The academic job market is an intimidating place. There are no set rules for where to look for open positions, nor is there a standard set of materials required for each application. Additionally, information regarding the particulars of a given position such as teaching load, department characteristics, or promotion and tenure requirements are inconsistently available. Advice for how to approach the job search is equally varied (e.g., Throw your hat in! Be picky! Spend all your time on the cover letter! No one reads the cover letter!).

Adding to this frustration, there is a dearth of empirical work on this topic. While research has investigated the characteristics of successful candidates for tenure track positions at research-focused institutions (e.g., BarnardBrak, Saxon, & Johnson, 2011; Pennycook & Thompson, 2018) and there is older work on how applications are evaluated by search committee chairs (Landrum & Clump, 2004), such an investigation has not recently been applied to other types of positions so far as we could determine. In this chapter, we provide perspective on the market from two angles: our experience on search committees and our experience on the job market. We will tailor our advice for jobs primarily centered on teaching with some research expectation. For detailed suggestions on targeting materials to other types of institutions, we recommend the 2014 book Preparing the new psychology professoriate: Helping graduate students become competent teachers, published by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (APA Division 2; Busler, Beins, & Buskist, 2014) with 15 chapters of advice on how to obtain a full-time position at institutions ranging from research-intensive to community colleges. Empirical work by Nalbone (2011) is another source of suggestions for tailoring one’s application to a specific type of institution.

Another important resource is your own network. We are presuming you have been cultivating your professional networks since graduate school and have both peers and mentors in the field who can provide you with advice specific to your subdiscipline, pass along job postings, and the like. If you feel you could benefit from additional individual mentoring in this area, many professional organizations have free mentoring programs. One example is the professional development service coordinated by APA Division 2 (https://teachpsych.org/page-1603031).