the letter

Despite primary job season in my field being over, there remain two outstanding markets. One is the drips and drabs of small and local US institutions. Second, of course, are the English institutions, who post positions for next fall as and when they feel like it - typically between now and late May. Which, on the one hand, puts those of us with bi-pond-ite interests in a bit of a quandary, as it's impossible to know 'what's out there' when making decisions about US jobs. However, as almost all of my rejections from US schools are now explicit rather than tacit, there's rather less uncertainty about my availability for English positions.

Before I began writing this, I'd thought there was only one position to fret about, a post-doc, essentially, an AHRB funded research project that's all too perfect for me. Books and computers combined in such a way as to make for a fairly rare skill set. Added to the list, though, is a sort of open-call at Oxbridge, likely to be an exercise in futility, but required suffering, somehow. But that's neither here nor there.

Tailor-made job is the real issue. (Wow. Bitchphd's 'pseudonymous kid'-speak is indeed infectious.) As it involves mustering the perfect application letter, to express how perfectly I fit their requirements, and how, in a perfect world, we'd get along so perfectly as to make perfect AHRB, RAE-boosting music. Which means that the 'cut and paste' approach that is the application letter genre is not wholly appropriate. Cut and paste. How many times, and in how many different and compelling ways, can we summarise our work? Frame it so it seems that extra bit apposite for a particular institution, project, opening? Are the subtleties (and agonies) of these letters actually valuable, or merely the accepted terms of a process that borders on hazing?

Yes, there's an element of bitterness behind some of this. Rousing myself mentally and emotionally for yet another round of "Will Teach for Food+Benefits" (or, in this case, Food+NHS) fairly soon after the last, long-protracted round is somewhat daunting. And with application exhaustion syndrome, played against the walking bassline of the application-blues, cut-and-paste, recycle and reuse, become ever more appealing - necessary even, precisely when labour and finely crafted nuance is in order. A unique, and uniquely inhuman process this...