There's a lot of doom & gloom re: job hunts in #academia (the system is broken) but I was just on my 1st hiring committee and wanted to share some of the more positive things that, when job hunting, I'd have liked to have heard...1/7 #academictwitter @AcademicChatter .....

disclaimer: these are based on my 1 & only experience of doing this, obviously it varies and plenty of places will not do things like this - I just wanted to shine a little light out there for those losing the will to continue/feeling lost (I have been there - it's tough!) 2/7

1. All achievements (papers, grants, teaching etc.) were considered relative to time spent in positions (& access to opportunities) - someone a few years ahead with more papers/grants etc. will not automatically rank higher than you....sounds obvious but i was glad to see it 3/7

...equally if you have spent all your time teaching then it is not expected that you have miraculously found more hours in the day and have been able to also pump out 50 papers (or vice versa) 4/7

2. Whether or not people are a team player is just as important as other parameters - academia is full of highs and lows and everyone wants a nice team to fall back on! 5/7

3. You can tick all the right boxes & not get it due to bad luck...maybe someone there overlaps too much with your expertise- Ok so this isn't so positive (it's hard to pre-empt) but important to remember if you don't get a job that seemed perfect! (it's not you, it's them!) 6/7

4. I remember getting 'due to the large no. of applicants we cannot offer feedback' from many jobs when I wasn't shortlisted...we had >100 applicants BUT <10% asked for feedback, so it was no problem to take time to respond (= so ask for feedback if you want it-worth a shot) 7/7

maybe this was not helpful at all - but i was pleasantly surprised by the process and maybe it makes someone feel a bit better...?!