA program in poetry, she worked for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, spending ten years as a health educator before becoming a professional resumÈ writer. Her first book, a winner of the AWP Award Series in Poetry, was published in 1994. She spent a year on her job search, casting a wide net, but many of the schools wanted PhDs with literary criticism backgrounds--the catch-phrase being "evidence of scholarly work." "For my first interview, I was really green. I wasn't well prepared, but they liked my work. The work is definitely the thing that got me the interviews, but I was ultimately ruled out of most of the jobs. But there are schools that are willing to consider people with non-traditional credentials. It's probably not mentioned in the job ad." Schwartz is now an Assistant Professor of English at Cleveland State University, where she teaches writing and an occasional composition or literature class. Before she started her job search, she knew that she wouldn't have a shot at an academic job without a book. For most tenure-track jobs, this is the rule, not the exception. AWP Board President Julie Checkoway makes the same point. "The strange secret to landing a teaching job in this tough market is probably to focus as much as possible on the writing," said Checkoway. "Nothing less than a smart, well-written, well-respected book and a commitment to craft makes a writer a very attractive candidate." Even with an advanced degree from one of the most prestigious universities, book publication is one of the most important factors in achieving a tenure-track appointment. For those without such accomplishments on their vita, the job search can mean a limitless stream of cover letters and teaching practicums. William Beverly, who holds a PhD in English from the University of Florida, sent out at least three dozen resumes before receiving an interview request. "I got one December interview, which made me so happy I practically drooled on the hiring committee. I didn't get the job, which is a shame, but the disappointment readied me for the spring search." After sending out at least a hundred dossiers, Beverly was hired as an assistant professor of English at Graceland College--a non-tenure-track 4-4 teaching load, both in literature and creative writing. While a writer first and foremost, Beverly's experience in his PhD program gave him the flexibility necessary to teach literature, composition, and writing courses--and made him an appealing candidate for the job, even without a book publication. But even such a temporary appointment offers little security, especially for those who want to make teaching into a practical, stable career. As adjunct teachers continue to displace the tenure-track, those who desire a stable full-time job are beginning to worry--and with good reason. According to a survey by the U.S. Education Department, 42% of all faculty members worked part time in 1993, up from around 20% in 1968. The same survey reveals that adjuncts who taught in the liberal arts were not as satisfied as those in vocational fields such as health and computer sciences. Sixty percent of adjuncts at four-year liberal arts institutions said they taught because they could not find full-time work, compared to only 28% of adjuncts in vocational fields who said the same.(16) The end to this disturbing trend, according to the recent MLA report, "depends on an increase in full-time tenure-track faculty positions."(17) Is this feasible? "It's necessary," says Eckhard Gerdes, a instructor at Macon State University. The use of adjuncts "reduces the ability of full-time faculty to uphold certain standards of academic freedom and maintain integrity." Matthew Mauch concurs, noting that at the community college level, he saw the administration trying to maintain a 60/40 ratio for adjuncts and tenured faculty, making the hirings and firings based on those numbers. In contrast, Kevin Canty offers a practicum for using adjuncts specifically in writing programs. "In a practical sense, writers can benefit from temporary and visiting writers. Visiting writers often don't want a tenured position, due to their stature, and even moderately successful writers can be for the students' benefit. But adjuncts teaching the majority of the courses seems like a ripoff for the students." Canty is an Assistant Professor of Fiction Writing at University of Montana. He applied for jobs while he was still in graduate school at University of Arizona, Tucson and has published two books of fiction, a novel and a short-story collection. Canty says that the MFA program gave him enough room to learn to be a writer, "because the teaching of writing is based in the practice of being a good writer." "Most people undertake an MFA degree without thinking there's a teaching position out there, waiting for them," Canty says. "If not, after the first week in the graduate program, they'll know. I entered an MFA program with a spirit of adventure, and I'd hope that other people would also consider the MFA experience as a personal adventure." Even for those few who win their place in the academy, the monetary rewards are less than those in technical fields. According to the College and University Personnel Association, the average salary for all ranks of professors of literature is $47,626 at public institutions and $46,884 at private institutions. Full professors of literature earn an average of $61,839 at public institutions and $67,282 at private institutions, while the average salaries for assistant professors of literature is $40,762 at public institutions and $41,190 at private institutions.