Tag: Interfolio’s Dossier

View blog posts about Interfolio’s Dossier online service for scholars to manage confidential letters of recommendation throughout their academic career.

Thinking about (and getting ready for) a summer job

This post continues our series by a onetime academic job seeker, now academic-at-large, on where to look for a summer job.

Summers in grad school can be an awkward time for the large percentage of grad students whose funding doesn’t stretch to cover twelve months of rent. And by “awkward,” we mean “extremely stressful and upsetting.” This problem is seldom discussed outside of grad student circles, and so the summer income gap can come as a shock, particularly after your first year. You may have academic obligations that don’t pay—conference attendance, research, and later on in your career, job market prep—but that doesn’t mean you don’t need groceries. So here are some ideas for steps you can take now to make sure you have income in August.

Look inside your school first.

It’s May, and deadlines for opportunities within your department (summer research assistantships; summer teaching) may already have passed. If they haven’t, great! Look there first. But you may need to think outside the departmental box. Try querying libraries, writing centers, or centers for teaching and learning. Visit the office of career services, or their website, to see if they maintain a list of summer jobs inside the university for students. You’ll have an advantage applying to these jobs, as a student; this is an easy way to begin.

Ask friendly professors.

Faculty may know of summer gigs that don’t show up on official lists. A colleague of theirs may have recently landed a grant and may be suddenly in need of research support, for example. It’s worth sending a few polite emails to any faculty members you know well to see if they’ve heard anything through the grapevine.

Try other universities and community colleges in the area.

These institutions may have summer classes that need teaching—especially if they don’t have grad programs in your areas of study. An email to the appropriate department coordinators could turn up an open spot.

Look for teaching jobs outside of your university.

Tutoring, summer programs for high-school students, even academic camps for younger kids: all of these may pay you a good wage, while offering a way for you to embellish your CV in the future. This side benefit may be especially helpful if you are in a research-heavy department that doesn’t offer many opportunities to teach during the year, and if you want to apply to teaching-focused jobs when you graduate. Summer experiences—even if they’re with ten-year-olds—can help you see whether you truly do feel comfortable and happy in a teaching role, and can offer good fodder for a reflective teaching-philosophy statement.

Try temping, freelancing, or the gig economy.

Yes, driving for Lyft, taking on dog walking or babysitting, or doing some freelance graphic design work can be inherently unstable and exploitative, and it’s hard to know how much income to expect from these pursuits. That’s why we’re putting this idea last! But temping, freelancing, and gigging have some advantages for a graduate student during the summer, because you have more control over the amount of work you do, and where and when you do it. This flexibility may come in handy if you get to late July, realize you really need to work on that dissertation chapter, and have enough money in the bank to do it.

What other recommendations do you have for finding a summer job? Tweet us and use the hashtag #Interfolio to share your ideas.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Five places to explore careers outside of the academy

This blog post continues our series, Scholar at Large, written by an academic on five places to explore careers outside of the academy.

This blog series has, so far, taken a bird’s-eye view of the stakes and possibilities involved in exploring careers in the humanities more broadly. It’s been encouraging to hear from friends and colleagues who feel ready to move beyond a “damage-control” mentality of job-seeking and find other ways of approaching one’s career path (and from colleagues who want to better support their graduate students). At the same time, many still aren’t sure how, exactly, to proceed.

To get you started, here are five resources that can help you take tangible next steps in your broader humanities career search.

1. Imagine PhD

This is the most comprehensive, clear, and subscription/firewall-free resource I’ve found for career exploration and planning. Once you create an account, you have access to tools that will help you uncover opportunities by bridging the gaps between what your PhD does in academia and what it does in other career pathways (whether addressing those gaps requires building experience or simply shifting vocabulary). These tools include:

  • Self-assessments related to skills, interests, and values
  • “Job families” with descriptions, application avenues, and sample job materials
  • A tool for creating an individual career development plan to help you set specific, achievable, and time-based goals for your career (whether academic or otherwise)
2.  Connected Academics

For folks in the humanities, this is an excellent place to start. Thanks to a Mellon Foundation grant, the MLA was able to develop a space for exploring diverse career opportunities for both job-seekers and for departments looking to improve their graduate training. The site includes blogs with perspectives on graduate training and job searching, short articles addressing advice for departments and job-seekers, and profiles of PhDs with careers that are “alternative” to the tenure track. They’ve also collated more pragmatic tools such as planning frameworks, tips for using LinkedIn, or resources for job-searching. One particularly helpful page is Beth Seltzer’s skills self-assessment, practice in job ad analysis, and next step guidance (@beth_seltzer on Twitter).

