Deana is in the final year of a PhD program in the humanities and just secured a tenure-track Assistant Professorship at a highly selective small liberal arts college starting in the fall semester. As anyone in academia knows, tenure-track positions are extremely competitive, especially in the current job market. How then did Deana come to secure this offer? Here are the secrets to her success:

1. How long were you unemployed?

I suppose I have never been unemployed, as I’m going straight into a job from graduate school, which is no longer the norm. Being a graduate student with funding is not like being unemployed, but can be rather like being under-employed. Your income is usually insufficient, and you have to supplement it with tutoring and other odd jobs–however, you do have lots of free time to take classes, read, think, and write. I was lucky enough to have a pretty generous fellowship, so money woes were less of an issue for me, but most grad students really struggle.

The job search process was very long but structured, as it normally is in the academic job market. You start prepping your application materials at the end of the summer; apply to post-doctoral fellowships and tenure-track jobs with various deadlines throughout the fall; interview (if you’ve been selected) and hopefully get job offers during the winter and early spring; and apply for the second round of jobs, usually non-tenure-track, in the spring and summer if you didn’t get a job in the first round.

2. What was your job search strategy during this period?

The academic job market is always incredibly tough and idiosyncratic, but it’s tightened up even more since the recession started. I made sure to take advantage of the various resources available at my university to prep graduate students for the job market and asked all of my professors for advice. I also maintained an informal support network by keeping in touch with other graduate students on the market and reading each other’s cover letters. Once I had interviews, I practiced my answers over and over again with friends–of course, I was also lucky enough to have mentors who supplied me with lists of the most likely questions.

3. How did you ultimately come to obtain your current new job? (Through a friend, cold application)

Mine was a cold application, as the majority are at this stage in an academic career. While back in the day some PhD students might have been able to expect their adviser to hook them up with jobs by simply calling up their old buddies in other departments, this is not the case now. You must first attract a hiring department’s interest with an exciting and engaging research project and publication record on paper, then come off as charming, accomplished, and comprehensible in a job interview, which may extend to 48 hours if you are invited to visit the campus. There is a lot of talk about “inside hires” on academic job gossip sites, and it is true that a few lucky people get promoted from within, but most people get ahead because their CV looks good and they have good interviewing skills. On the other hand, getting your name out there definitely does help you land more advanced job opportunities once you’ve been a professor for a while and strengthened your publication record. Newly-minted PhDs in the humanities, however, don’t often have or need a well-establish reputation, and most often get their first job from a cold application.

4. What do you think were the secrets to your success?

First, I strategically developed secondary research interests in a field that’s in-demand but not overpopulated; it’s no accident that my three job offers were in this field. I am interested in this field, but did not want to exclusively focus on it, so I worked in two fields. This versatility was also attractive to the departments I interviewed with. Second, I was lucky enough to be able to be calm and composed during the interviews and campus visits. Many academics are awkward, nervous, or shy, so my people skills helped me stand out. I know a few other people who applied to and didn’t get this job, and I think that my people skills are the only real advantage that I have over them.

5. What advice do you have for jobseekers out there?

If you get nervous or shy during interviews, you can improve your interview performance. Taking public speaking classes, reading a book about the art of conversation, practicing with mentors and friends, or seeing a therapist are some of the things that can help you become a better interviewee. Staying in touch with a group of job seekers in similar situations and helping each other by commenting on each other’s materials and cheering each other on can be eminently helpful during what is bound to be a tough time. Think strategically about how you make yourself attractive to future employers without sacrificing your own interests. Collect advice from people who have had success working in the the field that you are deeply interested in and inform yourself about all of the resources at your disposal before you graduate from a college or a grad program. Make sure that after age 25 you either have a job that you love to do or a job that enables you to do something else that you love to do in your free time.