If you are a typical doctoral graduate student or postdoc, you are in a program at a large university that prioritizes research and doctoral degree graduate training; undergraduate education may be part of the mission, but not the primary focus. If you are a professor who is training doctoral graduate students and supervising postdocs, chances are you only have experience as a faculty member at this type of higher education institution. Whether graduate student or professor, what you are learning or mentoring is what is expected and valued for career success at a research and graduate education-focused institution. There are over 3,900 colleges and universities in the United States alone, of which only about 270 are doctoral degree-granting, research-focused universities (American Council on Education https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/classification_descriptions/basic.php). Most jobs in the professoriate are at higher education institutions with other missions, different educational environments, and distinctly different criteria for hiring, evaluation, and promotion than a standard doctorate degree-granting institution. Unfortunately, I have found that many talented people on the job market for a faculty job are insufficiently informed and prepared for positions at institutions that differ in mission from where they received their graduate degree. Here, I will focus on another type of higher education institution—a college or university with a joint mission of research and education, with an emphasis on undergraduate teaching and research that involves undergraduates. Such institutions are usually much smaller than doctoral degree-granting, research-focused universities. They may have no graduate degree program, or if they do, it will be small; the focus is on undergraduates. The key feature of this type of institution is that there are job expectations for both excellence in teaching at the undergraduate level and impactful research productivity. Note, however, that there is much diversity among such colleges and universities in terms of the expectations of faculty members for research activity, teaching load, student mentoring, community engagement, and institutional service. For shorthand, I will refer to universities for both true universities (graduate degree-granting institutions) and colleges (undergraduate only) and research for any scholarship of discovery or creativity. When I refer to smaller universities, I mean those with under 5,000 undergraduates. I am writing to those who are searching for a faculty position in ecology or environmental science or their faculty mentors. However, the early career tips will generally apply to any field. While the focus is on primarily undergraduate teaching and research-focused institutions, some of the tips will also apply to jobs at 2- and 4-year colleges that have an exclusively undergraduate education mission. At these institutions, there is increasingly an expectation for some research involving students, since research is a beneficial, high-impact student educational experience (e.g., Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative. https://www.ccuri.us/). In the following, I treat four topics: how to apply for a job, what to take into account when considering a job offer, what to do to be successful as a new faculty member, and the additional challenges for women and minoritized faculty members. For each, I will provide some things to consider and recommended best practices. I base this advice on my experience over two decades in higher education, and comments from many colleagues, who provided their own insights from a diversity of standpoints, perspectives, and experiences. Applying for and interviewing at a university with a joint teaching and research mission is different than, on the one hand, a research and graduate education-focused university and, on the other hand, a primarily undergraduate teaching institution. To be competitive, you need to convince the hiring committee that you can maintain a productive research program that incorporates undergraduates. You must convince them that you are committed to teaching excellence and student advising and mentoring. You need to convince the hiring committee that you fit the needs of the department, support the mission of the university, and for professional and personal reasons are genuinely interested in a position there, so will likely stay if hired. Hiring searches typically have five steps. First, after administrative approval to open a search for a new faculty member, the hiring unit (e.g., Department of Biology) and the university's human resources department will draft and disseminate the position description and the job ad. A surprising amount of care and thought can go into drafting the position description, especially in terms of required and preferred qualifications. The second step is the initial review of the applications. This is where the committee quickly goes through files and weeds out those who are not qualified or unsuitable for the position—for example, applicants who have not yet defended their thesis who apply for a position that specifies postdoc experience. Based on a closer look at the remaining applicants, the third step is for the committee to come up with a list of a dozen or more promising candidates and schedule them for a video call or “phone interview.” This interview step helps the committee understand more about a candidate's experience and commitment to excellence in teaching, about whether the candidate can establish a successful research program at the institution, and about whether the candidate is genuinely interested in the position and prepared to be successful at it. The fourth step is to select a few of the most promising phone-interview candidates for the on-campus interview. Usually, about three candidates are invited to campus. If you are among those with a campus interview, it means that the hiring committee judges you as a suitable person for the job. During the campus visit, interviews are scheduled with many people, including members of the hiring committee, other faculty members within and outside the hiring department, students, and administrators. Minimally, there will be a research job talk, but there may also be a teaching demonstration required. Other than the hiring committee, most of the people you will meet will only have a cursory familiarity with your professional achievements and interests—you will make many first impressions. Everyone you meet or who attends your presentations, including the department secretary, will have a chance to provide their opinion about your suitability for the position. The fifth step is to choose a candidate and make them a job offer, followed by negotiations over terms until the contract is signed. This process is discussed in the section Evaluating the Job Offer. Prepare for such a career. It is likely you have graduate and postdoctoral training that has adequately prepared you for a research career. One of the best ways to prepare for the “teaching side” of the job is by teaching a course or two as “instructor of record.” Some institutions hire teaching postdocs which require one to teach a load of courses while also receiving support for research and mentoring. Any professional training in teaching effectiveness and pedagogy is valuable. A conventional teaching assistantship (i.e., T.A. experience) is generally not adequate preparation for a teaching-intensive institution. To prepare for the “research side,” some experience in supervising undergraduate research is invaluable while you are a graduate student or postdoc. Have your supervisor mentor you on the budgetary side of research—how much instruments, research materials, services, and staff support cost and how to budget and track expenditures. You should make yourself familiar with sources of funding in your field well before pursuing a tenure-track position. Note that there are funding programs intended for supporting research that involves undergraduates or that is conducted at institutions with a small or no graduate program—make sure to be familiar with some of these funding opportunities. Get some experience or training in grant writing. Most importantly, talk with faculty members at institutions of the sort you might consider making a career at, and ask them about their careers, and what they advise you to do to prepare for a career at a similar institution. A good place for this is a professional conference like the ESA Annual Meeting. Ask them what it takes to be hired and successful. Find out what, in their frank opinion, are the satisfactions and challenges of a career at an institution with a mission similar to their university. Familiarize yourself with the culture and priorities of the institution and department. Institutions have their own cultures, values, priorities, and areas of academic distinction. Spend time on the university's website. It will provide a profile of its mission, student body, and areas of emphasis. Look up the university at the various online sites that profile and “rate” universities. Google the institution and see what kinds of recent news articles and press releases are published about it. Use your social network to identify someone who is familiar with the institution and can provide some insight. Institutions vary in the student populations they primarily serve: the traditional undergraduate population, academically talented or privileged students, first-generation and low-income students, or nontraditional students (e.g., parents, working people, active military). Some universities have mostly residential students, others mostly commuters. Some are MSIs (Minority Serving Institutions). Some focus on training students for particular professions (e.g., allied health, engineering); some emphasize a “liberal” education. Some promote service-learning, experiential learning, problem-based learning, team-based learning, flipped classrooms, or online learning, whereas others mainly provide traditional textbook and classroom lecture-centered courses. Institutions vary on how important it is for undergraduate research experiences to result in published research papers. Even at institutions that have a joint research and teaching mission, some weight teaching more highly, others research. Some institutions are inward-looking, some outward. For some, service to the department, university, and community is very important; for others, it is not. At some universities, departmental and interdisciplinary faculty research collaborations are highly valued. Some institutions are supportive of research that takes you away from the university campus, especially if it incorporates students, whereas others expect faculty members to remain on or near it. Some institutions and departments value work–life balance and others stress professional achievement. When considering whether to apply for a position at an institution, you should think about whether you can adapt to and adopt its culture and values, and whether you would want to do so. If the answer is no, do not apply. You will not be happy professionally or personally. The hiring committee will certainly be looking for indications that you are willing to make a career at the university, and if it appears that you will not, it will move on to other candidates. Tailor the teaching statement to the institution and the position. Obviously, if the department's teaching mission is primarily or exclusively undergraduate, stress undergraduate not graduate teaching in the statement. You should provide a list of courses you would like to teach, and courses that you are qualified and willing to teach. Make sure to include any courses listed in the job ad as courses you would like to teach. Smaller departments prefer to hire someone who can fill multiple gaps in the curriculum; familiarize yourself with what existing department members