(Side note: Publics Lab at CUNY is now taking up a lot of this work and moving it forward.)

3. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook

This is, admittedly, a rather unexpected resource, but it’s actually quite informative! The site gives you ways to explore jobs within particular labor categories, and for some jobs, it also includes guidance on how to pursue that career path. The handbook also provides information on things like:

  • Typical duties
  • Work schedules and environments
  • Median pay
  • Projected employment prospects
  • Data on local and regional opportunities
  • Suggestions for similar occupations
  • Places to look for more information on particular careers (and where to apply for jobs in that career)
4. Subscription-based online communities

There are a handful of growing online communities that provide built-in tools, networks, and guidance for career exploration. The two I’ve seen come up most often are Versatile PhD and Beyond the Professoriate. Some of their resources can only be accessed behind a subscription paywall, but even their free resources are quite helpful.

5. Use the networks you already have!

These include your secondary and tertiary contacts on LinkedIn, your college alumni networks, and the people you know outside of academia (like the cousins you only see at obligatory family gatherings, your friends from church or from Teach for America, etc.). Use these networks to set up informational interviews—which are, in fact, just conversations. When you make these connections, you are cultivating your own professional communities along with developing a sense of how you might fit in a particular field.

Academic Twitter is also a fantastic way of building networks, discovering opportunities, and finding (free!) resources. Folks like Jennifer Polk (@FromPhDtoLife on Twitter), co-founder of Beyond the Professoriate, actively tweet advice and resources and foster connections across PhD and professional communities.

Just taking some time to investigate these options will help you broaden your thinking about your work, give you a better picture of your own capacities and worth, and build a network of humanities practitioners. Enjoy the process!

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Author bio: Dr. Molly Appel is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Penn State University. Her research explores how literature works a space of teaching and learning for human rights and social justice in the Americas. You can find her on Twitter @mollyappel.

Tips for Faculty Search Committees

This post continues our series, The Smart Scholar.

One of the hallmarks of being a higher education professional is leading and serving on hiring committees. While this work is important to university life, how do you decide if you should serve on a hiring committee? What should your strategy be on selecting members to serve on a hiring committee when you are leading a search? These questions can be difficult to answer as they are nuances based on the position. However, I believe there are some things you should consider when leading and being asked to serve on a hiring committee. While this post does not capture the depth and nuance of hiring committees, below are my more topical tips and suggestions.

Be prepared for a significant time commitment

After serving on several hiring committees and having conversations with colleagues in the field, I have come to the conclusion that serving as the chair of a search committee is a significant time commitment. Not only are you responsible for selecting search committee members, you are also responsible for:

  • Serving as main contact for potential candidates with questions
  • Coordinating phone/Skype interview times for candidates and committee members
  • Coordinating travel for finalist interviews
  • Managing personalities of the search committee during candidate deliberations

With the above responsibilities in mind, it is critical to understand and embrace the significant time commitment before agreeing to serve as the leader of a search committee.

I have often been approached to lead and serve on committees unexpectedly. At the beginning of my career, I would often say yes on the spot. However, I was provided sage advice from mentors who explained the benefit of not saying yes right away. The advice given to me (which I pass along to you) is that when offered the opportunity to serve on a hiring committee, communicate to the requestor that you need time to review your schedule to ensure you will have ample time to commit to the search. Taking this approach will buy you a little time to evaluate the time commitment and value-add of serving on a hiring committee.

