Archived Weblog Entry - 07/08/2005: "Blog Job Seekers"

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07/08/2005 Archived Entry: "Blog Job Seekers"

Blog Job Seekers
From that resource of dullness and everything non-intellectual, The Chronicle, a rant on why academic job seekers shouldn't blog:

Worst of all, for professional academics, it's a publishing medium with no vetting process, no review board, and no editor. The author is the sole judge of what constitutes publishable material, and the medium allows for instantaneous distribution. After wrapping up a juicy rant at 3 a.m., it only takes a few clicks to put it into global circulation.

Here we find the trope of the same useless argument: holy moley! Another kind of medium has emerged in a system dominated by the bloated and lengthy and never perfect peer review system. We can’t allow that! Or: we only need one outlet for expression, and that is the bloated and lengthy and never perfect peer review system. And no personal expression! (even though we assign “the essay” in all our classes; a medium whose origins are in personal expression – particularly as the developing culture of print encouraged such writing through self reflection/and re-reading). Fine. Been there done that. But here are the real gems of this piece:

Don't show any interest in technology. Otherwise, search committees know you obviously want to be a super geek techno wizard and not a professor.

But the site quickly revealed that the true passion of said blogger's life was not academe at all, but the minutiae of software systems, server hardware, and other tech exotica. It's one thing to be proficient in Microsoft Office applications or HTML, but we can't afford to have our new hire ditching us to hang out in computer science after a few weeks on the job.

Academics shall have and post no interests outside of academia; i.e. academics should not be people and should not have thoughts about the world. If they do, they must be CRAZY.

It would never occur to the committee to ask what a candidate thinks about certain people's choice of fashion or body adornment, which countries we should invade, what should be done to drivers who refuse to get out of the passing lane, what constitutes a real man, or how the recovery process from one's childhood traumas is going. But since the applicant elaborated on many topics like those, we were all ears. And we were a little concerned. It's not our place to make the recommendation, but we agreed a little therapy (of the offline variety) might be in order.

Search committees - supposedly those who are the experts at reasoning and logic - often make faulty decisions; they jump to conclusions with little evidence to support their position. Like, oh, let’s see, a blogger will spill the beans and tell everyone how ridiculous we are!

The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself. Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum.

The only thing revealing in this piece is that, once again, The Chronicle solicits or accepts work by folks who have No clue. It never once dawns on this academic (who, of course, refuses to use his real name; a popular Chronicle move for some reason - heaven forbid people know it was you who said something stupid) is that the reasoning his department uses may, in fact, be wrong. Is it possible that a group of folks looked at texts out of context and made illogical decisions? Possibly. Of course, this wouldn't be the first time that's happened in a job search, and blog or no blog, it won't be the only time a candidate gets rejected because the committee messed up in its decision process.

Update:
(hey, I never did any update before!)
Collin adds to the discussion.
Planned Obsolescence does as well.

Replies: 11 comments

I remember an online discussion a while ago (on kairosnews? i don't remember) about whether grad students should blog, with some saying no, it will hurt you on the job market, etc.

Sounds silly to me, but I must admit I am somewhat careful about what I write about on my blog, keeping it mostly to academic/tech/mostly nonpersonal material, saving the rest for my anon blog. But who cares? There is so much advice about what not to do re job search that there's not much you can do safely. Besides, search committees are so over-burdened that I doubt many even look at anything but the main writing sample.

Lastly, if you google my name (Erik Marshall), the first thing that comes up, after the boxer and the minister, is a listserv post about union activity. How careful should someone be? And who would want to work at a place that is so hyper-sensitive and techphobic anyway?

Posted by Erik @ 07/16/2005 10:35 AM EST

"The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself. Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum."

So there's no lapse of professional decorum if you air your department's laundry in print as Ivan has himself done here?

Posted by John @ 07/15/2005 12:19 PM EST

I can't wait till they start searching for various wiki contributions, MeFi discussions, and Slashdot preferences.

In other shocking news, I hear that some academics actually want their work and thoughts read by more than just their departmental colleagues and peers (who, of course, never read them unless they need a cite or are marking a tenure case). I mean, it's scandalous, really. I even saw that some Jared Diamond guy recently participated in a documentary. It's almost like his secret love is Public Broadcasting! I bet he gets his ass fired any day now, if he hasn't already.

Posted by Kenneth Rufo @ 07/14/2005 04:37 PM EST

Mikey pedagogy is my new motto.

Posted by Brendan @ 07/12/2005 01:36 PM EST

"As if departmental business is so juicy we just can't stop ourselves."

Oh man. That is gold. Gold.

Posted by jeff @ 07/08/2005 06:26 PM EST

It's unfortunate that people who don't blog are allowed to have opinions about people who do. I mean, really: "The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself." OOOH. Blogs are so scary. People are always mouthing off about their workplaces on their blogs. Yeah, right. Bloggers are just a bunch of dimwits who somehow manage to make it as finalists for an academic job search but who aren't smart enough to avoid letting the whole world know their departmental business. As if departmental business is so juicy we just can't stop ourselves.

Posted by Donna @ 07/08/2005 04:31 PM EST

Quite a few people told me to stop blogging whenever I went on the market. I didn't. But I did suddenly become very aware that what I was writing could be taken as some kind of "evidence" of. . . something. It's a real shame, though, that humanities folks are such a humorless bunch.

Strikes me as people who still think of blogs as "online journals." I mean, do all the same arguments apply to an academic who publishes a personal memoir (Richard Rodriguez, for instance)?

I agree w/ Derek: blogs should never, never be used to air dirty laundry about students or colleagues. But is it that awful to print your opinions or stories about your cat, family, weekend, etc? If there really were that many blogger-candidates at "Quaint Old U" (for I suspect Jonathan was right), they should be happy not to be sharing a department with Ivan. What an interesting ball of fun he must be.

Posted by Jenny @ 07/08/2005 03:05 PM EST

Considering that very few academics relative to the total number of job seekers blog under their own names (or at all), the likelihood of so many bloggers ending up as finalists at this job search is very small, leading me to believe that the author is not being wholly candid about the circumstances he describes.

I also suspect that the editors were expecting outraged attention from bloggers, so you may just be encouraging them by posting about it.

Posted by Jonathan @ 07/08/2005 01:50 PM EST

Or:
Maybe they did get the candidate they wanted:
YABC.
Yet Another Boring Colleague (Who Won't Try Anything New).

Luck to them. Let's keep our work the same, eh? Year after year after year after year after year....

It's the opposite of Mikey Pedagogy: After all, that kid would try anything.

Posted by jeff @ 07/08/2005 12:22 PM EST

You don't even need to go to googlefight to see that The Blog would kill The Chronicle in a faceoff.

Posted by Robert @ 07/08/2005 12:22 PM EST

It's a wonder Ivan Tribble isn't more appreciative of these blogs, considering that they helped the committee avoid hiring a few unqualified or ill-fitting candidates. What a shame the article is pseudonymously authored, too; that alone seems to up-end the thread calling for accountability to a larger professional audience (a case for pseudonymous blogging, eh?). The subtext is untenable: don't write unless it is sanctioned; don't involve yourself in the network; don't live beyond the heavily vetted channels of academe--vita, peer-reviewed publications and so on. Don't blog. Makes me wonder if they got the candidate they wanted.

And still, if there is a point here worth keeping, it's that blogs ought not be used to bitch and moan about students, colleagues or current employment situations. Some insight, that.

Posted by Derek @ 07/08/2005 12:18 PM EST