The grand experiment...

It's amazing how picky academics can be.

I say this in anticipation, though I could certainly offer more than a little evidence. As I've noted previously, I'm hitting the job market this year. After a few years teaching - typically (at least for those of us just starting out) we're advised to wait until our third year of teaching someplace to apply elsewhere - I've decide it is time for me to see what the jobs out there are like. And while looking for jobs is never fun - even when you've got one and can look just to see - looking for academic jobs is about the worst experience I've ever had.

Typically for an academic job, you're putting together a fairly lengthy packet of information: a letter, your C.V., references and/or their letters as a start. Then you might be asked for samples of your research/writing/production (depending upon your field). Possibly they want syllabi. Maybe they want statements of your teaching philosophy and your research intent. Maybe they want evaluations. Oh, and while you're at it, it couldn't hurt to send your transcripts (official, of course). Sure, send both the graduate and undergraduate transcripts.

If they want all of that, it's a pretty sizable packet. For me, the full packet can reach 200 pages., of which the average search committee member will look at maybe 10 (letter, C.V., references, and maybe a syllabus of interest). I'm told the smaller packets used to be very popular, but it hasn't been my experience. Now everyone wants everything, and frankly, it's a pain in the ass.

Sure, I can come up with a justification for why someone might want to know what my GPA was fifteen or so years ago in courses I might not even be teaching anything about today. I had to reach for that explanation, but I found one.

It still doesn't make this process any easier to swallow.

So this year, I'm going to experiment. Instead of printing and somehow binding together 200+ pages so someone can subjectively knock me out for my choice to talk about research before teaching on page three of a CV that chronicles everything but my shoe size (14, depending on brand), choice of beverage (Coke Zero if we're talking non-alcoholic) and a brief description of my ideal mate (thank goodness, because my answer still changes daily on this one). So before the University of Southern Nowhere You Want to Live asks me for a printed letter telling them whether I like Pina Coladas and walks in the rain, I've decided to let them do the work (or at least the printing) by sending them a CD with all the documents they could ever want.

Here's where things get nervous though. It's entirely possible though this would be a good, applicable, environmentally friendly use of technology to solve a problem, it may be seen entirely otherwise. After all, we all had professors who seemed so ancient they probably wore sundials on their tweed-covered wrists, right? And that hasn't changed. So what I risk with this approach, designed to save me some effort while demonstrating some tech savvy (which I like to think would be important for the sorts of things I want to do), is that it may land on the desk of someone more curmudgeonly than yours truly.

Imagine, doing all that it takes to make a CD-Rom that'll run on PCs and Macs (and maybe Linux/Unix machines) with 200 pages or so of documentation in some way that's both easy to follow and interesting, only to have it be the excuse someone doesn't call for an interview?

Wish me luck.