I agree that the salaries can be quite variable. But in the case of the KY jobs you mention, if you look closely I would guess the 80-89K figure is for a soft-money position. I could be wrong, but most positions in medicine/public health will be soft-money and therefore have higher "salaries".
For the salaries, after talking to some friends in political science, I have the impression that starting salaries in sociology are generally lower than in political science. Not sure whether it is true or, if so, what's the reason...
Re Kentucky: You're catching the extreme of the state institutions. The low range point is the satellite outpost of a regional state university and the high range point is a job through the medical school at the state's flagship university. One has a clear regional service mission and the other is an R1 aspiring to move up the rankings.
Well, for KY in particular, one school is the regional branch of a less prestigious university, and cost of living is very, very low. The other school (I believe) is in a much more expensive area.
re transcripts: Universities need to confirm the degrees earned/in progress. Transcripts are used to do this. Even if transcripts are not required in the application or in the interviewing process, they will be needed from the person(s) actually hired.
7:51 -- it's crazy that there's a 100% difference in starting salaries, and you're probably a bit naive to have been surprised! There are just gigantic differences in resources and prestige between schools, and posted salary ranges aren't necessarily accurate. Disparaties are everywhere in academia -- odds are that the person hired for $80k will have about half the teaching load of the person hired for $40k, so the difference can be thought of as 4:1 instead of 2:1. Of course, adjuncts teaching the same courses might be paid $20k, without benefits . . .
No offense, but I think you might be a bit naive. The Western Kentucky position focuses on teaching, the UKentucky position focuses on research. Plus, Kentucky is an R1, Western Kentucky is not. After several years of doctoral study, you should know by now that research is more valued than teaching on the market (at least in terms of dollars). Sad, but true.
one of the position that I applied asks for a letter of interests, but no statement of research statement. Should I provide detailed info. on my research/teaching interests in this letter as well?? thanks!
Your cover letter should describe your research and teaching interests. If the school does not ask for a research or teaching statement, I might add a little more to the cover letter about your future research plans. If you are covering that in an included research statement, focus the cover letter on your current projects.
Posters are often asking questions about whether they should send materials that are not specifically requested by the announcement, and whether they should apply for positions that may not be exactly their specialty. Having chaired SCs often, I advise these posters to spend the money for copies and postage, and to apply widely and with full materials -- articles, statements of interest, more letters than requested, and so forth.
Be aware that search committees are composed of faculty who have varying interests and goals. Why not include materials to appeal to the teaching-oriented, the research-oriented, and those who favor a new colleague who would help with committee work? Moreover, search committees do not usually write the position announcement, which is often a hybrid of the offices of chair, dean, and faculty personnel legal branch. The job notice does not necessarily express committee members' heartfelt requirements. Final candidates may be a compromise among different committee members' goals, and may be a choice of the "best player available" rather than only the best who matches the specialty exactly.
A heavy application packet shows a potential candidate who seems to really want the job, as does an early application (also implying a well-organized person). More information is better than less. The photocopying and postage will be well invested in your career options.
If there are two positions advertised in the same department, and I could fit into both (at a stretch), do I apply separately for each, combine into one application, or only apply for one? It seems difficult to argue that I'm two things at once (in a combined application), but almost weirder to have two schizoid application packets that might be viewed by the same people.
re: two positions in the same dept -- with northeastern where the two searches have different committee chairs, i feel you don't have a choice but to send two separate packages. otherwise, if it's the same search committee, i would send in one and stress how you fit both areas -- i can't think of completely incompatible sub areas in sociology but i'd be curious about corrections.
I was on a SC at a time when our department had separate searches with separate committees going on at the same time. We would send applications to the other SC in our department when the applicant appeared to be a better fit for their position, and the other SC did the same. My sense is that if your application looks good it will find its way into the appropriate stack of apps
I hope everyone is okay with a non-job market related sociology question. When is it appropriate to 'bug' the editors at a journal you submitted to for a response after a significant amount of time has elapsed? They cite a 6-8 week review process and its been at least 12 weeks now. Thanks. - L
Once you are a month past their average review time, it is fine to send an email asking for an update. It won't really change anything, so whether you ask or not the process is going to take however long it takes. But for your own peace of mind, it is generally fine to ask. More than likely the editor will tell you that they are waiting on one slow reviewer. The editor can also sometimes give you an idea of how much longer they may need to reach a decision.
This happened to me recently when one potential reviewer declined to review the manuscript. It extended the overall review process by 5 weeks.
The focus here is already pretty diffuse, so I'd urge sticking to job-related posts, but since we're on the topic, it's at least worth mentioning that the job-seeking and research forums on chronicle of higher ed's site address questions like 11:01's with substantial depth.
The age old question: How bad is it when your letter writer turns a rec letter two weeks late? Let's say this person is at a top tier school. I'd love to hear from someone on a search committee...
Very Funny...typically if the search committee is interested in pursuing your candidacy they will contact you or your missing letter writer (if they have the contact info) directly to request that the letter be sent asap. This is assuming that they have even actually started looking at the applications at this point. Just because the deadline was two weeks ago does not mean that the SC has even so much as glanced at a single cover letter yet.
It varies. I know that at my institution the staff members who are responsibe for collecting the appications put the incomplete files away and the SC members don't even come close to looking at them until they are complete- why would they when there are 200+ complete files piled up?
Having said that, last year when I was on the market, two schools got in touch with me to let me know that 2 of my letters out of 3 were missing and I should have them sent asap.
I had an interview with one of these schools which led to a job so no need to freak out yet.
Here's kudos to U Delaware! The search chair sent a lovely letter acknowledging receipt of my application, outlining their schedule for interviews and describing the locale. I know it's time & $, but I think this should become The Standard for how SC's treat applicants.
I've gotten responses from the applications with online forms (eg NYU, Virginia), but with the ones that are emailed, I assume that department secretaries are too busy to be bothered.
I have received confirmation emails from the electronic applications. I have received a handful of confirmations from paper apps via email but nothing via mail yet.
I also got no response from my Virginia application, nor from about half the other online applications I made. I figure they just haven't gotten around to it yet?
Why wouldn't you want to send your form in? They are not supposed to discriminate based off of the information on those forms. And even if you didn't want them to know you are a white male they would find out pretty quickly when you show up for an interview.
The EEOC forms are never seen by the department. They are requested by HR because all federal contractors are required to collect data on the race/gender/veteran status/disability status/age of applicants.
If you elect not to return the form, you are recorded as missing data for the school. It probably doesn't matter much, but as sociologists it would be nice of us to respond to requests for data given how much of our work depends on other people doing so for us!
But no, there are no consequences if you elect not to return the cards.
In the wake of our recent "market correction", has anyone else been given advice along the lines of "You need to take any hard money (as opposed to grant-funded) tenure track job you can get your hands on, because the economy is going to keep getting worse and the academic job market is better now than it will be for quite a while?"
Or maybe I should ask a more general question: how is the current economic situation changing everyone's job search strategies, if at all?
4:21, I have been thinking about this issue as well, but haven't gotten any advice. Seems like it could go either way, though. This year could be the last decent year for a while, but on the other hand, perhaps it's the worst year, and things will improve after this!
A lot of folks I have talked to seem to think academia doesn't respond much to economic downturns, but I don't think that's accurate. A lot of departments are not posting ads this year, and many of the state university systems have fewer ads than usual.
ugh, the other thread just said that UC Davis just made a short list for the demography position but hasn't informed the candidates yet...why am I totally convinced that I didn't make it even though I know they haven't informed people yet? It's like just hearing they looked at applications makes my self confidence nose dive...
Having served on numerous search committees, it may be worth adding some insight from the other side of the process. In particular, oftentimes many outstanding candidates apply for a position. Who is invited in for an interview, let alone hired, is subject to a multitude of extraneous factors over which the candidate has absolutely no control (e.g., departmental needs and preferences, search committee preferences, other candidates who have applied and their qualifications, etc. etc. etc.). To a large extent, a candidate's particular qualifications play only a part in the process while a host of other things, about which the candidates typically have absolutely no idea, are involved as well. So, while there are things one can do to maximize one's qualifications and credentials (e.g., publish, publish, teach a class or two, be a good departmental citizen), if one is a strong candidate on paper it does not always mean that the person will be interviewed, let alone offered the position in a particular department. Although hard not to do, try not to take seeming rejection personally. Be as strong as you can be for the types of positions for which you aspire/desire (SLAC, research I, etc.), and something will work out, even if it is not with a particular position at a specific place.
10:48- don't put it down as a rejection just yet, the other thread says they have made a short list but they haven't told the candidates who made it that they made it.
I think a previous poster summed up exactly why some of us do feel so anxious - because we have very little control over whether or not we can get a job. We can present ourselves well, but making the final cut is out of our hands.
I'm not worried about taking rejection personally; it is stressful precisely because it is not personal!
This is just a rant, but I need to blow off some steam.
To the referees who promise that you will send letters of reference on our behalf: After multiple reminders since the summer, why have you not mailed in your letters? I don't believe for a second that you are as busy as you claim to be, especially since you do zero research. The deadline has passed for several of the institutions I applied to and they STILL have not received your letters. I've reminded you at least three times. I spent a great deal of time, effort, and money putting the applications together and now these institutions may not consider my applications at all since the application is incomplete, thanks to you fuckos.
wow. what a rant. i am pretty disappointed with one of my writers as well, although s/he does do plenty of research. i feel that s/he is of the opinion that if her/his letter arrives late people will still take notice...
i think the system would be so much smoother if the schools would only ask for letters if they are serious about a candidate... imagine all of the energy/research time that would be generated across the board! we could solve racism if not for all the time we spend on letters that just get lost in the slush pile, cast aside because i have a degree from the university of northwestern cuba.
FYI the University of Maryland system has imposed a faculty hiring freeze. UMD at College Park was in the process of looking for two demographers and one ‘open’ hire. Despite the freeze, there is some optimism that the dept might be able to hire one demographer because the process is already so far along and much of the funding for the position will come from outside sources.
3:43 do you happen to know the reasons behind the freeze in the University of Maryland system? I ask this because I'm currently at a state school (not in the UM system) in Maryland as a visiting professor but can get on as tenure-track for next year as long as the state of Maryland doesn't pull the line. I'm wondering if the freeze will trickle down to other state schools in MD.
re: 6:02 from 10/1 - I do not know the concrete reasons behind the freeze but I have heard that the budget crunch is significant. I have also heard that a couple other schools in other parts of the country have informed applicants about a hiring freeze although I am not sure which ones.
re: 7:53 from 10/1 - What I meant by the process being so far along at UMD is that the department has scheduled interviews and a couple candidates have already visited campus.
re 6:13 about areas of specialization: I was told to keep in mind that the search committee may have different people than those involved in writing the ad. You should always apply to a school in which are interested if it is a "preference" for a certain area. Otherwise, I agree that you should construe their categories as broadly, and as possible, and let the SC decide if you are what they are looking for.
CATASTROPHIC ECONOMIC COLLAPSE = canceled searches. The DOW dropped 369.88 points today and now sits below 10,000. Economists are very gloomy. If McCain wins (and even if Obama wins) structural conditions are such that many of us will be unemployed.
Half (roughly) of the schools (if not many more) are public institutions of higher learning and may face drastic budget cuts. My institution may not even bring a graduate cohort in next year.
Let's not be alarmist. Have you actually seen any evidence that a substantial number of searches are being canceled? Do we know that there are fewer jobs posted on ASA/Chronicle than at this time last year? Remember, we're sociologists and we look at patterns. What happens at your university may not be indicative of the decisions made at other places.
The next few years were supposed to be bumper years for jobs, with the retiring baby boomers. But, now we have economic problems to counterbalance that. Might the end result be no change from the past 5 or 8 years?
Let's look at it even another way. One method colleges and universities (particularly small colleges) use to attract students is maintaining small class size. As fewer folks go to college, institutions will have to compete harder for students, increasing the pressure to keep class sizes low (which you do by hiring more faculty).
In other words, with the number of posted jobs at the moment, I think it's way too early to panic, as 3:12 seems to be doing.
Fair enough, 9:38, but as job candidates we also need to be realistic and informed of what the current economic situation means for us right now.
Chronicle discussion boards have a post on just this - and list an alarming number of states with freezes (NY is not up there but SUNY Stony Brook is freezing all hires and the state is set for another round of budget cuts which will likely affect other SUNYs/CUNYs in some way).
See http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,53773.0.html
You guys are still probably OK for this year. It's those looking for jobs next year and the year after that will really suffer. Budget lines for hiring this year would have been approved a while ago (in many cases, at least).
i think the big thing we have to consider this year is that non-academic jobs may be less available than in years past. being realistic, a good number of people graduating with PhDs this year will be looking for a non-academic job, either as a first choice or as a plan b option. that's probably where we'll see the cuts first.
I agree with 6:42pm that we'll likely see cuts first in the non-academic market. But, the thing that so often gets overlooked is that the non-academic market includes the entire known universe outside of the tiny territory within the academy. So, even if jobs in the non-academic market were slashed by half, there would still be many more jobs outside, than inside, academia.
The market is moving A LOT slower this year than last year. Unless maybe people aren't posting their interviews? Or the wiki vandal is seriously at it.. The difference is quite striking.
I also noticed the striking difference in the speed of the search process between this year and last year. Psychologically this is really getting unbearable (for me, at least). I kept telling myself it is still early in the process but, for god's sake, it is already mid-October and only 5 schools have scheduled interviews!
Last year we had a 'counter' on the wiki to estimate the number of people (those on the market and lurkers) who were using the wiki/blog. Are folks interested in something similar this year?
Question: The differential timing of schools' searches seems likely to put us candidates in a bad position. App deadlines range from September to January or later. So if we interview somewhere and, thinking positively, are lucky enough to get an offer, but other places we like may not have even closed searches yet, do we just not get to compare? I doubt schools are willing to wait a month+ for an answer...Is there anything we can do?
"I just went through the hell of going from grad school-level poverty to the real thing. Here are my lessons learned."
By John Dolan, AlterNet Posted on October 15, 2008, Printed on October 15, 2008 http://www.alternet.org/story/102992/
Little did I know that when I lost everything last year, I was doing research. At the time I thought it was just stupidity or bad luck or both. But now that the economy's crashing, it turns out I've been out there gathering valuable tips for millions of new paupers. And let me clarify, I'm talking real poverty. My wife and I fell through many layers of poverty in a few months. First we revisited the genteel poverty known to grad students, the sort of poverty where you have scary dreams about the rent and eat a simple, wholesome diet toward the end of the month. But we fell right through that into the sort of Dickensian privation that spoiled first-worlders like me never expected to experience. That's the kind of poverty a lot of people are going to be experiencing soon -- and I'm here to tell you, it can happen here and it can happen to you. And it's remarkably unpleasant. You may be saying "Duh!" here, but you're probably not imagining the proper sort of unpleasantness. So I'll try to lay out what to watch for, how to hunker down when it's not just a matter of cutting back or selling your second car but having no car at all, having no money for heat or food.
All the things we learned are going to seem pretty obvious, but remember that it's very hard to think clearly when your life has collapsed. These are what they call the old verities, the truths of life before the middle class was (briefly) in session:
Warmth
Above all, you need to have a dry, warm place to sleep. We had only an unheated boat, and that was not enough. We woke up to the thump of sea ice banging against the hull and realized that the old world was still very much in session. When we finally fled to stay with family, we stayed in our blankets up against their gas fireplace for weeks. You won't even want food much after a while. You'll want heat itself, not the chemical middleman. You are going to realize that cold is the most frightening thing in the world. In older English dialects, "to starve" meant "to freeze." You will see why.
Car
Got one? Maybe you should sell it. Cars drain the last dollars out of you. And there's something worse: Cops can smell desperation, and they hate the poor. I didn't hate cops as much before, except drug cops, but God, I hate them now. The real purpose of cops is to keep poor people off the roads. That's their only real goal. On my way to an interview for a job that could have gotten us out of the gutter, a cop stopped me because my insurance was two weeks overdue -- for the simple reason that we didn't have money to pay it. She gave me a $600 ticket for that, plus $120 for not having an updated address on my driver's license. Then she called for a tow truck and told me, "So, a lesson learned here today!" as I watched my car get towed away and trudged off with our terrified dog down a typical Western suburban road: four lanes of fast traffic with no sidewalks. Are you poor? The cops are your enemy now. Accept it. The car is how they'll try to get you. Sell it if you can -- which is to say, if there's any decent public transportation -- hah! -- where you live.
Shame
As in, forget about it. Shame is an affectation. I don't even need to say this, really. Once you've experienced actual cold and hunger, your good old Olduvai Gorge mammal body and brain will take over, and believe me, shame won't be a problem.
You'll also find that most of the social stuff is easier than you'd expect. These people are in show biz in a way; they have to be, just to survive. It makes them lively. And though I suppose it all depends on where you are when you lose out, in my experience they're not especially violent. They talk about it a lot, but so do all the white jocks I ever met, and in neither case does anything actually happen. They're flinchy people, mainly, who spend a lot of time waiting for things. When you're waiting, you get very frustrated but you don't want to shake things up. So they're tense, bitter, sociable, gossipy and treacherous -- a fine cross-section of the population. After waiting around with them in line at the local food bank, sharing "how I ended up here" stories and hanging out with them around a propane heater trying to stay warm, I relaxed a lot. They're not going to mug you. They are going to try to get any cash you have, and God did they get a huge chunk of our last resources, but it was friendly, schmooze-based extortion, just like in the middle-class world. All that was missing was the deodorant.
Food Banks
These places, usually in the basement of a church (because churches are the only public institutions in the new suburbs of western North America) hand out baskets of groceries every week or, more often, every two weeks. You have to wait a long time, so learn your refugee skills. Come early, get a number first, and be nice but pushy. It's a delicate operation, being nice but pushy, but you'll learn it. The "nice" part is because you need to ask people for help and advice; you're not rich enough to be solitary anymore. The pushy part is simple: It's to prevent you from being ignored. So always talk to people, but never show money or mention it, if you have any.
Antidepressants
Get on them right away, if you're not already. If you are, up your dose. Because it's going to hurt. It doesn't matter how much Marxist theory you've absorbed; it doesn't matter that you can put your fall into global context; it's happening to you now, and it's going to hurt like you wouldn't believe. You're an American, and you share that culture's values whether you like it or not. So you define yourself by your job, car and house. When they go, you're going to hate yourself. Don't even bother arguing about it. It's going to happen. Just take the damn Prozac. Would you refuse a coat in Siberia? Refusing Prozac after falling into poverty makes about as much sense. Tom Cruise can go fuck himself. Prozac saved our lives. I won't go into the sordid details, but really, I don't think we'd be here now if Saint Prozac hadn't extended a sacred hand to us.
So the second you slip beneath genteel poverty toward the street, find the nearest free clinic, and don't be deterred by the smell of the crowd in the waiting room. Smell is going to be a problem for you at first, but after a few weeks you won't mind, because you smell too, and so does everyone around you. If you want a break from the relentless olfactory fact of being around unwashed large mammals, sidle up to somebody who smokes. That's the one good thing about cigarettes, and it may be why losers all smoke. Don't smoke just for that, though. Cigarettes are insanely expensive and turn lots of poor people into cringing beggars.
