Applying from business to academia
What should the letter of application for jobs in academia look like?
In contrast to applications to commercial enterprises, covering letters written in an exuberant and quirky manner generally come across as rather dubious for academic roles. This is because universities and research institutions are on the lookout not for “edgy” executives but more for serious scholars qualified primarily by their academic knowledge and experience.
When it comes to your written application documents, especially in the case of appointment procedures, it’s not really worthwhile having an elaborately colour-coded layout for your documents designed to attract attention, since the folders are rarely browsed through by all the commission members themselves. Instead, appointment committees are guided by specially prepared synopses, i.e. tabular overviews that contain key information (e.g. age, research focus, number of publications, level of third-party funding acquired, etc.), allowing them to directly compare the individual applicants.
What do you need to bear in mind when writing your CV for jobs in academia?
When submitting your tabular CV for an application in academia, you should fully focus on your previous academic career. Focus on your research background and present it in a clear and comprehensible manner, so that all essential information about your qualification can be directly identified.
Especially when it comes to applications for a professorship, the rule of concision that’s so important in the private sector doesn’t apply to the same rigorous extent. Instead, the more projects and tasks you have in research and teaching, the more impressive your credentials will be. A multifaceted scholarly profile can easily fill several pages in a CV.
In contrast to applications in the private sector, having a career in academia without gaps in your professional biography doesn’t necessarily mean that each of your previous employment contracts must have followed on seamlessly from one to the next. It’s considered quite normal in many disciplines that there are also (shorter) phases of non-employment between two employment relationships, during which, for example, an application for follow-up funding is made.
Personal hobbies, commitments and memberships, i.e. the categories that signal to personnel managers in companies you have the “soft skills” that suit the job profile, are hardly relevant for scholarship. In many academic disciplines there’s a culture that there should basically be nothing in a serious scholar’s life besides their subject.
What attachments do I enclose with my application?
When applying for a position in academia, your application should include relevant diplomas and references from education and employment as well as a list of your scientific publications, projects, prizes and awards (with samples of your work where applicable), a list of supervised theses, proof of your teaching activities, a list of your teaching courses, a teaching concept where applicable and a list of third-party funding.
What happens after I’ve submitted the application documents?
There are a number of procedural differences between applications in business and academia. Whereas businesses usually have an interest in filling vacancies relatively quickly, the wheels in the public sector tend to turn more slowly. It may well take one or two years after a professorship is advertised before the start of employment, although the personal assessment of the individual applicants is the least time-consuming phase. As opposed to businesses, the appointment committee is often satisfied with a one-off presentation of the candidates at the university so that it can get an idea of their qualifications. The travel expenses arising from interviews and job presentations are rarely reimbursed by universities, whereas this is a common practice in business.
It’s considered positive in many companies to follow up after the interview by calling to ask, for example, about the status of the proceedings. This practice is, however, quite uncommon at universities and colleges; it’s considered inappropriate and downright intrusive, especially in the context of university appointment procedures – restraint is therefore called for here. Detailed feedback on how well you performed and why your application wasn’t successful in this case is unfortunately still an exception in many sectors of business and academia.
