rec letters for APs on the market

[ap]

To avoid hijacking the other thread:

for the APs on the market, who do you get as references?
I don't have anyone in my current department that I trust that much to ask. So my choices are professors from grad school who know me really well, or people who I've met afterwards, who may know parts of my research well, but wouldn't be able to speak about me as a teacher/etc.

[ap2]

I still use my advisor, other profs from grad school, and a person who left my current department. Unless you have some superstars in your field who would be willing to write excellent letters about your research, I would choose people who know you well and will write strong letters.

[Agreed]

I used people from my department, but if I hadn't been able to do so, I would have used people from my graduate department because they can speak to my potential as a researcher, experience as a teacher, etc. and still have a stake in my doing well.

[cautionary tale]

I wish I'd posted a query like this over a year ago when I was fishing for new ref letters.

I'm an AP looking around for other jobs, and whose grad committee has largely disappeared on me. There were two senior faculty who are in my area and hadn't been on my grad committee, and I decided to approach them over email to see if they'd be willing to provide reference letters for me. I'd known them for years since I was a student, and was even naive, perhaps arrogant, enough to think that they'd be very likely to agree. I was wrong.

They both immediately declined. One of them explained that I directly competed with his/her students, and out of loyalty to them he/she didn't think it was correct to provide me a letter. The other person didn't give much explanation, but also immediately declined and said they were too busy. They both avoid me like the plague now.

I have come to realize that asking people for reference letters is more than a formality. It's asking people to take a long-term investment in you, and play some sort of mentorship role. That's not a small thing to ask of others. It's also not a small amount of work to keep up with our publications as we move forward as productive scholars. Also, if you're an AP then you're in a better situation than PhDs who have been looking for jobs for a while, and you might not elicit that much compassion. What seems to you like a pressing problem doesn't seem so pressing for a distressed supervisor of unemployed former students.


Make sure the conditions are right for asking new people for letters. One method could be to start small, like if you're applying for short-term fellowships or grants ask new people for ref letters, and maybe eventually those could turn into job application letters.

For those of you who've gotten letters from people in your current department, how did you overcome the awkwardness of asking for a letter from current colleagues when that clearly signifies that you're not satisfied with your current place?

[nature of the beast]

This is part of the nature of the beast. Some advisors may be great and keep up with their advisees long after graduation. But the majority won't. They will be much more invested in getting their current students a good job than you. And the fact is that if you've had a significant prestige decline from graduate school to your first job, it is going to be much harder to get people who may write good rec letters to recognize you. The solution is to network your ass off: keep in touch with friends from grad school, participate in the smaller regional conferences where there is more opportunities to talk to people, etc.

Now, this is all if you can't rely on your old professors and advisors. If they are still willing and able (as in up to date on what you are doing), then yeah, rely on them.

[Agreed]

In response to how I approached my current colleagues...

I picked the three who I knew I could trust, and I sat with them each separately, in person, behind closed doors, and began talking about some issues I was having with my current position - both professionally and personally - then built up to discussing how all that had led me to want to go on the market and to ask for letters. It was tough, but to be honest, they weren't surprised. They all knew bits and pieces of stuff that was going on, just not the full extent, and they all agreed with my decision, making it easier.

[apx]

Feb 9, 2015 21:36:10 GMT -5 Agreed said:

In response to how I approached my current colleagues...

I picked the three who I knew I could trust, and I sat with them each separately, in person, behind closed doors, and began talking about some issues I was having with my current position - both professionally and personally - then built up to discussing how all that had led me to want to go on the market and to ask for letters. It was tough, but to be honest, they weren't surprised. They all knew bits and pieces of stuff that was going on, just not the full extent, and they all agreed with my decision, making it easier.

My fear in this situation is if I don't get a job. Let's say I do the above and don't get a job. What happens the next time I am applying for internal resources/running for a certain service position or, well, trying anything where they may either be competing with me or where I would have some influence over them? They may be friendly and trustworthy, but what happens then? Can they separate what they know about my intentions and their role in selection processes?

[2nd year?]

Would you include an external letter writer if you are on the market the year immediately after you received the PhD or is this something that only more advanced Assistant Professors should worry about? If you had an external member of your committee, would that work similarly, or would you still want someone who was not in your committee?