(18) Such numbers are disheartening, especially in the face of current statistics which demonstrate the discrepancy between the liberal arts and the sciences. At four-year institutions, adjuncts in vocational fields earned an annual salary of $69,563 in 1993, compared to $38,500 earned by those teaching in the liberal arts.(19) "Graduate programs must accept more responsibility for the current plight of job seekers and begin heeding the elephant in the faculty lounge," says Linda K. Karell in a recent essay on career opportunities in faculty administration. "Guiding graduate students toward traditional research jobs that most of them are unlikely to ever hold is irresponsible, immoral, and economically untenable. Rather than provide a narrow focus on the faculty track, graduate departments must additionally encourage their students to prepare for jobs that require supervisory experience and leadership skills." "Nostalgia aside, colleges and universities are businesses, and they seek the same things we tell our undergraduates to demonstrate: leadership, responsibility, creativity, and experience that can translate to a variety of job situations... Graduate students must also share the responsibility for becoming employable."(20) Perhaps this is the most difficult thing for any graduate student to hear--that after their many years of hard labor as a student of writing, they must also bow to the reality of any job market. An article in SPIN, "Sucker PhD's," parallels the MLA's current stance: "If universities truly want to uncloister themselves, and discharge PhDs who can... use their degrees anywhere, they'll need to learn to see higher education as less of a professional impulse and more of a bohemian impulse."(21) Between this "bohemian impulse" and the "responsibility for becoming employable" lies an American truism: that perseverance and hard work are assets, and that it may be useful to temper one's idealism with some pragmatism. With so many slow-moving institutions involved in the academic job debate, along with so many contentious departments, a single or quick solution to the job slump is unlikely. Nonetheless, the MLA's recent report on professional employment makes a number of bold recommendations and concludes with a call for "widespread departmental self-study" which will "likely lead many doctorate-granting departments to admit fewer graduate students, while a number of others will find that they are training their students for the wrong sort of work."(22)
"The PhD has become a much narrower degree than it used to or has to be," says Elaine Showalter, 1998 president of the MLA, in a recent issue of Lingua Franca. "Let's give [graduate students] the tools to be successful in a number of different professions." Among recent graduates, however, such recommendations are not warmly received. As the current president of the MLA's Graduate Student Caucus puts it: "Elaine's idea is that we should practice our phone skills."(23) Such a dialogue turns today's trends in the academic market into a conflict--the tenured professors ensconced by the academy vs. the graduate students struggling to make a living through adjunct appointments. "It is not a mistake to urge students to pursue the PhD or to become intensely involved in scholarly research," says Jules LaPidus, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, "but it is a dreadful mistake to convince them that doctoral education is a waste of their time if they don't become scholars." LaPidus expands this point in an opinion piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education, softly deriding faculty members who "lead their doctoral students to believe that unless they find tenure-track positions at research universities, they are second-rate at best, if not outright failures. It is difficult to overstate the damage that this academic chauvinism causes."(24) AWP President Julie Checkoway expresses similar concerns about MFA graduates. "It's important to remember that studying in a creative writing program is just one step in the life-long commitment one makes to the writing life." Although the job market is tough, she argues, an advanced degree in creative writing is still worthwhile because the ultimate goal of a creative writing program is artistic and not merely vocational. "It's important to remember that it's a kind of space out of time, a sacred space, if you will," Checkoway says. "It's one of the few, marvelous chances writers have to focus exclusively on their craft while in the company of like-minded others." As the world inside the ivory tower fills with self-doubt and worry, some students find themselves defending its very structure. "I don't know if we want the outside real world to come into the inside world of academe now when there is so little inside world left," says Mike Opolicky, a tenure-track instructor at Orange City Community College in New York. "It becomes a turf problem. Do we really want our philosophy professors, for example, to sit down with philosophy students to talk about where phenomenology can get them professionally? Absurd." LaPidus's argument, while echoing Showalter's ardent cries for diversifying graduate student's abilities, places the responsibility on both the students and the teachers, which is a viewpoint that some mainstream publications have chosen to ignore. U.S. News & World Reports' Best Graduate Schools 1998, for example, profiles Shiva Subbaraman, an "unusual" scholar who supports her academic research through a job at a coffee shop instead of working as an adjunct instructor. The article then discusses the "diminishing value" of the PhD and how "highly trained minds" are not able to "find jobs that match their aspirations and justify about a decade of study at considerable personal, and, often, public expense."