Do you have any questions for us?

I have an interview tomorrow for an #alt-ac job–my very first. The job combines elements that I feel really comfortable with, along with some areas of activity in which I am not expert and would require a bit of a learning period. Since this interview is for a job that would be my first one outside of the classroom in more than 15 years, I have been strategizing ways to make sure I convey my capabilities to the interview committee. I want to impress them with my professionalism, my experience, my grasp of the wide scope of duties involved in this job. PICK ME!

But while all of those things are important, I know that, as with a teaching position at a university, the hiring committee will be just as interested in “fit” as they are in my credentials. I got to the interview because they felt my credentials merited that. In other words, I am likely qualified for the job, in their estimation. Fit, of course, is an entirely different creature and the committee’s estimation of my “fit” is something I can do little to control. I’m a bit concerned about perceived cultural challenges–I have no Canadian university experience and am uncertain whether or not that will be a problem or an asset or completely unimportant.

What I think I can do, in terms of addressing “fit” issues, and in terms of showcasing my suitability for the job, is to focus on the “Do you have any questions for us?” portion of the interview. During that phase, I can demonstrate that

–I’ve researched the public presence of the university. How they talk about themselves, recruit students, celebrate successes provides me with critical information about the kind of team player they might be interested in.

–I know a bit about their current program offerings and what they consider their academic and extra-curricular strengths. Equipped with that knowledge, I can offer sensible and informed comment on where the university might go from here.

–I understand the job description in detail and am aware of the scope of duties. Within that job description, however, I want to know which areas are deemed “most important” or “urgent” by the hiring committee.

–I understand that the university needs to hire somebody who will bring results for their division/program. What are the 6-month goals for this position? The 12-month goals?

The “do you have any questions for us?” phase of the interview requires, I think, less tooting of my own horn (here are my experiences and what I can do for you!) and more demonstrating my interest in becoming part of this team, about which I already know so much. It gives me (or any candidate) an opportunity to express my interest in, and commitment to, the vision of the organization and show myself to be a good fit.

Wish me luck!

 

Your Online Presence

The last time I was on a hiring committee, I googled most of the candidates we were interviewing and all of the candidates we ended up inviting to campus. Since each of the candidates were graduate students or visiting faculty at universities, they each had some sort of trail online that confirmed what their CVs told us. Sometimes there was even a photo to attach to a name.

And since I am now looking for a job, I googled myself this morning. I have heard tell that some people google themselves on a regular basis, in order to monitor the information about them that works its way past the static and interference of a series of tubes full of cat videos and onto someone’s computer screen. Some of my colleagues have web pages they maintain that serve as a digital CV, with links to their publications available in Open Access archives, videos of their teaching, links to other projects. This seems eminently sensible to me, but also like a great deal of fiddly work.

I was glad to discover that a google search for my name delivers links that represent me pretty well. My LinkedIn profile is there, with most of my publication record, my affiliation with the university is there, and there doesn’t appear to be another woman with my name out there who works a side job as a stripper. All good news.

What do you think? Should we who are looking for an #alt-ac career maintain some sort of professional web page? Use LinkedIn aggressively (since that is what it is there for?!)? Rely on our resumes and cover letters, word of mouth, and our general awesome personality to get our message across? What do you do?

A Plan to Date

Talking with a coach earlier this week, I learned that the “J” in my Myers-Briggs profile means that I like to make decisions. I like to have a plan. Waffling around and collecting a ton of data/alternatives and mulling them over is a fundamental part of my personality. The whole “wait and see how it all pans out” mode is not my style at all. Or, as my grandmother would put it: “Jennifer, do SOMETHING, even if it’s wrong!” (although, to be fair, I think she generally said that in response to my preference for lazing about, watching tv, and reading books instead of doing chores.)

The need to have a plan, to know where I would like to be in a year, or five years, is not being met in my current scenario, wherein I don’t know whether it is wiser to hedge my bets on a tenured/tenure-track position coming available in the next year or two, or to aggressively pursue alternative careers in academia, or to aggressively pursue careers outside of academia, or just to sit and be fallow and hope it will all work out. Being fallow just doesn’t seem like an option to me (and whether that is my mental health or our financial health speaking, I can’t rightly say) so I’ve applied for three jobs this month.

I filled out these applications before I talked with Coach Melanie and she said something that is sticking in my craw, in a good way. She said: You don’t just want the first job that comes along, any more than you would marry the first guy who comes along. You need a plan that you can date and get to know and fall in love with.

And I haven’t just run off willy-nilly and applied for jobs out of desperation. No applications to do mindless data entry, or office jobs in big companies, or something totally out of the blue and not up my alley. I strategized and thought about jobs requiring analogous skills and what sort of values I would like to live out in my job and what skills I would like to use most in a new position and what potential employers might see me as qualified for. Since I have worked in faculty governance in my position as faculty member, I have had a glimpse into university administration and knew that there were jobs in that area of academia for which I would be qualified and which I would also have an interest in doing. (while I also agree with Dust Biter that university administration can be top-heavy and not in the service of teaching students, I’m interested in working in areas that require faculty, administration, and students to work together on issues.) So I applied for two admin jobs, at two different near-by universities.

That’s Plan A: the sensible plan, the good-looking, stable plan that you want to take home to mom.

