Chronicle Careers: 07/08/2005

Chronicle Careers: 07/08/2005

Ciela's not feeling well today, so we are sitting quietly at the desk, perhaps ready to take another nap.

A look at an old email account reveals this essay chastising job seekers for writing blogs. The obvious reasons are there: reveals too much personally, reveals an unprofessional attitude about current position, reveals that the candidate might have a life outside of academia. This last one sort of pissed me off. The pseudonymous Ivan Tribble intimates that one reason a candidate had a knock against him was that his blog revealed an intense interest in computer technology. The committee feared he would abandon ship for a comp science job. In his words, "the true passion of said blogger's life was not academe at all, but the minutiae of software systems." Presumably this search committee determined that the blogger in question was incapable of having a secondary interest outside his or her profession, ignoring the fact that a blog about computer software, hardware and systems might very well have an intense focus because that was the bleedin' reason it was created.

Of course, the author may be correct in that the job market for most humanities professions is so tight that any seemingly inconsequential action that could be taken negatively should be squelched. All this assuming that getting a job is the highest priority.