Tips for Faculty Search Committees

This post continues our series, The Smart Scholar.

One of the hallmarks of being a higher education professional is leading and serving on hiring committees. While this work is important to university life, how do you decide if you should serve on a hiring committee? What should your strategy be on selecting members to serve on a hiring committee when you are leading a search? These questions can be difficult to answer as they are nuances based on the position. However, I believe there are some things you should consider when leading and being asked to serve on a hiring committee. While this post does not capture the depth and nuance of hiring committees, below are my more topical tips and suggestions.

Be prepared for a significant time commitment

After serving on several hiring committees and having conversations with colleagues in the field, I have come to the conclusion that serving as the chair of a search committee is a significant time commitment. Not only are you responsible for selecting search committee members, you are also responsible for:

Serving as main contact for potential candidates with questions
Coordinating phone/Skype interview times for candidates and committee members
Coordinating travel for finalist interviews
Managing personalities of the search committee during candidate deliberations

With the above responsibilities in mind, it is critical to understand and embrace the significant time commitment before agreeing to serve as the leader of a search committee.

I have often been approached to lead and serve on committees unexpectedly. At the beginning of my career, I would often say yes on the spot. However, I was provided sage advice from mentors who explained the benefit of not saying yes right away. The advice given to me (which I pass along to you) is that when offered the opportunity to serve on a hiring committee, communicate to the requestor that you need time to review your schedule to ensure you will have ample time to commit to the search. Taking this approach will buy you a little time to evaluate the time commitment and value-add of serving on a hiring committee.

Establish a diverse hiring committee

Many higher education scholars have pointed out that who serves on search committees determines who is ultimately hired. In many examples, scholars point to the fact that higher education hires do not often reflect the diversity of the country—and this is due to search committees lacking diversity, specifically racial diversity. Thus, when thinking about establishing a search committee, it is important to ensure committee members come from various backgrounds, so your search develops a heterogeneous pool of candidates. Moreover, candidates from different backgrounds can use their networks to get the word out about the search.

Ensure positions are advertised widely

Part of the work of the search committee should be to advertise the position in a way that creates a diverse hiring pool. Search committees do not often get diverse candidates because they do not advertise positions in places where those candidates fellowship. For instance, does your human resource office use the university’s Instagram and Facebook pages to target their hiring advertisements to spaces where diverse candidates spend their time online? Is your search committee reaching out directly to scholars of color to apply for positions? I would argue that institutions search far and wide for athletes, and I believe the same approach should be taken when recruiting higher education professionals. While there are several places to find higher education jobs (which I’ve discussed in a previous Smart Scholar series post), it is critical to find candidates in the spaces they frequent most.

Ensure the search process is ethical

It is important to ensure that the search process is approached ethically, for example adhering to a search process committee where members maintain confidentiality throughout. This prevents candidates who have personal or professional relationships with the search committee members from gaining an advantage in the job search. Moreover, in situations where there are internal candidates applying for a position, this is even more important, as having an ethical process will prevent external candidates from seeking legal action against the institution for a discriminatory hiring process. In response to instances of discrimination and racism on campus, institutions have developed equity and inclusion offices. I would suggest if your institution has such an office, have them talk to the search committee about ensuring an equitable hiring process. If your institution does not have an equity and inclusion office, there are some best practices in the text Diversifying the Faculty: A Guidebook for Search Committees by Dr. Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner.

What have your experiences been on leading and serving on search committees? Feel free to tweet me @ramongoings with your suggestions!

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Author Bio: Dr. Ramon B. Goings is an assistant professor of educational leadership at Loyola University Maryland. His research examines gifted/high-achieving Black male academic success PreK-PhD, diversifying the teacher and school leader workforce, and the student experience and contributions of historically Black colleges and universities to the higher education landscape. As a writing coach and editor, Dr. Goings enjoys supporting the scholarly development of doctoral students and professors in higher education. For more information about Dr. Goings, please visit his website www.ramongoings.com and follow him on Twitter (@ramongoings).

Asking for a letter of recommendation

This post continues our series, The Smart Scholar.

With spring here, now is the time I often get letter of recommendation requests from students and colleagues who are looking to secure an upcoming school or employment opportunity. In my last post I discussed the letter of recommendation writing process from the perspective of the letter writer. In this post I provide three suggestions on how individuals should proceed with asking for and securing letters of recommendation.

