Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
From: gh@cs.toronto.edu (Graeme Hirst)
Subject: Re: Getting Faculty Position. What is the secret ?
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:14:34 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.215939.20329@wuecl.wustl.edu> rr2@cec2.wustl.edu (Rajamiyer Ravichandran) writes:
>>	 I generally submit a resume, copies of two recent publications,
>> a list of publications, names of three references and a brief statement
>> of teaching and research objectives. Is there anything else I can do
>> to make a better impression ? All the universities I have applied received
>> on an average 400 applications. It takes real effort and accomplishments
>> to stand alone in such a crowd. All suggestions are welcome.

=========== PART I

You won't like this, but your application is more likely to get my
attention if I already know your name.  If, as I'm working through this
enormous stack of applications, I find a name that's familiar, it will
naturally attract my attention more.  Perhaps I saw that well-
thought-out, nicely presented paper that you gave at last year's
conference, or maybe I just met you at a coffee break and were
impressed by the way you talked about your research.  Perhaps I saw the
paper you co-authored with your advisor in a recent journal.

In other words, even while you're still a graduate student, and
certainly as a postdoc, you need to be getting known in your subfield.
That means aiming for papers in conferences and journals even while
you're still writing your dissertation.  (Since journals have such a
long lead time, refereed conferences are the better bet.)  And
attending conferences, even if not presenting a paper, just to meet
people -- even if you have to pay your own way.  (My own policy is to
subsidize senior grad students from my research grant to attend
conferences, even if they aren't presenting a paper.)  The best
conferences for this are the medium-sized ones that cover just your
research sub-field: not the broad megaconferences that go well beyond
that, or small workshops that are friendly but have few participants.

And when you are at a conference, don't be shy about talking to other
people.  Scan people's badges, and look for familiar names -- and
friendly faces.  It's not too scary to talk to other grad students, and
that's important too, because many of them will be part of your
research cohort in years to come.  It's harder to go up and introduce
yourself to an older person whose paper you've once read.  And
sometimes you will get rebuffed; but often you won't.  At a conference,
it's okay to just go up to people and introduce yourself.  "Dr Kfutz?
Hi, I'm Rajamiyer Ravichandran.  People call me Raj.  I work with Dr
Ztufk at Washington University.  I've read your paper on hybrid widgets;
I thought it was really interesting.  My own work is on silicon
widgets."

Companies that market consumer goods know the value of name recognition.
Like it or not, the same principle holds in academic job-hunting (and
publishing and . . . ).


-- 
\\\\   Graeme Hirst    University of Toronto	Computer Science Department
////   gh@cs.utoronto.ca  /  gh@cs.toronto.edu  /  416-978-8747