How to Become a College Professor

Last Updated on: 3rd June 2022, 04:28 am

I’ve been a professor for over thirty years. However, when I entered grad school, that wasn’t my plan. Part-way through my program, I realized that I didn’t want to go back into the corporate world. Instead, I wanted to teach. Teaching was what I was passionate about, and it remains one of the central passions of my life.

Like any career, being a professor has ups and downs, but I still maintain that choosing it as a career is one of the best decisions I ever made. Having the chance to guide students and even make a difference in their lives has given me a sense of fulfillment in the work that I do. 

If you’re wondering how to become a college professor, you’re in the right place.

Why Do You Want to Become a College Professor?

Before learning how to become a college professor, it’s important to consider why you want to do so. 

Do you want to be of service to young people, helping them learn and guiding them through life? Is it to fulfill a lifelong dream? Is this your parents’ dream for you? Do you like the schedule, with nine months of teaching and three months of summer break? 

Do you want to become a professor because of the job security of tenure? (That’s going away, so I wouldn’t recommend pursuing it for only this reason).

Getting clarity on your reasons will help you take the best path for you to become a college professor.

Qualifications for Becoming a College Professor

For those wondering how to become a college professor, the first step is to make sure you meet certain criteria. I’ve outlined these requirements below.

Education Level

A college’s level of accreditation may dictate the requirements that they look for when hiring. Normally, they want you to have at least a degree above where you’re teaching. If you’re going to teach undergraduates, they want you to have at least a master’s degree. If you’re going to teach master’s level, they’ll want you to have a PhD. 

However, in today’s competitive environment, meeting the minimum requirements may not always be enough. Having a terminal degree in your field may be a de facto necessity.

Accreditation

Do your degrees come from schools that have the accreditation your school is asking for? For example, in business, many schools say “Candidates must have a PhD from a school that has the AACSB accreditation.” If your school is not accredited by that organization, then you may not be considered.

If you haven’t gotten your graduate degree yet, when considering schools, find out the academic accrediting organization in your chosen field and then determine if your institution is accredited by that body. 

Where Your Degree Is From

There are some schools that will only recruit people from certain institutions. For example, Ivy League schools generally only recruit from other Ivy League schools. Tier 1 Research Institutions will want people who have degrees from other Tier 1 schools. 

There are exceptions, however, for professors who do important research and regularly publish in top-tier journals.  If you are interested in being competitive as an academic, you will want to graduate from a university that will teach you how to do rigorous, meaningful research.

Research

If the school wants professors to do a lot of research, they’ll want candidates to have demonstrated that they are effective researchers. So you’ll have to give schools evidence of research you have done. This can be your dissertation, publications, or presentations at professional conferences. Generally speaking, the more research you’ve published in refereed journals, the better.

You will also want to learn how to effectively present your research, as this is a big portion of the interview process with universities.  Often, you will be presenting your research and future research agenda to a large group of discerning academics who will offer challenging questions.

Teaching Philosophy

One thing that many schools are asking for now is your teaching philosophy. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. They want to know what you believe in regard to teaching. Do you believe you’re there to help students learn the facts that are necessary or to help students learn critical thinking so that they can apply the facts in a variety of situations? 

Your teaching philosophy informs a great deal of the work that you do, so it makes sense that universities want to get an idea of whether it aligns with their goals before they make a hire.

If you believe your job is to teach critical thinking and you’re applying to a university where you’ll teach two or three classes with 300 students per class, then it’s probably not a good match. With 600 students a semester, it’s near-impossible to teach them all critical thinking skills and give them the feedback and evaluation necessary for them to learn them. You may be better suited to a small, liberal arts college.

On the other hand, if your philosophy is that your job is simply to teach the skills necessary for involvement in a particular field, then you may be better suited to a large university where class sizes are larger and you won’t have to facilitate discussions.

Teaching Experience

If at all possible, get some teaching experience, either in your graduate program or as an adjunct. If you have not taught at the college level, be able to talk about your experience in a way that demonstrates your ability to teach. Show them that you have put together material in classes. For example, if you created a training program for employees at your job. 

