The Academic Job Search

On Friday, January 25th, 2002 the Computer Science Department held an informal workshop on conducting an academic job search. This web page is an attempt to pull together some of the collective experience of those who have gone through the process recently with links to good advice from other places. A summary of the comments made during that discussion is available here. Some of these documents are restricted to UofT access only.

General Advice
- On the Academic Interview Circuit: An End-to-End Discussion
- CRA-W Career Mentoring Workshops Booklet
- Some useful tips from Brian Bershad while he was at CMU
- Mary Baker's advice on How to get a job (from Berkeley)
Finding available positions
- Check the home pages of the departments you are interested in joining.
- CRA Job Announcements web page - an excellent "one-stop shopping" source to find out about available academic positions (most postings are from U.S. institutions); don't assume a department has no openings just because there is no listing here, though.
Preparing the application - The application packet typically consists of a cover letter, a C.V., statements of research and teaching interest, and possibly copies of your most significant publications. The best advice is to get several copies of "good" packets from people in your area who have recently conducted successful job searches. Different areas of research, even within computer science, have different expectations (particularly in terms of number of publications). Generic advice on writing a C.V. can be found here
The Interview
- Mark Hill's Oral Presentation Advice, (from Wisconsin) including advice on preparing academic interview talks and David Patterson's "How to Give a Bad Talk".
- Jeannette Wing's Tips on the interview process (from CMU)
Negotiating the offer
- Generic negotiation help - Getting to Yes
- Harvard's advice on Negotiating your first academic job offer
- Some notes on negotiating a job offer from a seminar at CMU's Graduate School of Industrial Administration.

Angela Demke Brown

Last modified: Tue Jan 29 11:48:36 EST 2002