How do you tell your story? That's going to matter, because you'll be brooding about what went wrong 24/7, whether you want to or not. And you'll find that explaining one's great fall is a vital skill among the fallen, as well as a deeply satisfying pastime. This raises the issue of denial, a vital and deeply misunderstood mechanism. Denial, like Kurtz said about Terror, is your friend or an enemy to be feared. You need some denial to keep your ego from being crushed completely. Your ego is going to get very sick, now that you're nobody. It's easy to be polite and self-deprecating when you're winning. I used to be like that. You can't afford that when you're being crushed. You have to demand respect if you expect to get it. The alternative is to dwindle away and disappear. Those antidepressants will help you deny the facts, but don't be shy about doing ego-exercises, boasting practice, to reawaken that playground ego that so many of us polite middle-class types allowed to atrophy. You're going to need it.
On a practical level, the question is what to jettison -- and I'm not just talking about things. If you have kids well, God help you; I can't give advice here, because luckily we didn't. But we did, unfortunately, have a dog, a big clumsy puppy we got just before everything fell apart. We probably should have given her up. Growing up in an atmosphere of terror and cold and self-hatred, she turned out to be a very weird, unhappy dog. I've had lots of dogs before this, back when I was comfy, and they were all nice suburban dogs, Frisbee-catching pals. This one's a feral freak. Now that we have a warm place to live, it's almost fun watching her reactions, the way she flinches and sniffs at every noise, smell or flash of color, but I know she would have been happier getting adopted by some family that complains about what a pain it is having just four bedrooms.
Besides, if you have a dog, you're cutting down on your chances of getting a job. This one howls when she's left alone, another legacy of her traumatic puppyhood, so one of us had to stay with her most of the time. It was like being handcuffed to the wretched unheated ex-fishing boat we were living on.
The boat was another contributor to our debacle; it was something else we should have sold off right away, even at a 90 percent loss. The idea behind that damn boat was that instead of paying the insanely high West Coast rents, we'd live on the boat for free. This is a very bad idea. Any idea you have of retreating to some simple, free habitation should be regarded with deep doubt. The thing is, you can't get back to the comfortable, heated world from a place like that boat. No Internet. You need the 'net if you're ever going to claw your way back. You need a working shower, which that boat lacked. Otherwise you develop that look, that smell you first encountered in the free clinic waiting room. It's not a good look, jobwise. Maybe if we'd gotten rid of the dog I'd have had a chance.
But you lose more than that. You change completely, more than you realize, to the point that even if you get a break you can't grab it. After months of applying for teaching jobs without even getting answers, the perfect job opened up for me at a local college. It was half creative writing, half teaching literature and composition -- all my specialties. But when the interview started I realized I was no longer someone who could talk the quiet, polite, oblique version of self-promotion demanded by academic hiring committees. I was too deeply, permanently spooked by our condition. I was just plain wrong, unhireably wrong in every way. No hot water on the boat, and I needed to shave the graying wisps of hair on my big bald head, so I'd shaved in the McDonald's men's room on the way to the interview, with a cheap Bic shaver. You can guess the results: I looked like a bobcat had tried to roost on my scalp and been evicted after a violent struggle. The used sport coat we'd spent our last $20 of Visa credit on at Value Village didn't seem to fit nearly so well once I was inside that humming, immaculate classroom where the interview was held. And I had become a louder, more desperate, excessive person. When I tried to sound positive, it came out furious. When they asked me, as I'd known they would, why someone who'd taught at bigger universities wanted to come to this small rural campus, I said truthfully, "I'd rather teach here in the forest than at Stanford." It didn't come out enthusiastic; it came out strident. After months of being a bum, I was the wrong volume, the wrong temperature. I could feel the job slipping away, and in fact they hired a local guy who was friends with the director, even though my resume kicked his resume's ass.
You'll find that if you want to get back into that quiet, odor-free, polite world, you're going to have to decompress for a few months. What happened to us is that we fled, found a basement apartment on borrowed money, and stayed there, keeping the heat on high for months. Then we were ready to try again for a job.
It took that long to calm down, quiet down, lose a little of the bitterness. Yes, you're going to be very bitter. You can't hate yourself all the time; you have to switch off now and then and blame somebody else. In fact, somebody else may damn well be to blame. Just make sure the bitterness doesn't keep you awake. To enable yourself to sleep, take long walks. Shout curses at the world if you need to; just keep walking. And no matter what, don't sell your sleeping bag. I had a North Face down bag, and I learned to love it way, way more than I loved myself.
Sleep is an antidepressant almost as good as Prozac. And it's free. The time to worry is when you wake up after a couple of hours screaming. That happened to me after five months, and that's when I broke down and asked my brother for a loan. That's where this story diverges from a real street story: I had an out. And believe me, I took it. I should have taken it sooner, in fact.
If you have an out -- a relative or friend who can lend you money to find a place to live -- take it now. And as soon as you get an offer -- some old friend has a ski cabin nobody's using, or a small unit behind their house -- take it, as long as it's heated.
The old world is very much alive, and has it in for you. Do anything to keep it from killing you. The only reason I haven't endorsed crime here is that from what I saw, paupers are not in a good position to try it. Like so much else, crime is for the big people.
re 2:54 My dream job would be one where I could order people to have conversations for my own amusement whenever I pleased, without bringing anything to the table myself. The ideal location would probably be the internets.
My friend was given this advice by his mentor: There isn't really a dream job, only one that gives you many of the things that you are looking for. In that regard, I want an ideologically harmonious faculty who support each other, and a student body that is at least as attentive and appreciative as the students in the movie Better Off Dead.
Oh jesus, 3:56! It was meant as a lighthearted diversion, not an "order." I'm sure your job prospects are stressing you out, but you don't need to take it out on others.
FWIW, I already landed my dream job, I just had no idea what my dream job was before I got it. It's a top-40 school with reasonable publishing expectations, a fantastic location, and light teaching. The pay isn't what they make at a top-5 place, but it's not that far off (and the gap is more than offset by the lower stress). The good news is that we're hiring this year (I'm on the search committee, which is what brings me here).
For those of you who are fortunate enough to get multiple offers this year, I hope (for your sake) that you don't simply accept at the higher-ranked institution. I know that, if offered (it wasn't), I would have taken a top-5 job (as several of my friends have), and I would have been miserable.
Just because budget lines are approved in advance doesn't mean departments won't be ordered to suspend searches. What is often the case in state schools is that the department (and college that they're a part of) is running a deficit. I think this year is going to be very tough for folks on the academic market.
The big, more reliable ranking is done by the National Research Council every 10 years. The results from 1993 or 1994 are here: http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/area41.html
The results for the 2000s ranking are supposed to come out soon- maybe this fall?
I don't feel like I necessarily have to get a job this year. But I'm really sick of waiting around to find out if I'm going to get any interviews! It makes it almost impossible to get my work done.
I'm freaking out about job stuff too. I was fine two weeks ago, but now that a lot of schools have actually started making progress, I'm totally obsessing over it. Work on my dissertation is crawling at this point . . .
count me as freaking out too...but when things don't go well, you can wait another year...except with the coming depression the market is likely to be dismal for another 5 years
shit, may have to go sell my stats skills to bill lumbergh
So given how bad the market is this year, and that it probably won't improve next year, does this mean you should be inclined to accept just about any offer, even if it's from a school you're not thrilled about? What are your chances of being able to find a better job in a couple years if you do that?
I should have been more specific. I am already in a postdoc. I meant, should we be willing to accept any TT offer (this is very much a hypothetical question)? What are the chances of being able to move later on? I ask because I've often been advised not to 'get stuck' somewhere I don't like. But at the moment, with next year's market not looking good, I wonder if that strategy still makes sense.
if you are productive in your less-than-ideal job (teaching and research), you should have not problem moving on if you desire after a couple years. my advice would be to take what you can get in this market.
I think many of you who appear concerned about departmental prestige are going to drive yourselves a little mad, especially when some of you find that other programs don't find your cv so hot. I know, I experienced this. I'm from a very well-known program, have 12 well-received publications, and the beginning of a reputation (even internationally). Still, my research avoids all academic fads (i.e. I'm no health, crim, or quant. person (though I now wish I persued any of those) and I don't quite fit into the methodological norm. It's been difficult finding a home. I've been lucky with temp spots in departments with really nice people and now this is what I want in live: a good work environment.
My advice: If you send out 50 applications and receive one offer, take the offer -- unless, of course, you have an AJS, ASR, SF, article in the pipe. Then, maybe hold off. If not, take the job, do your work, and if you don't like where you are work your way out. Meantime, read Val Burris' article on the academic caste system...
I think deciding to go on the market again next year vs. accepting a non-favored position this year is a matter of degrees and personal preference.
Does the job offered this year lack supports necessary for you to be productive and personally happy? Will your CV look significantly different next year than it does this year?
As an SC member, I can tell you that seeing an application from the same person two years in a row isn't a bad thing, meaning it does not automatically count against anyone. But, we will compare your CV from the two years and see if you've made 'progress.'
Applicants who look good one year but don't look any different the second year are dropped from consideration. Even if they were on the short list the previous year.
Only you know how far from 'perfect' a specific job is going to be for you. When considering whether to gamble on a job next year, you should also weigh this against how much progress you will have from one year to the next.
One observation is that people writing book manuscripts seem to have difficulty looking productive from one year to the next on the CV and this can be problematic when applying to article departments. This is not meant to discourage the dissertation to book route, just an observation of how CVs are evaluated.
I had 2 faculty make phone calls on my behalf. I did not even make the short list.
I second the prior advice. I am from a top-5 department with multiple publications in general (second-tier) sociology journals. I have been on the market 2 years in a row, sending out 40-ish applications each time. I have never - NOT ONCE - even made a short list.
Personally, I recommend doing what you think will make you happy, not what will make you famous. No one besides other sociologists has heard of "famous" sociologists anyhow. And to be really famous, you usually have to be dead. Anyone who thinks happiness lies in working at a top 5 institution rather than a lower ranked R1 or a regional state school or an SLAC should talk to all the people who actually work at these places.
from someone currently hiring and who is a faculty in a top SLAC.
