• For an academic job?

• For a research grant?

• For a publication?

Do you feel like you need to apply for all of the opportunities out there? Even if they are only vaguely related to your career/research objectives?

Are you spending so much time sending out applications or draft manuscripts that you don’t seem to have time left to do your research and write new articles?

Are you becoming cynical about the whole process because you are receiving rejections and wondering if all the effort is worth it?

Desperation is not conducive to academic success

When you are desperate you tend to take a scattergun approach to things. You expend a lot of creative energy but your chances of hitting your target are small.

You aren’t really aiming. You are throwing things out there in the general direction of the target and hoping something will stick.

Desperate can also come across as lacking in confidence. And if you aren’t confident about the quality of your potential contribution, why should an employer/funder/publisher be confident in your contribution.

Combined with the scattergun, the lack of confidence is actually justified. Some of those things you are applying for really aren’t a good fit. You probably aren’t confident that you would make a strong contribution if you got it. Justifiably so.

You are not desperate

It doesn’t matter how long you have been on the job market. It doesn’t matter how many grants you’ve applied for, nor now badly you need the money to really get this research program moving. It doesn’t matter how close you are to tenure and how few publications you have.

You are not desperate for any of these things. You are well qualified. And you want to do them.

Evaluation is always context specific.

Jobs, grant programs, journals, and presses all have mandates and objectives. No one is looking for an “excellent academic”, an “excellent proposal” or an “excellent article/book”. Their search is always narrower than that.

As the sociologists would say, excellence is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition.

Similarly, you are not interested in any job/grant/publication. You have research and career goals. And some of the opportunities are going to help you advance those goals better than others.

First step: Identify your goals

The most common comment I make when I review draft proposals for the SSHRC Standard Research Grant competition is that the objectives are not clear. Even experienced researchers have difficulty with this.

• What questions inspire you?

• What contributions do you want to make?

• Who do you most want to influence with your ideas?

Having a clear sense of your own goals enables you to identify opportunities that are a good fit. Only applying for opportunities that are a good fit for your goals means less work for you. And much better odds of success.

You need to be able to articulate these goals in ways that are meaningful to (particular) others. That might take practice. And you might have several related goals, some of which will be more important for some opportunities than others.

Clarifying your goals for yourself, in writing, is a very good use of your time.

Then assemble evidence of your excellence

There is a difference between being confident and being arrogant. You must respect the people evaluating your application/manuscript. They know the context better than you do. And making the selection is their job, not yours. No one is entitled to a job/grant/publication.

Respect for the evaluators means that you have to present evidence and let them draw their own conclusions.

You should present your evidence in a way that will make sense to this particular audience. Not only should you follow any instructions they provide, but you should also consider their context and background knowledge.

This is where having someone else look at your application/proposal/manuscript before you submit it can be particularly important. Choose your reviewer wisely and you can gain invaluable advice and save yourself a lot of time and disappointment.

Last step: Let go

You can’t guarantee the outcome. So at some point, you have to decide to be evaluated. Send it off. And forget about it until you hear the result. Work on something else.

You are not desperate. It would be nice to have this particular job/grant/publication, but it is not the end of the world. There are other projects on your desk.

Not as easy as it sounds.

It’s easy for me to sit here and explain, calmly and rationally, how getting away from desperation can be more effective. Your rational self probably even agrees with me.

It’s your irrational self that is causing all the panic. We all have one. No need to feel bad about it.

Sometimes you need some help. Help articulating your plans. Help dealing with irrational fear and panic.

If it’s a SSHRC Standard Research Grant that is causing your current feeling of desperation, just book a grant review.

In addition to getting detailed comments on your draft, and a few encouraging e-mails to keep you on track, you also get my e-book “Writing Your SSHRC Grant Proposal”. Here’s what one client said about the e-book:

Thank you for the e-book. It calmed me down and allowed me to focus on what I wanted to do instead of panicking about all the forms. (Daniel Burgoyne, Vancouver Island University)

I can help with other things, too. Contact me for a free 30-minute consultation to discuss your needs.

And fill in my quick 4-question survey.

Thanks.

P.S. I wrote about the job search in a special edition of my newsletter for the PhD students on the list. You can find that here: