Updated July 25, 2019.
Readers may recall that Helen De Cruz and I have been running a Job-Market Mentoring Program for job-candidates the past several years. This was our third year running the program, and we were able to match 35 job-candidates with tenure-stream mentors. Although we will be getting the program started a little late this year (due to preexisting commitments Helen and I have), our plan is to open signups for this year's market cycle on August 1st.
Anyway, the past several weeks we have been collecting feedback from this year's mentors and mentees. This post will share the feedback that the mentees we've heard back from have authorized us to share. I will also continually update this post if and when we receive additional feedback. Next week, I'll share the feedback we've received from mentors. For more information on the program and previous years' feedback, see here.
Feedback from this year's mentees
1. Types of mentoring received (e.g. dossier materials?, interviewing, etc.):
“Cover letter help, interviewing, advice on publishing, general job market strategies.”
“I have been advised on all aspects of the job market, from dossier materials and interviews (both skype and on-campus).”
“[Redacted] reviewed my dossier materials, reviewed semester workplans that he incited me to prepare, read some of my work and answered my general questions about the job-market (Should I write a book? What do you think of press x? How do you perceive book chapters v. articles? How should I approach big conferences? Etc.).” – Étienne Brown
“dossier materials.”
“extensive feedback on dossier materials and mock interview.” - Joao Fabiano
“general advising via email.”
“Comments on dossier.”
“Dossier materials, general advice.”
“Dossier materials, interview advice, how to present and pitch my research and teaching.”
“CV, cover letter, teaching portfolio, research statement.”
"Advice on CV, cover letter, research statement and other job materials."
"Review application materials, prepare for interviews."
2. Did you find the program helpful on balance?
“Yes, I did.”
“[Redacted] was incredibly helpful.”
“Very helpful. I was offered and accepted a tenure-track position this year, and I’m convinced that [Redacted]’s mentorship played an important role in this process. More generally, having a successful philosopher tell me “I’ve read some of your work, and you I can tell you that you write in a very engaging way” made me feel less isolated and helped me combat imposter syndrome from the outset. The whole mentorship experience was a confidence booster. Thank you!” – Étienne Brown
“Yes!”
“Yes. Very helpful.” - Joao Fabiano
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Very much.”
“Of course, it was very beneficial.”
“yes.”
"Yes."
"Yes, absolutely!"
3. What did you find most helpful?
“Trusted advice from someone who has clearly been successful in the profession. Skype sessions and also in person meetings were possible with my mentor because we ended up living near each other after I moved for my job. [Redacted] also wrote me a letter of recommendation which was very helpful.”
“[Redacted] was especially helpful in showing how to tailor correctly the material. Given that I haven’t applied to many jobs, with his help I was able to tailor the material for each application.”
“Simply having someone to answer my general questions about the job-market was extremely helpful. I could ask anything and obtain a reliable answer within 48 hours or so. For instance, one of my main questions this year was whether I should sign a book contract with a specific press, and [Redacted]’s honest answers helped me understand what publishing a book with this press might realistically help me achieve.” – Étienne Brown
“Carefully going through dossier materials, even including my writing sample.”
“Several rounds of detailed feedback on dossier materials.” - Joao Fabiano
“CV review; advice regarding two-body problem.”
“[Redacted]’s comments on my dossier were brief but all super helpful and I made changes in response to basically all of them.”
“Feedback on my dossier materials. I am convinced that my materials improved a lot as a result.”
“I think that the most helpful part of the mentoring program was just having someone who has not been acquainted with my work and overall profile give a fresh look at who I am as a philosopher and how I present myself. By taking a fresh look at my materials, [Redacted] was able to offer some insightful suggestions that I didn’t quite realize myself. For example, I have research and teaching interests in Islamic Philosophy, and [Redacted] noticed that my overall teaching and research interests provide good evidence for my having an AOC in medieval philosophy. Pitching myself as a specialist in Islamic who can also do work in medieval as well I think proved useful on the market. I will be taking up teaching medieval at my new institution.”
“Help with cv construction.”
"Comments on my job materials."
"review of application material."
4. What did you find least helpful?
“It’s possible that sometimes e-mail response times were a bit slower than I’d like but generally, it was fine. I wouldn’t more weekly or bi-weekly check-ins from the mentor.”
“I cannot think of anything in particular.”
“Nothing.” – Étienne Brown
“n/a.”
“I feel like my actual chances of getting a job were overestimated, but this might be unavoidable due to job market changes.” - Joao Fabiano
“N/A.”
“I just got comments on my materials, which was great, but I think the help could have been more holistic and longer-term. And I think this might have been my fault too because I didn’t utilize or initiate with my mentor enough. This was partially because I had people at [Redacted] and other mentors I could rely on for questions throughout the process ([Redacted] has an extensive job market system and a placement advisor who is very helpful). I also had other mentors and [Redacted] professors offering to do mock interviews with me, initiating with me to give me tips for job talks and on-campus interviews, helping me with negotiations, etc. So maybe it would be helpful to be clearer about who is supposed to initiate this kind of thing?”
“[No answer].”
“There wasn’t anything that I found to not be very helpful. [Redacted] was great.”
“Help with research statement.”
"N/A."
"[no answer]."
5. How, if at all, did participation in the program affect your performance on the job-market? (More interviews? Fewer interviews?)
“Technically, this was my first time on the market post PhD but I did have two interviews later in the job cycle.”
