Creating a Digital Dossier

by Robyn Byrd

Applying to academic positions, whether temporary, post-doc, or tenure-track (might as well try for all of them right?), is an arduous process. Advisors tell us we have to be ready for it -- be done with your thesis before you're really done with school, because the job search is a full-time job itself. And if the time consuming reformatting, re-twisting and polishing up weren't enough, you have to keep track of a massive amount of information, documents, and letters of recommendation requiring a lot of lead time.

So what's a bedraggled thesis writer to do? Digital dossiers to the rescue! No, I don't mean the digital footprint of information and actions you've left on the internet during your lifetime...um, although that's something you want to be cleaning up right about now! I mean services that compile all of your academic application materials, organize and categorize them, and even deliver them to your universities of choice.

It's an amazing idea, and many online companies offer such services. Unfortunately, for those of us bound for academic jobs and alt-ac jobs requiring higher degrees, Interfolio seems to be the only service that specializes in handling our particular, er, problems. Perhaps this monopoly won't persist into the coming decades, but for now it may actually make it simple to store things online in one institution-recognized place. Some schools even require your uploads and info to come from Interfolio.

That being said, you may still have to directly upload some things to some institutions' application systems. Nevertheless, according to many of my recently hired faculty friends, having Interfolio was still worth it. The peace of mind and organization it brings to the application process is priceless. And the entry level package on the site is absolutely free.

So I took my colleagues' advice and started building my dossier on Interfolio. I still have to populate it with documents, but so far it seems pretty easy to use. I especially like that you can store letters of recommenation there, and see when they come in. They also offer job search tools, and they partner with Inside Higher Ed as well as organizations like MLA and APA, with links to those job lists. Interfolio may be a monopoly, but at least they're good at what they do.

Let us know if you use another service that is accepted by major institutions, or one that has really helped your job search! For now, I'm going to go get lost in the rabbit hole of the job search boards...

Blogging your way to a Dissertation Defense

Blogging your dissertation project is a wonderful opportunity to keep writing but informally and without the strictures of structure and academic conventions. Dissertation writing is the most isolating stage of the PhD journey and blogging allows you to connect with a large online academic community, far enough removed from your own department, that undoubtedly shares the same experiences and struggles and can provide advice, encouragement, and critical feedback. A blog not only serves as a new, more creative format, to present your research to a wide audience, but also as a mental health resource to work out personal and professional frustrations in a productive way. Be certain not to share too much of your research, however, to avoid the risk of having your ideas stolen, or diminishing your chances of a peer reviewed publication of your own. 

An important part of the academic job market in the current digital age means maintaining a professional online presence and blogging your dissertation project ensures you begin building that presence as a graduate student before entering the job market. No matter what stage of the dissertation process you’re at, brainstorming your topic or preparing for your defense, blogging can help you organize your thoughts, take notes, and document each important step. A blog can make it much easier to generate and refine ideas. Working through ideas in a blog means you don’t have to be certain about your conclusions yet. You can present ideas to colleagues without the same pressure you’ll receive from your chair. 

Another amazing benefit is the opportunity for reflection blogging allows. Accessing your writing and research processes and daily progress is important to managing your project and blogs are a fantastic way to accomplish these objectives. It’s part of the dissertation project you’ll look forward to at the end of each writing/research day to destress. Thinking out loud this way can help keep you motivated and productive and you will have access to a built-in archive to track the evolution of your ideas and your entire dissertation project. Presenting your research to the online academic community at large also ensures you’re connecting your project to the most recent, relevant scholarship. Thinking of research blogs as seminars and conferences we don’t always have the funds and time to attend. For your research ideas to conform to the format of a blog, you’ll be forced to write concisely and efficiently which is useful when constructing an abstract argument which is both complex and multi-faceted. Any level of interest can be very encouraging. Share the link on other formats, especially Twitter so that others can participate in your journey and contribute.