Add to favorites Examiner Bio

Laid off? Get a job in higher education

1.      While most of traditional tenure-track jobs can only be obtained through getting a Ph.D., almost all universities have a number of non-tenure-track teaching jobs, both full and part time. If you have a master’s degree and some substantial professional experience, there is probably a university or a community college where you can teach, or become an administrator. Remember, it is not all teaching: universities have marketing directors, facility managers, admission officers, etc.

2.      My friend kept thinking he should teach at an engineering school. However, his career has been as much, if not more, in business administration. The “professional field” is really an imaginary construction, and every adult who has been around should be able to produce at least two or three different resumes.

3.      Invest significant time in understanding your target university’s programs. College administrators don’t have time to teach you about their programs, degrees, certificates, courses, and accreditation. You should begin your conversation with showing a good understanding of their programs, their needs and challenges. College websites now have a wealth of information, from catalogs to accreditation reports, from class schedules to news releases. A hint: if a class is about to begin soon, but there is no instructor name listed, it might be a sign that need an adjunct. They are most vulnerable at that point, and might just take a risk and give you that one class to teach. However, as a general rule, people will hire someone they already know and trust again and again.

4.       If you want to be an adjunct, list which specific courses you are qualified and willing to teach. Do not claim to be able to teach everything – that would be an implicit message that anyone can teach any course, an insult, really. It helps if you can show specific teaching experience –may it be new employee training, or customer education, or something that look like teaching. Bring samples of curriculum you developed. A good higher education administrator will quickly recognize if you have a knack for teaching, and appreciate it.  

5.      It is very difficult, almost impossible for any department chair or any dean to create a new full time faculty line. If you come asking for one, they will tell you to wait for faculty positions to be announced. That is the end of the conversation, and it may take. However, you can come with a specific idea of expanding a program, developing an off-campus cohort, or a new high-demand degree. Most public universities have an entrepreneurial branch, which can be called Extended Studies, or Outreach, of some other such thing. Those can and do create jobs if they believe there will be a real return on their investment. The commercial arms of universities are always on a look-out for opportunities, and are often constrained because full time faculty members are too busy to run cash-funded programs.

6.      Understand who is actually doing the hiring, and try to get a face-to-face meeting with that person. It could be a dean, or a department chair, or a school director. And in many fields, those people are inundated with a large number of applicants to fill very few adjunct positions. So, see #5 for your opening line, and just try to get a meeting. E-mailing your resume is probably without a meeting is not a good investment of your time.

7.      Once you set up a meeting, don’t ask for directions, and don’t ask to spell their e-mail addresses. If you can’t find an administrator’s e-mail or the directions to her or his building on-line, they probably won’t want to talk to you. Sorry, this is the digital age, and you want to show you’re with it.