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Eileen
VanTassell (Michigan State University)
My job search started after a postdoc that I decided to do,
and in the sciences now you really need to do that. If you’re
not in the sciences, you can go right from your undergraduate
degree and look for academic positions. Usually though if
you want to be a professor in academe, you’d have to
go for at least your masters and probably your Ph.D. How many
of you are finishing up Ph.D.s here? A number of you are.
I would say that my view of academe was extremely unrealistic
when I started out. I thought I was going to find this community
of scholars, all of whom were going to help me and be intellectually
challenging and ready to debate all kinds of unusual and different
issues, and what I found was that people are people. And you
will find a few of those, but for the most part a Ph.D. does
not give you any special human curiosities or skills that
you wouldn’t find in your grandmother’s house or
down the street somewhere in your own neighborhood. I really
had to learn that I had to seek out those individuals. So
I was very unrealistic about that. I got myself into a lot
of trouble as a result, right off the bat.
I think it’s really important that if you take a job
in any kind of high stress situation that you make time for
yourself and that you don’t give up your own hobbies,
so that you don’t sacrifice too much of yourself because
you have to stay strong. And in order to stay strong and be
able to give of yourself, you have to be able to give to yourself,
too. And so I think you can get really burned out in an academic
situation or even a nonacademic situation where there’s
job stress when you’re first starting out, there’s
bound to be. So what I do is I participate in martial arts;
I participate in the Native American community, and I love
gardening. And I try to do some of those on an ongoing basis,
just to keep myself healthy.
My priorities are my family first, then my job, then my hobbies.
And I think the family and job come into conflict often. And
every person has to decide for themselves, based on the situation,
just how far they can push that job envelope with respect
to their other priorities. So, I think anything I said about
that would be a little dangerous, but there are going to be
colleagues and mentors that you can always call on. And I
recommend that you do not use individuals in your current
department – or the department that you find yourself
in or the unit that you find yourself in if you’re not
in academe – but that you seek out values mentors where
you are now. And I would suggest that you keep close ties
with those individuals that you trust and that you seek advice
like that from them, because you can’t tell always what
the values are of the people that you’re meeting for
the first time and you may offend someone without even knowing
it. So, I recommend that you give yourself lots of time in
a new position to find mentors that you trust, and that may
take a year or two or even three years to do that.
With respect to interviewing, I would not bring up the issue
of a spouse. And the main reason is because I’m not currently
married, so it would be inappropriate, but – it would
be dishonest, I could of course make one up but that’s
frowned upon – what I think works well is that you let
your employer know that you are happy in the relationship
that you’re in and there are many, many ways of doing
that without going out of your way to bring up your relationships,
which I don’t think you need to do. But you could say
things to the effect that “While I’ve been married
or in my current relationship for 5 years and I’m really
lucky to have found such a supportive person.” Having
a supportive spouse is very important often to employers,
such that you are a stable person that is going to have the
kind of home support that will allow you to do the job that
you’ve been hired to do. If you are in a very stormy
or difficult situation, your employer may feel that you may
not be able to handle the position. Same thing with children.
You may have listed how many children you have on your resume.
It’s not really legal for anyone to ask you specifically
about your spouse or your children, but you are free to bring
up good and happy things about your spouse or your children.
Never bellyache about it, I would say. Don’t reveal negative
things about how difficult you’re finding childcare and
so forth and so on. That’s not a good idea.
With respect to evaluating the community, I don’t think
there’s any really good way to do this except by asking
potential friends that you may have at or near that area,
or perhaps people here at UM who have been at the place where
you’re planning to go. So do some background work on
that. Then I would say check out some of the local newspapers
and community magazines when you get there for that kind of
information.
With respect to evaluating the place that you’re going
to be – or where you’re thinking about being –
I would say that you can usually tell whether the people you
meet are happy. And that’s very, very important. If people
seem to be happy, if they seem to be somewhat relaxed but
with – I would say – a nice professional tension,
and you probably know what I mean by that. So that they’re
not so laid back that you can tell that nobody’s getting
anything done here, but they’re not so tense and driven
that you can see right away that unless you publish ten papers
right away in your first year you’re not going to make
it. So you want to find a kind of a balance there. So it’s
important to find out in an academic situation whether the
people in your unit are productive, and that’s easy to
do. You can ask people that you meet for their recent papers,
and that’s perfectly acceptable. If they don’t have
any, that’s perhaps a warning sign. Or if you’re
looking for a position in a teaching institution where research
is not so demanding or your productivity is less important
than perhaps your classroom, you might ask people about their
classes and what kind of students they encounter there, as
a way to talk about things. It’s always a good idea to
meet students while you’re there, if you’re on a
campus, or to talk to ordinary working people at any kind
of job situation you’re at. So, if you go into the cafeteria,
you can talk to people about what kind of place it is, and
see what people have to say.
Is the leadership of your institution fairly stable? I think
that’s important to look at. Or is the dean changing
every couple of years or the president changing every couple
of years or your department chair. And you also want to look
at what the benefits are apart from salary. For instance,
what is their retirement program like? What is the community
like with respect to such things as provision for your recreational
needs? Do they have an athletic program that you can participate
in? Or whatever your interest is? Can that be met in this
community that you’re going into? Also, does the institution
invest in the appropriate resources to support you in the
job that you’re going to be doing? At my institution,
that would mean a world class library, and I would insist
upon that and never go anywhere that didn’t have a world
class library. Although nowadays with e-mail and being able
to download all your resources at the click of a key, it’s
less problematic. But still I would say if you’re at
an institution that your not etherneted so you can’t
get at those resources, you could be in a difficult situation.
So, think about that. Think about what resources you need
and make sure that the place you’re interviewing has
that and can meet your needs. And then if appropriate, what
are the institution’s provisions for daycare or plans
for daycare if you intend or already have a family, and I
think I’ll stop there.
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