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Promotion applications

Career milestone: academic promotion

Pitching your leadership story beyond the metrics

Promotion represents one of many important milestones on the academic career pathway, and successfully navigating this application process requires skills in both writing and strategy. How to craft a compelling story about your academic achievements and contributions on the page? And how to deal with political and cultural issues that may impact your case?

In our experience, success is not just about speaking to those crucial performance metrics. It is also about telling a compelling story about your leadership, particularly as you progress through the mid-career phase and begin applying for more senior roles. We offer several services that you can flexibly mix-and-match to leave you confidently prepared to tackle your promotion application goals:

1. EDITING: We bring years of experience in crafting promotion applications at all academic career levels.

2. COACHING: Many of our clients pair editorial support on their promotion application with one-on-one coaching to prepare for the promotion interview (often required at Level D and E), or simply to develop the best narrative angle for their application text in a conversational setting.

Why do we target women? Don’t men need support with their promotion applications?

They probably do. Our focus on women is not exclusionary in spirit (we do work with men on their promotion applications too), but motivated by two insights: First, the notable under-representation of women in academic leadership positions in STEAMM disciplines in Australia; and second, a commitment to the value of gender equity, which allows us to recognise and meet different needs among diverse groups as we strive to achieve equality.

On the journey to a more inclusive, equitable environment in STEAMM, we approach some pragmatic aspects of our support services offering by asking: “Who is excluded by current structures and culture, and thus needs this targeted support to navigate academic promotion?”

In designing our support services for women, we are guided by the Women in STEM Decadal Plan Discussion Paper, where the term “women” encompasses cisgender, transgender, non-binary, and intersex persons who identify as women. In the same Paper, equity is defined as “fairness of treatment, regardless of gender, according to respective needs. This may include equal treatment or treatment that is different but considered equivalent in terms of rights, benefits, obligations and opportunities.”

By seeking women’s views on what helped or hindered their success, we hope to offer services that reflect women’s real needs at a crucial and recurring time in their careers. Ultimately, we hope that our support will make a humble contribution to addressing the ongoing gender imbalance at leadership levels in STEAMM disciplines in Australian universities.

Through gender equity, gender equality is possible.

(Women in STEM Decadal Plan Discussion Paper)

Contact us today for a confidential discussion about how we might support you with the editing and writing of your promotion application.

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