I had the chance yrs ago to go to a top R1 and turned it down. We have a five course load, very smart and eager students, and lots of support for research and "professional growth." We want to tenure our hires. Frankly, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to be at a top R1 these days. At least when they deny you tenure, I suppose you might have a credential that could land you at a lower R1.
I wasn't trying to imply that you couldn't be happy at an R1 or that you would definitely be happy at a smaller or less prestigious school. You can be happyor unhappy anywhere, depending on circumstances. It seems that getting a prestigious job makes people happy--but that stage is fleeting. The happiness of having the job depends on many factors that have little, if anything, to do with prestige. Focusing on prestige seems to be an existence in a constant stage of schadenfreude--the delight that you have in your job is that other people weren't deemed worthy of it. What does prestige have to do with the quality of your day-to-day life?
just a random warning- st. john's wart acts great (and I love it) but it also messes with the pill if you are on it, so don't take it if you're on the pill and don't want to get pregnant.
And thanks for whomever mentioned antidepressents, you've inspired me to make an appointment with a shrink today, cause for the past month I've been so depressed and anxious about the job market that I've made no progress on my dissertation...or really on anything.
if i don't get a job, i may lose it...i guess in the end, it is truly Reagan and Bush's fault, they did this to us with their tax cuts and inability to heed the advice of the Keynesian school
I find it very frustrating that I don't know whether my lack of job market success is due to shortcoming with me as a candidate or factors outside of me. I wish I could send a comment card to all the SCs: Tell us what you did and did not like about this candidate?
As a chair of a SC, let me reassure the last several posters who wondered, "Why didn't I get the job?" that the main problem is the abundance of highly qualified candidates. I'd estimate that 40% of applicants for our positions (this year and recently) would have made a good-to-great colleague. The SC lacks sufficient information to make finer judgments. Much of the filtering is based on raising possible doubts (a bit like our current presidential election): ""Wow! Five years as ABD....?!" We aren't even allowed to pursue some informal sources of information that might help. Often a search is unfair competition, in that applicants who have had several years post-PhD are vying against ABDs. The final decision among short list candidates may hinge on such factors as secondary fields and useful skills (e.g. webpage building, journal editing), or on visit impressions (e.g. knowing about the faculty and curriculum of your would-be department). A few times candidates have lost support through visit mistakes (e.g. one was irritably rude to the wait-person at the faculty luncheon -- who wants THAT new colleague!?) SCs are generally not permitted to explain why someone didn't get the position; administration warns us that lawsuits can result from such disclosures.
This is exactly why the job market sucks - it is largely out of our hands and the world is filled with great qualified people. I appreciate the pep-talk, but knowing that I might have been close to good enough is not going to feed my kids next year when I'm unemployed.
I have no interest in a high-status job, but I sure would like a job...any job at all...
the possibility of a total breakdown of the university system (especially public ones) is very near...e.g., UMASS is nervous, schools are uncertain and they are cutting lines like crazy....you may want to think about other possibilities now...it is late October
I have the slight impression I will not be getting a job this year. This anxiety is psychological torture. But it is not in the hands of the SC's (they are constrained by the larger macro-social forces of the economy, budget, recession, recission, etc.)
seriously people, stop the suicide talk, even if in jest. Is the market that bad? Some schools cancel searches every year. Is it slow or are people not posting?
all of you convinced you will not get a job, what type of school are you from? What are your pubs? It sounds like drama but maybe it is a tough year.
Not sure what planet you are living on, sir/madam: THE MARKET SUCKS THIS YEAR. You must have gotten some kind of job/interview/etc. otherwise you'd feel really bad like the rest of us.
It does not look good, most of us will not have jobs for next year. Even adjuncts are getting more difficult to get. Health insurance? Forget it. This is the worst its been since the recession of 1982 according to senior faculty in my dept.
now i dont feel so alone...i have several peer-reviewed first author (2nd tier) and have not heard anything yet...i am not from the best of the departments though
some say next year will be even worse than this year...it probably depends on how the global recession works out and how public spending gets allocated, Obama may have a plan to increase public university funding, but it will not happen overnight
My goodness...I've never seen so many negative nellies before, ever. If you already have degree in hand, pressure your school to hire you as a visiting instructor for another year. If you're still ABD, spend another year off the market, take out student loans, and go back out next year. The private sector is worse than the academic sector these days so it's better to stick it out.
Also, going on the market ABD and then rushing to finish is often not a good mix for tenure success. Take another year if necessary, finish and then go on the market.
I'm thinking about alternative careers. All the Stata training could go far in market research. This job market is really scary and I am not sure staying in academia is the best thing (at least for the time being).
I understand the fear, anger, and depression that goes along with the uncertainty and the rejection of the job market - especially this year. But, we are too skilled at the verbal downward spirals.
Pep talk: Sociology doesn't define who we are, what we are worth, or what we will be able to contribute - that is unless we let it. We have to figure out how to negotiate the structure or get out of it. I think looking at alternatives to academia are good ideas. We deserve to be appreciated. And we should respect ourselves and each other in the process of negotiating the market. We have to find ways to empower ourselves. Good luck and take care!!
11:27 - Not all of us have the options you describe. A with most things, there is variation in the alternatives we have. But for some of us, it really is "that bad" this year.
the academic job market bubble is going to burst this year according to a senior faculty member in my department...it's not looking good as state budgets usually push hiring freezes as a first resort to a tough budget
i second that, 1:13, getting locked into academia is really what happens,...my resume for a "regular" job is probably not looking so good while for an academic position I did everything I was supposed to do (published, presented, networked, taught several courses)...it sucks when we experience the reality of the structural forces we teach about
I agree that things may be looking grim, but there are still many jobs where the deadlines haven't even passed yet. The job market isn't over in October but March (I had interviews in February last year). Hang in there and check out the jobs with later deadlines (I know I am trying to focus on these right now).
stock market bounced up 800 points, but remember moving averages and volatility are not good indicators for deans, university presidents, boards of trustees, or state govenors ...the state of NY is making massive cuts
Let's assume that the budget damage is nearly catastrophic and 25% of job searches get cancelled (which I think is a huge overestimate). There are 158 jobs on the wiki, and I know that MANY jobs are not posted - so let's say in the range of 200-250 jobs in the rough population of "jobs that will hire sociology Ph.Ds". I would guess there are about 400-450 folks on the job market (though some number have jobs already). If 50 jobs (again, a number that I think is a dramatic overestimate) get canceled, how much worse is the job market than it was before?
I guess I don't know the answer, but I think it's a better thought exercise than "the market is going nuts, everyone panic."
Actually, the current budget deficit in New York is 1.5 billion, which isn't that far off from what it has been. They are projecting a possible $47 billion budget deficit over the next four years.
Again, so what? By my count, only 3 of the 158 positions posted on the wiki are New York public universities, and two are also funded by the city of New York. Additionally, as noted in the NY times article discussing the budget crisis, "roughly 31,684 people have been added to the state payroll since the freeze was declared. The majority of them were professors and teaching assistants at the city and state university systems, which by law have control over their own staffing."
In my 11:09am post, I resisted calling the 10:44am poster a fear-mongerer. :o)
Look, every year, people have to cancel searches. This year is no different. In the past few years, there have been a surplus of soc jobs for the number of phds available (see ASA's report on this). Schools had their budgets for this year approved last year, so any hiring "freezes" do not necessarily affect faculty hires for this year. Stop freaking out. Brush up your CV, develop a stellar job talk, get as many apps out as you can, and then don't worry about it until you have actual proof that you will not get a job.
I think the ASA report on this is somewhat misleading, or at least does not do a very good job of considering a number of important variables.
First, there is a very big difference between good jobs and bad jobs in academia (and I mean this in the Kalleburg good job/bad job sense). There are a substantial number of sociology jobs with low pay and little autonomy, even in academia. The local community college here pays about $30K/year with no flexibility to create your own course. So when we talk about available jobs, we need to differentiate between those jobs and the jobs most of us envision where we have some autonomy and earn a living wage.
I totally agree that there is something that most of us could get a job doing. At the same time, it is a bitter pill to swallow to have to take a job not doing what you want when you have invested as much as most of us have in grad school. ASA even reports that 5% of sociology PhDs are "involuntarily out of field", and that number has been trending upwards since 2001.
When you add together the number of new Phds, post-docs, and assistant professors on the market, the number of candidates is greater than the number of openings and far greater than the number of "good jobs" (and I do NOT mean prestigious jobs here!).
On the plus side, ASA also reports that the ratio of new PhDs to retiring professors is currently 0.3:1, which are pretty good odds! Also, on average, 75% of sociology PhDs end up employed in academia.
Finally, I respectfully disagree with the advice to wait until you really don't get a job before you worry about it. I went on the job market last year in earnest and did not get a job. By November, it had become apparent that things were not looking good so I started making Plan B. Its a good thing too, because it turned out that I needed that Plan B! My advice is to go ahead and work on your plans for what to do if you don't get a job, but try not to stress too much. I ended up with a great post-doc opportunity that allowed me to publish enough to be a much stronger candidate this year.
Always plan for your worst case scenario situation, but keep in mind that what you think today is the "worst case" could turn out to be a wonderful opportunity!
Best of luck to everyone, and thanks to all the anonymous folks who have been posting information and helpful advice. I read this blog daily and have been impressed that posters have generally been positive and supportive (unlike last year!).
I didn't mean to say "don't worry" as in "don't plan." I would hope that everyone has a plan B in the works. I just meant to say that all of this frantic chatter that's been going on is a bit early, given that many deadlines have not even yet passed. Getting all frantic and crazy is not going to help you give your best when the time, hopefully, does come for a job interview. Keep calm for now!
Does anyone know what it means when a department invites applications for a "full-time, career contract, Assistant Professor"? What do they mean by "career contract"?
