Auto Apply to hundreds of jobs in a few hours

Español

日本語

Assistant professor skills: what to learn first, and what can wait

Your PhD taught you to do research. The assistant professor job asks you to run it, fund it, teach it and document it for a tenure committee, and those are separate skills you can build on purpose. Here's the order that matters, based on what committees actually read at each stage and what trips people up at the midpoint review.

1,476 open jobs

Step one

Gets you the interview

A publication record that's clearly yoursCommittees skim your CV for first-author or sole-author work in journals they respect. A paper under review with a clear story beats a long list of middle-author credits.

Writing a research statementIt's the document that decides whether they read further. Learn to lay out a current project, a next project and why the combination matters, in plain enough language for the whole committee.

Teaching as instructor of recordRunning your own course, from syllabus to final grades, is different from leading a discussion section. Teaching-focused colleges often won't interview you without it.

A teaching statement backed by evidenceCommittees want specific methods and results, like a redesigned assignment or student feedback that changed, not a philosophy you could copy from a workshop handout.

Step two

Gets you the offer

Giving a job talkAn hour-long seminar to faculty from several subfields is its own skill. Practice with people outside your area, and rehearse answers to the hostile question you already know is coming.

Grant writing for your field's fundersKnow the agencies and early-career programs, such as NSF CAREER or a humanities fellowship, and have a specific aims page or proposal draft ready to describe.

Course design in a learning management systemBeing able to build a course in Canvas, Blackboard or Moodle, with rubrics, quizzes and a gradebook set up, tells a chair you'll be ready on day one.

Pricing a start-up packageScientists especially need to cost out equipment, software, student support and summer salary, so the ask is credible when the offer arrives.

Step three

Gets you promoted

Winning and managing external fundingAt research universities, funded grants weigh heavily in the tenure file. Managing budgets, reports and effort certification with your sponsored programs office is part of that.

Mentoring students to finished workGraduate students who defend and undergraduates who present or publish with you show up in your dossier and in your letters.

Research complianceGetting protocols through the IRB for human subjects or IACUC for animal work, and keeping data management plans current, protects your research from long delays.

Building your tenure dossierKeeping a running record of teaching evaluations, peer observations, service and citations, and knowing which scholars could write your external letters, turns the review from a scramble into a summary.

Put it on your resume like this

Weak

Responsible for research and teaching in the department.

Strong

Secured a $412,000 NSF grant as sole PI, published 5 peer-reviewed articles, and supervised 3 PhD students and 8 undergraduate researchers while teaching 4 courses a year.

Questions people ask

Which matters more for an assistant professor, research or teaching?

It depends on the school. At a research university, your publications and grants usually decide tenure, and good teaching is expected but rarely enough on its own. At a liberal arts or teaching-focused college, the classroom carries far more weight. Read the tenure criteria before you decide where to spend your time.

Is there a certificate that helps you get hired as a professor?

Not in the way licences work for other jobs. Your degree, publications and teaching record are what committees read. A campus teaching certificate can give you material for your teaching statement, but it won't substitute for running your own courses.

Should you learn grant writing before you're on the market?

In the sciences, yes. Even a fellowship or a small internal grant shows you can win money. In fields where funding is rare, it matters less than a strong writing sample, though knowing the fellowship programs still helps in a dean interview.

Got step one? Start applying. HeroApply matches you to roles that fit.

Start your trial