Establish a diverse hiring committee

Many higher education scholars have pointed out that who serves on search committees determines who is ultimately hired. In many examples, scholars point to the fact that higher education hires do not often reflect the diversity of the country—and this is due to search committees lacking diversity, specifically racial diversity. Thus, when thinking about establishing a search committee, it is important to ensure committee members come from various backgrounds, so your search develops a heterogeneous pool of candidates. Moreover, candidates from different backgrounds can use their networks to get the word out about the search.

Ensure positions are advertised widely

Part of the work of the search committee should be to advertise the position in a way that  creates a diverse hiring pool. Search committees do not often get diverse candidates because they do not advertise positions in places where those candidates fellowship. For instance, does your human resource office use the university’s Instagram and Facebook pages to target their hiring advertisements to spaces where diverse candidates spend their time online? Is your search committee reaching out directly to scholars of color to apply for positions? I would argue that institutions search far and wide for athletes, and I believe the same approach should be taken when recruiting higher education professionals. While there are several places to find higher education jobs (which I’ve discussed in a previous Smart Scholar series post), it is critical to find candidates in the spaces they frequent most.

Ensure the search process is ethical

It is important to ensure that the search process is approached ethically, for example adhering to a search process committee where members maintain confidentiality throughout. This prevents candidates who have personal or professional relationships with the search committee members from gaining an advantage in the job search. Moreover, in situations where there are internal candidates applying for a position, this is even more important, as having an ethical process will prevent external candidates from seeking legal action against the institution for a discriminatory hiring process. In response to instances of discrimination and racism on campus, institutions have developed equity and inclusion offices. I would suggest if your institution has such an office, have them talk to the search committee about ensuring an equitable hiring process. If your institution does not have an equity and inclusion office, there are some best practices in the text Diversifying the Faculty: A Guidebook for Search Committees by Dr. Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner.

What have your experiences been on leading and serving on search committees? Feel free to tweet me @ramongoings with your suggestions!

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Author Bio: Dr. Ramon B. Goings is an assistant professor of educational leadership at Loyola University Maryland. His research examines gifted/high-achieving Black male academic success PreK-PhD, diversifying the teacher and school leader workforce, and the student experience and contributions of historically Black colleges and universities to the higher education landscape. As a writing coach and editor, Dr. Goings enjoys supporting the scholarly development of doctoral students and professors in higher education. For more information about Dr. Goings, please visit his website www.ramongoings.com and follow him on Twitter (@ramongoings).

Asking for a letter of recommendation

This post continues our series, The Smart Scholar.

With spring here, now is the time I often get letter of recommendation requests from students and colleagues who are looking to secure an upcoming school or employment opportunity. In my last post I discussed the letter of recommendation writing process from the perspective of the letter writer. In this post I provide three suggestions on how individuals should proceed with asking for and securing letters of recommendation.

Select your letter writer wisely

As someone who has sat on a number of search committees I often can see the difference in letters of recommendation that come from someone who knows the candidate well from a letter writer who cannot draft a persuading letter about the candidate’s ability. As a result, I want you to seriously consider who you select as your letter writer. Some questions you might consider are:

  • Does this person know me well enough to discuss my work?
  • Do we have a relationship where they would be willing to write a letter for me?
  • Will this person be the best fit as a letter writer for the position I am seeking?

If you are unsure how to answer the aforementioned questions, it may be in your best interest to have another individual write your letter of recommendation. Given you want strong letters of recommendation, select colleagues who can speak to your abilities from first-hand experience. I always find that those letters feel the strongest.  

Make a well-timed request

When talking with some colleagues recently, they mentioned students requesting letters of recommendation mere days before their graduate school applications were due. In our conversation we all came to the conclusion that those students must not have seriously wanted a genuine letter of recommendation!

While it may seem like simple advice, if you are requesting a letter of recommendation, it is in your best interest not to wait until the last minute to make your request. It is important to plan ahead because you never know how many other letters your recommender needs to write for other folks. Getting on their radar sooner than later is a benefit as it will increase the chances of them completing the letter for you.

In most circumstances you know what your application deadline is well in advance. Thus, I would reach out to potential letter writers at a time that would allow for them to take 4-5 weeks to write your letter.

