Do the little things matter on the market?

In our newest "Ask a search-committee member", grymes writes:

Here's something I'm curious about, looking back on the job market with at-least-closer-to-20/20 hindsight. My suspicion is that folks on the market (myself included) often commit the following fallacy: 'I'm competing against hundreds of well-qualified applicants for every job, therefore every minute detail of my application is likely to make a difference'. This fallacy (if it is one) tends to be encouraged by sources like The Professor Is In and, occasionally, posts on this blog, like the recent one about putting job talks on your CV. Frankly, I very much doubt that it makes a net difference whether or not you put job talks on your CV, or have a high quality photo of yourself on your website, or whatever. It may turn some people off, it may turn other people on, it will hardly be registered by most search committee members (including those who interview you). Ditto for a hundred other small decisions you make when putting your materials together. The things that land you interviews are (a) the big things that you can no longer control when you're tweaking applications in the Fall, (b) the idiosyncratic tastes of departments and individual search committee members, which you can sometimes appeal to by tailoring cover letters, but which are often invisible, and (c) luck. That's my hunch, anyway. I'd be curious to hear search committee members weigh in.

'Now' responded:

I agree. The most important by far is (a) the big things you can no longer control ...
If you still only have two conference presentations and no publications on your c.v. when you apply for a job, that will really determine how you will fare in the competition for that job. If you still have never taught your own course when your application goes in, all the hypothetical course syllabi in the world will not make a difference for most jobs at teaching oriented colleges. etc.

I'd be curious to hear search-committee members weigh in too. I'm inclined to agree that the big things matter the most: one's publication record, research program, teaching experience, service experience, and overall 'fit' to the department. Nevertheless, I am also inclined to think the small things matter too--particularly how one comes across in one's materials. Allow me to briefly explain.

After I was on the market for six years without a tenure-track job, I decided to use a job-market consultant. As a matter of fact, it was the Professor Is In (Karen Kelsky). Two of my early-career friends told me they used her and then immediately got TT jobs. Because it was probably going to be my last year on the market, I decided to go for it. When I used her, she said that I made all of the little mistakes that job-candidates make on the market--in the cover letter, teaching statement, research statement, and so on. The feedback she gave me shocked me. I had thought my materials were good, and here she was giving me detailed feedback that I was doing all of the 'little things' wrong. Anyway, I followed here advice, even though a lot of it seemed strange. The cover letter, research statement, and teaching statement she guided me to write all seemed too 'dry' to me. But still, I followed her advice. That year I got 13 interviews, far more than in any previous year, as well as a tenure-track job. So, it seems, the small things mattered.

This experience coheres with my experience having served on four search-committees. The big things do matter the most, and a lot of it is indeed luck. Different search-committee members' preferences can be really idiosyncratic. Still, having read hundreds of applications, my sense is that little things can matter. There can be a really fine line between the 6-12 people a committee chooses to interview and those who fall just outside of that top group. And I suspect the difference sometimes is the 'little things': a teaching portfolio that looks thrown together or has a trite teaching statement, a research statement that seems impenetrable to anyone except for the 5 people in the world working in the area, a cover letter that projects arrogance or doesn't fit the job being applied for, or a CV where a candidate lists works under review as 'publications.' I'm not sure quite how often these and other little things make a difference. Still, my sense--both as a candidate who got a job immediately after a consultant helped me with these small things, and then as a search-committee who has seen how the small things can come off--is that these things probably do make a difference. If you send out 80 applications, it may be the difference between getting six interviews or fourteen--and it may be that fourteenth interview that gets you the TT job you're after.

Or so I'm inclined to think. What do you all think, particularly those of you who have served on search-committees?

Comments

[Nicolas]

I've served on search committees only twice, so just my two cents. Never could anyone who didn't fit the job ad have made it to the interview round had they done the "small things", nor could anyone who did the "small things" have made it had they not fit the job. Fitting the job involves most of the "big things." Sure, small things can alter assessments at the margins, but I doubt that this can make a significant difference past the threshold of a well-put together application dossier where even small things may not be perfect. There's a wrinkle, though: some small blunders can stick. I'm not talking about typos and such. But small remarks in a cover letter and/or interview that indicate poor judgment or lack of interest reflect very badly on candidates, even compared to otherwise impressive assets. Small positive things, on the other hand, are nice but that's about it.