(25) The article offers a quick history of the academic job market, discusses recent books about the plight of the underpaid adjunct, and provides two more profiles of PhD holders who are "damaged goods"--those who have spent so much time working as adjuncts that they are no longer viewed seriously as scholars.(26) "Instead of leading the scholarly life, too often they find themselves working in coffee shops or teaching in prisons, careers for which a PhD is not required."(27) Such articles imply that most graduate students should expect to settle for second-best and file away the unattainable goal of a tenure-track appointment. Worse still, they discount the merits of higher education itself--of knowledge as an end in itself. In recent deliberations of the AWP board of directors, the board has focused, according to Julie Checkoway, on the best way "to help students maintain a high standard of craft, while at the same time we help them to prepare portfolios that make them attractive candidates in the job market." Because the goal of study in a writing program is artistic--to help students become a better writers--as well as academic--to prepare graduates to teach literature and writing--the AWP board of directors is seeking to make recommendations that address these complicated needs of AWP's graduates as well as the association's programs and students. Some programs, like the University of Arizona, already offer extracurricular sessions in writing curricula vitaes and in preparing for job interviews. Other programs offer similar advice informally. "There is a consensus among board members" says David Fenza, the Executive Director of AWP, "that the job market warrants a more vigorous, more systematic response from AWP. The board is working on a set of recommendations for our programs and students." The last time the academic job market deteriorated, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, the number of graduate programs in creative writing tripled, and this growth created many new positions for writers. It was a bad time for PhDs in literature, but an opportune time for those writers who had MFAs and strong published work. "Our graduates were insulated a bit from that storm," says Fenza. "But our growth has since leveled off. The current crisis is very different, and we're doing our best to address it." In response to the poor academic job market, AWP Job List has continued to publish more non-academic job opportunities for writers in fields such as arts administration, editing, publishing, and grant writing in nonprofit and corporate sectors. The Writer's Chronicle has featured articles on the plight of adjuncts and on writers who found employment in diverse fields outside academia. AWP has provided general advocacy on behalf of both individuals and institutions, issuing policy guidelines for adjunct faculty in member programs and curriculum at graduate and undergraduate writing programs. (Copyright 1999 Associated Writing Programs) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Notes 1. Gilbert, Sandra M. "Bob's Jobs: Campus Crises and 'Adjunct Education.'" Profession 1998, p. 235. 2. Ibid, p. 236. 3. Ibid, p. 235-236. 4. Ibid, p. 240. 5. Ibid, p. 236. 6. Wiener, Jon. "Unionbusting Flunks Out." The Nation, January 4, 1999, p. 7. 7. Ibid, p. 8. 8. Gilbert, Sandra M., et al. Final Report, MLA Committee on Professional Employment. New York: MLA, 1997. <http://www.mla.org/reports/system.htm>, p. 1. 9. Ibid, <history.htm>, p. 1-2. 10. "Earned Degrees Conferred." The Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac, August 28, 1998, p. 26. 11. Ibid, p. 26. 12. Gilbert et al., <times.htm>, p.1. 13. "Data on the Job Market." Findings from the MLA Surveys of PhD Placement, 1977 to 1997. <http://www.mla.org/JILData_98.htm>. 14. Killen, Andreas. "Going Adjunct." Salon. <http://www.salonmagazine.com/it/feature/1998/09/17feature2html>. 15. Karell, Linda K. "Career Possibilities in Administration; or, How That Job Helped Me Get This One." Profession 1998, p. 208. 16. Wilson, Robin. "For Some Adjunct Faculty Members, the Tenure Track Holds Little Appeal." The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 24, 1998, p. A9. 17. Gilbert et al., <preface.htm>, p.2. 18. "Average Salaries of Full-Time Faculty Members, 1997-98." The Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac, August 28, 1998, p. 29. 19. Wilson, p. A9. 20. Karell, p. 211. 21. Weisbard, Eric. "Sucker PhD's." SPIN, October 1997, p. 127. 22. Gilbert et al., <preface.htm>, p. 3. 23. Eakin, Emily. "Who's Afraid of Elaine Showalter?" Lingua Franca, September 1998, p. 36. 24. LaPidus, Jules B. "Why Pursuing a PhD is a Risky Business." The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 14, 1997, p. A60. 25. Herbert, Wray. "Plight of the PhD." U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools 1998, p. 83. 26. Ibid, p. 84. 27. Ibid, p. 85.
