Mock Interviews

The Graduate Placement Committee will be holding mock interviews Dec. 10-12. Schedule an interview with a panel of Pitt faculty, who will read your materials and interview you just as if you were at MLA. This is a great way to get your feet wet in a friendly, helpful environment. Be
sure to schedule an interview even if you haven't heard back from jobs--real MLA interview requests often come at the last minute!

If you'd like to do an interview, send your availability during the following times to Ryan McDermott:

M, Dec. 10, 9:30-12:30
T, Dec. 11, 9:30-12:30
W, Dec. 12, 1:30-4:30

Also, please send along your job letter (teaching or research), your dissertation abstract, your teaching statement, and any information about jobs that have shown interest in you, or in which you are especially interested. Faculty members will use these to prepare interview questions. Interviews will last 20-30 min., followed by time for feedback.

Please send your availability by this Fri., Nov. 30.

Job interviewing workshop

Today's job interviewing workshop with Lily Saint, Dan Morgan, and Ryan McDermott is available in mp3 format. This includes a mock mock interview and analysis (starting around 43 min.). The accompanying handout is available to the Pitt community.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-kLdDKqGoF_bzJ1U1daVmhOb0U

Job Interview workshop this Thursday

Job seekers are encouraged to attend a workshop and Q&A on preparing for job interviews this Thur., 11/8, 2:30-4 pm in CL 527, with Dan Morgan, Lily Saint, and Ryan McDermott.

The department schedules mock interviews at the end of the fall semester to help prepare students for job interviews. The mock interview is an invaluable opportunity to practice your interview skills, but how should you prepare for it? What kinds of questions should you expect, and how can you make the best use of the feedback you receive from your mock interviewers? This is your opportunity to learn more about the interview process in general, and to begin preparing yourself for the real thing.  Don’t wait until you know whether or not you have interviews: come to the session and schedule mock interviews, it will only help!

The session will include a mock mock interview: come cheer on and conduct a post mortem on Ryan McDermott as he interviews for a job in composition and film studies, with subspecialties in medieval literature and digital humanities, with a dissertation entitled "From Orality to Home Theater to iTunesU: A Medieval Studies/RhetComp/Film History Approach to MOOCs."

The Job Market in English 2012

A recording and accompanying PowerPoint of Dave Bartholomae's presentation is now available on our Google Drive site, in a folder entitled "The Job Market in English 2012." The talk is heavy on charts and graphs, so you will likely want to view the PowerPoint while listening to the talk. (Or just view the PowerPoint, which has some of Dave's talking points in the notes.)

MLA Academic Workforce Data Center

Speaking of data and MLA studies, our department chair Don Bialostosky, a member of the MLA's committee on contingent faculty, calls our attention to the MLA's Academic Workforce Data Center. Here you can "view historic information about staffing patterns at individual institutions of higher education" and "search for an institution and view the numbers and percentages of tenure-track, full-time non-tenure-track, and part-time faculty members at that institution in 1995 and in 2009."

"The MLA invites members of the contingent academic workforce to participate in a survey about their current working conditions."

Teaching on and off the Tenure Track

As a preview for Dave Bartholomae's presentation on Friday about trends in academic faculty employment, in this article Dave digests the MLA/ADE study on non-tenure-stream faculty. Dave was on the committee that put the study together and drafted a big report. This essay in Pedagogy presents some of the report's key findings and reflects on some of the reasons non-tenure-stream faculty are now the new faculty majority.

Academic Coach Taylor Has Some Advice for You!

Thanks to Marah Gubar for the laffs:

http://academiccoachtaylor.tumblr.com/

Now get back to your dissertation!

Upcoming workshop: The Academic Job Market: Stats and Trends

“The Academic Job Market: Stats and Trends”
Dave Bartholomae

Fri., Oct. 19 // CL 501 // 2:30 - 4 p.m.

Dave Bartholomae crunches the recent numbers to track market shifts and emerging trends. As chair of the English Dept. for 14 years, Dave has overseen numerous searches in lit, film, writing, and comp. He will be fielding questions about any aspect of the job search process.

Inquiries: Ryan McDermott

Teaching Portfolio Workshop - TODAY

MATERIALS WORKSHOP

Annette Vee

“Crafting Your Teaching Materials”

Fri., Oct. 5 // CL 501  //  3:30-4:30 p.m.

This session is designed to help you pull together a teaching portfolio that demonstrates your investments and your commitment as a teacher. This workshop will allow you to advance your work on your portfolio, so you can bring a draft of your teaching statement (it can be just a start, but get something on paper) and at least one document associated with your teaching that you want to include in your portfolio (for example, a course description, an assignment, or a student paper). We'll discuss ways to make your teaching more accessible and impressive to readers, and how to talk about teaching in interviews. You can also just come to listen and ask questions—no documents required.

Writing and Working beyond the MFA: A Conversation with Angie Cruz, William Lychack and Michael Meyer

There's now a recording on our Google Drive site of Friday's conversation with Angie Cruz, Bill Lychack and Michael Meyer about writing, publishing, and working beyond the MFA. If you are a member of the Pitt community, you have access to this recording. Please e-mail Ryan McDermott if you're having trouble getting access.






Here are some highlights:

Angie's List: Angie Cruz talks through a number of online resources for writers, and shares a cover letter template:

Download the doc here.

Bill Lychack with his stack of "all the crap that I've done . . . I can't think of a writing job that I've ever said, 'No,' to." Writing a corporate history of cement on contract was "the best thing I've done in my life, in many ways." Here he holds a clutch of Guidepost Magazines. You can hear his story about his job as a ghost writer for Guidepost on This American Life.

Michael Meyer talks about how to reach out to writers and learn how to make a living. "If you ask anybody, 'How did you get into doing what you do? How are you successful?', they usually love to tell their story." He also talks from experience about the small-business side of freelancing, and the deep bites that self-employment taxes and fringes like health insurance take out of freelance income and book advances (more on this in Michael's NYTimes piece on advances).

Michael's object lessons: