In this article, we explore the community college job search. We sketch out the entire process for landing a full-time position as a community college professor. My goal for this work is to help antiracist educators successfully navigate the hiring process. This blog post is the third in my Teach at Community College series which is designed to give you insights into how to earn a full-time position as a California Community College Instructor.
The process of earning a full-time position as a community college instructor is dependent on the hiring systems used by the school to which you apply. In this article, I highlight the procedures used by the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District to hire full-time faculty members. I also describe how this process worked for my own full-time application. The end of this article discusses strategies you can use to learn more about the specific systems used by your target institution.
We can categorize the process of earning a full-time job at Foothill College into several different stages, including:
Stage 1: Find an open position
Stage 2: Submit your application
Stage 3: Perform at your first interview
Stage 4: Perform at your final (second) interview
Stage 5: Respond to your job offer
Stage 6: Fill out hiring documents and negotiate salary placement
Other posts in my Teach at Community College series dive deeper into the individual stages and offer specific ideas to stand out as you navigate this process. The goal of this post is to give you a broad overview of what to expect. With that in mind, let’s explore the unique facets of each stage.
Stage 1: Find an open position
One of the best places to find job listings for the California Community College system is on the CCC (California Community College) Registry. This “site provides a number of services for individuals seeking employment as a faculty, support staff or manager at a California Community College.”
New full-time positions at Foothill College usually get posted during winter quarter. Sometimes there are special hiring circumstances that lead to positions being listed during the spring, summer, or fall. More often than not, however, new positions are opened to the public sometime between January and April.
For candidates who want to stay on top of this, I recommend starting a CCCRegistry account ASAP and tracking the job calls as early as November of the academic year before you want to get hired. So, if your goal was to be hired in fall 2022, you might start checking the CCCRegistry on a weekly (or daily) basis starting in Dec 2021. This gives you plenty of time to track postings and stay aware of the options at your desired institution.
One major question you’ll want to answer is “Where do I want to work?” The good news is that there are 116 California Community Colleges across the state. You can use the California Community College Find a College resource or take a look at the alphabetic listing of CA Community Colleges to locate options in your desired area. You’re also welcome to download a map of all physical campuses by clicking the button below.
Stage 2: Submit your application
Once you’ve found a full-time job that catches your eye, the next step is to submit your application. To do so, read your target Job Description very carefully. That document includes a detailed list of what the hiring committee is looking for and has been vetted by faculty, college administrators, and the HR department. At Foothill College, that document also serves as the basis for your tenure process.
When I applied to Foothill, I submitted each of the following documents:
- Cover letter (3 pages, 1800 words)
- Teaching Resume (3 pages, 1100 words)
- Teaching Philosophy Statement (2 pages, 900 words)
- Diversity Statement (2 pages, 1000 words)
- Undergraduate and Graduate Transcripts
The exact documents you need to submit will be highlighted on the call for your desired position. Later in this series, we’ll explore each of these documents and discuss strategies to help you create a competitive application.
Stage 3: Perform at your first interview
Assuming you satisfy the minimum job requirements and create an application that catches the search committee’s attention, the next stage in the hiring process involves your first interview. In my case, this interview lasted about one hour and consisted of three unique features:
- Questions from the committee
- 10-minute teaching demonstration for developmental math
- 15-minute teaching demonstration for transfer-level math
The hiring committee had seven members including the President of the College, the Vice President of Instruction (VPI), the Dean of the STEM Division, four mathematics faculty, and a HR coordinator. Five of the seven members sat in on the first interview. The President and VPI were only involved in the final interview.
During the first interview, I had to answer seven questions including:
- Why do you want to teach at a Community College and why at Foothill?
- Often, students in your math class will be taking your class as a repeat of a class they’ve taken before. What would you do to address this challenge?
- A student in your office hours wants to know the difference between f(½ x) and ½ f(x). What will you do?
- What technology do you see yourself using in your classroom in the next 2-3 years?
- How will you schedule 2-hour classes here at Foothill?
- What do you seeing as the hardest challenge for addressing diversity in the classroom?
- What questions do you have for us?
I did not have advanced knowledge of these questions and had to answer these for the first time during the interview.
The hiring committee was legally required to ask these same questions to every single candidate that they hired, meaning that none of the questions from the first interview were customized to me individually. That structure implies that to be successful, you must find creative ways to capture the committee’s attention and stand out.
