I agree with everything that Susan Kephart said - it's the "meat and potatoes" of a vita that get you the interview. The one exception would be if you're applying for jobs at small colleges where the open position may be the only ecologist in the dept. However, in those cases it probably would be best to put the relevant info in your application letter. Also your letters of reference should be commenting on the importance and relevance of your pubs. Finally, I'll bring up my pet peeve the "In Preparation" section. Frankly, I don't think that I've served on a search committee in which jokes weren't made about the vita's that had 1-2 publications and then a list of 5+ mss. "in preparation". If you don't have it in ms. form so that you can send it to the search committee with your application, then don't put it on your vita. By contrast, your application letter would be an appropriate place to describe your publication strategy for your dissertation work, but do it in a way that the committee can see that you're not bsing. For example, a throwaway line like "these studies should result in 4 major publications in international journals" is meaningless in comparison to several lines describing the content of each future paper and where you might send them. The truth is most anything that appears to be "padding" on a vita will elicit a negative response from some members of a search committee, although what constitutes padding will vary among members. Finally, I would make one minor comment on Susan's post regarding having lots of small papers. Although search committee's like to see a graduate student that publishes, if you have too many short papers then it may appear that you're more interested in numbers of publications rather than producing fewer high quality publications. This would certainly be a negative impression to leave the search committee with. IMO, most R1 institutions would favor a candidate with three papers in major journals like Ecology, Oecologia, Am. Nat. etc. over someone with 10 small papers all in regional journals. In conclusion, I would urge graduate students to work on their vita and application letter. Those are the first things the search committee's see and typically get you from the "pile" into the short list. Many searches don't ask for recommendations for applicants who don't make it on the short list, so you can't count on those to carry the day. You'd be surprised how many applications we see with poorly organized vitas, grammatical errors in application letters, etc. which result in low rankings when evaluated.
cheers, g2 Gary D. Grossman Distinguished Research Professor - Animal Ecology Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources University of Georgia Athens, GA, USA 30602 http://www.arches.uga.edu/~grossman Board of Editors - Animal Biodiversity and Conservation Editorial Board - Freshwater Biology Editorial Board - Ecology Freshwater Fish