From C.V. to Rèsumè By Margaret Newhouse From the Chronicle of Higher Education Online If you are exploring careers outside academe, one of your first steps is to convert your C.V. into a rèsumè. What's the difference between the two, and how do you make the transformation? Think of a rèsumè as a compelling introduction of your experiences and skills as they relate to a particular career or job. By contrast, a curriculum vitae displays your academic credentials and accomplishments in great detail. A rèsumè indicates to employers your seriousness of intent. By the time you are actually seeking jobs, your rèsumè -- along with a cover letter -- is essential for getting an interview, unless you have managed to network your way to an interview. Although they provide incomplete information, rèsumè are typically your only means of persuading an employer to take a risk on a career changer. Therefore, you need to tailor your presentation of skills, experience, and motivation to fit the requirements of the job you are seeking, while making the entire "package" irresistible. In general, note that rèsumè require you to be both more concise and more general than C.V.'s. Your rèsumè will emphasize the experience and skills most relevant to the new career and probably play down your academic credentials and experience, as does Erin's. Here are some common-sense rules for creating a rèsumè: *Try to keep a rèsumè to one page, particularly for business and media fields. (There is a rough rule of thumb that more than 10 years of experience warrants a second page.) If it goes to a second page, make sure the first page contains essential information and the second page includes your name. Often you can present the second page as an addendum listing publications and similar material. *Make the rèsumè visually effective to communicate professionalism and clarity. Make it easy for the eye to scan, using capital letters, bold print, underlining, and spacing to highlight your strongest credentials. Don't make it too dense, busy, or cute. Use a white or cream bond paper (the same as for your cover letters). *Be consistent in your use of grammatical structure and style, and make sure your grammar and spelling are perfect. Proofread your rèsumè several times and then have someone else proofread it as well. Use accurate, accessible language; be judicious about abbreviations and jargon -- even those of your targeted career. *Be aware that information presented at the beginning of a section, at the left-hand margin, or in a column gets extra emphasis; therefore, it is generally not advisable to put dates in the margins. (Note, however, that dates in the margin appear to be standard for rèsumè in business fields.) Present information in order of its importance; for example, if you happen to have substantial experience or want to de-emphasize your doctorate, put Experience before Education. Or consider putting a Skills summary first if that is your strongest point. *One increasingly common beginning for a rèsumè, which Erin has adopted, is a Summary or Highlights of Qualifications section. Here you summarize the qualifications most relevant for a particular career or job, including experience, credentials, and skills. In general, avoid "Job Objective" statements, because they usually sound vapid or canned and can limit you. *Select the best format for your qualifications and experience: reverse chronological, functional, or a combination. The reverse chronological, starting with the most recent and working backward, is easiest to construct. Functional formats are most appropriate for people who have little work experience or whose capabilities have been demonstrated in non-professional situations. The functional rèsumè categorizes your experience (including paid and unpaid work and personal achievements) by skill, followed by a brief section listing employment history. Functional rèsumè are harder to pull off successfully, partly because readers wonder if you are hiding something. For that reason, a modified chronological rèsumè (items described in reverse chronological order within different categories of experience) is often more effective for career changers. *Personal information such as age, marital or health status, and race or ethnicity should be omitted. Although information about citizenship or visa status is not required, it might be wise to include a reference to U.S. citizenship or permanent resident status if your nationality is ambiguous. *References and even the phrase "References furnished upon request" are usually omitted. However, before you go on the job market, you should line up your references -- preferably a mix of academic and non-academic ones. Explain what jobs you are seeking and prime them (with a typed list, perhaps) to emphasize your skills and traits appropriate for that work. For the job interview, you might prepare a list of references with contact information, in case employers ask for names. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Margaret Newhouse is assistant director of career services for Ph.D.'s at Harvard University.
How to Land a Career in Technical Writing By Gwendolyn Bradley From the Chronicle of Higher Education Online Harriet Whitlock became interested in the Web when she was a graduate student and teaching assistant in the English department at Rutgers University. She designed a writing course with cyber communities as its theme and developed a Web site for the course. One thing led to another. First she was asked to help maintain the English department Web site, then to teach department staff members how to make and support Web pages. Next an ex-student offered her some freelance work marketing and then maintaining a Web site. Ms. Whitlock is now A.B.D. in English and a full-time staff member at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where she writes Web site content, training materials, documentation that allows departments to maintain their own Web sites, course handouts, and academic computing-policy statements. Her job draws on several skills she gained in graduate school including "problem-solving, making information accessible, ordering ideas, researching, sounding authoritative even when