Academe
These pages are designed with the critical communication studies scholar in mind. They have an American bias since there are more resources online for Americans and since I started this page while living in the U.S., though much here also applies to Canadians. Of course others are welcome to it if they find it useful. Since communication(s) is a field and not a discipline, there’s not a whole lot of conventional wisdom about where to look for jobs or how to go about it. Our friends in lit have the MLA job list. Our friends in Philosophy have the brilliantly named "Jobs for Philosophers." We have, well, a bunch of stuff.
I offer these resources in the hope that people might take a gander at what’s out there before they need them. Originally, this page was derived from the resources that I used on my own first job search out of graduate school (in 1998—it’s changed a lot since then), and is updated once a year. More than likely, anybody serious about hiring someone will have their ad appear in more than one place, but in my experience there’s no one place you can go to make sure all your bases are covered. In the years since, I have gradually added material on conference presentation, the transition to assistant professor, mentorship, and academic couples. More materials will come as I have time and motivation.
Suggestions for additional links or topics are always welcome. This page was last updated in July, 2006 and links constantly change. Feel free to contact me (jonathan [at] sterneworks [dot] org) if you have suggestions.
FREE PROFESSIONALIZATION RESOURCES
A Critical Comm Studies Job Search Timeline
Get your life together with my handy schedule.
You found a job, now what?
What every academic couple should know before they go on the market together
Advice on Publishing Your First Book
Links to a couple blogs with good advice for first-time academic book authors. I’ll add my $.02 at a later date.
Phil Agre has produced a very useful discussion of professional networking in the electronic age. It’s a nice professionalization primer for those who want a better sense of how to navigate the field.
Another stellar career resource online. This link takes you to an archive of posts from the listserv "Tomorrow’s Professor." You can also subscribe.
Parenting and Professing, by Sharon Downey
Preparing for Conference Presentations, by Fernando Delgado
Advice to Grad Students Preparing for Their First Conference Presentation, by J. Emmett Winn
The three above resources were compiled by University of Texas grad student Kristen Hoerl, who was grad rep for the Critical/Cultural Studies division of NCA in 2003. Kudos and thanks to her for the intiative, and to the authors for agreeing to have their work reprinted here.
Good Advice on Conference Presentations from Paul N. Edwards
Written by noted technology historian Paul Edwards, this is a nice, short primer on presenting at conferences. His most important piece of advice? Practice! He’s also got a nice piece called, simply, How to Read a Book.
Advice for Grad Students on Publishing by Thom Brooks
A lengthy and clearly written program for novices on how to break into the world of book reviews, journal articles and edited books.
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Interviewer, by Charles J. Stivale
Best Feet Forward: Some Moves for the Campus Interview, by Charles J. Stivale
When my friend Charley Stivale heard I was doing this page, he sent me the article. The piece has a lot of great advice about interviewing at conferences. But please note that it was written for people in the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages, a subset of the Modern Language Association. So there is at least two important differences to note: 1) I’ve never heard of an NCA interview that wasn’t conducted entirely in English (though I’m sure it’s happened); and 2) an MLA interview is almost always a prior requirement for an on-campus interview in literature. An NCA interview may or may not be (to wit: some departments’ application deadlines come after NCA). Still, if you have an interview at NCA, the stakes are exactly the same: you want to impress them and get to the next stage. This article is in .pdf form.
There are naturally also some differences in the campus interview piece (the "language moves" section may be less relevant), but again, most of the advice is sound and useful for any job seeker in any humanities field.
This .pdf guide is the best and most exhaustive resource I’ve seen for thinking about what to do when you get the job offer. Read it BEFORE you get a job offer. Though it’s pitched to Canadians, this is relevant to anyone in Canada or the U.S. who just got offered a job. I know it says "negotiating starting salaries" but there’s a whole lot on other aspects of the job as well.
More Interviewing and Job Search Resources from Mary Corbin Sies
These are specifically geared toward American Studies students and their market (for instance, people still get jobs in Communication Studies without having books under contract) but the advice is still very good and the list of interview questions is priceless. It reminds me of questions that caught me by surprise when I was first on the market.
A Manual of Best Practices for Meeting the Needs of New Scholars
Don’t let the title fool you. This .pdf is also required reading. The first part is pitched to administrators, but the middle part (pp. 14-21) is pitched to job candidates and assistant professors. Highly recommended. Courtesy the Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Tips on Grantwriting from Haidee Wasson
The title is self-explanatory. My friend Haidee Wasson designed this for her students and passed it on to me when she heard I was doing a grantwriting seminar for our students. Canadian humanists apply for grants all the time, and this is becoming more and more the case for humanists in other countries as well. Grantwriting is an art and a skill, and the writing quirks that get you ahead in other areas can trip you up in this one.
Want to start a blog? Wonder how it will relate to your career? Read this.
A Melange of How-Tos from Eszter Hargittai
Wrting abstracts, publishing articles, organizing conferences, slide presentations and more. Eszter’s audience is social scientists, but apart from the list of journals, the basic advice is the same.
