Escape the Ivory Tower

Writing Resumes and Cover Letters? Here Are Some Tips

Hello my lovely Escape Artists! I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately about resumes and cover letters — how they are similar to and different from CVs.

One of the biggest differences is that CVs are essentially in shorthand, because everyone reading them understands the context in which everything in them takes place. They understand what teaching a class entails, whether it’s a large lecture course or a small discussion course. They know what an admissions committee does. They know what a conference presentation requires. You don’t have to explain what you did, because they can infer all of that. All you have to do is tell them what you did.

Outside of academia, outside of a very few careers that function very much like academia, however, you can’t use shorthand. No one can. Jobs are too different across companies, they’re too complicated, and they change too much. Instead, both the resume and the cover letter are essentially marketing documents. They’re making an argument for why you have the skills and experience to do this job, and they do so by highlighting not what you were responsible for, but what you accomplished.

If you haven’t yet heard of Alison Green, of AskAManager.com, I highly recommend you start following her. First, she’s awesome. Second, her blog is a treasure trove of how to navigate the professional world. And finally, she has some excellent and concrete advice on how to write fabulous resumes and cover letters. I ran across this post today and I couldn’t resist sharing it with you — and she uses Game of Thrones as her fictional example office besides.

And, if you want a laugh, you can read this post about all the ways people have done applications very, very wrong and pat yourself on the back because no matter what, you have always known enough to never list “Pirate” as a language on your resume. (Seriously.)

I Still Think Calling Is Important

The other day I was reading a business book that, while terribly written and full of wrongheaded analogies, nevertheless had a compelling central idea: that if we find our own personal WHY, the goal/dream/philosophy/mission that motivates us and lights us up, the HOW and the WHAT flow from it and create goodness. Starting from the WHAT, on the other hand, is how people end up with that tenure-track position or tenure or a corner office or whatever and then look around and think, oh shit, what have I done.

It made me think about the calling vs. career vs. job thing that always comes into the question about what to do after you leave academia.

People have, quite rightly, criticized the discourse around calling because, especially in its too-facile versions, it acts as if practical, material, logistical concerns shouldn’t be an issue. “Do what you love and the money will follow” is incredibly irresponsible unless you have a trust fund or a supportive partner whose job can cover the bills and then some.

My clients will tell you I’m the first person to support their getting a job, any job, because the rent needs to be paid and the groceries need to be bought. All work is dignified by virtue of its supporting your life.

Some people also just need a period of time when they’re clocking in and out, paying the bills, and not worrying too much about their career. That’s totally fair. I needed a good many years to recover from academia before I could think about what I really wanted to do and how that might happen.

But I do believe that many of us have a calling. The problem (one of them, anyway) is that we confuse a calling with a career.

If you’re passionate about, for example, bringing beauty into the world, there are so many ways that can happen. You could be an artist, you could sell craft supplies, you could teach painting on cruises, you could own a gallery, you could learn to make clothes.

If you’re passionate about the power of literature to illuminate the world, you could teach literature, you could write books, you could sell books, you could be a literary agent, you could review books, you could write a blog about books.

Any given calling is going to have so many ways it might be expressed. But in academia, calling and career get conflated. The monastic roots of the modern university still show up in the idea that academia is so valuable, so venerated, so precious, that you should put up with anything to keep it.

And for people who are able to forge successful academic careers, and whose callings align with those careers, well, power to them.

But not all of us are that lucky. I got a tenure track job and realized I hated the career, that it didn’t actually express my calling at all. Some people get shut out of the career in various ways at various times. Some people get worn down over time by the increasing demands of higher ed. Some people encounter structural barriers to either the career or success in the career by virtue of who they are.

If you conflate calling and career, this is devastating. If they’re the same thing, then a career not working out calls everything you are into question.

But if you can tease your calling out of this conflation, if you can connect with the values or passion or inspiration or motivation that led you to academia in the first place, then you can think creatively about how to both live your calling and support your life financially.