you don't feel it, focusing for a long time on a single task, working under pressure, making deadlines." Was it a big adjustment? "It has taken me a while to adjust to multitasking," she says, "not to mention getting used to using terms like 'multitasking'." Like Ms. Whitlock, other humanities A.B.D.'s and Ph.D.'s are making careers in technical and medical communication. These fields offer good pay, a strong job market with the probability of continued growth, and plenty of opportunity to learn new things. Among the materials produced by technical writers and editors (or "communicators" as they are now called in this burgeoning field) are user manuals for computers, package inserts for prescription drugs, proposals for contracts between companies, scripts for instructional videos, articles in medical and trade journals, industrial research reports, help menus and explanations inside software, and advertisements for technical products. While technical writers are expected to have some knowledge of the subjects they write about, experts usually provide detailed information. Technical writers and editors organize the information, put it into user-friendly language, select graphics, write sidebars, and impose a consistent format, checking back with experts to fill in blanks and ensure that no errors have been introduced. "The greatest paradigm shift is to move from thinking of your document as 'yours' (personally unique, expressive of your ideas and style) to thinking of your document as 'theirs' (designed for the user, who wants to accomplish some task)," says Marjorie Davis, chairwoman of the department of technical communication at Mercer University, by way of e-mail. "It's hard to get used to thinking of yourself as a collaborator and not a Lone Ranger." Though an increasing number of colleges and universities offer programs in technical communication, the field is open to those without specialized degrees. A survey conducted in 1995 by the Society for Technical Communication showed that 42 percent of its members studied English in college, almost double the number who studied technical communication. The profession of technical communication seems to be growing significantly. The S.T.C.'s membership increased by 73 percent in the last decade, and the number of U.S. colleges and universities it identifies as offering technical communication courses more than tripled from 1986 to 1996. That expansion is good news for humanities candidates seeking technical writing and editing jobs as well as for those wishing to remain in academe to teach technical communication. According to a 1999 salary survey by the society, the mean national salary for technical communicators holding just a bachelor's degree is $50,520. Besides good salaries, technical communication has other advantages. An oft-cited plus is constant learning. To produce their work, technical writers and editors must keep up with new technologies, new medicines, and new developments in their fields. The writing can be satisfying as well. "There's an element of creativity involved in finding ways of organizing complex information so it is easier to understand and make use of," says Tim Lulofs. Mr. Lulofs received a Ph.D. in English from the University of California at Davis, but the tight job market led him to look for work outside the academy. A contact in a telecommunications firm led to a computer operations job there, and Mr. Lulofs gravitated toward training and later technical-writing work. He now manages a group of technical writers at Telcordia Technologies, a telecommunications software company. "The reading, thinking, and writing required of graduate students in the humanities can serve them well in a technical environment," he says. "Teaching experience is also helpful. It's common for technical writers to be asked to help develop and deliver training." There are downsides to the job. "The work is very much deadline-driven," Mr. Lulofs says, "which can be difficult for some people." Another downside has traditionally been the relatively low status of technical communication within the scientific world. Technical writers and editors working with engineers, physicians, chemists, and programmers have often been viewed as holding support staff or nonsubstantive positions. But some say that this is beginning to change, particularly in computer industries. "More and more companies realize that they must remake the product to be more usable instead of spending millions on paper documentation that nobody reads," says Ms. Davis. "The design team relies on technical communicators to build in usability from the beginning." One factor working against smooth transitions from graduate schools to corporate technical communication is a disconnect between the two environments. Many academics distrust corporations, question the value of their goals, and are unsure of what corporate workers actually do all day. The reverse is also true. Chuck Campbell described this disconnect in his 1989 dissertation. Mr. Campbell got a master's in English literature in the 1960's before going to work as a technical writer. He kept one foot in the academic door by continuing to teach English courses while holding full-time technical-communications jobs. "I felt there was a schism between my academic life and my technical writing life," Mr. Campbell says. "So when I went back for my Ph.D. I used rhetoric and critical theory as a way to think about technical writing." Mr. Campbell emphasizes that although technical communicators need some technical knowledge, their primary tool is an understanding of rhetoric: how to structure material