Select your letter writer wisely

As someone who has sat on a number of search committees I often can see the difference in letters of recommendation that come from someone who knows the candidate well from a letter writer who cannot draft a persuading letter about the candidate’s ability. As a result, I want you to seriously consider who you select as your letter writer. Some questions you might consider are:

Does this person know me well enough to discuss my work?
Do we have a relationship where they would be willing to write a letter for me?
Will this person be the best fit as a letter writer for the position I am seeking?

If you are unsure how to answer the aforementioned questions, it may be in your best interest to have another individual write your letter of recommendation. Given you want strong letters of recommendation, select colleagues who can speak to your abilities from first-hand experience. I always find that those letters feel the strongest.

Make a well-timed request

When talking with some colleagues recently, they mentioned students requesting letters of recommendation mere days before their graduate school applications were due. In our conversation we all came to the conclusion that those students must not have seriously wanted a genuine letter of recommendation!

While it may seem like simple advice, if you are requesting a letter of recommendation, it is in your best interest not to wait until the last minute to make your request. It is important to plan ahead because you never know how many other letters your recommender needs to write for other folks. Getting on their radar sooner than later is a benefit as it will increase the chances of them completing the letter for you.

In most circumstances you know what your application deadline is well in advance. Thus, I would reach out to potential letter writers at a time that would allow for them to take 4-5 weeks to write your letter.

Provide a letter template

From personal experience, I have found that folks whom I reach out to for letters of recommendation have many colleagues and students who have also requested letters of recommendation from them. As a result, I want to make the experience of writing a letter for me as easy as possible. One practice I’ve started doing is actually providing a rough draft of a letter of recommendation to them when I request their assistance.

You may be asking yourself, “Well, why am I writing this letter? This is why I am requesting my colleague to do this!”

Providing a starting point makes writing the letter of recommendation easier. Additionally, if you create a rough draft you can be sure that your letter reflects the points that you believe are vital to your candidacy for the job or school where you are applying. Moreover, I believe that you drafting a letter shows some initiative to your letter writer who in addition to completing the letter of recommendation could make a call to the organization on your behalf!

Do you have any other advice you would give to individuals seeking letters of recommendation? If so tweet me (@ramongoings) with your recommendations!

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

How to find a mentor

This post continues our series by a onetime academic job seeker, now academic-at-large, on how to find a mentor as a young academic.

When you’re in graduate school, the expectation that you’ll have a mentor is built into the system: you can’t file a dissertation without an advisor. When you’re a newly minted faculty member, you may be assigned a mentor by your department. But grad students may need guidance from faculty members who aren’t their advisors (advisors vary in quality, after all), and new faculty may not click with their “official” mentor. How can young academics find a mentor? Here are some steps to take.

See mentorship as a natural development in a relationship.

You can’t just email somebody and ask if you can be their mentee. (Well, you can, but you might not get the results you want!) Instead, start by figuring out ways to work alongside the person you aspire to be your mentor. In academia, this might look like collaborating on a panel for your field’s annual meeting or) choosing to serve on the same committee, if your prospective mentor is at your university.

Stay in touch.

If there’s somebody you’d like to have a mentoring relationship with, try to find ways to connect with him or her. If they seem open to it, arrange informal coffee dates or send update emails. Working with them on a project (see above) is also an easy way for them to see your skills in action.

Be helpful.

The relationship between you and your prospective mentor should be a two-way street. Of course, you have been told that “having a mentor” is important for YOUR career, but you should also try to make yourself useful—within the bounds of appropriateness, of course.

Don’t pick up dry cleaning. Do offer to contribute your expertise when you know they’re working on something in your wheelhouse. Looking to someone more advanced in their career for advice does not mean you aren’t bringing something to the table—possibly a new research or learning method—and so you should find ways to showcase your knowledge and skills, too. Remember, take the time to make sure this relationship is worthwhile (and helpful) to both parties.

Read the signals.

Try to get a sense of whether your possible mentor has the time and energy for additional commitments. Timing can be essential! The best mentors will be excited to invest time into your relationship and be responsive to your inquiries. Always be respectful of their time, of course!

Be clear about what you need.