“In the academic year 2017-2018 I had 1 on-campus interview in Europe, and two skype interviews in the US. In the academic year 2018-2019 I had 6 on-campus interviews for tt jobs (UC Cork, Purdue University, University of Oregon, University of Guelph, Exeter University, Eindhoven University of Technology). I think the improvement is impressive!”
“I did much better this year than last year, and I believe this is due to true things: a. more publications under my belt, b. being a post-doc at Oxford, c. benefiting from [Redacted]’s advice.” – Étienne Brown
“I got several interviews, but it’s obviously hard to say whether the help I got contributed to that.”
“There were no observable changes, but I feel confident my dossier improved.” - Joao Fabiano
“Ultimately, it is hard to tell. The advice was extremely helpful, insightful, and reassuring-- but the job market is nevertheless ruthless.”
“I think it improved my materials which probably resulted in more interviews, but it was also my first year on the market so it’s hard to say.”
“I had one more interview, and reached to a later stage for a prestigious postdoc. Though the numbers are too small to assess the cause, I am more satisfied with my application materials.”
“I think that it definitely helped. I received three interviews this season, two on campuses.”
“more interviews for non-TT jobs. One less interview for a TT job (one last year. Zero this year.)”
"I did receive more interview requests than previous year."
"very positively! I felt like having the extra support made a big difference!"
6. Did you obtain a job this season? If so, what kind (tenure-track, non-TT, etc.)?
“Right before I began the program last year, I had actually just gotten a job as an NTT lecturer and I have been renewed in this position for a second year.”
“I am still waiting to hear back from my last interview (Eindhoven, a tt job). However, I think I was a bit unlucky because I had excellent feedbacks from my on-campus interviews, but in the end zero offers.”
“Yes, I will be starting as an Assistant professor (tt) of philosophy of technology at San José State University Valley in August. I also pulled-out of searches for tt positions in political theory (pol. sci. dept.) at Ryerson University (after my campus interview) and at Université Laval (after being invited for a campus interview).” – Étienne Brown
“Yes, a VAP-ship.”
“No.” - Joao Fabiano
“Yes. Non-TT, research-based postdoc position.”
“Postdoc.”
“2-year post doc [Redacted] + TT job [Redacted].”
“I got a one year postdoc.”
“I received a TT job at [Redacted].”
“yes. nonTT.”
"I obtained a two-year postdoc position."
"Yes, tenure-track."
7. Would you recommend our program to other job-candidates? Why/why not?
“Yes I definitely would. Unfortunately, graduate programs (at least my own) do not do a sufficient job preparing students for professional life post-PhD and this filled a gap for me. My graduate program was quite naïve and unhelpful about the demands of professional philosophy because it has been so long since senior faculty were on the job market, so again, this was filled that void a bit for me.”
“It made a huge difference to me – I highly recommend it.”
“Yes, without any hesitation.” – Étienne Brown
“Yes, absolutely. It seems to me that there can be a great deal of variability in graduate program market preparation. In my case, many of my professors came from very top programs, and their experience in some ways wasn’t relevant to a candidate coming from [Redacted]. I happened to be paired with someone that seemed to understand my situation, which was great.”
“Yes. Good source of external feedback.” - Joao Fabiano
“Yes. The program offered a great opportunity to receive feedback on dossier materials and helpful suggestions from someone with experience on the job market.”
“Yes, it was helpful in clarifying uncertainty regarding the job market.”
“Definitely! What I got from it was great—even thought it could have been more, it was still super helpful.”
“I would definitely recommend it. Even though my PhD program has placement advisors who are doing a good job, the additional feedback is extremely useful, especially when it comes from a person who has recently been on the market and also served in search committees in an institution which more resembles the available jobs.”
“I would recommend it. I think that it is super useful to have a third party who is not acquainted with your work and already invested in your success take a look at your materials and given an honest assessment of where you stand. I think the latter point is especially important: someone who isn’t already biased and invested in your success can, it seems, give an objective assessment that you wouldn’t (perhaps) otherwise receive.”
“Yes. It helped me to see how CVs, cover letters look to people on search committees.”
"Yes. Because it offers an opportunity to have advice from someone who has an successful experience of job market."
"Already did recommend the program to others! It’ll make one feel more supported and one will benefit from an additional perspective on one’s dossier!"
8. Do you have any suggestions for how our program might be improved?
“Weekly check-ins or potentially having mentors track mentee’s progress in some way towards goals they set together at the beginning."
“I was thinking that you could have mentors for philosophers at different stages of their careers: Ph.D. students, post-docs, lecturers, early career APs on a tt. I think that senior academics might be interested in different kinds of mentoring.” – Étienne Brown
“Possibly some regularity in the activities – like some list to pick and choose from.”
“Perhaps it would be useful to have two mentees [sic] even if that means half of the feedback from each one.” - Joao Fabiano
“See 5c above—relatedly, in another job market mentoring program I was a part of, things were a little more structured and emails were sent out every 1-2 months about roughly where people likely were in the process and ideas about how the mentors and mentees might connect (e.g. your mentee might be getting skype interviews soon, so it could be a good idea to do a practice skype interview with them in the next few weeks—that kind of thing). I think this helped me connect with my mentor more, and resulted in me being in much more regular contact with her, which might have been part of the reason I utilized her more than [Redacted].”
"No."
"[no answer]."
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