Philosophy Job Applications: Getting Through Phase One

The following is a summery of the main point made in a post on The Combat Philosopher regarding getting a job in philosophy. This post focuses on getting through the first round of the application. That is to say, getting to the interview at the APA. These are some suggestions from someone who has worked on hiring commitees. I suggest reading the whole post Here.

Summery of The Combat Philosopher's post copied and pasted:


Having served on numerous hiring committees, both in philosophy and in another discipline, I have a few words of advice for people who are going on the market.


1.  It is a profound mistake, though a common one, to think that the academic hiring process is a rational one.

Productivity Tips for academics

Some Great productivity tips and tricks, such as:

1. My philosophy: Optimize transaction costs.
2. Don't work from home.
3. Eliminate temptation to waste time.
4. Salvage dead time with technology.
5. Get rid of your TV.
6. Consolidate email accounts.
7. Work from a laptop.
8. Use a calendar system.
9. Power-use a smartphone.
10. Turn off instant messaging.
11. Minimize collaboration costs.
12. Use a citation/paper-management system.
13. Procrastinate productively.
14. Iterate toward perfection.

http://matt.might.net/articles/productivity-tips-hints-hacks-tricks-for-grad-students-academics/

Introduction to the Philosophical Career

This is the best concise outline of professional philosophy I have seen so far and I highly suggest reading it. It is clear, honest and a quick read. here is a link to the main article and all the sub-points

http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/grad.htm

   1.    Why are you writing this FAQ?

       2.    What can I do with a philosophy degree?

       3.    What do philosophy professors do?

       4.    I love learning about philosophy. Will I be a good philosopher?

       5.    Where will I get a job?

       6.    What will I be teaching?

       7.    But I’m really smart, so I’ll be one of the few at the elite schools, right?

       8.    Can I advance in the profession through talent and hard work?

       9.    Will I influence the field through my insightful articles?

       10.  Will I survive in my field?

       11.  How does one advance in philosophy?

       12.  Why the hell would I want to become a philosopher??

Tips on Publishing in Graduate School

Tips on publishing in philosophy from Gualtiero Piccinini over at Philosophy of Brains blog.

14. Be happy if your paper gets a “revise and resubmit”.  Revise your paper and make sure you address all of the referees’ comments, even if you don’t entirely agree with them.  In addition, write a separate document in which you go through the referees’ comments one by one and explain what you did to address them.  If you think a comment is completely wrong, explain why in the most respectful way.  Then resubmit your paper together with your response to the referees’ comments.

15. Rejections are a natural part of the process.  Anybody who submits nontrivial work to philosophy journals gets rejections.  Consider that Wittgenstein submitted the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to many publishers and they all rejected it.  If you receive feedback on your paper, study it carefully and revise your paper so as to prevent anyone from making the same criticisms (whether fair or unfair).  If you received no feedback, ask yourself whether the paper might have weaknesses that can be remedied.  If yes, revise the paper before sending it somewhere else.  If not, submit it immediately to another journal.

Full posthttp://philosophyofbrains.com/2008/08/08/tips-on-publishing-in-graduate-school.aspx

12 Suggestions for New Graduate Students

This advice comes from a research psychologist but I found the advice quite helpful and it seems like much of it could be easily applied to philosophy.

 As a beginning graduate student, you may have doubts that you measure up when it comes to the skills required to produce original research. The following is a list of twelve suggestions, distilled from my nearly seven years in graduate school, to help you realize your full research potential.

1. START RESEARCH EARLY

2. WRITE DOWN IDEAS

3. KEEP UP WITH THE LITERATURE

4. WORK ON SEVERAL PROJECTS SIMULTANEOUSLY

5. LOOK FOR COMMON THEMES EARLY

6. RESERVE TIME TO WORK ON RESEARCH

7. SEEK OUT ADVICE

8. VIEW EVERYTHING AS A POTENTIAL PUBLICATION

9. ATTEND CONFERENCES

10. COLLABORATE WITH OTHER STUDENTS

11. KNOW YOUR STATISTICS AND METHODOLOGY

12. FINISH WHAT YOU START, BUT KNOW WHEN TO QUIT

Full artice: here

David O. Brink; UCSD: Graduate Study in Philosophy

This is a great little PDF outlineing what to expect from graduate school and how to apply.

Here is just a snippet but I suggest checking the whole document out for yourself.

http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/dbrink/GraduateStudy.pdf

David O. Brink; UCSD
May 2006
Graduate Study in Philosophy

• Be Realistic.
o Getting In. Top programs receive approximately 150-250 applications and admit between 5-15%.

o Finishing. Anywhere from one quarter to one half of those who start Ph.D. programs fail to
complete the degree.

