Coaching for Early Career Academics
Empowering early career academics is my mission. Together, we conquer today's academic challenges, crafting a winning strategy for success in a competitive job market. From mastering publications and teaching to securing grants, I will help you to cut through the overwhelm and thrive on your academic journey. Are you ready to elevate your career? Let's make it happen!
Please choose:
Individual clients are individual persons who would like to book my bespoke 1-on-1 coaching packages. You are an early-career academic seeking to kick-start your academic career successfully. Individual clients may pay with their private or research funds for these packages.
Institutional clients are universities or academies of sciences and their employees. You may be a research administrator working in career services or further education departments and seeking offers for in-campus or online group workshops or coaching.
Get to Know Me
I'm Melanie Sindelar, your dedicated career coach for early career academics. For years, I've been supporting scholars just like you in three critical areas: writing, teaching, and career advancement. Now, I'm excited to bring my expertise together in one comprehensive program designed to help you thrive in academia.
Cultivate Your Academic Success: EMERGE as a Competitive Early-Career Scholar
In this program, our primary aim is to empower you with the essential skills and insider knowledge needed to propel you toward success in academia. By participating, you'll emerge as a confident and competitive early-career scholar, positioning yourself to secure permanent positions or carve out a niche in academia that aligns with your goals and aspirations.
Are you applying for academic jobs but keep getting rejections?
Story
Slowly, you are wondering whether you have what it takes to secure a permanent job in academia.
I completely understand. Applying for jobs can feel incredibly discouraging. It seems like there are all these hidden rules, and you can't help but wonder how many more applications it'll take before you finally land a position. If you're finding this process exhausting - you are not alone!
You know that high-quality publications are the currency of academia. Yet you can't seem to find the time to publish.
This is a challenge newly minted post-docs face a lot! You can't rely on your binge-and-bust system anymore, as there are so many other things that need your attention: applying for jobs, teaching, having a job on the side, family-planning, and generally: Life. You now need a new system for your writing, but you don't know how to establish one.
Are you stuck in your writing progress, and feel like you're falling behind?
Do you feel overwhelmed by your teaching responsibilties?
You know you need to teach, but it is literally eating up all of your worktime.
Teaching is part of nearly every academic job. You have to gain teaching experience by actually *teaching* new courses and seminars, and you know this is going to be good for your record. But at the same time, it feels like teaching is the only thing you do all the time. Preparation for classes and student engagement takes away your precious time for applying to jobs and publishing.
If this is you, join EMERGE:
Coaching for Early Career Academics
EMERGE is a 6-month career and coaching program that will fundamentally change how you academe. It's primary goal is to make you EMERGE as a professional early career scholar who is competitive for permanent positions in academia and can find their own unique niche in the academic world.
Emerge
Emerge includes three main pillars tailored to your most important needs as an early career academic, including an onboarding phase and conclusion phase.
Hacking the Academic Job Market
Become a Publication Powerhouse
Time Efficient Teaching
Course Outline and Modules
Introduction to Emerge - Early Career Coaching for Academics
Welcome & Screening
In this welcome module, I am providing an overview of the program and will explain how to get the most out of this program. Together, we are going to reflect on your past academic trajectory through a 1:1 CV screening and strategy call. In this module, you'll learn to select which work projects matter, and how to say NO to the rest.
Pillar 1: Hacking the Academic Job Market
Gain Clarity, Craft Compelling Job Documents, and Start Applying!
First, you're gaining access to an exclusive lecture on the realities of the academic job market in mainland Europe and the UK. Prepped with that knowledge, we are jumping into a 1:1 Coaching Call to design your unique positioning in that market as an expert. You will then start designing your job market materials with guidance and feedback on your cover letter and CV. Once these are in place, you will learn how to consistently apply for jobs for which you are actually a match, and how to increase your chances for an interview.
Pillar 2: Become a Publication Powerhouse
Understand what to publish where, when, and how. Publications are what gets you the job.
You need to understand today's academic publishing industry before we start realigning your writing practice. I am showing you how to transition form a binge-and-bust mentality to a sustainable writing system. Together, we will craft a publishing plan, for the next years ahead and for the time of the program. I'm going to show you how to move through the publishing process and how to get feedback that helps you to get published at top presses and journals.
