Today I received some information from a major player at one of my colleges. As a member of the search committee at two universities he had some good recommendations.

How to clean up your CV:
1. Don’t go to a conference outside your main area. That’s a strike against you.
2. For every conference you go to, you need a publication from it. If you don’t have those, that’s a strike against you.
3. Write a research/scholarship based book and “no one can say anything against you.”

Problems with working ft at my SLAC:
1.He also said I wouldn’t want full-time at my SLAC because 70% of the time is committee meetings. (They don’t think the faculty do any real work, so they make it up?)
2. Also, once you are hired, you don’t get raises there. Some people are working for the same salaries they came in under 20 years ago.
3. He also said they aren’t very favorable towards “midcareer or career change” hires. They want someone who will be there for years. (Then he said that another college wouldn’t mind hiring “older” applicants. So I’m guessing this is PC for “You are too old.”)
4. Finally, just guessing from the way the wind is blowing (and no insider knowledge), more people are going to get cut.

He said I don’t want to work there full-time.

It’s really hard to take that excellent advice and apply it to my life.

Because I was pretty sure I did want to work there.