ADVICE FOR CANDIDATES

Well-educated, well-intentioned, experienced candidates are not immune from making mistakes that can doom their candidacy. Consider what some of them are and how to avoid them.

1. You should know why you’re applying for a certain job. This sounds so basic as to require no explanation, but it’s amazing how many candidates apply for a position “because it’s there,” whether they have any chance of getting it or not. You need to know what you want in a job and you need to know yourself. Someone who’s a candidate for big day school in California and a small boarding school in New Hampshire fails on both counts.

2. Write a cover letter that’s about the position and your potential suitability for it and not a mini-autobiography. Do your homework, know what the school is looking for, know what the job requires and measure your ability and experience against the job’s requirements. Your cover letter must reflect the connection between what you have done to date and what the job in question demands for the future.

3. A resume needs to be succinct. My colleagues and I have yet to meet the search committee that really wants to wade through a six-page resume. Two pages max, please. No bullet points. No list of P.D. activities. Positions held, courses taught, teams coached – all that is fine. No need to include the month you filled in for the lower school librarian.

4. Consider the writing sample we require to be an opportunity to let the search committee get to know you. How well do you express yourself? How ambitious or sensitive or gregarious or expert do you want to come across? Share something meaningful and your soul and your personality will come through and you’ll have a better shot at getting an interview.

5. Once you get that interview, don’t blow it! Avoid being strangely dressed; we had a male candidate who wore a suit that was too big for him and made him look weird. He didn’t get the job. Don’t go on and on; we once had a candidate get through four of the committee’s twelve questions. Needless to say, she didn’t get the job. Above all, ANSWER THE QUESTIONS! It’s amazing how many smart people fail to give a straight-forward response to questions and it costs them, believe me.

6. Be gracious. Write a thank-you note to the search committee chair expressing your gratitude for their time and interest. Do this even if you had a terrible interview or know you neither want nor will get the job. It’s the polite thing to do and you’ll be remembered more favorably if you do it.