Provide a letter template

From personal experience, I have found that folks whom I reach out to for letters of recommendation have many colleagues and students who have also requested letters of recommendation from them. As a result, I want to make the experience of writing a letter for me as easy as possible. One practice I’ve started doing is actually providing a rough draft of a letter of recommendation to them when I request their assistance.

You may be asking yourself, “Well, why am I writing this letter? This is why I am requesting my colleague to do this!”

Providing a starting point makes writing the letter of recommendation easier. Additionally, if you create a rough draft you can be sure that your letter reflects the points that you believe are vital to your candidacy for the job or school where you are applying. Moreover, I believe that you drafting a letter shows some initiative to your letter writer who in addition to completing the letter of recommendation could make a call to the organization on your behalf!

Do you have any other advice you would give to individuals seeking letters of recommendation? If so tweet me (@ramongoings) with your recommendations!

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Author Bio: Dr. Ramon B. Goings is an assistant professor of educational leadership at Loyola University Maryland. His research examines gifted/high-achieving Black male academic success PreK-PhD, diversifying the teacher and school leader workforce, and the student experience and contributions of historically Black colleges and universities to the higher education landscape. As a writing coach and editor, Dr. Goings enjoys supporting the scholarly development of doctoral students and professors in higher education. For more information about Dr. Goings, please visit his website www.ramongoings.com and follow him on Twitter (@ramongoings).

How to find a mentor

This post continues our series by a onetime academic job seeker, now academic-at-large, on how to find a mentor as a young academic.

When you’re in graduate school, the expectation that you’ll have a mentor is built into the system: you can’t file a dissertation without an advisor. When you’re a newly minted faculty member, you may be assigned a mentor by your department. But grad students may need guidance from faculty members who aren’t their advisors (advisors vary in quality, after all), and new faculty may not click with their “official” mentor. How can young academics find a mentor? Here are some steps to take.

See mentorship as a natural development in a relationship.

You can’t just email somebody and ask if you can be their mentee. (Well, you can, but you might not get the results you want!) Instead, start by figuring out ways to work alongside the person you aspire to be your mentor. In academia, this might look like collaborating on a panel for your field’s annual meeting or) choosing to serve on the same committee, if your prospective mentor is at your university.

Stay in touch.

If there’s somebody you’d like to have a mentoring relationship with, try to find ways to connect with him or her. If they seem open to it, arrange informal coffee dates or send update emails. Working with them on a project (see above) is also an easy way for them to see your skills in action.

Be helpful.

The relationship between you and your prospective mentor should be a two-way street. Of course, you have been told that “having a mentor” is important for YOUR career, but you should also try to make yourself useful—within the bounds of appropriateness, of course.

Don’t pick up dry cleaning. Do offer to contribute your expertise when you know they’re working on something in your wheelhouse. Looking to someone more advanced in their career for advice does not mean you aren’t bringing something to the table—possibly a new research or learning method—and so you should find ways to showcase your knowledge and skills, too. Remember, take the time to make sure this relationship is worthwhile (and helpful) to both parties.  

Read the signals.

Try to get a sense of whether your possible mentor has the time and energy for additional commitments. Timing can be essential!  The best mentors will be excited to invest time into your relationship and be responsive to your inquiries. Always be respectful of their time, of course!

Be clear about what you need.

Once you’ve established an ongoing, productive relationship with your maybe-mentor, see how you feel about asking for more. Be specific about your hopes for the “next step” of your relationship. Don’t say “Will you be my mentor?” but think about approaching the conversation with “Would you be willing to introduce me to people at our upcoming conference?” or “Would you be willing to give me advice on navigating x, y, or z dynamic within my department?” Clarity will be valued by your prospective mentor. And, if they don’t have the opportunity to work with you on this project, remember–stay in touch! This conversation is the beginning of an ongoing relationship–whether as official mentee to mentor or simply colleagues.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Preparing for an academic review (as a professor)

This post continues our series, The Smart Scholar.

With 2019 in full swing, I know that many of you are preparing for classes and re-engaging in those “revise and resubmit” article notifications that came in during the holiday break. For many academics this is a busy time of year and before you know it, the end of the semester will be here. My suggestion? Don’t let a review sneak up on you. Below are three strategies that I have used that will help you prepare for your review.

