Scaling the Ivory Tower: Your Academic Job Search Workbook

We wrote this book because so many academics find it daunting to navigate the search for an academic position. The workbook is designed with 58 worksheets and checklists dealing with everything from the imposter syndrome to crafting a cover letter that tells your unique story. Checklists are available for items to consider when crafting cover letters, interviews (whether on the telephone, by video or in person), and negotiating an offer. It was created to help newly minted academics, as well as those who may want to move laterally, to handle the pragmatic aspects of the job search. The information and necessary skills for this process are generally not taught in graduate school.The book is organized in seven essential sections: Part 1 introduces the academic job search cycle and outlines the various categories for hires. Part 2 helps you stay on top of your academic job search, from where to look to publishing plans.Part 3 give you various ways to organize and track your job search applications. Part 4 outlines the ten important pieces of your academic job search portfolio, and offers examples or templates for those elements. Part 5 presents the ins and outs of your academic job search interview, including handling conference, video and on site visits. Part 6 looks at additional considerations including some statistics on the academic job market and alternatives to the professoriate. Part 7 concludes by recapping some of the most important items to consider as you go through a month by month academic job search process.This book was developed by two coaches who have a combined work experience of over 40 years with academic clients who are unfamiliar with the nuts and bolts of seeking an academic position. The workbook offers real life up-to-date examples of the job search process from the applicant’s point of view and is designed to reduce anxiety through concrete exercises and demystify the academic job search process.

When she was growing up, Hillary could not decide if she wanted to be Miss Marple, Lucille Ball, or Mrs. Fields. She achieved none of those goals, but she does bake a mean chocolate chip cookie, and has become (her own self-title) "The Change Strategist," a career, writing and life transition coach. 

Hillary's experiences have taken her from a childhood in Ohio to college in Washington, DC in international relations at George Washington University and graduate work at The University of Texas at Austin (she holds 2 master's degrees from there: an MA in social anthropology and a MEd in higher education administration). Along the way, she learned that people are at their best when they are doing what they love for a purpose greater than themselves alone.

Hillary has had a highly varied career trajectory herself, from real estate market researcher, lobbyist for nuclear waste disposal, paralegal in an environmental law firm and administrator at the University of Texas at Austin for several different institutes, including Middle Eastern Studies and the Humanities Institute. She enjoys writing her series "Hillary Can Help" to aid in personal development issues from building confidence to ridding oneself of writing gremlins.

On a personal note, Hillary lives in Mount Pleasant, SC with her second husband and three cats in May 2014, after living 17 years as a widow raising two daughters. Those daughters are now grown and on their own. She is actively involved with the Unitarian Church in downtown Charleston.