teach, and propose courses that fill the gaps. Avoid proposing highly specialized courses, since at smaller institutions the number of students who are prepared and interested enough to take highly specialized courses may be too small to sustain them. ‘Molecular Phylogeography of Mollusks’ may be a course you would love to teach, but “Biogeography” may be a more attractive and sustainable course at a smaller, undergraduate-focused institution. Strong teaching statements demonstrate familiarity with current trends in higher education pedagogy, for example, student-centered teaching and inclusive classrooms. Specifics about learning activities that you have developed and done in the classroom or field are invaluable in a teaching statement. Descriptions of courses you have taught as “instructor of record” are quite valuable (include the syllabus and course evaluations). Considerably less weight is given to courses for which you were a teaching assistant. Thoughtful reflection on challenges you have faced in the classroom and how you addressed them can strengthen the teaching statement. Most importantly of all, deliver the message that you like teaching and you like students, you value good teaching, and you are working toward becoming an excellent university educator. Be honest and specific in a diversity statement. You may be asked to include a diversity statement. If so, you are expected to discuss what diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mean to you, and how they apply in your professional practice, including teaching, research, and institutional and professional service. For some, this is straightforward to write; for others, it is more of a challenge. If you are one of the latter, consider what kinds of training and activities you have participated in pertaining to DEI. Why do diversity and inclusion matter to you? Reflect on what you have done or plan to do to foster a diverse, inclusive, and supportive classroom and research team. What have you done or will you do to recruit and mentor a diverse group of students as your field and laboratory research teams, and how will you foster inclusiveness, community, and safety? What have you done or will do to be involved in organizations that mentor and support students who are underrepresented in your field, such as the Ecology Society of America's SEEDS program? Be sure to mention any DEI-related professional development activities in which you have participated. Demonstrate an awareness of the barriers to DEI in higher education and reflect on some ways you can contribute to overcoming them. If you have not thought much about this before, it is time for you to become informed. Some hiring committees and certainly some institutions take DEI very seriously, and the number that do are growing, thankfully. Increasingly, institutions, when evaluating candidates for tenure and promotion, assess a faculty member's efforts in the classroom and institution pertaining to DEI. If the institution does not request a diversity statement, weave content about your awareness, commitment, and experiences with DEI issues in your cover letter and other statements. Solicit helpful recommendation letters. At some point, the search committee will want recommendation letters, typically three, from people who know you well. Some institutions want them at the time you apply—I resent this practice, as it unnecessarily increases the workload on recommenders. It may be a disincentive for some jobseekers to apply to long-shot jobs so as not to annoy their recommenders, or else prematurely tip off colleagues that they are on the market. Other search committees will request once you have been selected as a potential phone interviewee. Let your recommenders know that they may get a letter request at some point. Do not request a recommendation letter until the search committee requests it. Be strategic about who provides the recommendation letter, and ask recommenders to include some specific details relevant to the hiring search. Three letter writers who laud your research may be the right approach for an R1 research university, but for those where undergraduate teaching is important, you will want a recommendation letter that can discuss your teaching effectiveness and commitment to teaching excellence. You may ask a recommender who is familiar with how you have mentored undergraduate research to include in the letter comments about this. The recommender can address your commitment to working at an institution with an undergraduate teaching and research mission. If there is something in your record that may raise questions, you can ask a sympathetic recommender who is familiar with the circumstances to comment on it if you wish. Do not hesitate to provide potential “talking points” in a recommendation letter—recommenders understand and appreciate the importance of providing information in a recommendation letter that is sought by the recipient. Phone interviews are professional interviews. In the past, initial interviews were done by telephone but are now typically done online via video chats. Make sure you look professional and are in a professional-looking environment when you have that interview (e.g., no unmade bed in the background). Make sure that the technology is unlikely to glitch on your end; be in a place with reliable, fast internet connectivity. Use a headset so you can hear well and they can hear you. You will be asked questions about what you are prepared for and would like to teach at that institution, what resources you would need to be successful, and why you are interested in the position. You may be asked some specifics—who might fund your research, what instrumentation you might need, and what pedagogical training you have had. The hiring committee will likely schedule the interview for a half-hour or hour. Write down some talking points beforehand—those things you want to make sure to remember and mention if asked. Make sure to include