Once you’ve established an ongoing, productive relationship with your maybe-mentor, see how you feel about asking for more. Be specific about your hopes for the “next step” of your relationship. Don’t say “Will you be my mentor?” but think about approaching the conversation with “Would you be willing to introduce me to people at our upcoming conference?” or “Would you be willing to give me advice on navigating x, y, or z dynamic within my department?” Clarity will be valued by your prospective mentor. And, if they don’t have the opportunity to work with you on this project, remember–stay in touch! This conversation is the beginning of an ongoing relationship–whether as official mentee to mentor or simply colleagues.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Best practices for keeping your career materials current

This post continues our series by a onetime academic job seeker, now academic-at-large, on how to keep your career materials current.

You don’t want to find yourself in the position of needing to rustle up syllabi, statements, CVs, teaching evaluations, and reference letters when you’re in the throes of applying to a job. Do your future self a solid and try to keep an updated archive of those materials in between searches. Here are some ways to do that.

Keep it all together.

In 2019, it probably makes the most sense to maintain your career materials in digital form—with ample backup on hard drive and in the cloud, of course. (Using a third-party system like Interfolio’s Dossier service makes this easier.) If you have some items in paper form, scan them. A bit of annoyance now can save you from a lot of confusion later—not to mention a strained back from carrying those files up and down stairs.

Consider using tags or folder structures to categorize materials.

Depending on where you’re keeping your documents, you might want to enlist metadata to help you remember which documents would serve for which purposes. The most basic way to do this is to create a folder structure that stores documents by type, by subject matter, etc. If you use a system that offers tagging, take advantage.

Start a habit of scheduled maintenance.

Pick a few times when you’re under a little less pressure at your job—possibly the end of the semester, between grading and travel?—to survey your career documents folder and make sure everything is up to date.

Keep a checklist:

Have I published any new articles?
Have I taught any classes with student evals, and do I have the results here?
Did I change my syllabus, and if so, do I have a copy of the new one here?

Take a moment to update your CV, too, even if you’re not using it to apply to anything at the moment.

Note contacts you might want to ask for a reference later.

Maintain a little list of people you meet along the way who might be good candidates for letter-writing in the future. Set a goal to develop those relationships; make notes in this list to indicate your progress (“November 2019: Read her chapter and offered feedback”). That way, if and when you do ask a contact to write a letter for you, you can consult your notes before you write that email asking for the favor. An email that says exactly why you think your colleague would be the best person to write the letter, and suggests which areas of your relationship you think the letter-writer could address, is far preferable to a generic ask.

Take notes for your future self.

If you don’t feel like writing a new teaching philosophy statement (for example) while you’re happy at your current job and not planning to move, try to leave yourself a little help. Jot a few things down at the end of each semester, during your scheduled maintenance times, that you think might make good additions to your next version: stories about student responses to projects; observations about discussions that were particularly successful. Human beings are forgetful; your notes will make it a lot easier to add color and depth when you do end up updating that document.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Preparing for an academic review (as a professor)

This post continues our series, The Smart Scholar.

With 2019 in full swing, I know that many of you are preparing for classes and re-engaging in those “revise and resubmit” article notifications that came in during the holiday break. For many academics this is a busy time of year and before you know it, the end of the semester will be here. My suggestion? Don’t let a review sneak up on you. Below are three strategies that I have used that will help you prepare for your review.

Get organized from day one

As a first-year assistant professor, the best advice I received from mentors was to set up an organization system that would make writing my materials for my annual review and tenure and promotion review easier. Over the last three years after going through a few reviews, I have refined my organizational strategy and have established the following routines:

Scan and file all physical copies of documents (e.g., notes from students, teaching evaluation write-up, journal articles, etc.) electronically via a cloud storage application or a dedicated online profile (like Interfolio’s Dossier) to ensure you have multiple copies of documents.
In your cloud storage application create folders titled, “Teaching,” “Research,” and “Service.” In each relevant folder, store documents related to the parent folder, i.e. “Teaching,” in folders labeled by year.
Update curriculum vita monthly and keep every version of this document in an electronic folder.

Know your institution’s review policies and priorities

While getting organized is important to your success, equally important is knowing the policies and priorities of your institution. Some essential questions to consider are:

Do you know when your annual review is due?
Do you have a template to complete your review?
Do you have access to your institution’s policies and requirements for faculty reviews?

