II. Shaping Your CV, the Early Years
You’re in a program now, working toward the Ph.D. (or M.F.A., though many of us creative writers have sorrowfully accepted the pragmatic reality that an M.F.A. doesn’t really qualify many for jobs at teaching universities (that need Ph.D.s for admistrative hoopla.). And an M.F.A. without a few books doesn’t make anyone terribly attractive for jobs in R1s either).
Something like five years stretches out in front of you, at least, before the job market becomes a reality. Typical grad student policy is to therefore not think about getting a job for at least four years. At that point, some recognize thin cvs and ask some pointed questions about how to flesh it out.
My simple thoughts here: the first day in a terminal program is the first day a student ought to start planning for the job market. Once the first seminar paper has been written (or even just planned), the first conference proposal should go out in the mail. Really.
Now, there are two schools of thought on graduate student publication. The higher-minded one, often espoused by esteemed senior professors “teaching” at R1s, focuses on quality. Work for one really well-placed article by graduation, and you’ll be in good shape. Emphasize quality of venue (PMLA, perhaps, or at least the top journal in your subfield). The other school of thought emphasizes getting stuff out there. A lot of stuff, to a lot of places. And hope something sticks.
I’m a believer in philosophy number two, which I recognize as a bit, shall I say, overly practical. But the market is tight, you know? And sometimes bean counting makes the difference in first cuts — in a stack of 300 applications, three articles seems to often trump one magnificent one.
Lest you think I’m too cavalier in this philosophy, I offer a few guidelines. I don’t think we should all just be sending stuff off willy-nilly. Instead, we should think quite carefully about fit and placement. Some seminar papers are okay, but not stellar…and there are journals for that. Some seminar papers are awesome, or at least have the potential to be revised into awesome. These are worth trying to get into big places. What I’m suggesting is a sort of conservation of intellect. Don’t let a seminar paper be only a seminar paper. There’s no doubt it can work as a conference presentation at a regional, or even a grad student meeting. And it’s likely some quick revision can get it ready for a lighter-weight peer reviewed journal. But that descriptor is key: be sure to send only to peer-reviewed places, because no volume of publication in hackish venues will help.
I think about this philosophy in the spirit of my first newspaper editor, who eloquently described the smallness of my offered salary: this is A ball. For those not into baseball, this translates into a recognition of status. For that job, pay was low because the job was decidedly minor league, a place to begin for a person without much experience. Some time there could lead to a promotion to AA ball/newspapers, and so forth on up to the top levels. The value of time spent at low pay is measured in experience, in learning the business and preparing yourself to do well later in a career.
I think it’s the same in academia. To be blunt, most grad student work isn’t really very earth-shattering, and probably rarely deserves space in top journals and conferences. I’ve been to too many conference panels where audiences were forced to sit semi-politely through lame grad student, theory-laden junk that somehow got on the program, thanks to a tightly written abstract. I’d say it’s better to have that material presented at lower-level conferences, were the insufficiency of the work fits the general profile of the venue. Now, that sounds a bit, um, snippy when I write it down — let the crap go to crap conferences. But I don’t mean it like that. I mean to say that certain conferences and publications carry an expectation of polish, while others are more developmental in nature and are open, forgiving, and helpful for uneven work. They exist for the same reasons as A ball, to offer a place for developing talent (or, as with baseball, the Crash Davises of the world) to work on the fundamentals. Build experience. Get comfortable.
For my own CV, I began with…well I began with nothing the first time around. Which is why, when I came back to work for the Ph.D. I ultimately earned, I began with a consciousness of CV. I knew I was trying to get a job, so I started with that goal. Early on, I applied for and attended grad student conferences in far flung places I thought would be interesting. Then I moved to regional conferences where, to be honest, I stayed. Having attended national conferences, I much preferred the vibe and openness of the regionals. I felt like my work mattered there, could receive fair attention and criticism. On the national stage, I imagine much of my work would have been savaged (perhaps rightly so), since it was still forming and deepening. The regionals allowed me to receive construction feedback and encouragement, and gain viable CV lines. AA ball, I guess, maybe AAA. Even better, I found that the regional conferences are run by regional associations, which often have regional peer-reviewed journals — perfect venues for the publication of revised versions of conference presentations.
There’s a lot of self-consciousness in this kind of CV developing, but I think it is an important sort. Little value comes about from uninformed professional activity, from blindly sending stuff off to prestigious venues that will likely reject it, or from ignorantly sending material off to places that will publish anything at all. Instead, the development of a CV can complement the development of a career. And this is really the purpose of all this work. This is your part of the conversation, hanging out in the little clusters along the wall who aren’t the focus of the party, but who still have good things to say. Amicable chat there gets you ready to walk up to the superstar and say, “about that idea you proposed…”