some specific points addressing what it is that makes you a suitable candidate for the position. Answer questions succinctly and avoid going on tangents or filibustering; time is limited, and the interviewers have a number of questions to cover. After answering a question, ask whether your response was clear and would the committee like any more detail. Make sure you have thought of a couple of good questions to ask the committee about the position and the university. The committee will judge your degree of interest and preparedness by whether you have some good relevant questions for them, and by whether you demonstrate that you have already tried to familiarize yourself with the department and university. At the phone-interview stage, the hiring committee mainly wants to meet the real person behind the application and judge whether they are suitable for the position and are adequately prepared and motivated to be a successful faculty member at that university. Be prepared and motivated to talk with undergraduate students. During the campus interview process, you are likely to be required to meet undergraduate students and graduate students if the department has a graduate program. The students are unlikely to be a random sample, so be careful about making generalizations about students as a whole from their responses. Be engaged and interested in the students, and be prepared to explain your teaching and research interests, but also be prepared to ask about and hear about their research and course interests, and general experiences and perspectives on the institution. Candidates have sabotaged their chances of a job offer by acting uninterested or behaving rudely to students; the hiring committee will ask the students for feedback about their interactions with you. You have to like and respect students if you intend to make a career at an institution that values teaching effectiveness. In addition to being engaged and respectful to the students you interact with during the visit, make sure that you communicate that you are prepared and committed to be an effective teacher for all students. Do not make negative comments about teaching introductory or nonmajors/general studies courses; never refer to these as “baby biology.” Never make snide comments about students whose academic or career focus is different from your discipline; if you are interviewing for a faculty job as an ecologist, show that you are as committed to effective teaching for premeds, prelaw, or business students as you are to those who have major and career goal focuses on ecology. Be prepared for different types of questions during face-to-face meetings. If you have an on-campus interview, you will likely meet with department members, some students, the department chair, the dean or other higher administrator, and perhaps human resources or the research support unit. The human resources and research-support unit meetings are simply informational, to let you know the services and support they offer. In the rest of the meetings, folks will be evaluating you as a potential faculty member and, additionally, trying to convince you to accept a job offer should you receive one. Students, undergraduate and graduate, will be eager to learn about what courses you might teach and what research opportunities you would provide—and whether you would be a good teacher, advisor, and mentor of students like them. Department members will want to know about what you are interested in teaching, your research, and how you might be a potential collaborator with them. They will be eager to tell you about their research and flattered if you already know something about it. Department chairs and deans will evaluate whether you might be a good fit for departmental and institutional research, teaching, and other needs; whether you are collegial and work cooperatively with others; and whether you are likely to accept an offer with intention of making a long-term career there. They will ask about what you need in terms of start-up resources. They may ask whether you have identified anyone who you may be able to collaborate with at the institution. Department chairs will outline the path to tenure. They may also ask “What would it take for you to be successful here?” They will judge from your responses how faculty career-ready you are, and whether you are likely to be able to meet the university's tenure requirements. Administrators will typically also talk about the university's surrounding community and maybe ask questions about what you do outside of work. This is intended to provide insight into whether you are likely to find the community a good fit for your interests and needs. It is also an indirect way of opening up a discussion, if you chose, about matters that employers cannot ask directly. It is illegal to ask whether you have a partner or dependent children, for example, but they may mention the quality of the local schools and university programs to help faculty partners find local employment. It is up to you whether you chose to disclose any personal information or ask questions that might disclose such information. Keep in mind, however, that these meetings are also your opportunity to learn about the institution, its people, and the surrounding community. Ask students about what they like and dislike about the institution. Ask them how they like their professors. Ask the faculty members about what they like about working there—and what they do not. Ask about whether department members socialize, and what builds community. You may get different answers from early career versus senior faculty. Ask the administrators what they and the institution do to help new hires adapt and make progress toward tenure. Of course, these are questions you will need answers to in order to decide whether that university is a place where you want to make a career. However, such questions also indicate to faculty and administrators that you are ready to be a