August 28, 1998

Do I Need My Own Web Page?

Question: I'm going on the market this year. Some of my friends say I have to develop a good home page in addition to my C.V., statement of teaching philosophy, letters, and all the other materials I need to prepare. Is it worth the time to make one? If so, what should I include?

Julie: Since more and more candidates and employers are using the Internet for everything, Yes, it's a good idea.

Whether a home page is becoming close to standard (linguistics) or a nice extra (economics) depends on your field. As a rule of thumb, if many faculty members in your discipline establish home pages and refer to them, then candidates should, too. Even if one's faculty has no presence on the Internet, search committees in that field want to check Web sites of candidates.

Many young faculty members have home pages, and this seems to have more to do with comfort level with the web than with discipline.

Mary: So the question becomes "Why not have a home page?" It's certainly something that's better not done at all than done badly, but you can produce a good one even starting from square one.

If you haven't yet constructed a page, the idea may seem overwhelming, but what makes a good one for job-hunting is the information it contains and its clarity of presentation, rather than technical bells and whistles.

If you're able to earn a Ph.D., you'll be able to quickly learn enough of a Web-authoring tool to construct a good page. Just don't forget that conscientious search committees review all the paper materials requested from candidates and probably look at home pages only when they've already identified a candidate as potentially interesting to them.

Julie: And you can get lots of help on line. The first thing I might do is look at other young scholars' home pages, at your institution and elsewhere. You'll find some nice examples at:

• http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/swooda/index.html
• http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~hharley/
• http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~beth/home.html
• http://matisse.ucsd.edu/~moroz

Most institutions make it easy to find student and faculty home pages either in a central listing on the main institutional page or under school or departmental menus.

Take note of what looks effective and what makes a strong presentation of the candidate as an interesting professional person. If something strikes you as gimmicky, that's probably what a search committee will think, too.

If you wonder how someone produced an effect that you like, remember that most Web browsers have a "view source" function that will show you all the code you need. You may find some common elements in strong pages. Frequently the home pages of candidates on the market include vitas, links to publication sites, and examples of work.

Mary: Let me suggest sites you might link to from your vita: your department, sites of scholarly associations where you've presented at conferences, your adviser, if you have one, and Web sites you've developed for special purposes such as a class you've taught.

Some candidates have distinguished themselves and increased their name recognition by creating research pages from Web addresses of associations and frequently-consulted research sites in their field. One good example can be found at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/Lit/, part of an outstanding collection of such sites at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/. If you give a large collection like this its own site, separate from your individual site, you would certainly link both sites to each other.

Julie: Great idea. And if you go this route, you can put a link to your personal page in a tactfully prominent place on the menu of the professional resource site you develop.

Also, if you've developed Web sites for special purposes, such as a class you've taught, link to them. In many searches, committees are hoping to identify candidates who will be able to integrate technology and teaching, and curricular pages particularly demonstrate your ability to do this.

Mary: While discussing all the great material people can put on line, we should also remind you that while material posted on the Internet enjoys theoretical copyright protection, in practice, the Internet also makes it easy to plagiarize.

If you've done major work not otherwise published, I'd hesitate to put it on the Web. You can attempt to protect yourself by copious use of statements such as "copyright, your name, not to be copied or distributed without permission."

Also think long and hard about using personal materials, such as photographs, jokes, and links to collections of sites which are not professionally related. We've always discouraged the use of personal photographs on resumes and vitas because they make it easy to discriminate illegally. The same thing is true on the Web.

I understand the impulse that wants to provide personal material and say, "Here I am. Take it or leave it." However, this inevitably entails some risk, so don't include personal material unless you're truly willing to be rejected on account of it.

Julie: On the other hand, don't feel you have to include solely professional material. The fact is that many candidates seem to be putting photographs on their home pages, and there are photographs on some pages we've chosen as good examples. Furthermore, some schools will appreciate knowing about those things that make you who you are both as a person and as a scholar. Others will find these extraneous.

Mary: Okay, you've convinced me. So we just encourage people to use discretion and good judgment then.

Julie: As with other job-hunting materials, keep your site clear, simple, and easy to navigate. Arrange the main menu according to some self-evident logic suggested by the materials you want to showcase. Keep menus short and embed them if you need to. Remember that too many graphics take a long time to load and may end up annoying rather than enchanting potential employers.

Also think about how the page will look on a small screen and make sure the type is easy to read and not overwhelmed by the background. Many younger applicants may not make enough allowances for the middle-aged and aging eyes which may review their applications.

Finally, keep your page user-friendly by keeping all the links current. Check them frequently.

Mary: And, as you work, keep the big picture in mind; you want a job. Some things never change. A good way to test the effectiveness of a C.V. is to show it to someone for 30 seconds and ask them what they saw. If your strongest qualifications stood out, you did a good job. Have several people take quick looks at your home page. Then ask what impression it made. If they say what you hope to hear, you've got a good page which will work for you 24 hours a day.

Copyright © Mary Morris Heiberger and Julia Miller Vick

http://www.law.pitt.edu/hibbitts/

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~vlatten/home.htm

http://www.nku.edu/~rkdrury/index.html

http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/faculty/tclim/homepage.html

You can order their book directly from the University Pennsylvania Press or from either of the on-line booksellers below.

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