One-Sentence Mentoring - Manage Your Career - The Chronicle of Higher Education
11/7/12 7:41 AM
Manage Your Career
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Manage Your Career
November 6, 2012
One-Sentence Mentoring
By Female Science Professor
Inspired by one-sentence book reviews, tweets, and text messages, I
decided to attempt an academic form of this parsimonious genre by
providing bite-size morsels of advice on selected career topics. The
appeal of this approach to mentoring is that it forces one to
prioritize: If I could tell you only one thing about each topic, what is
that one most important thing?
The obvious hazard, of course, is that some topics deserve much
more than a one-sentence sound bite, but I decided to do it anyway.
Although I limited myself to one sentence per topic, some sentences
contain more than one bit of advice, so I stretched the concept
slightly.
One thing I noticed after I started this exercise was that my advice
tended to be of the negative sort. When forced to select one piece of
advice for a topic, I tended to gravitate toward "Don't do X" rather
than "Be sure to do Y." That probably means I think it is most
essential to avoid doing stupid things, and in this context, stupid
things are ones I personally find annoying.
So as you read, keep in mind one of the perils of mentoring advice:
It is extremely subjective. No advice—whether brief or detailed—
applies to all people and situations.
To applicants writing cover letters for academic jobs: In
one page, explain why you are a strong candidate in terms of your
expertise and interests, without implying that we are idiots if we
don't hire you.
To applicants writing research statements for academic
jobs: Start with your most recent and most exciting work and ideas,
rather than describing your research experiences in chronological
order, from childhood to present.
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One-Sentence Mentoring - Manage Your Career - The Chronicle of Higher Education
11/7/12 7:41 AM
To applicants submitting CV's for academic jobs: Put the
information most relevant to our position early in the CV and don't
try to bulk up a meager publication record by listing manuscripts "in
preparation."
To applicants writing research statements for graduateschool applications: Don't write about a memorable childhood
experience that you (mistakenly) think is relevant to your
qualifications for graduate study.
To applicants choosing reference-letter writers for
graduate-school applications: In addition to selecting the
obvious professors (advisers), pick people who are not related to
you and who can write substantive comments relevant to your goal
of being admitted to a doctoral program.
To applicants choosing reference-letter writers for tenuretrack jobs: In addition to selecting the obvious professors
(advisers), pick people who can write something substantive about
you—even if they are not as famous as others who could toss off a
brief paragraph—and who have credibility as letter writers in this
context.
To people writing letters for applicants to graduate
programs: Write about things that are relevant to an applicant for
graduate study, not a list of every type of interaction you have ever
had with the candidate, from hiring that student as a babysitter to
discovering a mutual love of zombie movies.
To people writing letters for applicants for tenure-track
positions: Give an honest and substantive explanation for why the
candidate is—or is not—qualified for the position for which he or
she is applying.
To people writing letters for a faculty member's tenure
bid: If someone's career depends, in part, on your evaluation, it
would be nice if you wrote a thorough letter that is more about the
candidate than about you.
To people writing letters for female candidates for any of
these things: Do not compare her only to other women in similar
positions ("She is among the top female students ever to graduate
from our department.").
http://chronicle.com/article/One-Sentence-Mentoring/135580/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
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One-Sentence Mentoring - Manage Your Career - The Chronicle of Higher Education
11/7/12 7:41 AM
To candidates interviewing for tenure-track faculty
positions: Just be yourself, but not too much.
To prospective graduate students writing to faculty or
program administrators: Do not send form letters ("Dear
Professor"), don't ask vague questions that you should be able to
answer before you write ("What is your research about?"), and don't
ask us to do tasks for you ("Please send me your three most recent
papers."), especially if those tasks are obnoxious ("My adviser told
me to write to you, so please write back soon and tell me why I
might be interested in working with you, given my expertise").
To prospective graduate students visiting a department for
an interview or recruitment event: Don't skip a meeting with a
professor (or anyone) because you would rather check out the
campus fitness center.
To graduate students who think their advisers are strange,
unavailable, erratic, and clueless (excluding egregious
behavior and ethical violations): Maybe they are some or all of
those things and maybe they aren't, but it would be good if you
could find a way to work with them anyway, perhaps by developing
strategies for better communication.
To graduate advisers who think their students are strange,
unavailable, erratic, and clueless (excluding egregious
behavior and ethical violations): Maybe they are some or all of
those things and maybe they aren't, but it would be good if you
could find a way to work with them anyway, perhaps by developing
strategies for better communication.
To writers who are upset at the rejection of their
manuscripts by journals: Unless your work has been
conclusively shown to be fatally flawed, move on as soon as possible
and submit a revised version to another journal.
To writers who are upset at how their work is cited—or not
cited—in journal articles or books (excluding egregious
examples and ethical violations): Let it go, perhaps after
sending a passive-aggressive e-mail to the offending author(s).
To people who wonder if a woman got a job, a grant, or an
award because "they" had to hire or reward a woman:
http://chronicle.com/article/One-Sentence-Mentoring/135580/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
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One-Sentence Mentoring - Manage Your Career - The Chronicle of Higher Education
11/7/12 7:41 AM
Don't.
Female Science Professor is the pseudonym of a professor in the
physical sciences at a large research university who blogs under
that moniker and writes monthly for our Catalyst column. Her
blog is science-professor.blogspot.com.
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solidagojuncea 1 hour ago
Good advice. Too long-winded.
1 person liked this.
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