Plan B is the tatooed, pierced plan, the plan that is a lot of rollicking fun but might not be good for the long term. Or maybe he’s secretly totally intelligent and full of integrity and would lead to an exciting, if not tweedy, life: wine instructor. This is why I’m taking the Wine Appreciation class, of course, to get my feet wet, as it were. If I educate myself with wines of the world classes and Level 2 and (eventually) Level 3 WSET certification, I could build a career as a consultant, writer, educator on wine. This career trajectory is much longer and less certain than Plan A. I am not networked in the food and wine world at all; I’ve never served anyone a plate of food or a glass of drink; I’ve never worked retail a day in my life. So getting to the point where people would pay to hear me discourse on wine could be a long and uphill battle–but the subject material is fun, the people who work in the wine industry appear to be a righteous group of folks, and wine is made and drunk the world over, from here in Ontario to over there in Saxony, so I could be more portable with Plan B than I ever could have been as a professor. And it sounds exciting: learn new things, meet new people, have a job that focuses on the social aspect of human existence! Sounds like a GREAT date.

And now I have an interview for one of the university admin jobs. And that is my plan to date!

The Spit Bucket

Since I now work (i.e. write) from home and do not have an office to go to, there is always the danger that 3:30 will roll around, the kids will come home from school, and I’ll be on the couch with my laptop–still in my jammies. Like today. Ooops.

But not on Mondays! On Mondays I have to take a shower and look presentable, because Monday evenings I drive to St. Catherine’s to take a wine appreciation course at Brock University’s Cold Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute. The instructor, Christopher Waters, is the editor of Vines Magazine, which is to wine in Canada as the Wine Spectator is to wine in the US (or so I think. Could be wrong there. New around these parts.) Each week the class samples eight different examples of wine from the same grape. Sadly, I missed the first class, where Christopher introduced us to different varietals and talked about what makes them unique and which qualities should be stand out qualities for each grape. I imagine he also gave lovely demonstrations of the swirl, sniff, sip and SPIT protocol to be followed, so that we all don’t stagger or drive home soused.

Here are the Sauvignon Blancs from Monday the 26th of September.

Nine glasses, all a pale straw yellow, just an ounce or two of fluid, most not too viscous, one bubbly. I learned a couple of things with these Sauvignon Blancs in the first class. Primarily, I learned that I am likely drinking my whites and rosés too cold. Straight from the fridge is too chilled to let the real aroma of the wine emerge, it just levels the whole thing so that your palate registers “aaah, refreshing,” and remembers that it is summer. (Analogous to how you can probably gag down a can of PBR or Coors if it is cold enough. Your poor taste buds are too numb to notice the insult.) And in sampling eight room temperature Sauvignon Blancs, I figured out that it is not the most boring varietal out there. We sampled fresh, grassy wines with the green, acidic notes of just-ripened fruit, such as the Two Oceans Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa, as well as super ripe, pungent wines like the big St. Supery Sauvignon Blanc from Napa Valley. The home-grown wine, Stratus Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc from Niagara-on-the-Lake was one of the real top contenders of the evening (2008 vintage), although I was particularly fond of the Mouton Caden 2010 Blanc from Bordeaux for its pungent, complex notes that didn’t scream “grape juice!” at me. Given its Canadian price tag of $13.65, I felt like my taste buds were giving me a bargain. The Niagara wine was $29 and the St. Supery was $18.95.

In order to enjoy the last four wines of the flight and be able to take notes on them, we practise the “S-Rule,” which is: see, sniff, sip, and summarize. Somewhere there between sip and summarize is “spit,” where the functional black bucket on the table comes in handy. The goal of wine appreciation is not to get soused, but to develop a language and vocabulary of taste that allows you to speak specifically about the characteristics of wine you like or don’t like. Of course, I don’t think this lofty goal prevented some middle-aged folk in the front row from swallowing all of their samples and having a very good, if not entirely academic, evening.

A new venture

The realization has been a slow one but is no longer avoidable: it is very likely I will not work in my field of academia again.

That sounds so very dire, as if I am a doctor telling my patient that s/he will never run on the beach again, never take long strolls in the woods, and that her/his days of joy are numbered. But the analogy breaks down there, really, because life as a faculty member is not all awesome Monterrey beach runs and strolls through groves of aspen trees. Teaching undergrads the sorts of skills I taught them is not universally appreciated–either by the students or by the university administration–and I frequently felt like my job as professor was a lot more “give” than “get.” I had planned on exploring the transition to university administration post tenure, but only had one year in that coveted state before we packed everything up and moved north.

The plans I had for administration are complicated in my new environment by the fact that I’m nobody’s faculty member and thus not in the pipeline for Department Head or Dean jobs in the universities around here. I don’t have Canadian university experience and my field is even scarcer here than in the US, so opportunities for networking and getting into a university environment are pretty minimal. My response to this has been to look for staff jobs with nearby universities. I’ve retooled my CV into a resume (oh, the pain!) and worked on writing targeted cover letters that don’t turn into three-page academic position statements! (In this regard I’ve found Hook and Eye and Julie Clarenbach’s Escaping the Ivory Tower to be very helpful. The savvy and smart Brenda Bethman and her colleague spent their time poring over my cover letters and really showed me how to address a new-to-me audience.)

I am also working on a Plan B, which almost excites me more than Plan A, in part because it entails learning new material, getting into the classroom and into unfamiliar environments and pushing myself in different directions. I’ll fill you all in on that in another post.

I’d appreciate words of encouragement, shared experiences, or thoughts on making this kind of transition.