You don’t want to find yourself in the position of needing to rustle up syllabi, statements, CVs, teaching evaluations, and reference letters when you’re in the throes of applying for a job. Do your future self a favor and maintain an updated archive of those materials in between searches. Staying organized is easier than you think—here are some tips that can help.
Keep It All Together
Applying for academic opportunities involves aggregating a plethora of materials. How can you ensure that you have everything you need to pursue your career aspirations?
In today’s digital-first age, it makes the most sense to maintain your career materials in digital form with ample backup on a hard drive as well as in the cloud. If you have some items in paper form, scan them. A bit of annoyance now can save you from a lot of confusion later—not to mention a strained back from carrying those files up and down stairs. Using a service like Interfolio’s Dossier can make this easier since you have the ability to request, store, and organize your most important scholarly documents in one convenient location.
Categorize Your Materials
Depending on where you’re keeping your documents, you might want to enlist metadata to help you remember which documents would serve for which purposes. The most basic way to do this is to create a folder structure that stores documents by type, subject matter, etc. If you use a system that offers tagging, take advantage of this feature to keep everything organized.
Within Interfolio’s Dossier, you have the ability to group documents together for easy reference by creating a collection. You can share collections of your materials with collaborators and mentors anywhere, ensuring that you’re sending the exact materials you want to share with the right recipients. Learn more about how to create and manage collections of your materials in this helpful article.
Start a Habit of Scheduled Maintenance
Pick a few times when you’re under a little less pressure at your job—possibly the end of the semester, between grading and travel—to survey your career documents folder and make sure everything is up to date.
Keep a checklist:
- Have I published any new articles?
- Have I taught any classes with student evaluations, and do I have the results here?
- Did I change my syllabus? And if so, do I have a copy of the new one here?
Take a moment to update your CV as well—even if you’re not using it to apply to anything at the moment.
Note Important Reference Contacts
Maintain a list of people you meet along the way who might be good candidates for reference letter-writing in the future. Set a goal to develop those relationships, and be sure to keep notes in this list to indicate your progress. That way, if and when you do ask a contact to write a letter for you, you can consult your notes before you write that email asking for the favor.
An email that says exactly why you think your colleague would be the best person to write the letter—and suggests which areas of your relationship you think the letter-writer could address—is far preferable to a generic ask. Need tips on what makes a great reference letter, who to ask, and how to ask? We’ve got you covered.
Take Notes for Your Future Self
If you don’t feel like writing a new teaching philosophy statement (for example) while you’re happy at your current job and not planning to move, try to leave yourself a little help. Jot a few things down at the end of each semester during your scheduled maintenance times that you think might make good additions to your next version, like stories about student responses to projects or observations about discussions that were particularly successful. Human beings are forgetful—your notes will make it a lot easier to add color and depth when you do end up updating that document.
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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