Applying for tenure: Five things I wish I had known . . .

Ajay K. Kohli Gary T. and Elizabeth R. Jones Chair Georgia Institute of Technology DOCSIG, AMA Winter Educators’ Conference February 20, 2014

Agenda

•  Getting external letters

•  Demonstrating intellectual independence

•  Research contribution assessments

•  Putting together the dossier

•  Evaluator information processing

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Thing 1: Getting external letters

•  Writing a good letter takes a lot of time

•  Letter writers are very busy people, and don’t get paid to write

•  Declines can raise questions

•  Get name out (conferences, school speaker series . . .)

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Thing 2: Demonstrating intellectual independence

•  Number of articles with advisor

•  Number of co-authors on a paper

•  Lead author? If no, equal contribution notated in article?

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Thing 3: Research contribution assessment

•  Whether known in the field for a topic vs. multi-topic?

•  Articles in journals of mixed quality – additive or averaging model?

•  In marketing vs. non-marketing journals

•  Pipeline status – cues of future productivity

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Thing 4: Putting together the dossier

•  Your “Statement of Accomplishment” is the “CliffsNotes” for letter writers

•  CV and Statement of Accomplishments needs to be easy to process

–  Use bullets –  Use bolds, italics, underlines –  But don’t emphasize everything!

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Thing 4: Putting together the dossier . . . (cont’d)

•  Limit the “supplemental materials”

–  If something is really important, incorporate it in the CV or Statement itself

•  Cover all “line items” if possible –  “Talking points”

•  Don’t “play games” with information

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Thing 5: Evaluator information processing

•  Prior impressions influence evaluations

–  And every encounter or lack thereof leaves an impression

•  Higher level folks have less time and expertise related to your work

–  Make the reasons why you should be promoted very apparent in your materials

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After this . . .

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Thank you!