Here's a topic: Why is it that I should not consider a temporary position? Why is proving that I am able to teach and conduct research at the same time outside of my cocooned PhD program a negative?
I don't think it is a negative, at least in my case. I am currently a visiting assistant professor and am on the job market (selectively). Of 14 places that I applied to, I have made the short list of 5 with several deadlines to come. The extra year out of grad school has allowed me to teach, publish, seek external funding and therefore I'm a much stronger candidate than last year. I don't think many schools see that being a VAP is negative, unless your CV hasn't improved at all in that additional year.
What I've been told is that it all depends on the temporary position. If it's one that allows you enough time to publish or do other things that add to your CV, then it's seen as a productive way to spend a year or two. But many temporary positions are fairly exploitative, with heavy teaching loads and low pay.
salary question- I recently had an interview where a friendly prof told me that if they offer me the job (which I will find out in 2-3 weeks) I should ask for a salary that is at least the prevailing average salary for an assistant prof. I really liked the place, and I think I would take the job if offered.
So my question- how do I find out what the average sociology assistant prof salary is (google hasn't been much help)? What salary should I be willing to take, and what salary is too much to ask for?
For context, this is for a publicly funded school that is unionized, that heavily emphasizes research over teaching (2/2 teaching load and the chair basically said nothing but publications and outside reviews of your research counts in terms of getting tenure), but that has no grad program in sociology on this particular campus. It is also in the NYC metro area, so the cost of living is very high.
I don't want to insult them or sound like a prima donna or something by asking for too much money, but I don't want to low ball myself either...I know this is totally jumping the gun, but I'd like to be prepared in case they offer me the job.
If the campus is unionized, find the union page; they often post average salaries and/or offer to put candidates in touch with a union member on strategies for negotiation.
Also, most publics will fall under their state's information act. In the past, I had a friend/relative with a different surname send in requests for salaries in the hiring department and a couple of other publics in the same state. Such requests usually are handled centrally and the department probably won't even know there's a request, but I used a friend for the request anyway. Usually, by law, they have to answre within about a week, and sometimes you have to pay for the photocopies. Highly recommended.
Does anyone think it is peculiar how there are a lot of visiting positions advertised now (and even earlier)? Before, the visiting positions did not come out until the spring.
Things are moving faster now. This week I scored a flyout, a phone interview and 7 or 8 meetings at an upcoming conference. I also recieved 4 rejections when I emailed to check the status of my applications. At least I got good and bad news at the same time!
I was told that emailing to check on the status of your application was a no-no. Are a lot of people calling or emailing to check on the status of your applications? I'd love to know where some of the schools are at in the process, but I have been told not to bother them and wait for them to contact me (if they want to).
3:42: The ads for visiting or short-term positions are all over the place: ASA Job Bank, the various listserves, etc. In fact, the locations and institutions of the visiting and short-term positions are more desirable than the tt positions, in my opinion.
i emailed about the status of my app in a couple of cases, I don't care, if they want you they want you, just cuz you email doesn't mean they throw your app out b/c you are too pushy (obviously don't send 30 emails every week)
To November 9, 2008 8:00 AM - In the recent past, I got an offer for an assistant prof job (unionized) at a SUNY last year. The initial offer was $58,500 plus one month of summer funding ($5,850). It was in an area that has a lot lower cost of living than metro NYC. I negotiated the salary up to $60,000, but I focused my negotiations on things other than salary. FYI.
P.S. If you get any summer money, I strongly recommend asking for it the summer before you start your job. That can be an extremely rough time financially.
The economic crisis is cutting into state university/college budgets and into endowments and donations of private schools too. Temporary positions are being cut as teaching salary budgets are reduced. Post-docs and research positions look good as ways to ride out the storm. One can retool in a different direction while publishing and networking. Law school could be a smart choice: having a doctorate in sociology should be an advantage in certain fields of the law pertaining to evidence, research, even jury selection.
I can be a great asset to your department in the areas of medical sociology, quantitative methods, social stratification, race and ethnicity, and political sociology.
I have several sole-authored peer review publications written and published while a graduate student. Various drafts of papers are in the pipeline now.
I have also prepped and taught nearly eight different courses at a large Research 1 in the Northeast where I am finishing my doctoral degree.
I have sent out many applications and only made a few long-lists. Most faculty said I would have an easy time on the market, but as we all know this is not the case for anyone.
I work very hard and would love the opportunity to work as a tenure-track assistant professor in your department.
I understand making sacrifices in hard times.
I will take a $5,000 pay cut for my first two years (depending if there is a loophole in your faculty contract that allows such). I can also teach an extra course each semester for the first two years.
I will defend my dissertation in early Spring of 2009.
While I recognize this is unorthodox, I really hope you might consider contacting me. I am a serious person.
Good idea to post a letter. I've wondered why no one does that in Footnotes or some other professional source.
The problem is that there are hundreds of ABD/recent PhDs who have a few publications and some teaching experience, and who want a TT position.
There also are slightly more senior faculty who want to move, and are applying to junior positions but with the advantage of years of teaching and c.v. pages of publications.
i recently started a sociology blog and am looking for some co-authors. i envision this as being a collaborative discussion about all things sociology, a la scatterplot, but from the perspective of the newest batch of sociologists to enter the field.
i read an article many months ago (can't remember where, sorry) on the changing nature of academic sociology. there was an interesting contrast between Professor A: 63 years old, openly activist, public intellectual, ethnographic researcher, studied racism, and Professor B: 28 years old, professionally neutral on political issues, scientist, quantitative researcher, studied mortality rates in developing countries.
i think it would be interesting to have a forum devoted to how those of us who constitute this "new generation of academics" see our field and the issues we study.
so i thought...why not post an ad looking for co-authors on the one board where new PhDs are likely to see it? if you are interested in participating in the project, please email me at bleached144@gmail.com. give me the one-minute version of your background and interests. don't worry, i'm not going to hand-pick people! the first couple who respond will be in (assuming anyone at all responds), but i'd like to know a little about who i'll be writing with.
On this year's Wiki, there are about 200 jobs posted, but the ASA report on "plentiful jobs" said that there were about 600 jobs for assistant professor listed in 2006.
Can that be true? When were the 600 jobs posted? Were they really 600 different jobs?
There are fewer jobs posted this year than last, but I just can't imagine that there 600 jobs posted in 2006. How did ASA get those numbers?
i assume ASA counts every job ever listed during the year. that would include a lot of jobs that aren't listed on the wiki, like at western black hills community college.
I think it is fair to say that ASA reports are not peer-reviewed. The data, as it is for any lobby/marketing organizing is going to be skewed favorably. In other words, don't trust the ASA.
ASA reports might not be peer reviewed, but that particular report was written by the former editor of ASR and the head research person at ASA. Are you saying that just becuase the article is not peer reviewed, it's wrong in some way? Chronicle.com articles on careers aren't peer reviewed either...should we just throw those away too?
I find it slightly hilarious that people are so insistent on doom and gloom scenarios that they find ways to ignore all evidence to the contrary. Even if it's scientifically collected, their methods must be wrong, or it's not peer reviewed, things must ACTUALLY be horrible, even though the stats say they arn't!
I find it slightly hilarious that you are surprised that people are worried about getting jobs. Yeah, really irrational fear. Why would anyone be afraid of spending 10 years of post-high school education and not getting a good job out of it?
If you want to be helpful, stop telling people their fears about getting a job are wrong and start being part of the group that tries to concretely address those fears as if they matter.
I don't think the ASA report on the job outlook for PhDs is flawed in the sense of using bad methods or statistics like we might say a journal article is flawed. Rather, I think the authors of the report overstate their results.
In my opinion, it is not correct to state that the job market is strong for PhD graduates simply by looking at the number of graduates vs. the number of job postings in a given year. The omitted variables in the article are the number of people competing for jobs who are not new PhD graduates (professors, post-docs, ABDs) and the qualitative difference between a job making $55K/year with a 2/2 teaching load and a job making $38/year with a 4/4 load.
Note that these flaws do not mean that the conclusions of the report are wrong. It just means that the evidence they present is not sufficient to draw the stated conclusions. I don't have enough data myself to make any sweeping assessment on the relative strength of the job market.
dude, a former deputy editor with 20 years experience, blah blah blah is never one to get excited about anything and always super skeptical of everything... he thinks the job market looks dismal and will be worse next year
doom and gloom? Obama said the economy has not reached its low point and the scary thing is that he is simply recycling the establishmentarians who created the mess in the first place to head his top economic posts. An old women down the street is going to talk about how she celebrated the holidays during the depths of the 1930s today at our community center in new england
A couple of us currently on the job market have started a new sociology blog. We're looking for others who would like to collaborate on this. Visit the blog at:
http://sociologylife.blogspot.com/
and drop us an email if you'd like to participate. Active blogging should be going by next week. Thanks!
Presumably some of those cultural studies/critical media studies posts are also good research departments, just with slightly different expectations about where/what to publish. As long as you stay productive and maintain strong ties to sociology, you'll be okay.
It seems like this year is not only a bad year for the job market, but an unusual one as well.
That is, not only are there fewer depts. hiring, but there are more positions in unusual areas.
There are as many if not more positions on "globalization and the environment" than on "globalization" by itself, not to mention some of the areas that were so popular recently, and therefore have tons of people on the market: organizations, culture, political economy and etc.
Whoever thought about doing anything with the environment about 5 or 6 years ago is in a nice position right now. What is the next big thing? Economic sociology, with the crisis and all?
A TT position was advertised in the Chronicle very briefly (i.e., 1 month). Now the ad is no longer there/has expired but the application deadline isn't until January. The job wasn't posted in the ASA job bank. So, is this an indication that there is an inside candidate?