faculty member and seriously interested in their university. If you want a job offer from a university, you have to indicate that you are enthusiastic about the opportunity and see it as a good fit for your career and life goals. Typically, human resources or an administrator will provide general details about benefits during the interview. Institutions differ about when they disclose the salary, other compensation, and start-up, but that usually does not happen during the on-campus interview. Instead, this will be disclosed when you receive a job offer (see Evaluating the Job Offer, below). Often the last on-campus interview activity is a short meeting with the department chair or hiring committee chair. They will ask you how the visit went from your perspective, whether you have any remaining questions, and whether you still are interested in the position. They will likely tell you the next steps in the process and how long it may be until you hear something about the outcome, if they do not, ask. Make sure to thank them for the opportunity to interview at the university. Send thank-you emails to the department chair, hiring committee members, and faculty and others with whom you meet during the campus interview. Thank the administrative assistant/departmental secretary who helped with the logistics of the interview. Polite gestures go a long way in demonstrating that you are seriously interested in the position and likely to be a good and permanent departmental colleague. After the interviews are completed, though universities vary somewhat the typical process is for the hiring committee to meet soon after to evaluate all the feedback from faculty, students, and staff, discuss the candidates, and make a hiring recommendation. The committee evaluates candidates as to whether they adequately meet the requirements for the position and whether they are likely to be successful, meriting tenure when the time comes for review; no to either of these and a candidate will not be considered further. If none of the interviewed candidates meets these requirements, the committee may be permitted to invite additional people from the phone-interview shortlist for a campus visit. When more than one candidate is judged minimally suitable, these prospective hires are compared and additional factors are considered (e.g., other classes they can teach, whether they diversify the department in needed ways, etc.). The hiring committee submits the top candidate from its perspective to the department chair for their approval, and then the chair asks the dean or another administrator for final approval. This all happens fast because the university does not want to lose a good prospective hire to another institution. Once a candidate is approved for hire, the department chair will call the prospective hire and let them know that they are being offered the job. The chair will ask whether they will potentially accept the offer, and if affirmative, provide the general terms of the offer and expected workload, for example, salary, general benefits, teaching load, and possibly the research start-up. The chair may ask the prospective hire to provide a detailed spreadsheet of start-up needs. A written offer will be drafted and sent for review soon after; the recipient of the offer is typically given a week to respond. There may follow a set of negotiations until a prospective candidate signs the contract and the hiring search concludes. It is common for a candidate that was not the first choice of the committee to be the one that is eventually hired; some prospective hires decide the institution does not suit their needs, or else a mutually acceptable contract agreement cannot be reached. Congratulations, you have received a job offer from a university with a joint undergraduate teaching and research mission. Your first response is to thank the person making the offer. Do you accept it? This is one of the few times in an academic career you have some leverage to negotiate, and the contract you sign will affect what support you have during the pretenure period, and your income potentially for your entire career at the institution. While many of the matters discussed here are relevant for any higher education institution job, there are also some things to consider that are unique to universities with a primarily undergraduate teaching and research joint mission, especially a smaller one. You should evaluate an institution from the perspective that accepting a job there is likely to be a lifetime appointment; overall, the mobility of faculty can often be low. You need to evaluate whether the institution will provide the resources and professional development you need to be successful at research and teaching, whether it will provide the benefits and support that will offer the work–life balance you desire, and whether the institution and its location have suitable opportunities, resources, and amenities for you (and your partner and family). You should consider these in both the short-term (the pretenure period up to tenure) and over the length of your career. Women are often more hesitant to negotiate the salary offer, and this is one source of inequity in starting salaries between men and women faculty. The starting salary is important – it affects your salary trajectory throughout your career at the institution. Usually, the person offering you the job will start at a lower salary than they are prepared to provide. Talk to your professional circle (fellow graduate students and postdocs, your PhD advisors and postdoc supervisors, etc.) to get help with and practice in negotiating salary, startup, and early career accommodations (e.g. reduced teaching load, early sabbatical). Doing so is worthwhile! Note that you may be able to get help from the institution in finding a position for a partner at the institution or around the community. The time to broach that issue is when you receive the initial offer. Some institutions limit unte