Ten Rules to Help Early-Career Scientists Survive Academic Job Screening

Applying for a faculty position is one of the most consequential and least transparent exercises in an academic career, and according to two researchers at Memorial University of Newfoundland, most applications are eliminated before any human being seriously considers a candidate’s science. Lourdes Peña-Castillo and Oscar Meruvia-Pastor, both of the university’s Department of Computer Science, have published a guide in PLOS Computational Biology titled “Ten simple rules for preparing a job application for an academic position,” distilling their experience from roughly a dozen faculty searches and two searches for higher education administrators over the past six years. During those processes, the pair collectively reviewed hundreds of applications, and their central message is blunt: the eligibility screening stage filters out the vast majority of applicants, so the written package itself must do the persuading.

The authors frame their advice around the general structure of academic hiring. A typical process unfolds in seven stages: a call for applications, eligibility screening, pre- or screening interviews, shortlisting, interviews, post-interview verifications, and finally an offer. Screening interviews, where they exist, are short online meetings of around thirty minutes with selected candidates. The process varies considerably between institutions. Some split the submission of materials, asking initially only for an application form, cover letter and curriculum vitae, and requesting further documents from candidates who advance. The handling of reference letters is another common point of variation, with some institutions requesting referee contact information at the first stage and contacting referees directly later, while others require applicants to arrange for letters to be submitted at or after the first stage.

To illustrate how inconsistent the requirements are, the authors conducted an informal survey of fifteen faculty position advertisements drawn from research-intensive and teaching-focused universities across ten countries on five continents, covering disciplines from science and engineering to humanities and law. Fourteen ads were in English and one in Spanish. The only document universally required was the CV. Eighty percent of the ads demanded a cover letter, sixty-seven percent required at least one research-related document, and sixty percent asked for at least one teaching-related material. The authors deliberately avoid advising on how to write each document type, instead pointing readers to published guidance on individual components, but their survey underscores a practical point for applicants: there is no standard application package, and the specific instructions in each advertisement matter.

The stakes of the screening stage are quantified by the authors’ own institution. At Memorial University, a comprehensive Canadian public university with roughly eighteen thousand students, only ten to fifteen applicants typically move past eligibility screening to the next stage. In that stage, candidates are assessed against an established rubric based solely on the information in the application documents. The authors argue that this makes clear communication of fit and qualifications the decisive factor, noting, for example, that a research-oriented institution will expect a compelling vision of future research plans. They also acknowledge that landing an academic job usually takes multiple attempts, and position their rules as a way to improve the odds at the first hurdle rather than a guarantee of success.

The first rule is to study the job posting with forensic care. Job advertisements often contain clues about the criteria that will be used to evaluate candidates, sometimes under headings such as “selection criteria,” “requirements” or “qualifications,” and sometimes split into essential and preferred categories. Both categories matter and both should be addressed. The authors suggest making a list of every criterion and checkmarking those the applicant partially or fully meets, advising candidates not to discourage themselves easily: if you meet roughly fifty percent or more of all criteria and at least thirty percent of the essential ones, they say, go for it. They also urge attention to detail on documents, page or word limits, and formats, and offer practical advice on enquiries, including waiting at least five business days before prompting a contact person again.

The second and third rules form the core of the guide. Doing your homework means learning about the hiring institution, faculty and department, identifying potential research gaps and collaborators, examining the courses and programs on offer, and reading the institution’s vision statement or strategic goals. The authors warn against a specific trap: writing a statement about something you lack knowledge about, because the gap will be obvious to the committee. They cite equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility statements, now commonly required for many academic positions in Canada, as an example where uninformed writing is immediately detectable. The third rule, tailoring the application, addresses what the authors call a common key mistake: submitting a generic package. Correspondence that appears intended for another institution or person, they report, leads to rejection almost directly, because it is read as a lack of attention to detail. They advise using the exact terminology of the job advertisement, giving the example of writing “ecology” rather than synonyms such as “environmental biology” when the posting specifies ecology.

Several rules concern the content of research and teaching plans. When naming potential collaborators in a research statement, applicants should verify that those individuals still work on the identified topics by checking publications from the past six years, since web pages, professional network profiles and generative AI outputs may all be out of date or inaccurate. The authors note that determining a lab’s involvement in multi-lab publications is complicated by differing authorship conventions across disciplines, with life sciences often using a V-shaped order of contribution and mathematics and computer science tending toward alphabetical ordering; trainee authorship and journal contribution statements can help. On feasibility, they caution against overpromising: do not claim you can teach any course, do not propose launching an entirely new research program outside your expertise while applying for grants and teaching new courses, and do not propose work for which the institution lacks infrastructure without stating what facilities you would need and how you might obtain them.

Style and presentation receive their own rules. Because committee members read tens or even hundreds of packages, the authors recommend accessible fonts, uncluttered layouts, colourblind-friendly palettes and indexed sections for long documents, with sparing use of boldface for emphasis and an explicit caution against coloured fonts, highlighting or shading, which they find distracting and harmful to readability. Humor, they advise, belongs in in-person interviews rather than in writing, where controversial or humorous assertions can backfire or be misunderstood; they report encountering such statements mostly in teaching philosophies, EDIA statements and cover letters, where they seem out of place. On referees, the authors note that it is not rare for referees to fail, or in rare cases refuse, to provide letters, and recommend asking in advance, maintaining a pool of interchangeable referees, and explaining any special circumstances, such as the absence of a direct supervisor among referees. At least one reference should be academic, and providing more references than requested generally offers no advantage, since only the requested number will be contacted.

The final rules address process compliance and authenticity. Following submission instructions precisely is not merely courtesy: in some cases the first filtering of applicants is based on whether basic guidelines were followed, meaning a non-compliant application may never reach the hiring committee at all. On authenticity, the authors argue that committees are looking for good colleagues as well as good researchers and teachers, and that illustrating the significance and novelty of one’s work with concrete evidence is more effective than piling up adjectives or resorting to trite phrases such as “game-changing.” They also take a measured position on artificial intelligence: while large language models such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini can help improve writing quality and correct grammar, their output tends toward the average, is prone to false statements and hyperbole, and, in the authors’ experience, is remarkably easy for a seasoned reader to spot. They caution against using such tools to write application documents from scratch. Their conclusion returns to the competitive reality of the academic job market: successful candidates are those who articulate their teaching and research ideas clearly and demonstrate in writing how they meet or exceed the selection criteria, and a well-prepared package, while no guarantee, can meaningfully increase the chances of progressing to an interview.

Subject of Research: Practical guidance for preparing academic faculty job applications

Article Title: Ten simple rules for preparing a job application for an academic position

Article References: Peña-Castillo, L., & Meruvia-Pastor, O. (2026). Ten simple rules for preparing a job application for an academic position. PLOS Computational Biology, 22(10), e1014889. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014889

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014889

Keywords: academic careers, faculty hiring, job applications, search committees, cover letters, curriculum vitae, teaching statements, recommendation letters, early-career researchers, eligibility screening, generative AI, hiring process