How to Become a College Professor: Step by Step

Assuming you have the qualifications listed in the previous section (if you don’t, that’s fine–just treat getting those as your first steps), now it’s time to find a job. So here’s how to become a college professor, step by step.

Find Job Openings

To find jobs online, look at websites like The Chronicle of Higher Education and Higher Ed Jobs. When they ask for certain qualifications, make sure you tell them you have them. When they’re getting 200-400 applications for a position and they’re looking for a specific skill set, they aren’t likely to consider applicants who don’t meet those criteria.

For example, if they’re looking for someone with expertise in secondary mathematics and you have a degree in higher education administration or elementary school special education, you’re not going to line up with what they’re looking for. 

Interview

If you make the first cut, you’ll have a preliminary interview. This is often either on the phone or at conferences. They’ll be interviewing a large number of candidates, and it will last about half an hour to 45 minutes. 

Then there are usually three finalists who they bring to campus (under normal situations–COVID-19 will impact this, of course). If you’re one of these candidates, you’ll usually have a day or two days where you meet individually with many of the faculty members of the department, do a presentation of your research and/or your teaching (some places it’s both, some places it’s one), and meet with the administration as well. 

During the COVID 19 pandemic, you may be asked to have individual meetings via Zoom with professors or on a group call, and you will likely be required to give a presentation of your research online.  You may also be asked to teach a sample class online to volunteer students.

It’s important to remember that everything you do and say during your campus visit, even in informal settings, is part of their evaluation of you. This is where you need to be on your best behavior, especially in the individual interviews. It’s very easy to get very comfortable with someone and say something like, “Yes I can do what you’re looking for but what I’d really like to do is…” Something like that will get back to the committee and could prevent you from being considered further. 

Give the committee members and student representatives every indication that you’re interested in the position.  Ask every one of them questions about their area of expertise or their experience at that university.  I’ve found a useful question to ask is, “Is there information that I haven’t asked about that I should know?” That allows them to talk about anything they want to talk about, and allows you to get a broader picture of the school.

Presentation of Research

The presentation of your research is a make-or-break portion of the interview that I’ve seen many candidates not take seriously enough.  Universities, even small ones, are required to produce research, and search committees are charged with finding future colleagues who will upgrade the university’s research reputation.  Therefore, you need to know your research topic inside and out and create an impressive presentation covering your past research and future research agenda.

More than that, though, it is important to ferret out the research that current professors at the prospective university have done.  How will your research potentially dovetail with theirs?  Are there people at this university with whom you could collaborate to answer questions important to both of you?  How might your research fit into the social mission of the college or the university?  Tailoring your presentation to the university you’re applying to is crucial but, sadly, rare.  It could easily put you over the top.

An Offer and Pay

If you receive a job offer, congratulations! Keep in mind that there is sometimes a little flexibility on pay. Also understand that money comes from different budget areas. So if there is minimal flexibility on salary, there may be funds from other budget lines, such as funds for attending conferences, support for summer teaching, research funding, etc. Some of this will increase your take-home pay and some may not, but all will be of benefit to you.

Also understand that as a new hire, you will probably get last choice in the classes that you’ll teach. As you build up seniority, you’ll get more choice.

It is also possible and relatively common to negotiate for your spouse/partner to be hired, as well, if there is an opening appropriate to their skills.  Universities know that it is difficult, when both partners have specialized skills, to find both people jobs in one place. They are willing to make it happen if at all possible, so it doesn’t hurt to ask.

COVID-19 Update and Job Outlook.

Right now a lot of schools have put hiring on hold and 2020 will be a tough year. However, the following year, all of the students who took a COVID gap year will come back, in addition to the students who graduate in 2021. So while things may not look good for this year, I anticipate that there will be a larger number of jobs available next year.

Universities have learned an enormous lesson about content presentation during this crisis, and they will be looking for professors with innovative ideas about online teaching.  It would behoove you to spend some time thinking about and researching ways to make the virtual classroom compelling, so the university can see how students attending your classes would not be tempted to drop out or slack off!  Even if all classes will be held in person once you start, search committees will be alert to future possibilities of having to switch on a dime to online learning.  You’ll want to assure them that students will be safe in your (virtual) hands.