475 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 475 Newer› Newest»Re: 7:51
I agree that the salaries can be quite variable. But in the case of the KY jobs you mention, if you look closely I would guess the 80-89K figure is for a soft-money position. I could be wrong, but most positions in medicine/public health will be soft-money and therefore have higher "salaries".
For the salaries, after talking to some friends in political science, I have the impression that starting salaries in sociology are generally lower than in political science. Not sure whether it is true or, if so, what's the reason...
Why do some schools request transcripts? Do they really look at all the grades you got in grad school?
I would guess it is to see what classes you took. My department does not give grades, so I hope they aren't looking for that!
Re Kentucky: You're catching the extreme of the state institutions. The low range point is the satellite outpost of a regional state university and the high range point is a job through the medical school at the state's flagship university. One has a clear regional service mission and the other is an R1 aspiring to move up the rankings.
Well, for KY in particular, one school is the regional branch of a less prestigious university, and cost of living is very, very low. The other school (I believe) is in a much more expensive area.
NCSU job canceled, confirmed.
I called both HR and the department. They confirmed that the search has been canceled.
This job was on their HR's website until late August.
re transcripts: Universities need to confirm the degrees earned/in progress. Transcripts are used to do this. Even if transcripts are not required in the application or in the interviewing process, they will be needed from the person(s) actually hired.
7:51 -- it's crazy that there's a 100% difference in starting salaries, and you're probably a bit naive to have been surprised! There are just gigantic differences in resources and prestige between schools, and posted salary ranges aren't necessarily accurate. Disparaties are everywhere in academia -- odds are that the person hired for $80k will have about half the teaching load of the person hired for $40k, so the difference can be thought of as 4:1 instead of 2:1. Of course, adjuncts teaching the same courses might be paid $20k, without benefits . . .
No offense, but I think you might be a bit naive. The Western Kentucky position focuses on teaching, the UKentucky position focuses on research. Plus, Kentucky is an R1, Western Kentucky is not. After several years of doctoral study, you should know by now that research is more valued than teaching on the market (at least in terms of dollars). Sad, but true.
one of the position that I applied asks for a letter of interests, but no statement of research statement. Should I provide detailed info. on my research/teaching interests in this letter as well??
thanks!
The dept offering 80-89K salary is affiliated with the medical school.
Your cover letter should describe your research and teaching interests. If the school does not ask for a research or teaching statement, I might add a little more to the cover letter about your future research plans. If you are covering that in an included research statement, focus the cover letter on your current projects.
re: 5:20 PM
thanks!
Posters are often asking questions about whether they should send materials that are not specifically requested by the announcement, and whether they should apply for positions that may not be exactly their specialty. Having chaired SCs often, I advise these posters to spend the money for copies and postage, and to apply widely and with full materials -- articles, statements of interest, more letters than requested, and so forth.
Be aware that search committees are composed of faculty who have varying interests and goals. Why not include materials to appeal to the teaching-oriented, the research-oriented, and those who favor a new colleague who would help with committee work? Moreover, search committees do not usually write the position announcement, which is often a hybrid of the offices of chair, dean, and faculty personnel legal branch. The job notice does not necessarily express committee members' heartfelt requirements. Final candidates may be a compromise among different committee members' goals, and may be a choice of the "best player available" rather than only the best who matches the specialty exactly.
A heavy application packet shows a potential candidate who seems to really want the job, as does an early application (also implying a well-organized person). More information is better than less. The photocopying and postage will be well invested in your career options.
If there are two positions advertised in the same department, and I could fit into both (at a stretch), do I apply separately for each, combine into one application, or only apply for one? It seems difficult to argue that I'm two things at once (in a combined application), but almost weirder to have two schizoid application packets that might be viewed by the same people.
re: two positions in the same dept -- with northeastern where the two searches have different committee chairs, i feel you don't have a choice but to send two separate packages. otherwise, if it's the same search committee, i would send in one and stress how you fit both areas -- i can't think of completely incompatible sub areas in sociology but i'd be curious about corrections.
I was on a SC at a time when our department had separate searches with separate committees going on at the same time. We would send applications to the other SC in our department when the applicant appeared to be a better fit for their position, and the other SC did the same. My sense is that if your application looks good it will find its way into the appropriate stack of apps
I hope everyone is okay with a non-job market related sociology question. When is it appropriate to 'bug' the editors at a journal you submitted to for a response after a significant amount of time has elapsed? They cite a 6-8 week review process and its been at least 12 weeks now.
Thanks. - L
I'm not ok with a non-job market related question.
Sorry Charlie. Go somewhere else.
I'm fine with an OT question...
Once you are a month past their average review time, it is fine to send an email asking for an update. It won't really change anything, so whether you ask or not the process is going to take however long it takes. But for your own peace of mind, it is generally fine to ask. More than likely the editor will tell you that they are waiting on one slow reviewer. The editor can also sometimes give you an idea of how much longer they may need to reach a decision.
This happened to me recently when one potential reviewer declined to review the manuscript. It extended the overall review process by 5 weeks.
The focus here is already pretty diffuse, so I'd urge sticking to job-related posts, but since we're on the topic, it's at least worth mentioning that the job-seeking and research forums on chronicle of higher ed's site address questions like 11:01's with substantial depth.
The age old question: How bad is it when your letter writer turns a rec letter two weeks late? Let's say this person is at a top tier school. I'd love to hear from someone on a search committee...
re: 12:46pm
I want to know this as well.
It's interpreted as an unobtrusive measure that you are not ready for the job market.
Very Funny...typically if the search committee is interested in pursuing your candidacy they will contact you or your missing letter writer (if they have the contact info) directly to request that the letter be sent asap. This is assuming that they have even actually started looking at the applications at this point. Just because the deadline was two weeks ago does not mean that the SC has even so much as glanced at a single cover letter yet.
I concur - as long as your other letters are in, they won't boot you from the pool just for missing one letter.
It varies. I know that at my institution the staff members who are responsibe for collecting the appications put the incomplete files away and the SC members don't even come close to looking at them until they are complete- why would they when there are 200+ complete files piled up?
Having said that, last year when I was on the market, two schools got in touch with me to let me know that 2 of my letters out of 3 were missing and I should have them sent asap.
I had an interview with one of these schools which led to a job so no need to freak out yet.
Here's kudos to U Delaware! The search chair sent a lovely letter acknowledging receipt of my application, outlining their schedule for interviews and describing the locale. I know it's time & $, but I think this should become The Standard for how SC's treat applicants.
I applied to Delaware, but am not at the mailing address I gave them now.
Can you give a rundown of the dates they mentioned?
Thanks!
I applied for a few positions electronically. Oddly, I haven't received any response (yet), not even automatic ones.
Is this just me or they just don't reply to application emails in general?
I've gotten responses from the applications with online forms (eg NYU, Virginia), but with the ones that are emailed, I assume that department secretaries are too busy to be bothered.
I have received confirmation emails from the electronic applications. I have received a handful of confirmations from paper apps via email but nothing via mail yet.
Strange...I did the Virginia online application and did not receive any sort of confirmation.
I also got no response from my Virginia application, nor from about half the other online applications I made. I figure they just haven't gotten around to it yet?
I also did not get confirmation from Virginia.
3:24 here. I think I misspoke about Virginia. Sorry.
Apology accepted. Nincompoop.
It's a little early for name calling. Ease up.
Does it matter if I don't reply to the EEOC forms?
Why wouldn't you want to send your form in? They are not supposed to discriminate based off of the information on those forms. And even if you didn't want them to know you are a white male they would find out pretty quickly when you show up for an interview.
The EEOC forms are never seen by the department. They are requested by HR because all federal contractors are required to collect data on the race/gender/veteran status/disability status/age of applicants.
If you elect not to return the form, you are recorded as missing data for the school. It probably doesn't matter much, but as sociologists it would be nice of us to respond to requests for data given how much of our work depends on other people doing so for us!
But no, there are no consequences if you elect not to return the cards.
Thanks 5:29!
Re: Delaware's schedule.
According to the letter, they "hope to begin interviewing candidates by either late October or early November."
In the wake of our recent "market correction", has anyone else been given advice along the lines of "You need to take any hard money (as opposed to grant-funded) tenure track job you can get your hands on, because the economy is going to keep getting worse and the academic job market is better now than it will be for quite a while?"
Or maybe I should ask a more general question: how is the current economic situation changing everyone's job search strategies, if at all?
4:21, I have been thinking about this issue as well, but haven't gotten any advice. Seems like it could go either way, though. This year could be the last decent year for a while, but on the other hand, perhaps it's the worst year, and things will improve after this!
A lot of folks I have talked to seem to think academia doesn't respond much to economic downturns, but I don't think that's accurate. A lot of departments are not posting ads this year, and many of the state university systems have fewer ads than usual.
re: economy
If a job search has been approved by a dean, it will likely stay that way.
Some searches get called of with hiring freezes, but that is the minority.
In a downturn, however, it is unlikely that new tt lines will be approved.
For small private schools already with $$ problems, TT lines could shrink with retirement, etc.
hope this helps.
ugh, the other thread just said that UC Davis just made a short list for the demography position but hasn't informed the candidates yet...why am I totally convinced that I didn't make it even though I know they haven't informed people yet? It's like just hearing they looked at applications makes my self confidence nose dive...
Its not just you. I feel rejected and most places I applied have not even closed yet! The process is stressful, and that's all there is to it.
Me three! I'm completely prepared to be rejected...
Having served on numerous search committees, it may be worth adding some insight from the other side of the process. In particular, oftentimes many outstanding candidates apply for a position. Who is invited in for an interview, let alone hired, is subject to a multitude of extraneous factors over which the candidate has absolutely no control (e.g., departmental needs and preferences, search committee preferences, other candidates who have applied and their qualifications, etc. etc. etc.). To a large extent, a candidate's particular qualifications play only a part in the process while a host of other things, about which the candidates typically have absolutely no idea, are involved as well. So, while there are things one can do to maximize one's qualifications and credentials (e.g., publish, publish, teach a class or two, be a good departmental citizen), if one is a strong candidate on paper it does not always mean that the person will be interviewed, let alone offered the position in a particular department. Although hard not to do, try not to take seeming rejection personally. Be as strong as you can be for the types of positions for which you aspire/desire (SLAC, research I, etc.), and something will work out, even if it is not with a particular position at a specific place.
well, this is just great!