to enhance understanding, and how to present material clearly and persuasively. "The most important skills technical writers have are the abilities to analyze and argue," he says. To prepare for a career in technical communications, humanities graduates should identify an area in which they'd like to work and become familiar with the basic structure and terminology of the field. One way to do this is by reading Web sites of associations and companies, and lurking on technical-communication discussion lists. It is also important to get some work experience or publications. Ron Fraser, a freelance technical writer, recommends using one's own area of expertise as a way to segue into more technical subjects. For example, graduate students or instructors could create Web sites for their courses, contribute articles on the cultural ramifications of some aspect of science or technology to graduate student journals, find work teaching technical writing (for which, ironically, one sometimes needs no technical qualifications), advertise one's services as a dissertation editor to graduate students in the sciences, and so on. It's almost impossible to emerge from graduate school now without basic computer skills. Technical communicators need these and often more. Depending on the field, familiarity with statistical programs, Web authoring tools, desktop publishing software, and graphics programs can be an asset. If you have access to free campus computer facilities, now's the time to use it. One aspect of technical writing that some find attractive is that the wages can be high enough to make part-time and freelance work possible -- allowing workers to maintain the day-to-day autonomy to which academics are accustomed and leaving valuable time free for finishing a dissertation, preparing articles for publication, attending to family, or teaching a class or two. It's difficult to start a freelance career cold. Freelancers need ways to reach potential employers, and employers need a reason to believe that freelancers can do the assigned work. Most people agree that the best way to start a serious freelance career is to get a full-time job for a year or two to build contacts and experience. On the other hand, many people, like Ms. Whitlock, segue gradually into freelancing through chance interests and contacts. Although there are already intense demands on graduate students' time, it's important to build preparation into your schedule, however minimally: one hour a week of relevant Web reading, one evening a week to play with Photoshop in the computer center. Whether your goal is a full-time technical-communication job or a freelance career, and whether this is a primary goal or a backup plan in case the academic market fails you, technical communicators agree that it is important to start preparing well ahead of the moment when you need this work to support you. Gwendolyn Bradley, a doctoral student in English at Rutgers University, is a freelance writer. Good-bye and Good LuckAlthough this booklet has sought to provide some timely advice and a few ways to stay ahead of the game and jump-start your job search, much of what determines the success of your future trajectory will be perseverance and common sense. Take opportunities that interest you, and never hesitate to create opportunities where none exist. UMass can often seem like a black hole from which, as a 112 student once said, "there is no known method of escape". But there are people here who are willing to help you in your endeavors and offer support, and many, many, opportunities to be found both here and elsewhere. The length of this book makes it impossible for us to elaborate on every field that an MFA might conceivably (and happily) pursue. For example, you may have noticed that journalism and publishing are mysteriously absent here, aside from the internship information we provide. Furthermore, no section in this booklet covers freelance writing. But many of the job resources listed here advertise for journalism and publishing jobs (as do, of course, your local newspapers) and a current issue of The Writer's Market can get you plenty of information about where to start pitching your ideas. We hope to elaborate on these fields in future editions of the MFA Job Book, and trust that you will not construe the lack of related information as an ominous omission. Remember: a lot of post-grads, PhD and MFA, make their money by doing something completely unassociated with their graduate school skills. Instead, they go into landscaping, bicycle-designing, and in two recent instances, wines and horse shoeing. Those are other areas this booklet does not elaborate on, but they are viable options. Do not make the mistake of thinking you have bought yourself a vocational degree and must teach or write grants. What recent grads have told us is that the MFA is useful in its lack of official usefulness. Although you may not emerge from this program to a best-selling first novel or that standard $140,000 first-year-out-of-school salary, you will be a more highly educated, intrepid, interesting human being. Again: there are few jobs that advertise for MFAs, but a great many that MFAs can adapt themselves to do, and a great many more jobs that do not yet exist but are waiting to be created by enterprising MFAs. P.S. We'd like to gratefully thank and acknowledge the UMass Campus Career Network, the Humanities and Fine Arts Career Planning Guide, the Hollins College Career Development Guide, The AWP and the Chronicle of Higher Education, and all the other sources and people who have contributed their words and ideas to this project. |