Marcus, I worry that your experience could only show what you take it to show if you could control for all other factors, including publications, courses taught, the particular jobs offered that year, etc. Of course, it's likely that many factors affected your odds holistically, including some small things. Still, I wouldn't waste too much time focusing on small things for jobs you don't fit. For those you do fit, there's a good chance the small things don't give that much of a boost compared to big things. I for one would never throw away or rank poorly a good application because of small things.

[grymes]

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for responding. I'll cede the floor to folks with more experience, but will just note that most of your examples of 'little things' don't seem all that little to me! So maybe we have more common ground than is apparent.

[Nicolas]

Edit: obviously I failed to delete a redundant part of the sentence: ‘Never could...’. Sorry about that.

[anonymous]

Hi. I've been on multiple search committees. Here are some thoughts, of course they only represent one person.

Overall thought: the little/big thing is not that helpful of a distinction.

--Tone/not coming across as arrogant, not collegial, self-absorbed, a sycophant, etc. really matters.

--Exactly how your cv or any of your materials is formatted, which talks you choose to include, etc. basically doesn't matter *except* if you commit the sin of including stuff that is e.g. under review under the heading "publications" or otherwise distort things. (I think it's fine to list work under review, but in a clear separate section.)

--At my R1 university, your cover letter basically does not matter unless either (a) you say something off-putting in it or (b) we (as we sometimes do) ask you to address a particular part of the job description etc. in the cover letter. If (b), you should not ignore this (as a surprising number of otherwise well-qualified candidates do).

--For better or for worse, I think how clean/put together your whole file looks matters. Use the same font and formatting the whole way through, make the thing organized clearly so we can skip around, etc.

--Having your letters be consistent with what you yourself say in your materials matters. Mostly in bigger picture/philosophical ways. But also in other ways (e.g. if your dissertation advisor and you say two different things about whether you have a book contract and where, it is going to raise alarm bells).

--Your teaching statement matters a lot and it is the easiest place to reveal crappy things about yourself or accidentally "reveal" crappy things that are not even true of yourself. Even though my department mostly hires for research, we read teaching statements, both to see what kind of teacher you are and also to learn more about you as a person.

--Your website matters only in that you should not come off like an arrogant self absorbed person (see above), it's better on balance to have a photo but ok not to, and there is clear contact info for you on it. Also, that there are not inconsistencies between the materials you have on your website and materials you submit to us. (Putting things in different order is fine.)

[not named bill]

I think the issue here is what counts as "small things." The format of your teaching portfolio, or the tone of your teaching statement, for example, are not actually small things; they are really big. Obviously you need to have teaching experience--that is a necessary condition for most people. But the way you present that experience is incredibly important, and is the reason why good job documents take so long to create.

[Marcus Arvan]

anonymous writes: “I think how clean/put together your whole file looks matters.“

Yes, yes, 1000x yes. So many dossiers (particularly teaching portfolios, but also cover letters and research statements) seem quickly thrown together. Then you come across a dossier that is just sparkling: well-written, well-edited, and detailed—in ways that make it clear that the person is highly conscientious and put a great deal of effort into their file.

Some readers might think this is absurd: that we should judge files on their content rather than how well they are put together. However, the empirical literature actually suggests there is some validity to it. One of the better predictors of career accomplishment (believe it or not!) is the personality trait of conscientousness (particularly certain facets). A well put together file suggests that in addition to their tangible accomplishments (publications, teaching, etc.), the person under consideration is highly conscientious—something that very much does benefit organizations. Trust me, it’s vital to have dependable people in a department and university. Many departments have people (i.e. full-time faculty) who you can't depend on to get things done or get things done right. It can be a huge drag on resources, requiring other people to pick up the slack. So finding conscientious people can be very important indeed.

[Amanda]

I once looked at the CV of every person who was hired in that year. I think it was 2016. I noticed one interesting similarity, in that the persons hired, or most of them, seemed to have a very similar organization of their CV that basically amounted to a thick line separating sections, i.e., the important commonality was that all of the CVs were very easy to read.

The people who are reading your CVs are tired and busy, and only have about 1/100th of an investment in the process as you do. So it is so important to make things easy on the search committees members. I tend to think a huge mistake is making cover letters and teaching statements, and even writing samples, too long.

The above however, are big things. The little things like maybe an extra teaching workshop or publishing a popular piece...I think they make a difference, sometimes. Remember the competitiveness of the market.The more competitive the arena in any area, the more likely the differences will come down to seemingly small things.