I'm still persuading my references to send their letters to UC Davis and you are telling me a short list has been made already?...
Me four?
me five on uc davis
(while listening to the beastie boys)
guess i will put this down as a rejection in my excel file
10:48- don't put it down as a rejection just yet, the other thread says they have made a short list but they haven't told the candidates who made it that they made it.
I think a previous poster summed up exactly why some of us do feel so anxious - because we have very little control over whether or not we can get a job. We can present ourselves well, but making the final cut is out of our hands.
I'm not worried about taking rejection personally; it is stressful precisely because it is not personal!
its stressful when you have children too...will i have enough money for daycare or rent if i don't find a job?
This is just a rant, but I need to blow off some steam.
To the referees who promise that you will send letters of reference on our behalf: After multiple reminders since the summer, why have you not mailed in your letters? I don't believe for a second that you are as busy as you claim to be, especially since you do zero research. The deadline has passed for several of the institutions I applied to and they STILL have not received your letters. I've reminded you at least three times. I spent a great deal of time, effort, and money putting the applications together and now these institutions may not consider my applications at all since the application is incomplete, thanks to you fuckos.
wow. what a rant. i am pretty disappointed with one of my writers as well, although s/he does do plenty of research. i feel that s/he is of the opinion that if her/his letter arrives late people will still take notice...
i think the system would be so much smoother if the schools would only ask for letters if they are serious about a candidate... imagine all of the energy/research time that would be generated across the board! we could solve racism if not for all the time we spend on letters that just get lost in the slush pile, cast aside because i have a degree from the university of northwestern cuba.
FYI the University of Maryland system has imposed a faculty hiring freeze. UMD at College Park was in the process of looking for two demographers and one ‘open’ hire. Despite the freeze, there is some optimism that the dept might be able to hire one demographer because the process is already so far along and much of the funding for the position will come from outside sources.
3:43 do you happen to know the reasons behind the freeze in the University of Maryland system? I ask this because I'm currently at a state school (not in the UM system) in Maryland as a visiting professor but can get on as tenure-track for next year as long as the state of Maryland doesn't pull the line. I'm wondering if the freeze will trickle down to other state schools in MD.
on the issue of recommendation letters: I think PSU and Maryland are doing a job. they don't want letters at the first stage.
re: 3:43pm
"...the process is already so far along..."
Did you mean that Maryland has A specific candidate in mind already?
thanks!
re: 6:02 from 10/1 - I do not know the concrete reasons behind the freeze but I have heard that the budget crunch is significant. I have also heard that a couple other schools in other parts of the country have informed applicants about a hiring freeze although I am not sure which ones.
re: 7:53 from 10/1 - What I meant by the process being so far along at UMD is that the department has scheduled interviews and a couple candidates have already visited campus.
re 6:13 about areas of specialization: I was told to keep in mind that the search committee may have different people than those involved in writing the ad. You should always apply to a school in which are interested if it is a "preference" for a certain area. Otherwise, I agree that you should construe their categories as broadly, and as possible, and let the SC decide if you are what they are looking for.
CATASTROPHIC ECONOMIC COLLAPSE = canceled searches. The DOW dropped 369.88 points today and now sits below 10,000. Economists are very gloomy. If McCain wins (and even if Obama wins) structural conditions are such that many of us will be unemployed.
Half (roughly) of the schools (if not many more) are public institutions of higher learning and may face drastic budget cuts. My institution may not even bring a graduate cohort in next year.
Obama should run on a "Second New Deal" platform.
Following up on 3:12pm -
I'm curious how many of you are conducting parallel non-academic job searches. It would be nice to add a separate thread for this on the blog.
3:12--
Let's not be alarmist. Have you actually seen any evidence that a substantial number of searches are being canceled? Do we know that there are fewer jobs posted on ASA/Chronicle than at this time last year? Remember, we're sociologists and we look at patterns. What happens at your university may not be indicative of the decisions made at other places.
The next few years were supposed to be bumper years for jobs, with the retiring baby boomers. But, now we have economic problems to counterbalance that. Might the end result be no change from the past 5 or 8 years?
Let's look at it even another way. One method colleges and universities (particularly small colleges) use to attract students is maintaining small class size. As fewer folks go to college, institutions will have to compete harder for students, increasing the pressure to keep class sizes low (which you do by hiring more faculty).
In other words, with the number of posted jobs at the moment, I think it's way too early to panic, as 3:12 seems to be doing.
Fair enough, 9:38, but as job candidates we also need to be realistic and informed of what the current economic situation means for us right now.
Chronicle discussion boards have a post on just this - and list an alarming number of states with freezes (NY is not up there but SUNY Stony Brook is freezing all hires and the state is set for another round of budget cuts which will likely affect other SUNYs/CUNYs in some way).
See
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,53773.0.html
the DOW dropped another 500 pts today to close at 9447
time to get realistic
many of those boomer retirees are seeing their retirements pissed away and may not retire
one of my friends said he went to apply at walmart and there was a line at the kiosk!
many of those boomer retirees are seeing their retirements pissed away and may not retire
very good point
You guys are still probably OK for this year. It's those looking for jobs next year and the year after that will really suffer. Budget lines for hiring this year would have been approved a while ago (in many cases, at least).
i think the big thing we have to consider this year is that non-academic jobs may be less available than in years past. being realistic, a good number of people graduating with PhDs this year will be looking for a non-academic job, either as a first choice or as a plan b option. that's probably where we'll see the cuts first.
I agree with 6:42pm that we'll likely see cuts first in the non-academic market. But, the thing that so often gets overlooked is that the non-academic market includes the entire known universe outside of the tiny territory within the academy. So, even if jobs in the non-academic market were slashed by half, there would still be many more jobs outside, than inside, academia.
It's time to push the panic button! Everybody freak out!!!!
Not necessarily push the panic button. But just be realistic.
Has anyone tried to post and it doesn't work?
The market is moving A LOT slower this year than last year. Unless maybe people aren't posting their interviews? Or the wiki vandal is seriously at it.. The difference is quite striking.
I also noticed the striking difference in the speed of the search process between this year and last year. Psychologically this is really getting unbearable (for me, at least). I kept telling myself it is still early in the process but, for god's sake, it is already mid-October and only 5 schools have scheduled interviews!
Last year we had a 'counter' on the wiki to estimate the number of people (those on the market and lurkers) who were using the wiki/blog.
Are folks interested in something similar this year?
Re: 2:03pm
It does seem a bit slower this year. I'm also doing a parallel search with business schools, and many have already scheduled interviews.
Question:
The differential timing of schools' searches seems likely to put us candidates in a bad position. App deadlines range from September to January or later. So if we interview somewhere and, thinking positively, are lucky enough to get an offer, but other places we like may not have even closed searches yet, do we just not get to compare? I doubt schools are willing to wait a month+ for an answer...Is there anything we can do?
AlterNet
5 Pieces of Advice for the New Paupers
"I just went through the hell of going from grad school-level poverty to the real thing. Here are my lessons learned."
By John Dolan, AlterNet
Posted on October 15, 2008, Printed on October 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/102992/
Little did I know that when I lost everything last year, I was doing research. At the time I thought it was just stupidity or bad luck or both. But now that the economy's crashing, it turns out I've been out there gathering valuable tips for millions of new paupers. And let me clarify, I'm talking real poverty. My wife and I fell through many layers of poverty in a few months. First we revisited the genteel poverty known to grad students, the sort of poverty where you have scary dreams about the rent and eat a simple, wholesome diet toward the end of the month. But we fell right through that into the sort of Dickensian privation that spoiled first-worlders like me never expected to experience. That's the kind of poverty a lot of people are going to be experiencing soon -- and I'm here to tell you, it can happen here and it can happen to you. And it's remarkably unpleasant. You may be saying "Duh!" here, but you're probably not imagining the proper sort of unpleasantness. So I'll try to lay out what to watch for, how to hunker down when it's not just a matter of cutting back or selling your second car but having no car at all, having no money for heat or food.
All the things we learned are going to seem pretty obvious, but remember that it's very hard to think clearly when your life has collapsed. These are what they call the old verities, the truths of life before the middle class was (briefly) in session:
Warmth
Above all, you need to have a dry, warm place to sleep. We had only an unheated boat, and that was not enough. We woke up to the thump of sea ice banging against the hull and realized that the old world was still very much in session. When we finally fled to stay with family, we stayed in our blankets up against their gas fireplace for weeks. You won't even want food much after a while. You'll want heat itself, not the chemical middleman. You are going to realize that cold is the most frightening thing in the world. In older English dialects, "to starve" meant "to freeze." You will see why.
Car
Got one? Maybe you should sell it. Cars drain the last dollars out of you. And there's something worse: Cops can smell desperation, and they hate the poor. I didn't hate cops as much before, except drug cops, but God, I hate them now. The real purpose of cops is to keep poor people off the roads. That's their only real goal. On my way to an interview for a job that could have gotten us out of the gutter, a cop stopped me because my insurance was two weeks overdue -- for the simple reason that we didn't have money to pay it. She gave me a $600 ticket for that, plus $120 for not having an updated address on my driver's license. Then she called for a tow truck and told me, "So, a lesson learned here today!" as I watched my car get towed away and trudged off with our terrified dog down a typical Western suburban road: four lanes of fast traffic with no sidewalks. Are you poor? The cops are your enemy now. Accept it. The car is how they'll try to get you. Sell it if you can -- which is to say, if there's any decent public transportation -- hah! -- where you live.
