This presentation was designed to assist and educate the interviewee regarding balancing teaching and research for new faculty, and was authored by Sarah Keller (UW).
The following slides are too dense with information. I think that’s OK. Most of the information will be useful to you after you are hired, rather than before. I want this document to serve as a self-contained resource online when you (and others who were not accepted to this conference) need it in the future. - SLK
Yes! We are hiring in the Chem. Dept. at
UW Seattle!
We typically have 2 openings every year.
Please apply!
How we hire faculty at uw chemistry...
We receive>300 applications for 2 advertised positions.
Step 1: sort and file
A secretary punches holes in the top of your pages, binds them in a folder so absent-minded professors don’t lose them,
reads your cover letter, decides whether you are a physical/organic/inorganic/materials/analytical/”OTHER” chemist and puts your file in that box.
Advice at step 1
State your subfield clearly in your letter so your file doesn’t end up in the wrong box. If you are interdisciplinary, state what you’d teach.
“Within your department, I would teach physical chemistry, so would fit in your P-chem division, even though my closest research colleagues are in your division of inorganic chemistry.
Leave big margins at the top of all pages. Do not print doublesided.
Step 2: file the letters of recommendation
As your letters arrive,
a secretary binds them on top of the materials already in your folder,and checks off a list of how many of your 3 letters have arrived.
Advice at step 2
Call the secretary to verify that all of your letters have arrived.
Letters do get lost in the mail. A committee member may assume that a writer doesn’t like you if his/her letter if it is missing. Sometimes it is true!You want to find out early if one of your writers has not been forthright with you, and you need to ask a different writer.
Your letters of recommendation are on top. Faculty tend to read them first. Do all you can to help your writers produce a good letter for you.
Provide them with a list of talking points (and address labels).
It is often the third writer who impresses the committee. Your Ph.D. advisor probably loves you. Your postdoctoral advisor probably loves you. If you’ve gotten someone else to love you, that’s quite valuable.
Step 3: narrow it down
A single faculty member can read on the order of 100 folders, then winnow out the top 20, and also probably note the top 10.
Advice at step 3
By the 99th application, that faculty member is really tired.
Don’t send us every paper you’ve written.
We don’t want to read 20 pages at 10-point font in your research proposal.
Hopefully you’ve written your research proposal very clearly. Don’t just describe how interesting your field is, but tell us exactly what you will do. For UW, this document should be>3 pages… 5 is good… 10 is longish.
Outline what your first experiments will be: something that a beginning grad student or postdoc can do to produce preliminary results, an early publication, and subsequent funding.
Outline the eventual experiments you will do to address a big, sexy, important problem, that is not just an extension of your previous work… backed up with lots of references.
Diagrams outlining your research plan are helpful.