In terms of the two different teaching demonstrations, these were aimed at two avenues for math classes at Foothill College. According to California Master’s Plan for Higher Education, the California Community Colleges maintain a specific mission within the higher education landscape that involves three separate goals including:
- Transfer Path: Prepare students for transfer to UC, CSU, or other campuses
- Continuing Education: Offer education for adult learners
- Workforce Training: Provide career education programs in vocations
These goals translate into two types of math classes at Foothill. The first type are transfer-level math classes for which students can earn transfer credit towards their undergraduate degree at their next institution. The second type of math classes are non-credit or for vocational programs. These are not transferable for college credits but often are required as pre-requisite classes within a pathway.
The two teaching demonstrations in my first interview were geared at assessing my capacity to provide direct instruction for these two types of math classes. Below are the descriptions for each demonstration. These were given to me by the hiring committee a few days prior to my first interview:
Demonstration 1: Unit Conversion (10 minutes) – Introduce the concept of unit conversion to a group of beginning algebra students. Assume that the students already have knowledge of operations with fractions.
Demonstration 2: Directional Derivative (15 minutes) – Introduce the concept of a directional derivative to a class of calculus students. Assume that the students already have knowledge of vectors and partial derivatives.
We’ll explore much more about how to prepare for interview questions and teaching demonstrations in the sixth blog post for this series. Interviews are performances and strategic preparation can go a long way in relieving the nerves that go along with these high-pressure events.
Stage 4: Perform at your final (second) interview
The goal of the first interview is to capture the attention of the committee. The hope is to be asked back for the final (second) interview. For my hiring process, the final interview lasted 40 minutes and consisted entirely of interview questions. These questions were customized to my application. In other words, every candidate that got to the final interview answered a different set of questions that focused on that candidate’s application and performance during the first interview. Just like in Stage 3, I did not have advanced knowledge of what I would be asked. For Stage 4, the President and VPI were in the room and asked me questions about my application. Below are the questions that I answered during my final interview.
Questions from Interviewer #1:
- Can you walk us through your experience with the Math Circle Program? How did you get involved, what did you do, etc.? Tell us about your experience with Math Circle.
- Would you be willing to work with the Family Engagement Center’s Stretch to Kindergarten program that we run here at Foothill?
- What do you want your legacy at Foothill College to be?
Questions from Interviewer #2:
- On your application, it says that you can speak Spanish Fluently. Can you tell me a little about this? How do you feel your ability to speak Spanish and other languages translates to your ability to teach in a community college classroom?
Questions from Interviewer #3:
- The situation at Foothill is that about 60% of our students pass math classes? How would you deal with this situation? What would you do to keep yourself motivated and focused? How do you address the 40% of students who fail?
- What if you have a student that asks you the same question over and over again? You answer their question and yet they continually come to office hours with the exact same question. How would you address this challenge?
Questions from Interviewer #4:
- Tell me more about your Math videos. How many of these do you have? Elaborate on the process of making these videos and how you incorporate these into the classroom.
Questions from Interviewer #5:
- Please elaborate on why you want to be at Foothill College. To do so, please address the following questions:
- Why do you want to teach at a community college? Why not teach at a Junior High School, a High School, a 4-year state college or a research-1 university?
- Why are you interested in Foothill College?
- Why do you want to move to this area to work at Foothill?
Questions from Interviewer #6:
- There is a lack of women and underrepresented groups in the STEM fields. How would you address this in your classroom and as a faculty member at Foothill College?
Questions from Entire Committee:
- What questions do you have for us?
In the fifth, sixth, and seventh posts for this series, we’ll talk about how to get your committee excited about your application. We’ll explore strategies you can use when crafting your documents and during your interviews to increase your chances of getting a job offer. We’ll also help you craft a value-based vision for your teaching career to better prepare for questions like the ones you see above.
Stage 5: Respond to your job offer
After your final interview, the committee will deliberate to make a final decision. Part of the process of extending a final offer is to check all your references to make sure you are who you say you are. In my case, the Division Dean called me to inform me that the committee wanted to offer me a job. Before they extended the formal offer, the dean needed to contact all my references as part of due diligence. The dean told me to contact my references and let them know to expect his call. That process took about 2 days.
After all my references checked out, the dean sent an email to offer me a position. At this point, I responded to his email as requested to let him know that I accepted the offer. This step is not difficult but does require consistent, timely communication to ensure smooth processing.
Stage 6: Fill out hiring documents and negotiate salary placement
After you’ve accepted your job offer, the last part of the process involves on-boarding with your institution. This includes filling out all paperwork for employment as well as getting integrated with payroll, healthcare, retirement, and other benefits systems at your college. It can be overwhelming to fully understand the complex systems in place at your new school.
At this stage, I would plan to set aside at least two full weeks simply to read through literature, speak with staff members on campus, and get accustomed to the new systems at your school. In other words, I would recommend that you give yourself at least a full month between employment, if you are able. Doing so leaves you two weeks to focus on classroom preparations and an additional two weeks to get situated with your new position.