At many institutions running faculty reviews in a traditional way (i.e. without a dedicated online system), the university-wide and college/department specific faculty handbook is important—it will describe the policies and procedures for engaging in your annual and/or tenure and promotion review.

Along with knowing your institution’s policies, you should be familiar with the priorities of the institution. For instance, if your institution is research-intensive, then your review write-up should demonstrate how you have spent your time engaging in and producing research in venues that the institution and/or your department values. Similarly, if your institution is more teaching-intensive, you should be prepared to explain how your teaching has made significant contributions to your department and the institution.

Be prepared to address any gaps in your file

No one is perfect. Consequently, you may have a gap in your file that you were unable to address during the review time period. For instance, if preparing for your first annual review at an institution, you may have published little or no research so far during your time at the institution. While you will be evaluated on your research activities, you should nevertheless explain in your narrative why your research productivity has been low during the period covered by the review. Moreover, you can then articulate your plan to increase your research productivity over the next review period. I find it important to address any shortcomings head on rather than omitting them from your narrative and having your evaluators (in many cases colleagues in your program or department) bring this up in your evaluation letter. Furthermore, addressing gaps in your review and outlining your plan to fix them is key—your next evaluation can speak to how you followed your outline from the past year and have met (and hopefully exceeded!) your goals.

Do you have strategies that have helped you prepare for your annual and/or tenure and promotion review? Feel free to tweet me @ramongoings to continue this conversation!

In addition to an online platform for universities to manage faculty reviews, Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Infographic: A peek into Interfolio’s Dossier

In 1999, Dossier was founded to serve faculty or soon-to-be faculty on the job market, with the core goal of streamlining the scholar’s application experience. Today Dossier is much more than a tool for those on the job market—it’s a private, lifelong profile for you to collect, curate, share and deliver on your career goals. It also reaches far beyond the typical scholar persona. So, we set out to explore, what picture does Dossier paint of the current academic landscape?

We examined our historical data and use patterns to explore what makes our Dossier users successful and how the product has changed to better serve our users. In many ways, our users have defined our product evolution: our commitment to scholars remains the same, and has now grown to encompass the needs of those outside academe.

*The data shown is a sample from our users’ profile selections and behaviors. In no way has any personally identifiable information been shared or made available.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Best practices for your Dossier: contacts, archiving, collections, and sharing

This post continues our deep dive into our Dossier product, teasing out and sharing the best practices from our Scholar Services team. Interested in learning more about Dossier and how it can help you craft your career? Visit www.interfolio.com/dossier.

Add your contacts before requesting letters of recommendation.

We recently made several changes to the process of requesting letters to make it easier, including saving your letter writers as contacts within your account. You will now need to add your letter writers as contacts—which you can do either via the new “My Contacts” page, or in the process of creating a new letter request.

To add a contact to your Dossier, log in and then click on your name in the top right hand corner of your account. Click My Contacts, and then the “Add Contact” button.

We suggest saving your letter writers in your account before you start working on applications. Saving all your letter writers prior to requesting a letter will streamline your process. We also encourage you to communicate with your letter writers ahead of time so they expect your request.

Looking for guidance on how to request a letter of recommendation? This blog post outlines a few best practices. Some things you should consider communicating to your letter writer are:

The number of requests you plan to send
Any requirements for the actual letter, like if you need letterhead or signature
If you want the letter to be a general letter for multiple use, or specific to one application.

Looking for step-by-step instructions? Here is a detailed walkthrough of how to add your letter writers as contacts.

Make use of the ability to archive your materials.

For any document in your account, you have the ability to archive it. Archiving is different than deleting a document—archiving simply removes it from the list of active documents. When you create a delivery or work on an application, you only see a list of active materials.

Why is this helpful? If you find yourself with a multitude of documents in your Dossier, consider archiving older versions. If you ever archive a document and want to use it in the future, you can always move it back to your list of active documents.

You can find some helpful articles about archiving and storing your materials here.

Organize your materials using collections.

Creating a collection allows you to group documents together for easy reference. For example, if you have a set of documents that you want to use for applying to faculty positions, you can create a “Faculty” collection and it will contain the documents specific to that position. Likewise, if you have a set of documents that’s better suited for fellowship applications, you can create a “Fellowship” collection to access when applying to those opportunities. You can also share collections of your materials with collaborators and mentors, anywhere.