FREE JOB SEARCH RESOURCES
The Chronicle of Higher Ed Jobs Page
This is probably the most encyclopedic resource, and bless their souls, it’s sort of free (see below for details). They list jobs for communication people under a number of categories—but "communications" is listed under "professional" instead of humanities or social science. It’s all arbitrary. You may want to surf the humanities and social science listings anyway, since sometimes appropriate jobs come up there as well. The way the page works is that nonsubscribers can get the previous week’s listings online. Note that the Chronicle does NOT archive, so check the site regularly (I believe stuff now stays up there for a month). But everything in the print copy of the chronicle for that week is also on their site. If you’re in the mood to read Ms. Mentor’s advice for surviving the job search or whatever writers the Chronicle has drummed up to serve you the latest version of job market gloom and doom, it’s all here. Also, there is now a feature where you can have them email you every time job listings appear in a particular category. Very handy! I do recommend my gloom-and-doom piece before perusing their “first person” columns, however.
CRTNET: Communication Theory and Research Network
CRTNET is a little "Speech-Comm"-y in its orientation, which affects which jobs get listed here. But lots of good positions pop up over the course of the year. You can subscribe or peruse their archives at your leisure.
H-Net’s Humanities and Social Sciences Job Guide
The title says it all. I recommend a full surfing of their listings, which are updated weekly and archived.
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
AEJMC’s job listing service is biased toward journalism and "strategic communication" (advertising, PR, production, etc.) positions but again, lots of good stuff gets listed over the course of the year.
A Communication Studies Job Wiki and a Cinema and Media Studies Wiki
So you sent off a letter in October and it’s February and you wonder if you’ve got a chance: these wikis might tell you. Passed along to me by Ted Gournelos, these are collective resources to counter the vast abyss that your job application enters between the day you drop off the letter and the day you get the interview or the rejection letter. While these sites may contribute to neurotic checking, and their updating requires lots of participants (information seemed hit or miss when I checked), they provide information you can’t get anywhere else. If I’m not mistaken, there are also wikis for other fields. Right now these two are US-centric, but they wouldn’t be if job seekers in other countries joined in.
The American Sociological Association
This link takes you to a page where you can click on current and past employment bulletins for the ASA. I do not recommend applying for sociology jobs in the US with a Communication Ph.D. unless you’ve got a sociologist writing an incredible letter for you (American soc depts are not fond of hiring outside the discipline) but departments seeking comm people will occasionally advertise here but not elsewhere. Their joblist appears quarterly, I think.
American Studies Association Newletter: Job Opportunities
Again, I recommend surfing their listings, rather than spending a lot of time trying to land a gig in American Studies. This link takes you to their home page. Job listings are listed under "Current Issue of Newsletter."
Not exhaustive, but lets you search by location.
Just for postdocs.
OUTSIDE THE U.S.
This is hardly an exhaustive list, but it should help get you started. If you know about job markets outside the US and want to suggest some links, drop me a line (jonathan [at] sterneworks [dot] org).
Canada:
This is a brand new service. It looks promising and if it continues to grow, it could easily become the best online resource for Canadian job seekers. Just to check it out, I logged in under a fake name and had a look around. It seems worth joining, especially because it’s free.
Canadian Communication Association / Association Canadienne De Communication
Canadian Association of University Teachers
These are three standard listings, though I’ve seen Canadian jobs that weren’t listed in these. I’ll report back when I learn more about the Canadian job market.
UK:
Times Higher Education Supplement
The Times Higher Ed Supplement actually has listings from all over the world, so it’s probably the best single general source for jobs outside the U.S. I’m also told people generally look in The Guardian.
Australia:
A general Australia site. Some academic listings. can search by location.
The Netherlands:
Academic Transfer International
Academic, hospital and other vacancies relevant to people with advanced degrees.
PAY TO PLAY
The people most likely to search for jobs are the very people least likely to be able to afford the steep membership fees for scholarly organizations—even at so-called "reduced" graduate student rates (many cost graduate students over $100 just for membership and conference attendance, leaving aside hotel and travel costs; people with PhDs but part-time salaries, meanwhile, often have no discount at all). So I think it’s a crime that three of America’s largest scholarly organizations in Communication require membership before you can see their job listings. Take a hint from your colleagues at AEJMC and the two ASAs, folks!
Spectra : Newsletter of the National Communication Association
NCA publishes Spectra online now, but you have to be a member to access it. It’s the closest thing to an encyclopedic listing of jobs in communication, but unfortunately, there are a number of critical communication positions (sometimes at major research universities) that never get listed here, so you can’t rely on them as your only resource.
Newsletter of the International Communication Association
ICA’s newsletter is a great complement to Spectra in looking for communication jobs.
The Society for Cinema and Media Studies
As with sociology or American Studies, I don’t really recommend applying for film jobs unless you’re a film scholar with film people writing for you, but other departments looking for media and communication scholars do advertise here.
CIOS/Commserve is pretty social sciency but they are dedicated to developing communication research online. This link takes you to their job network. They post job listnings as they come up, or you can subscribe to a listserv to receive updates as they appear. I was able to procure this service for free in 1999, but they have since started charging for membership (grad students pay less than faculty). You’ll have to decide
if you think it’s worth it.
Another possible resource:
One kind friend tipped me off to the American Philosophical Association; they occasionally lists positions of interest to philosophers of communication and rhetoricians, but their publication—"Jobs for Philosophers" (a great title, IMO)—is only available online to members. So you’ll have to make friends with a philosopher or pay up if you want a peek.
This page copyright © 1999-2006, Jonathan Sterne. All rights reserved, permission to link is granted.