Pillar 3: Time Effective Teaching
Start Teaching, But in Time-Saving Ways
Your teaching matters for your career. I am going to show you how to attain teaching roles, and once you have them, how to not let them take over your entire life. You are going to learn how to effectively limit your prep time for classes while still being prepared, and how to engage with students in time-saving ways while still gaining excellent teaching evaluations. You will learn how to use *technology* to significantly easen the administrative burdens of teaching. And I'm teaching you how to design a syllabus.
Conclusion and Next Steps
Reflect, Strategize, and become an Alumni!
Is this it? Not at all. This phase is all about assessing what you gained from the program, and how you improved your standing and competitiveness for the academic job market. We're hopping on a 1:1 call to assess your progress and plan your next steps. If you want to stay connected, you can join the EMERGE Alumni program. You are going to receive a Certificate that you have successfully completed this professional training program for Early Career Academics. Congratulations!
That's Not All
As part of the EMERGE Coaching Program, you are also going to benefit from the following features:
Exlusive Community on Teachable
As part of the EMERGE Program, you are going to join the exclusive EMERGE Community on Teachable, where you can connect and exchange with fellow early career academics. The group provides advice, writing encouragement, and peer-review opportunities.
Co-Writing
When you sign up for EMERGE, you are going to join the EMERGE Co-Writing Group, a separate ongoing writing program where you regularly write in community over Zoom during your designated writing hours. It comes with motivational prompts and a coach present during designated timeblocks.
Writing Sprints
As part of the EMERGE program, we are going to do 2 collective writing sprints. Writing sprints are two-week writing programs where you will make significant progress on your writing projects. It comes with community support, workshops, and ways to keep track of your progress.
Templates
EMERGE is all about becoming a more efficient and effective academic, and templates are key for that. Whether this is about student feedback, keeping track of your job applications, or moving your writing projects forward, there's a Trello board template for everything you need.
Sign me up for the EMERGE waitlist!
You don't need a program, just some help?
You can also book one or several individualized coaching sessions with me directly. Single sessions are dedicated to very specific challenges you face: this might concern managing student emails, how to effectively grade, how to tailor your article to a journal, how to respond to a revise-and-resubmit decision, or other specific topics.
To book, please click the button below.
Individualized Coaching
Institutional Clients
You want your academic staff to succeed, and you know that early-career academics face particular challenges.
I offer four signature full-day workshops for groups on campus.
Starting the Post-Doc Journey
A workshop to give your staff the tools to kick-start their post-doc position.
Getting Ready for the Job Market
Your PhD students just successfully defended. Now they need a job. Let me prepare them for the academic job market.
Become a Publication Powerhouse
Publishing strategies and know-how for your early career staff
Time Saving Teaching
Your staff has teaching obligations, but they also need to focus on their research. Let me show them strategies for time effective teaching.
Payment Options
Embrace the opportunity to invest in your academic success with high-quality coaching tailored to your needs. What is your career truly worth to you? I provide the expertise you need to navigate this journey with confidence. Choose expertise over uncertainty—your academic career deserves nothing less.
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Full payment at once
Clients can choose to pay the coaching rate in full. The rate needs to be paid before we can start the coaching journey. Send me an email or use the form below to get started. You will receive an invoice with payment options. Currently, I accept PayPal and SEPA Banking transfers.
Receive my exclusive catalogue for institutional clients
Just fill out the form below and it will be sent to you.
Academic Coaching
Excel in Your Academic Journey: From publishing strategies to job applications, I'll provide personalized guidance to propel your academic career forward.
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I have extensive experience in coaching early career academics through various stages of their journey: writing a research proposal, acquiring funding, and providing writing advice, teaching, and applying for positions. I have led workshops on these topics at the University of Vienna and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
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Workshops & Seminars taught:
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Doctoral Proposal Writing & Presentation
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ÖAW DOC Preparation Programme
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Doctoral Research Proposal Writing & Presentation
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Transitioning into a Post-doc
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Creating a Writing System
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Co-Writing Series
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How to plan your semester in uncertain times
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How to improve your academic English
Research Funding Coaching
Having led the Center for Doctoral Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where I worked in the Research Services team, I offer my expertise on the Austrian and European funding landscape.
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I am experienced in:
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Advising on funding programs tailored to research interests and CV
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Developmental editing & feedback on research proposals. I have worked on proposals for the following funding programs: ÖAW Doc, ÖAW Post-Doc Track, FWF Stand-alone, FWF Hertha Firnberg (now Esprit), FWF PEEK, and MSCA.*
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*ÖAW - Austrian Academy of Sciences, FWF - Austrian Science Fund, MSCA - Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie Actions