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The application is critical to getting your foot in the door. It is your first contact with the colleges, and--you hope--not the last. In general, an academic job application consists of five primary components: (1) cover letter, (2) curriculum vitae (CV), (3) research history and plan, (4) teaching experience and philosophy, and (5) letters of recommendation.
The cover letter is the very first piece of information your prospective employers will read. As such, it should state plainly who you are and what position you are applying for. It should be no longer than one page, and it should be as personal as possible. Call the school and find out who is the chairman of the search committee, and address the cover letter to that person. Make sure you indicate how your interests and the interests of the department will mesh nicely. Use proper English, be cordial, and seek critical comments from your colleagues before sending that cover letter out.
Curriculum vitae is a fancy Latin phrase for resume. Its translation, "the course of life," indicates what your CV should address. What have you done in the course of your life? You should concentrate on the professional aspects of your life, primarily in reverse-chronological order. I used a fairly standard format, which I outline below.
a) Objective: What sort of position are you looking for?
b) Education: What are your degrees?
c) Professional Experience: List your positions along with research and teaching accomplishments.
d) Professional Society Activities: Are you a member of the American Physical Society or any other learned society? Have you reviewed scientific publications?
e) Refereed Publications: List your publications.
f) Patents: List any patents you hold or patents pending.
g) Conference Proceedings: List any of your published conference proceedings.
h) Presentations: List the talks you have given. Mention if they were invited talks.
i) Awards and Honors: List any noteworthy awards or honors you have received.
j) Personal: List any personal information you would like to convey. Do not be afraid to make it silly.
k) References: On a separate page, list five people who are willing to act as references for you. Include your current boss, thesis adviser, and professors from other schools.
The history part of the research history and plan should describe your major research accomplishments as a graduate student and thereafter. In this section of your application, tout your skills and stress the sophistication of the research involved. Do not be modest. If your work was groundbreaking, say so. If you hold a world record for a particular measurement, emphasize it. If one of your papers has been cited a hundred times, mention it. This section should be a page or two long.
Devising the research plan requires serious thought. In it, you should be able to answer the following question: What are your plans for the future? This is critical to your candidacy because the members of the search committee want to know how your research will fit into the department's existing research program. They want to know how it will involve undergraduate and graduate students. You need to be specific. Include plans for what you will do in the first year, the second year, and five years down the road. How much money will you need? What will you require for startup funds? Amounts of startup funds vary greatly among schools, so it is wise to have some idea how much money is available before you write this section. (You don't want to tell them you need $300 000 for your research and then find out they can only afford $50 000.) After startup, how much money will you need to keep your research going? If this is a substantial amount, where will you find external support? It is a good idea to know the specifics of various funding programs, including the names of the people who run them. Schools react favorably when you have taken the initiative to talk to a funding agency representative personally.
In your teaching experience and philosophy, describe any courses you taught or for which you served as a teaching assistant. Be specific and illustrate the details of the course. What was the subject matter, the class size, the level, and so on? Did you have interesting in-class demonstrations? Did you go on field trips to other research facilities? How did you get the students motivated? Were your teaching evaluations particularly flattering?
As for your teaching philosophy, you should discuss your approach to teaching. What is special about your style? In your teaching experience, what methods seem to work well? For instance, by providing lecture notes myself, I make it possible for my students to pay full attention to what I explain in class. I also use a large number of in-class demonstrations. In one class, we used a pulsed-diode laser and a fast detector to measure the speed of light in the classroom (an ordinary size classroom!). I had the students perform the measurement and calculate a value for the speed of light. To their surprise, they obtained a value for c that was within 2% of the accepted value.
Sharing stories like this will help convey your enthusiasm for teaching, so be sure to cite specific examples of what you have tried. Remember: the people reading this application have probably read through a hundred or so already, so obtuse statements about the "learning process" will likely not advance your case.
Schools typically want three letters of recommendation. Although well-known references may help, it is more important to get positive letters from people who know your work. The obvious choices are the professors with whom you have worked the closest (your adviser, postdoctoral boss, collaborators, and so on). If possible, it also helps to get references from outside your current location. This shows your reach in the scientific community. (When you are soliciting letters from your references, you might consider telling them the due date is two weeks before the actual deadline. We all know what professors' schedules are like.) Send your references a small thank-you gift. Writing letters of recommendation is hard work and you want them to know you appreciate their efforts.
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