Get organized from day one

As a first-year assistant professor, the best advice I received from mentors was to set up an organization system that would make writing my materials for my annual review and tenure and promotion review easier. Over the last three years after going through a few reviews, I have refined my organizational strategy and have established the following routines:

  • Scan and file all physical copies of documents (e.g., notes from students, teaching evaluation write-up, journal articles, etc.) electronically via a cloud storage application or a dedicated online profile (like Interfolio’s Dossier) to ensure you have multiple copies of documents.
  • In your cloud storage application create folders titled, “Teaching,” “Research,” and “Service.” In each relevant folder, store documents related to the parent folder, i.e. “Teaching,” in folders labeled by year.
  • Update curriculum vita monthly and keep every version of this document in an electronic folder.
Know your institution’s review policies and priorities

While getting organized is important to your success, equally important is knowing the policies and priorities of your institution. Some essential questions to consider are:

  • Do you know when your annual review is due?
  • Do you have a template to complete your review?
  • Do you have access to your institution’s policies and requirements for faculty reviews?

At many institutions running faculty reviews in a traditional way (i.e. without a dedicated online system), the university-wide and college/department specific faculty handbook is important—it will describe the policies and procedures for engaging in your annual and/or tenure and promotion review.

Along with knowing your institution’s policies, you should be familiar with the priorities of the institution. For instance, if your institution is research-intensive, then your review write-up should demonstrate how you have spent your time engaging in and producing research in venues that the institution and/or your department values. Similarly, if your institution is more teaching-intensive, you should be prepared to explain how your teaching has made significant contributions to your department and the institution.

Be prepared to address any gaps in your file

No one is perfect. Consequently, you may have a gap in your file that you were unable to address during the review time period. For instance, if preparing for your first annual review at an institution, you may have published little or no research so far during your time at the institution.  While you will be evaluated on your research activities, you should nevertheless explain in your narrative why your research productivity has been low during the period covered by the review. Moreover, you can then articulate your plan to increase your research productivity over the next review period. I find it important to address any shortcomings head on rather than omitting them from your narrative and having your evaluators (in many cases colleagues in your program or department) bring this up in your evaluation letter. Furthermore, addressing gaps in your review and outlining your plan to fix them is key—your next evaluation can speak to how you followed your outline from the past year and have met (and hopefully exceeded!) your goals.

Do you have strategies that have helped you prepare for your annual and/or tenure and promotion review? Feel free to tweet me @ramongoings to continue this conversation!

In addition to an online platform for universities to manage faculty reviews, Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Author Bio: Dr. Ramon B. Goings is an assistant professor of educational leadership at Loyola University Maryland. His research examines gifted/high-achieving Black male academic success PreK-PhD, diversifying the teacher and school leader workforce, and the student experience and contributions of historically Black colleges and universities to the higher education landscape. As a writing coach and editor, Dr. Goings enjoys supporting the scholarly development of doctoral students and professors in higher education. For more information about Dr. Goings, please visit his website www.ramongoings.com and follow him on Twitter (@ramongoings).

Infographic: A peek into Interfolio’s Dossier

In 1999, Dossier was founded to serve faculty or soon-to-be faculty on the job market, with the core goal of streamlining the scholar’s application experience. Today Dossier is much more than a tool for those on the job market—it’s a private, lifelong profile for you to collect, curate, share and deliver on your career goals. It also reaches far beyond the typical scholar persona. So, we set out to explore, what picture does Dossier paint of the current academic landscape?

We examined our historical data and use patterns to explore what makes our Dossier users successful and how the product has changed to better serve our users. In many ways, our users have defined our product evolution: our commitment to scholars remains the same, and has now grown to encompass the needs of those outside academe.

A Peek into Interfolio's Dossier infographic

*The data shown is a sample from our users’ profile selections and behaviors. In no way has any personally identifiable information been shared or made available.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Best Practices for Your Dossier: Contacts, Archiving, Collections, and Sharing

Millions of scholars have elevated their academic journey by using Interfolio’s Dossier to pursue academic jobs, medical programs, and graduate degrees. With tools to help gather, store, and deliver essential materials, it’s clear why so many scholars trust Interfolio with their career aspirations.  