Philosophy and Aggression Against Women

 A post about the subtle sexism in philosophy departments, a somewhat interesting post for anyone following this discussion..

I will address the rather limited subject of women and aggression in philosophy.
If my memory serves, my first exposure to this matter was in my undergraduate days in a class on feminism. As a graduate student and in my professional career, this matter was (and is) brought to my attention fairly often, generally by female colleagues in the field.  This sort of aggression was, of course, cast as an evil of 

philosophy and a causal factor in pushing women away from philosophy. The general idea is as follows.

http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=2759

Employment: JFP cancelled

The Jobs for Philosophers 190 print issue has been cancelled due to the low number of job ads received for that issue. The JFP190W will be published online on May 6 as scheduled.

http://www.apaonline.org/

Low number of Jobs noted.... Must publish in grad school..... *Aneurysm*

A Teaching Handbook for Philosophy Graduate Student Instructors

This is a great resource about how to teach a philosophy course.
http://ebookbrowse.com/teaching-handbook-developing-your-style-ua-2006-doc-d33336550

Philosophers Career Flow Chart with Stress Levels

A great picture from http://philosiology.blogspot.com/

Click to expand image:

5 Phases of a Philosophical Career

This was a post outlining a basic time-line of the career path of the academic philosopher. Some of the facts here are a bit off which I have tried to correct in my notes on this post. Over all it seems dead on.

 Split into 5 phases as follows:

Phase One: The Undergrad Days

Phase Two: Applying to Graduate School

Phase Three: The Graduate Student Years

Phase Four: The Job Hunt

Phase Five: Attaining Tenure

Phase Six: Tenure

Phase Seven: Death

http://philosiology.blogspot.com/2011/04/myth-philosophers-especially-academic.html

Career Advise: Resetting Priorities

This is an interesting set of questions one academic with a freshly minted Phd ended up asking himself about her goals within academia. Monica F. Jacobe now teaches writing at Princeton. They seem like good questions to keep in mind while continuing your academic studies.
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2011/04/18/essay_on_rethinking_priorities_of_an_academic_job_search

MA to PHD: Don't Write a Thesis

If one want to go on to a PhD from an MA, a thesis may be inadvisable. Ones thesis (70-200 pages) is compeated during an MA in the last year of graduate study. If one want so go straight from an MA to a Phd one must apply early into one's second year. What this means is the writing sample you will send them will only be a chapter of your thesis and most likely it will be unpolished and underdeveloped. It may be advisable to do a reading intensive program in which one writes a really stellar pollished paper (20 pages) as well as trying to publish/present other papers while in the first year.

Undergraduate: Graduate School in Philosophy?

This is a very useful page for those who have started thinking about attending graduate school in philosophy from Seattle Pacific University's Department of philosophy.
http://www.spu.edu/depts/philosophy/graduateschool.asp

The Struggle for Recognition

April 13, 2011

By Scott McLemee

In a memorable passage from The Philosophy of History, Hegel quotes a common saying of his day that runs, “No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre.” This corresponds, in contemporary terms, to the familiar sentiment that even the most distinguished individual “puts his pants on one leg at a time like everybody else.” It is somewhere between wisdom and truism. But Hegel seems to take it badly. After quoting the proverb, he adds his own twist: “not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet.”
[Deals with the worth of recognitions where recognition is so commonplace. Perhaps too in philosophy?] 

Visiting Professorships

What does it mean to be a "visiting" assistant professor? Who invented this rather cruel form of professional limbo? Why are more and more junior scholars beginning — and ending — their academic careers as visiting faculty members?


http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/on_the_fence/essay_on_the_flaws_of_becoming_a_visiting_professor

Community College Alums Have An Edge in Hireing

Questioner asks:  "is being an alumni from a [community college] will give me somewhat of an edge in getting a good tenure track position in a few years [at a community college]"
Ansswer: Yes

Getting a Job in Philosophy: A Guide for Graduate Students

By Brian Keeley:  The following is a very drafty document, i.e., it has plenty of holes. Feedback is extremely welcome... from: http://mugwump.pitzer.edu/~bkeeley/WORK/ADVICE.HTM

What is a tenure narrative?

"A tenure narrative (also known as your personal statement) is a statement that describes your career: what you have done in the areas of teaching, research, and service. The statement should be a strong and persuasive case for excellence in teaching and research and make clear your valuable service contributions. It includes an executive summary and/or introduction, and sections on teaching, research, and service, and may include appendices of supporting documents."

See full article: http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2010/11/10/narrative

Canadian MA Funding

Quick tip for MA applicants: Most US MA programs in Philosophydon't have any funding opportunities. Many Canadian programs do.