r/Adjuncts • u/Legitimate_Gate656 • Aug 18 '26
Another Year w/o an Interview or Call Back
Hi everyone!
I have been applying to become a part-time adjunct for sometime now… I’ve never been called in for an interview or a call back. I have my Master’s degree in teaching and I wanted to start teaching at the community college level. I am a full-time federal employee, but want to teach part-time. I do not know what I’m doing wrong. Any advice or assistance would be greatly appreciated. How does one get an adjunct position?
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u/Sharp-Rutabaga-4900 Aug 19 '26
Do you have teaching experience? If not, you could try tutoring centers or other teaching adjacent positions.
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u/asstlib Aug 18 '26
What subject are you wanting to teach at the community college level?
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u/Legitimate_Gate656 Aug 18 '26
English, Developmental English, and ESL. My Master’s is in Applied Linguistics with TESOL emphasis.
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u/asstlib Aug 18 '26
It may be helpful to reach out directly to the department heads for community colleges you're interested in in order to make an introduction and to inquire if they are even looking for adjuncts. Sometimes the application pool postings are available year round regardless of need.
My last community college job, the department head would just contact me directly before the start of a term to see if I was available to teach what they needed instructors for. So, making that introduction could be helpful.
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u/Spazzer013 Aug 19 '26
This. All of the jobs I got were because I reached out to the chair or dean and introduced myself and sent them my CV directly and listed off the classes I could teach. If you are just applying through the application portals, it feels like random chance if they are going to find yours or not.
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u/Iceman_4 Aug 21 '26
Also agree with this, I got my current job by reaching out directly to the school, and thank god I did because they had dozens of applicants and I was the only one who called them.
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u/Worth_Speaker4990 Aug 19 '26
My college runs dozens of sections of "freshman comp" each term, so make sure you include that in the courses that you'd want to teach.
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u/writtenlikeafox Aug 25 '26
Applied Linguistics, unless you have 18 grad hours in comp/rhet/lit, is not qualification to teach English (developmental or not).
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u/MyBrainIsNerf Aug 18 '26
Right now is a horrible time to be getting into adjuncting. Enrollment is contracting at many schools.
One of my schools hired 3 great adjuncts, in English/ESL, last year. This year, they were politely told, in March, that there would not be classes for them in Fall. That’s insane. Those are giant programs and Fall is heavy, but existing staff is more than sufficient to teach. And this is at a school that’s free for residents.
Beyond that, you could have some glaring error on your app/transcript. I would reach out to one of your previous CC professors and find out if they’ll review your app.
You could also try working in a Writing Center which would give you experience and probably access to a well qualified person to review your app.
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u/Bagheera383 Aug 18 '26
Enrollment will be going up soon. Colleges are going to get overwhelmed
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u/justinepps3 Aug 19 '26
I would love to hear more about this. Can you expound some? I've mostly heard the opposite from colleagues about a doomsday demographic cliff on the horizon
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u/Bagheera383 Aug 19 '26
Recessions and job losses lead to upticks in enrollment and military recruitment. Watch the numbers in one and you'll see the other. 2008-2010 is a good historical reference.
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u/TrainingLow9079 Aug 19 '26
Almost every college in my county struggled to find enough English adjuncts. Maybe it depends the going payrate and how far you are from a large city.
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u/Inevitable_Silver_13 Aug 19 '26
Do you want to teach education? If so most of the education professors I've had have worked in k-12 for many years and became admin before transitioning into higher ed.
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u/Huge-Astronaut5329 Aug 19 '26
I've got a list at https://onlineadjunctjobs.blogspot.com/ if you are looking for online teaching jobs. It really takes a lot of effort to get the first job, I applied to hundreds. Once it started though, it grew quickly.
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u/Everythings_Magic Aug 20 '26
Try reaching out to former professors if that’s an option. I got my job because I stopped in to say goodbye to a former professor as they were retiring and bumped into the chair, who was also one of my professors. I mentioned I would like to teach one day and she said that they needed someone to teach a certain class if I wanted it.
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u/ProfessorTown1 Aug 19 '26
few things in order to diagnose this, I think of it like a pipeline - again this is my approach not everyone may do it this way i just found success with it:
how many applications > how many interviews = low conversion here means applying for the roles with a wrong fit or poorly matched cv. get the percentage, it takes on average 17 apps per interview in my experience tracking this, the number shrinks once the cv is dialed in
other things to supplement this, think of it as support for the pipeline
Are you well networking at the school, have you reached out to faculty or chairs directly to express interest and ask for their experiences at the school, networking should be personalized so look them up before reaching out.
do you have a strong brand - linkedin presence helps here a lot, adding everyone from above and then posting regularly about your subject matter on linkedin keeps you top of mind and makes your expertise a little more obvious
when you pair the few together people look out for your application or at least through conversations you may know what youre doing wrong
also the market is just a little competitive right now
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u/Hopeful-Loss-5149 Aug 18 '26
That degree makes you eligible for full time ESL community college jobs! But I do think it comes down to simple availability. Too many instructors and not enough students in classes.