You can find a walkthrough of creating a collection here.

Use the sharing feature to get feedback on your Dossier.

(Note that this feature is only available to Dossier Deliver users. Upgrade to Dossier Deliver here.)

The sharing feature gives users a way to collect feedback on academic materials from anyone, anywhere—including documentation of research, creative production, teaching, or service—without leaving the Interfolio environment where your work is stored. And it accommodates ongoing input on academic case materials, whether outside of an formal institutional workflow or as part of one, such as in the case of a mentoring letter.

In order to share materials with someone, you’ll need to add them as a contact, just like you have done for your letter writers. When you share a document with someone, they do not have to create an account. They’ll be provided with a link that goes directly to the materials you shared with them.

Here are some more details on sharing your materials for feedback.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Exploring the Dossier delivery types and how best to use each

Interfolio’s Dossier began in 1999, and back then, our delivery structure of sending materials to an opportunity was pretty straightforward. We processed deliveries via USPS, FedEx, fax, and a few by email. Our main clients were faculty members, or those applying to faculty roles. We continue to serve scholars seeking tenure-track faculty positions, but now our online products serve people in a much wider range of situations, including social workers, surgeons and even several football coaches.

At the core, our mission has stayed the same—putting our users first by providing them with consistent tools for their career. To a significant degree, Dossier Deliver exists to deliver materials to jobs, grants, fellowships, grad school, etc.

Below we explore the various types of deliveries including the intricacies of each type.

Email delivery

What is it? Use this when you wish Interfolio to send your materials directly to an email address.

Sometimes a search will want materials sent to a specific individual instead of a group email address. For example, “You can send your materials/application to me at firstname.lastname@school.edu.”

Other times a search wants those materials sent to an HR or department address. For example, “Apply to this position by emailing your LORs & CV to hr@school.edu.”

Either way, when creating your delivery through your Dossier account, you’ll need to provide us with the name of the institution and the correct email address.

Issues with your delivery?

Was your delivery cancelled? If so, reach out to us and we’re happy to explain why that happened.
- If we are not able to verify the email address, you can forward us proof of a conversation with that individual that explains they are expecting materials from you.
- Or, provide us with an URL that includes the email address where those materials need to be sent. You can do this during the delivery creation process.
If you have received a confirmation from us that your delivery was sent but your delivery recipient has not received the email, the first step is for the delivery recipient to check their spam folder. If it’s not there, reach out to us and let us know. We’ll be able to resend the delivery to help ensure it gets to the intended recipient without any problems.

Tips & Tricks

You can include as many documents you want in an email delivery. So, if you’re looking to send MANY documents that are hundreds of pages long, we encourage email delivery.
You have the ability to “order” the materials in your email delivery, meaning to arrange them in a sequence of your choosing. This allows them to be read in a certain order by the intended receiver. You can do this during the delivery creation process.

Mail Delivery

What is it? Use this when you wish Interfolio to mail physical copies of your materials to a destination. Different institutions have different requirements.

Issues with your delivery?

Was your delivery cancelled? If so, reach out to us and we’re happy to explain why that happened.
- If we were not able to verify the address, you can forward us proof of a conversation with that individual that explains they are expecting materials from you.
- Or, provide us with an URL that includes the address where those materials need to be sent.

Tips & Tricks

There are a number of shipping methods to choose from. Included in your Dossier Deliver subscription is the “USPS First Class” option—there is no additional cost to you for this shipping option. All other options have an additional cost associated with them. This is a good reason to stay on top of deadlines—so you can avoid rush delivery and the additional cost.
If you want tracking for your mail delivery, sending FedEx is the only option. FedEx deliveries have an additional cost.
You have the ability to “order” the materials in your mail delivery, meaning to arrange them in a sequence of your choosing. This allows them to be read in a certain order by the intended receiver. You can do this during the delivery creation process.
If your destination address is a P.O. Box, you will need to select a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) shipping option.

Confidential letter upload

What is it? The trickiest of the bunch. Use this when you wish Interfolio to upload your confidential letters of recommendation into another online application system.

This type of delivery takes one of two forms: either the external system provides you with a link to pass along to your letter writers, or the external system asks you for your letter writers’ email addresses.