Whether you’re just getting started with Dossier or have used the service previously, these best practices will help you confidently utilize the contacts, archiving, collections, and sharing features as you pursue your next opportunity. 

Add Contacts Before Requesting Letters of Recommendation 

The process for requesting letters is simple and includes saving your letter writers as contacts within your account. You will need to add your letter writers as contacts, which you can do either via the “My Contacts” page or while creating a new letter request. 

To add a contact to your Dossier, log in and click on your name in the top right-hand corner of your account. Click My Contacts and then the “Add Contact” button. 

We suggest saving your letter writers in your account before you start working on applications to streamline your process. We also encourage you to communicate with your letter writers ahead of time so that they expect your request. 

Some things you should consider communicating to your letter writer are: 

  • The number of requests you plan to send 
  • Any requirements for the actual letter, like if you need a letterhead or signature 
  • If you want the letter to be a general letter for multiple uses or specific to one application 

Looking for step-by-step instructions? Here is a detailed walkthrough of how to add your letter writers as contacts. 

Make Use of the Ability to Archive Your Materials 

You have the ability to archive any document in your account. Archiving is different than deleting a document—archiving simply removes it from the list of active documents. When you create a delivery or work on an application, you only see a list of active materials. 

Why is this helpful? If you find yourself with a multitude of documents in your Dossier, consider archiving older versions. If you ever archive a document and want to use it in the future, you can always move it back to your list of active documents. 

You can find some helpful articles about archiving and storing your materials here. 

Organize Your Materials Using Collections 

Creating a collection allows you to group documents together for easy reference. For example, if you have a set of documents that you want to use for applying to faculty positions, you can create a “Faculty” collection that contains the documents specific to that position. Likewise, if you have a set of documents that’s better suited for fellowship applications, you can create a “Fellowship” collection to access when applying to those opportunities. You can also share collections of your materials with collaborators and mentors anywhere. 

You can find a walkthrough of creating a collection here. 

Use the Sharing Feature to Get Feedback on Your Dossier 

(Note that this feature is only available to Dossier Deliver users. Upgrade to Dossier Deliver here.) 

The sharing feature gives users a way to collect feedback on academic materials from anyone, anywhere—including documentation of research, creative production, teaching, or service—without leaving the Interfolio environment where your work is stored. This feature accommodates ongoing input on academic case materials, whether outside of a formal institutional workflow or as part of one, such as in the case of a mentoring letter. 

In order to share materials with someone, you’ll need to add them as a contact, just like you have done for your letter writers. When you share a document with someone, they do not have to create an account—they’ll be provided with a link that goes directly to the materials you’ve shared with them. 

Here are some more details on sharing your materials for feedback. 

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish, and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here. 

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Webinar: Using Interfolio’s Dossier for Letters of Recommendation | Highlights and Selected Q&A

Earlier this week, we hosted a free webinar and Q&A providing a glimpse into a Dossier Deliver user’s account —focusing on letters of recommendation—for scholars to get the most out of Interfolio’s free Dossier and Dossier Deliver.

We decided to include a demo-heavy portion in the webinar to address some common questions we were getting from users, and to share some of what we’ve learned about the folks using our products. We also touched on the newest features available, specifically how to utilize our quality check process. The webinar also features an exclusive Q&A session, leveraging our attendee’s questions as they participated in the webinar. 

Opening with some of the background and research underlying Dossier, the webinar covers several of the product’s common real-life applications and the best subscription for each of these lifecycle stages. It sheds light on best practices surrounding the three core areas of the Dossier account:

  • Materials
  • Letters
  • Deliveries

Alex Aponte of Interfolio’s Scholar Services team leads the audience through each of these account areas in a product demo of a Dossier Deliver account, diving deeply into many specific questions about confidential letters of recommendation. We know that requesting a letter of recommendation, or providing one, can be a delicate and sometimes stressful process when deadlines are involved, so we offer features and a support team to make those logistics simple.

Check out the full recording here, or read on below for the Q&A portion:

Here are a few of the most common questions we got during the webinar, and a quick recap of what our audience learned:

Q: Is there a way to store a confidential “generic” letter without sending it right away? I plan to apply for many positions, and I don’t want to make my letter writers send all the different letters one by one.

