Week 9 – Survival Skills – How to Prepare for A Job Market From Now On?

How to Prepare for A Job Market From Now?

P: The sooner you prepare it, the better. Since most(all) of us are international students, how to prepare a job market depends on where you want to go after graduation. Finding a job here in academia is different from finding a job in other counties or in other fields beyond academia.

S1: ISB in India is more similar to those in the US.

P: Yes, but still if you want to end up with a school, you have to prepare for it and meet its faculties’ expectations. For example, in some counties, schools prefer quantity to quality and the first author to other authors than the first author. They accept publications in any journal. It is very different from what we do here. In the US, schools prefer candidates with one paper on a top journal to those with five papers on a lower rank journal. Therefore, we need to have different strategies preparing for different kinds of jobs. Other factors you may need consider is family. For example, if your spouse finds a job in a certain city, then you may need to target the city and contact the universities in the city in advance. A happy family is also important for your academic/professional career.

Also, you need to think about the timeline. You need to prepare in advance! Usually, IS job market starts in ICIS(Dec). Now is more flexible, we also have AMCIS(Aug) and informs. This means you need to finish the preparation on July

P: I remember a former student asked me the three important factors for the recruiters. Guess what are those factors?

S6: Paper! Paper! Paper!

P: Yes, research! Research! Research! For most research schools, that is the case, which means you need to have at least two papers under the second-round review by July. If you need papers R&Red by July, you then need to submit them five months earlier, Jan or Feb on your fifth year, assuming your papers won’t be rejected right after your submission. Also, you need more papers, which means you need to write your papers right now!

S6: Which practice do you prefer? Working on a first-year paper and submit later or working on the second or third year with higher quality?

P: You should focus on the first-year paper. The faculty should help you evaluate the quality of the paper and if it cannot be published, you need to switch to another project soon. Working on an unpublishable paper in the beginning years is wasting your time.

S6: My advisor also mentioned that we should also build our image via conferences. Do you have some suggestions for attending a conference?

P: True, it is important! Buying a nice suit can be a good starting point. On the conference, remember to act as professional professor candidate, not a student at the conference. Schools are recruiting professors not students there.

P: Alright! I believe we have already touched all the points. Time flies! A five-year program is fast. Keep working hard from right now!