When the external system provides you with a link to pass along to your letter writers:

In this situation, you simply follow the Confidential Letter Upload instructions when creating a new delivery in your account. You paste in the upload link and indicate which letter you’d like us to upload, and we go and upload it there. Simple!

When the external system asks you for your letter writer’s email address:

In this situation, Interfolio can substitute for your letter writer. (Except sometimes, unfortunately, when we can’t; see below for exceptions.)

Suppose you are applying to Demo University and have been asked to provide them with the email addresses of three letter writers. Normally, the school would reach out to your letter writers via those email addresses, asking them to upload a letter of recommendation. If you have letters stored in your Interfolio Dossier account, however, Team Interfolio can often stand in for your letter writer and upload letters on their behalf.

In order for Team Interfolio to process these deliveries, we automatically generate a unique email address associated with each letter of recommendation you have in your Dossier account. When the external online application system asks for your letter writer’s email address, you can substitute the unique Interfolio email address associated with that writer’s letter. Once you submit that request, you’re all done. We’ll take care of the rest.

Issues with your delivery?

We may have to cancel a delivery due to required questions within the application that we do not know the answers to. Unfortunately, if we run into questions that have to be answered on behalf of your letter writer in order to upload the letter, we cannot legally do this. Some possible personal questions that prevent us from processing the delivery:
- Rank the applicant among other students in recent years?
- As a graduate student the applicant is likely to be?
- How long have you known the applicant?
- How well do you know the applicant?
- Please indicate your overall endorsement of the applicant?
- Apparent Intellectual Ability?
- Potential in Field?
We also cannot complete a delivery when a user is prompted to upload the letter of recommendation themselves. In these situations, users will provide us their login information to upload the letters of rec. We cannot accept that information from the user. It’s a liability for us to have that information.
If confidential letter uploads are ever cancelled, we suggest you reach out to the institution directly and explain why. Often times, they can provide you with an email address to send materials directly and then they upload the letters to your application. (See email delivery above!)

Tips & Tricks

Make sure you are submitting the document email address found in your Dossier account when the application asks for your letter writer’s email address, and be sure to submit that request! Going through the CLU delivery process via the Delivery page on your account alone does not create the requests. You have to make sure you are entering in that information and submitting it on the application website.
Haven’t received confirmation that we’ve received the request? Give it a little time. We do receive requests instantly. Unfortunately, we have no control over when the application sends the request to the document email address you entered. If you think it’s been an appropriate amount of time since you submitted that request and you still haven’t received confirmation that we’re working on the delivery, reach out to us and we’ll double check to see if we’ve received the request or not.
Need to submit your application before you’ve received the letter in your account? Reach out to us and we can provide you with that information.
Our 1-3 day turnaround is once we received the request, not once you submit the request on the application. Sometimes there is a delay from when you submit the application/request and when we receive it.

Running up against a deadline? As always, we can expedite most delivery types for you. Just send an email to help@interfolio.com with your delivery number letting us know you need it expedited and we’ll get to work on that ASAP.

Last year, we processed 323,068 applications. Trust Team Interfolio with yours.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.

Webinar: Using Interfolio’s Dossier for Letters of Recommendation | Highlights and Selected Q&A

Earlier this week, we hosted a free webinar and Q&A providing a glimpse into a Dossier Deliver user’s account —focusing on letters of recommendation—for scholars to get the most out of Interfolio’s free Dossier and Dossier Deliver.

We decided to include a demo-heavy portion in the webinar to address some common questions we were getting from users, and to share some of what we’ve learned about the folks using our products. We also touched on the newest features available, specifically how to utilize our quality check process. The webinar also features an exclusive Q&A session, leveraging our attendee’s questions as they participated in the webinar.

Opening with some of the background and research underlying Dossier, the webinar covers several of the product’s common real-life applications and the best subscription for each of these lifecycle stages. It sheds light on best practices surrounding the three core areas of the Dossier account:

Materials
Letters
Deliveries

Alex Aponte of Interfolio’s Scholar Services team leads the audience through each of these account areas in a product demo of a Dossier Deliver account, diving deeply into many specific questions about confidential letters of recommendation. We know that requesting a letter of recommendation, or providing one, can be a delicate and sometimes stressful process when deadlines are involved, so we offer features and a support team to make those logistics simple.

