A few years ago, I decided as a public service to post my old job application materials online. Hopefully they were helpful to a person or two out there in the world. I also tried to make that blog post a bit of a hint to people that they could do the same; I know Noah did, and at least one other person said in comments to that post that they would as well.
The problem with such things is that they aren’t that easy to find even when people put them up. Being an old fogey who (God I hope) won’t be applying for jobs any time too soon, I’m more interested in NSF grant applications (which while lower stakes than job applications are more mystifying), but I don’t see any need to make a distinction. I think the world as a whole would be a better place if more people put these documents online. In that vein, I have a two-part proposal.
- You (the internet) make your old job application materials and grant applications available online. You, of course, should use your judgement about how recent to go and what to include.
- I will make a webpage collating these; if you put them on your own website, I will link to them. If you want I can host the documents myself. Obviously, if you’d prefer I didn’t link, that’s fine too.
I’ve put a “proof of concept” webpage up with a few examples I already know. I may look a little bit for more for examples people have posted, but mostly I’m hoping people will come to me (after all, I don’t want to give people publicity they don’t want).