A: Yes! That is a very common use for Dossier, and you can do it for free. You can either request a general letter, or specify which opportunity the letter is for. Just use Dossier’s “General Request Recommendation” feature—look for the “Recommendation Type” section in the request form.

Q: When requesting a letter of recommendation through Interfolio, how should I use the due date feature? Can a letter writer still upload a recommendation letter after the due date has passed?

A: In Dossier, the due date feature is not technically binding—it is just a tool (attached to the request itself) for you to communicate to your letter writer the date by which they should submit their letter. If you set a due date, it will not prevent them from uploading their letter afterward. Also, if you set a due date, we will send your letter writer reminders 7 days and 1 day before the letter is due via email.

Q: What is the quality check feature and how is it helpful?

A: If you have a Dossier Deliver account, you will receive a guaranteed quality check on your letters of recommendation as they enter your account. There are a variety of things we look for and flag as inconsistent with what a user expects within their letter, such as:

  • We check for a signature.
  • We make sure there’s an official letterhead.
  • We ensure the file uploaded is in fact a letter.
  • We verify the letter bears both your name and the letter writer’s name.
  • We establish the letter is legible.

You can choose to send your letter even if it has errors–like a missing signature–so you retain control of your materials and deliveries.

Q: What type of deliveries are available through Dossier Deliver?

A: If you have a Dossier Deliver subscription, you can have your application materials (including letters, CVs, publications, images, and more) delivered to almost any destination via one of three methods:

  • You can provide us with an email address, and we’ll send your materials there, arranged in the order you specified.
  • You can provide us with a mailing address, and we’ll print out your materials and mail them, arranged in the order you specified, either First Class Mail or at an expedited service level.
  • If you’re applying somewhere that requires a confidential letter upload into their own online application system, we can substitute for your letter writers, and directly upload the letters stored in your Dossier. We only do this for letters, not other materials.

Finally, please note that anyone can use the free version of Dossier to apply to positions hosted entirely through Interfolio.

So, what can you do if you have questions about your Dossier account or creating one?

  • Watch the webinar. It’s about an hour long and includes a pretty comprehensive product demo.
  • Check out the FAQ section of our site for quick tips and tricks on how to navigate Dossier and Dossier Deliver.
  • Reach out to us. We’re people that thrive on serving our customers.

New features are here, including saving your letter writer as a contact

Today we launched several new Dossier product features in our ongoing quest to ensure our user’s time is spent on activities they choose, and so that we maintain our exclusive offering as a full-service Dossier (almost 20-years strong!).

In March, we introduced a valuable new feature to help prevent document quality issues from holding back your applications—for users with active Dossier Deliver subscriptions, we now perform a quality check on all confidential letters of recommendation.

And as of today, we have added several more features related to (1) how a Dossier user requests letters of recommendation and (2) how a letter writer receives such a request, further personalizing and streamlining the process.

As a Dossier user requesting a letter of recommendation I can:

  • Save my letter writers’ contact information
  • Attach multiple support files to my letter request via my Dossier account
  • Share my multimedia materials like video links and URLs within my request
  • Request multiple letters of recommendation at once
  • Auto-populate each letter writer’s name in bulk requests for professional appearance

To add a new contact while requesting a letter, click “Letters” in the left sidebar:

Click “Request a Letter”:

Start typing in “Recommender” box:

Click “Add New”:

And as a letter writer, when accessing supporting materials attached to a request for a letter of recommendation, now I can simply view them online within a convenient document viewer—or I can download them as always.

Click “View Documents” vs. “Download”:

Why do these changes matter to you?

First and foremost, it saves you time. It is far more convenient to simply select saved information than to type it in from scratch for every request. In addition, it helps to avoid errors in email addresses and names. We understand that receiving a stellar letter for a job application is the end goal, not requesting it.

Requesting and sending letters of recommendation is a stressful but necessary part of applying to many scholarly positions and other opportunities. Let Team Interfolio help you manage this portion of your to-do list, confidently.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish, and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.