Maybe you find a way to make your calling pay the bills. Maybe you have a job that pays the bills and gives you the freedom – temporal, financial, energetic – to pursue your calling in other domains.

And the form it takes will probably change over time. But so long as you’re making ends meet and you’re getting to live the things that are important to you – which is what your calling actually is – then you’re living a great life.

So despite all of the ways it gets used badly, I still think calling is important, because calling is all about you: who you are in the world and what makes your heart sing. But just because it’s important, that doesn’t mean you need to deal with it right now if what you need is a job or time to heal or both. It’ll still be there when you’re interested in it again.

You Need Abundant, Luxurious Self-Care

I’ve been talking about the four things I say over and over again to people leaving academia.

  1. You have more skills than you think.
  2. The best way to find out what jobs actually exist in the world is to ask people what they do and what they like about it.
  3. Of course you’re exhausted and grieving, and that is as it should be.
  4. Step one is always abundant, luxurious self-care, as much as you can possibly stand.

Today I want to talk about self-care, and why it’s the number 1 priority.

Let’s start with what it is

Self-care is all of those things that, taken collectively, fill your energetic well.

Sometimes, often these days, it’s reduced to things that amount to relaxation: taking a hot bath, reading a good book. While those are also great, they aren’t what I’m talking about when I talk about self-care as the #1 priority.

I’m talking about getting enough sleep. I’m talking about eating regularly. I’m talking about taking your meds on time. I’m talking about showering on the regular.

I don’t even mean “eat healthy, preferably home-cooked food.” I just mean eat. Something.

You can think about it in levels.

  • Level 1: Sleep every night. Eat something at least 3x a day. Take your meds. Shower at least twice a week.
  • Level 2: Sleep at least eight hours. Eat foods that actively support you (i.e., nothing you’re allergic or sensitive to). Get sunshine on your face every day. (Plus everything in level 1.)
  • Level 3: Sleep as much as you need, when you need it. Eat foods that make you feel your best. Move your body in whatever ways feel good and supportive to you. (Plus everything in level 2.)

When we get busy and overwhelmed, when we get emotionally tangled, when we’re in the middle of transition and trying to figure out what the hell is going on in our lives, we can lose track of even the basics in level 1. We don’t sleep. We forget to eat. Meds happen irregularly if at all. We shower if we’re leaving the house.

Basic self-care is essential to the system

As much as I would sometimes like to be a brain in a jar, I am not. Neither are you.

When life is going along, when we’re doing these things as a matter of course, we don’t necessarily notice how essential they are, because we’ve got enough of a balance going on that if we miss one meal, our lives don’t fall apart. If we stay up all night to get something finished, we’ll have a day or two of groggy functioning. Eh, big deal.

If those things happened regularly, though, you’d feel the effects. Your hunger cues would go wonky, or you’d go to bed and feel tired but wired and unable to fall asleep. You’d start having trouble remembering things, and you’d notice yourself getting clumsy. Tasks you were used to completing easily would feel more complicated.

When you’re in the middle of transitions or emotionally stressful times, two things happen at once. You’re using more energy, so you need more of that self-care to accommodate that, and your routines get thrown off, making it harder for the self-care to happen.

This is why I stress self-care so much. When you need it most is when you’re most likely to be having a hard time giving it to yourself. Unless you consciously insist on at least level 1 self-care, things are going to go badly. I can pretty much guarantee that. Even if you can pull it off for a while, there is an expiration date on that coping and the recovery will be epic.

If you’re even considering leaving, you need more self-care than usual. If you’re actually leaving and you’re in that transition, you need a lot more self-care than usual.

Sure, if you can include relaxing and fun things in your life, do it! But when we’re in transition, there isn’t usually space for that. Commit to level 1 self-care. Aim for level 3. Decide that some is always better than none. You might have to triage some other parts of your life to prioritize the amount of self-care you need. Remember that you are the essential ingredient here.

As much as possible during this period of chaos and upheaval and intensity, be good to yourself.

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