Preliminaries

Each May those who have been through placement during the preceding academic year meet with the Placement Committee, along with graduate students who are contemplating becoming candidates for placement the coming fall; in order to give them as much advance information as possible, post-generals students not yet contemplating becoming candidates are also strongly urged to attend. The purpose of the meeting is to review the previous year, to discuss possible improvements of procedures, and generally to exchange impressions on interviews, APA conventions, etc., as well as lay out clearly to prospective candidates the stages, etc., of the process.

• The Placement Committee will strongly urge job candidates to make progress on their dissertations throughout the summer.In general, the more in command you are of your dissertation, and the further along on it you are when you make applications and have interviews, the stronger your candidacy will be.
• About this time, the Placement Coordinator will give you information about becoming a member of the American Philosophical Association.This is important for two reasons: (1) you will then receive Jobs for Philosophers (and have access to it on-line) and (2) membership enables you to use the placement services of the APA at convention time.
• The procedure of assembling dossiers begins at this time. At the meeting you will be given forms to complete on which you indicate whether you will waive access to your placement files, and suggest a list of referees. It is imperative that at least one referee be someone you taught for: this can be a separate "teaching letter," or form a distinctive part of a more general letter of recommendation. Candidates should ask the faculty members they plan to list if they would be willing to write on their behalf before listing them, and are urged to discuss the list with their advisers or anyone else who might prove helpful (for example, the Placement Committee). Normally, your dossier should contain letters of recommendation from your principal dissertation adviser and at least three others with whom you have worked, chosen so as to indicate the range as well as the strength of your competence.

Students who will be seeking jobs in the coming academic year should so indicate at this time or, at the latest, by the middle of the summer.

Placement Schedule for 2011-12

2011-12 Placement Handbook

2010-11 Placement Handbook

September

• In December 1997, the department voted to abandon its former practice of selectively recommending candidates for jobs for which they wished to be considered. Candidates now make their own application decisions; the Placement Committee gives advice and information, but plays no role in selecting or recommending individual Princeton candidates for any position for which they may apply.
• Placement dossiers consist of the following items: (1) a curriculum vitae, which includes a brief (one paragraph) description of the dissertation, (2) a separate, longer dissertation description (up to about three single-spaced pages), (3) a record of Work Done at Princeton, (4) letters of recommendation (at least four). Following guidelines provided by the Committee, you prepare items (1) and (2) (with the advice and assistance as to (2) of your advisers). They also prepare item (3), with the assistance of the Placement Coordinator, in accordance with strict guidelines. The Committee is responsible for requesting (4) from faculty members, on the basis of the list you will provide.
• As letters of recommendation are received, and once the dossiers are completed, the Placement Committee and the candidate's adviser review the letters to see if any can be improved or might be omitted from the dossier. (A letter of recommendation will be dropped from a dossier if, and only if, (1) the writer of the letter so requests, or (2) the candidate so requests, or (3) the Placement committee obtains the permission of the writer to have the dropped from their dossier).

In the course of this review, the committee should see to it that the dossier contains some information about the candidate's teaching abilities.

The target date for the completion of the dossier is September 25. This means that students must submit first drafts of items (1) (2) and (3) well before this date. The dissertation summary must be written under the adviser’s supervision and a first draft approved by the adviser before it is submitted to the Placement Coordinator for the committee to see. The process of revision in light of Committee suggestions can be lengthy. In order to have complete dossiers ready to be sent out shortly after the first Jobs for Philosophers arrives in late October; dossiers must be complete and approved by the Committee by October 1.

October

The first issue of Jobs for Philosophers arrives the third week of October; it is issued three other times throughout the year (November, February, May). Every opening that comes to the department's attention (except through Jobs for Philosophers) will be emailed to all job candidates and posted as soon as possible in the lounge in a binder labeled "Job Openings." Many times these announcements precede the announcement in Jobs for Philosophers and give more information about the opening than is reported in JFP. When you submit the list of places you intend to apply to, be sure to include any that are listed in the binder but not also in JFP.

• You will be asked for the list of places you intend to apply to a few days before submitting them finally to the Placement Coordinator to act upon. This will give the Committee a few days in which to review these and offer advice, e.g., about jobs for which you qualify but have not listed. After receiving the Committee’s comments and suggestions, you should then give your final lists to the Placement Coordinator. (Please Note: Because of the development of an electronic input system, the way in which you provide your final lists to the Placement Coordinator may change. I will keep you informed of updates.) The Placement Coordinator will then do one of the following:
  (a) Mail your dossier to each institution requesting a hard copy. If more than one job candidate is applying to the same institution for the same job, all of the dossiers will be mailed in a single package. A cover letter signed by the Placement Committee presenting them for consideration will accompany the package.
  (b) Email your dossier to each institution requesting an electronic dossier. If more than one job candidate is applying to the same institution for the same job, all of the dossiers will be emailed together. The email will contain information presenting them for consideration.
  (c) A growing number of advertisements for posted positions indicate that the applicant must apply online. When you apply online, please supply your recommenders’ names with the email address of the Placement Coordinator; s/he will supply your dossier and/or separate letters of recommendation when requested by the institution.
• Each candidate who applies for a position must write a letter officially applying for that position. This should include a statement of your academic interests and your particular reasons for wanting that job (optional); offering to send samples of your written work, or enclosing a sample if it is explicitly requested; and stating your availability for interviews at the APA convention. (You are urged to submit a sample letter of application to the Placement Committee for possible suggestions as to how it might be improved.) It is advisable also to prepare a "teaching dossier," consisting of computerized course evaluations, student hand-written comments, and a statement of teaching interests, which you will send out along with your letter of application .

November and later

• Candidates should immediately inform the Placement Coordinator (by letter, phone, e-mail) when they hear from places where they have applied, whether the response is positive or negative, perfunctory, or a request for an interview or paper. This is important: the Placement Coordinator acts as the central repository of up-to-date information on all aspects of the progress of a student's candidacy for jobs. Inform the Coordinator immediately of all changes in your status at any place where you have applied.Members of the faculty receive periodic summaries listing current prospects, areas of competence, and thesis topics for each candidate. This is to allow faculty members to make better use of personal contacts and to respond more adequately to inquiries.

• You should plan to give a practice job talk prior to the December APA meeting. Commitment as to a date for this should be made in September. In late November arrangements will be made for a mock interview with departmental faculty, to take place in December shortly before the APA convention.

December

Before the December APA convention, the committee meets with candidates to review placement procedures at the convention.

The department will fund the expenses of any person whose candidacy is under the oversight of the Placement Committee, to the following extent:

• The department will make available a lifetime allowance of up to $1200 for travel to APA conventions. The amount granted for a given trip shall be based on University standards (i.e., airline fare plus whatever extras the University allows) but may not exceed $400 per trip, per year: this amount is applicable not only to travel costs but also to all legitimate expenses.
• Duplication of papers to be submitted to prospective employers, by Xeroxing or some less expensive method, may also be charged to the department while a student is enrolled, or if no advantage of this is taken during enrollment, then for at most one year. The department will NOT pay for copy services done by outside sources.

Except if they are currently appointed as lecturers or AIs at Princeton, job applicants are responsible for securing their own stationery, envelopes, etc. and paying for the postage to send their application letters and samples of written work. The department covers the cost of sending confidential dossiers.