from lawyer Dr Juliane Lorenz, the legal counsel and application coach at the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers
1. Focus on the listed requirements
Analyse the text of the job advertisement very carefully and determine the specific requirements for the position. Imagine being a member of the appointment committee. Who would the committee want to recruit for this professorship?
2. Know the general conditions on site
Find out about the general conditions at the potential employer. For example, research the possible directions or future plans of the respective faculty or university. Specific development plans, the university's mission statement or target agreements with the respective state ministry can also be helpful in this context. The same applies to background information on the advertised professorship.
3. Know the conditions of the appointment
Get informed about the appointment conditions on site. Many universities now work with guidelines for appointing professorships. These sometimes contain criteria catalogues that are applied by the appointment committee. The criteria that could be applied here are, for example, relevance, the fit in terms of content, international experience or success in acquiring third-party funding. These criteria should also be covered in the letter of motivation.
4. Create a meaningful letter of motivation
Candidates should explain their suitability for the vacancy in a convincing letter of motivation. The letter should include references to the candidate’s experience in research, teaching, promotion of early career researchers and their own research or teaching profile in ways that tie it in directly with the profile of the position advertised here. It may also be useful – if it hasn’t already been requested – to draw up a research or teaching plan. In it, the candidate can express their specific ideas about the structure of the professorship and their areas of specialisation and thus show the appointment committee that they have already given a great deal of thought both to the professorship to be filled and to the institution.
5. Structure the application documents well
Given that many commissions work with “applicant profiles” to enable a quick, comparative examination of the candidates, the application documents should be arranged in such a way that the necessary information can be recorded quickly and correctly. In view of the volume of application documents, it is also advisable to prepare a cover sheet or table of contents.