Check out the full recording here, or read on below for the Q&A portion:

Here are a few of the most common questions we got during the webinar, and a quick recap of what our audience learned:

Q: Is there a way to store a confidential “generic” letter without sending it right away? I plan to apply for many positions, and I don’t want to make my letter writers send all the different letters one by one.

A: Yes! That is a very common use for Dossier, and you can do it for free. You can either request a general letter, or specify which opportunity the letter is for. Just use Dossier’s “General Request Recommendation” feature—look for the “Recommendation Type” section in the request form.

Q: When requesting a letter of recommendation through Interfolio, how should I use the due date feature? Can a letter writer still upload a recommendation letter after the due date has passed?

A: In Dossier, the due date feature is not technically binding—it is just a tool (attached to the request itself) for you to communicate to your letter writer the date by which they should submit their letter. If you set a due date, it will not prevent them from uploading their letter afterward. Also, if you set a due date, we will send your letter writer reminders 7 days and 1 day before the letter is due via email.

Q: What is the quality check feature and how is it helpful?

A: If you have a Dossier Deliver account, you will receive a guaranteed quality check on your letters of recommendation as they enter your account. There are a variety of things we look for and flag as inconsistent with what a user expects within their letter, such as:

We check for a signature.
We make sure there’s an official letterhead.
We ensure the file uploaded is in fact a letter.
We verify the letter bears both your name and the letter writer’s name.
We establish the letter is legible.

You can choose to send your letter even if it has errors–like a missing signature–so you retain control of your materials and deliveries.

Q: What type of deliveries are available through Dossier Deliver?

A: If you have a Dossier Deliver subscription, you can have your application materials (including letters, CVs, publications, images, and more) delivered to almost any destination via one of three methods:

You can provide us with an email address, and we’ll send your materials there, arranged in the order you specified.
You can provide us with a mailing address, and we’ll print out your materials and mail them, arranged in the order you specified, either First Class Mail or at an expedited service level.
If you’re applying somewhere that requires a confidential letter upload into their own online application system, we can substitute for your letter writers, and directly upload the letters stored in your Dossier. We only do this for letters, not other materials.

Finally, please note that anyone can use the free version of Dossier to apply to positions hosted entirely through Interfolio.

So, what can you do if you have questions about your Dossier account or creating one?

Watch the webinar. It’s about an hour long and includes a pretty comprehensive product demo.
Check out the FAQ section of our site for quick tips and tricks on how to navigate Dossier and Dossier Deliver.
Reach out to us. We’re people that thrive on serving our customers.
- Email: help@interfolio.com
- Phone: (877) 997-8807

New features are here, including saving your letter writer as a contact

Today we launched several new Dossier product features in our ongoing quest to ensure our user’s time is spent on activities they choose, and so that we maintain our exclusive offering as a full-service Dossier (almost 20-years strong!).

In March, we introduced a valuable new feature to help prevent document quality issues from holding back your applications—for users with active Dossier Deliver subscriptions, we now perform a quality check on all confidential letters of recommendation.

And as of today, we have added several more features related to (1) how a Dossier user requests letters of recommendation and (2) how a letter writer receives such a request, further personalizing and streamlining the process.

As a Dossier user requesting a letter of recommendation I can:

Save my letter writers’ contact information
Attach multiple support files to my letter request via my Dossier account
Share my multimedia materials like video links and URLs within my request
Request multiple letters of recommendation at once
Auto-populate each letter writer’s name in bulk requests for professional appearance

To add a new contact while requesting a letter, click “Letters” in the left sidebar:

Click “Request a Letter”:

Start typing in “Recommender” box:

Click “Add New”:

And as a letter writer, when accessing supporting materials attached to a request for a letter of recommendation, now I can simply view them online within a convenient document viewer—or I can download them as always.

Click “View Documents” vs. “Download”:

Why do these changes matter to you?

First and foremost, it saves you time. It is far more convenient to simply select saved information than to type it in from scratch for every request. In addition, it helps to avoid errors in email addresses and names. We understand that receiving a stellar letter for a job application is the end goal, not requesting it.

Requesting and sending letters of recommendation is a stressful but necessary part of applying to many scholarly positions and other opportunities. Let Team Interfolio help you manage this portion of your to-do list, confidently.

Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish, and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.