One important feature of this stage of the hiring process is also placement on the salary schedule. Most community college instructors are represented by a union that negotiates on behalf of faculty with campus administration. Part of this negotiation process includes the faculty salary schedule that defines pay rates for faculty members.
When you first get hired, you will need to coordinate your initial placement on that salary scale. Salary schedules usually have both steps (rows) and columns. For full-time employees at Foothill College, salary steps correlate with the number of years you’ve spent on the job while columns track the number of years of education you’ve completed.
One of the best ways to get placed at a higher step on the salary scale is to accrue experience as the Instructor of Record for college-level classes in your target field. When I got hired, Foothill College did not accept four years of experience as a Teaching Assistant, nor did they count a year of teaching English in Japan with the JET program. The rational was that neither of these experiences satisfied the definition of my job title in the job description. Foothill did count my experience as the Instructor of Record for college-level math classes. In other words, as you prepare for your application process, do your best to get experience as the lead instructor for college-level classes in your field. Not only will this make your resume stronger but it will also count towards your salary placement.
After getting on-boarded at your target institution, you begin the process of building your career as a full-time instructor. This next phase of your career might last many decades. I delineate four broad different stages come after getting hired including:
Stage 7: Earn tenure as a full-time instructor
Stage 8: Maintain your energy and continue to grow in mid-career
Stage 9: Prepare to enjoy retirement
Stage 10: Retire happy and healthy
I hope to address these stages in other series on Community College teaching. In this post, I focus my work on giving you a broad overview of the hiring process I went through at Foothill College. I recognize, however, that not all colleges use the same hiring process. Thus, I end this post with some strategies you can use to learn more about how the hiring process works at your target institution?
How will your hiring process work?
To figure out the exact format of the hiring process for your target institution, I recommend that you contact someone working at Human Resources. You can find the contact information for human resources online by searching the phrase “Human Resources at (Enter College Name Here).” Look for link labeled “Contact.” Then see if you can find a job title or department that might be responsible for managing faculty job searches. This might include the words recruitment, academic employee hiring, employment, etc.
I recommend reaching out via email AND phone call. I would compose a well-written email that highlights your specific questions. Below is an example of such an email:
Greetings (Enter HR specialist’s name here),
My name is (Enter Your Name Here).
I am writing to learn more about the hiring process for full-time faculty members at your school. I am interested in applying for a full-time position at your institution and I want to get a sense of how that process works. With that in mind, I have a few questions for you:
- Who is the best person at your school to address my questions about the full-time faculty hiring process?
- Where might I find resources on your school’s website that give me more insights into how your hiring process for full-time faculty positions?
I know that the HR department at some California Community Colleges host detailed overviews of their Employment Policies and Hiring Processes. Do you have such documents posted online? Is there a specific place I should be looking for the most recent version of such documents?
- What guidance can you give me about how the hiring process works at your school for full-time faculty members? I’m curious to know: How many members are on the hiring committee? How many interviews an applicant goes through? What general guidelines should I follow to satisfy your schools application?
- If I have other questions about the hiring process, who should I contact?
I ask these questions in hopes of better understanding the expectations that your school has for full-time candidates. As I apply, I want to be ready to put my best foot forward at each stage of the process.
Thank you, in advance, for your attention and consideration.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Your Name Here
(123) 456-7890
EmailAddress@Here.com
Right after you send that email, immediately call the listed phone number to follow up. The dialog I would use on this phone call would go something like this:
“Hello. My name is (Your Name Here). I am calling to learn more about the hiring process for full-time faculty members at your school. I am interested in applying for a full-time position at your institution and I want to get a sense of how that process works. I also just sent you an email with a number of questions I have about how the application process works at your school.”
Do your best to call first thing in the morning when people are fresh. I find that this one-two, email-call technique gets a much quicker response than simply an email. This also gives you a chance to make a human connection and to you practice asking questions from representatives at your target institution.
Of course, you can also do a thorough search of the website to find information about the hiring processes. Some schools provide those documents online. Even if you’re able to find such resources, I still recommend calling someone at the HR department. Many staff members often have knowledge and wisdom that is not explicitly written in documents online. If you get in the habit of calling to ask questions, you’re likely to get the most relevant information for your specific situation.
In the next post in the series, we’ll explore more about Stage 1: Find an Open Position. This includes a discussion of resources to help you reflect on what you want out of a career in teaching and ideas for how to target open positions that best support your vision for your future.
Los Rios Community College District Sample Interview Questions(.pdf)
Jeff Anderson 