Shame
As in, forget about it. Shame is an affectation. I don't even need to say this, really. Once you've experienced actual cold and hunger, your good old Olduvai Gorge mammal body and brain will take over, and believe me, shame won't be a problem.
You'll also find that most of the social stuff is easier than you'd expect. These people are in show biz in a way; they have to be, just to survive. It makes them lively. And though I suppose it all depends on where you are when you lose out, in my experience they're not especially violent. They talk about it a lot, but so do all the white jocks I ever met, and in neither case does anything actually happen. They're flinchy people, mainly, who spend a lot of time waiting for things. When you're waiting, you get very frustrated but you don't want to shake things up. So they're tense, bitter, sociable, gossipy and treacherous -- a fine cross-section of the population. After waiting around with them in line at the local food bank, sharing "how I ended up here" stories and hanging out with them around a propane heater trying to stay warm, I relaxed a lot. They're not going to mug you. They are going to try to get any cash you have, and God did they get a huge chunk of our last resources, but it was friendly, schmooze-based extortion, just like in the middle-class world. All that was missing was the deodorant.
Food Banks
These places, usually in the basement of a church (because churches are the only public institutions in the new suburbs of western North America) hand out baskets of groceries every week or, more often, every two weeks. You have to wait a long time, so learn your refugee skills. Come early, get a number first, and be nice but pushy. It's a delicate operation, being nice but pushy, but you'll learn it. The "nice" part is because you need to ask people for help and advice; you're not rich enough to be solitary anymore. The pushy part is simple: It's to prevent you from being ignored. So always talk to people, but never show money or mention it, if you have any.
Antidepressants
Get on them right away, if you're not already. If you are, up your dose. Because it's going to hurt. It doesn't matter how much Marxist theory you've absorbed; it doesn't matter that you can put your fall into global context; it's happening to you now, and it's going to hurt like you wouldn't believe. You're an American, and you share that culture's values whether you like it or not. So you define yourself by your job, car and house. When they go, you're going to hate yourself. Don't even bother arguing about it. It's going to happen. Just take the damn Prozac. Would you refuse a coat in Siberia? Refusing Prozac after falling into poverty makes about as much sense. Tom Cruise can go fuck himself. Prozac saved our lives. I won't go into the sordid details, but really, I don't think we'd be here now if Saint Prozac hadn't extended a sacred hand to us.
So the second you slip beneath genteel poverty toward the street, find the nearest free clinic, and don't be deterred by the smell of the crowd in the waiting room. Smell is going to be a problem for you at first, but after a few weeks you won't mind, because you smell too, and so does everyone around you. If you want a break from the relentless olfactory fact of being around unwashed large mammals, sidle up to somebody who smokes. That's the one good thing about cigarettes, and it may be why losers all smoke. Don't smoke just for that, though. Cigarettes are insanely expensive and turn lots of poor people into cringing beggars.
How do you tell your story? That's going to matter, because you'll be brooding about what went wrong 24/7, whether you want to or not. And you'll find that explaining one's great fall is a vital skill among the fallen, as well as a deeply satisfying pastime. This raises the issue of denial, a vital and deeply misunderstood mechanism. Denial, like Kurtz said about Terror, is your friend or an enemy to be feared. You need some denial to keep your ego from being crushed completely. Your ego is going to get very sick, now that you're nobody. It's easy to be polite and self-deprecating when you're winning. I used to be like that. You can't afford that when you're being crushed. You have to demand respect if you expect to get it. The alternative is to dwindle away and disappear. Those antidepressants will help you deny the facts, but don't be shy about doing ego-exercises, boasting practice, to reawaken that playground ego that so many of us polite middle-class types allowed to atrophy. You're going to need it.
On a practical level, the question is what to jettison -- and I'm not just talking about things. If you have kids well, God help you; I can't give advice here, because luckily we didn't. But we did, unfortunately, have a dog, a big clumsy puppy we got just before everything fell apart. We probably should have given her up. Growing up in an atmosphere of terror and cold and self-hatred, she turned out to be a very weird, unhappy dog. I've had lots of dogs before this, back when I was comfy, and they were all nice suburban dogs, Frisbee-catching pals. This one's a feral freak. Now that we have a warm place to live, it's almost fun watching her reactions, the way she flinches and sniffs at every noise, smell or flash of color, but I know she would have been happier getting adopted by some family that complains about what a pain it is having just four bedrooms.
Besides, if you have a dog, you're cutting down on your chances of getting a job. This one howls when she's left alone, another legacy of her traumatic puppyhood, so one of us had to stay with her most of the time. It was like being handcuffed to the wretched unheated ex-fishing boat we were living on.
The boat was another contributor to our debacle; it was something else we should have sold off right away, even at a 90 percent loss. The idea behind that damn boat was that instead of paying the insanely high West Coast rents, we'd live on the boat for free. This is a very bad idea. Any idea you have of retreating to some simple, free habitation should be regarded with deep doubt. The thing is, you can't get back to the comfortable, heated world from a place like that boat. No Internet. You need the 'net if you're ever going to claw your way back. You need a working shower, which that boat lacked. Otherwise you develop that look, that smell you first encountered in the free clinic waiting room. It's not a good look, jobwise. Maybe if we'd gotten rid of the dog I'd have had a chance.
But you lose more than that. You change completely, more than you realize, to the point that even if you get a break you can't grab it. After months of applying for teaching jobs without even getting answers, the perfect job opened up for me at a local college. It was half creative writing, half teaching literature and composition -- all my specialties. But when the interview started I realized I was no longer someone who could talk the quiet, polite, oblique version of self-promotion demanded by academic hiring committees. I was too deeply, permanently spooked by our condition. I was just plain wrong, unhireably wrong in every way. No hot water on the boat, and I needed to shave the graying wisps of hair on my big bald head, so I'd shaved in the McDonald's men's room on the way to the interview, with a cheap Bic shaver. You can guess the results: I looked like a bobcat had tried to roost on my scalp and been evicted after a violent struggle. The used sport coat we'd spent our last $20 of Visa credit on at Value Village didn't seem to fit nearly so well once I was inside that humming, immaculate classroom where the interview was held. And I had become a louder, more desperate, excessive person. When I tried to sound positive, it came out furious. When they asked me, as I'd known they would, why someone who'd taught at bigger universities wanted to come to this small rural campus, I said truthfully, "I'd rather teach here in the forest than at Stanford." It didn't come out enthusiastic; it came out strident. After months of being a bum, I was the wrong volume, the wrong temperature. I could feel the job slipping away, and in fact they hired a local guy who was friends with the director, even though my resume kicked his resume's ass.
You'll find that if you want to get back into that quiet, odor-free, polite world, you're going to have to decompress for a few months. What happened to us is that we fled, found a basement apartment on borrowed money, and stayed there, keeping the heat on high for months. Then we were ready to try again for a job.
It took that long to calm down, quiet down, lose a little of the bitterness. Yes, you're going to be very bitter. You can't hate yourself all the time; you have to switch off now and then and blame somebody else. In fact, somebody else may damn well be to blame. Just make sure the bitterness doesn't keep you awake. To enable yourself to sleep, take long walks. Shout curses at the world if you need to; just keep walking. And no matter what, don't sell your sleeping bag. I had a North Face down bag, and I learned to love it way, way more than I loved myself.
Sleep is an antidepressant almost as good as Prozac. And it's free. The time to worry is when you wake up after a couple of hours screaming. That happened to me after five months, and that's when I broke down and asked my brother for a loan. That's where this story diverges from a real street story: I had an out. And believe me, I took it. I should have taken it sooner, in fact.
If you have an out -- a relative or friend who can lend you money to find a place to live -- take it now. And as soon as you get an offer -- some old friend has a ski cabin nobody's using, or a small unit behind their house -- take it, as long as it's heated.
The old world is very much alive, and has it in for you. Do anything to keep it from killing you. The only reason I haven't endorsed crime here is that from what I saw, paupers are not in a good position to try it. Like so much else, crime is for the big people.
John Dolan is a contributor to eXiledonline.com. He is the author of, most recently, Pleasant Hell (Capricorn, 2005).
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/102992/
Come on! That post is way too long and way off topic.
And now for something completely different:
Name your dream job, and explain why you want it. Be specific about the school & your reasons, where possible.
If you can't find an academic job, in the event of "martial law" in the U.S., the military has some interesting employment opportunities.
http://www.apd.army.mil//pdffiles/r210_35.pdf
the job market is psychological torture...impending pauperism
re 2:54
My dream job would be one where I could order people to have conversations for my own amusement whenever I pleased, without bringing anything to the table myself. The ideal location would probably be the internets.
My friend was given this advice by his mentor: There isn't really a dream job, only one that gives you many of the things that you are looking for. In that regard, I want an ideologically harmonious faculty who support each other, and a student body that is at least as attentive and appreciative as the students in the movie Better Off Dead.
Oh jesus, 3:56! It was meant as a lighthearted diversion, not an "order." I'm sure your job prospects are stressing you out, but you don't need to take it out on others.
FWIW, I already landed my dream job, I just had no idea what my dream job was before I got it. It's a top-40 school with reasonable publishing expectations, a fantastic location, and light teaching. The pay isn't what they make at a top-5 place, but it's not that far off (and the gap is more than offset by the lower stress). The good news is that we're hiring this year (I'm on the search committee, which is what brings me here).
For those of you who are fortunate enough to get multiple offers this year, I hope (for your sake) that you don't simply accept at the higher-ranked institution. I know that, if offered (it wasn't), I would have taken a top-5 job (as several of my friends have), and I would have been miserable.
Good luck.
How does one learn the rankings of SOC departments that don't appear in the 25 listed in US News and World Report?
Just because budget lines are approved in advance doesn't mean departments won't be ordered to suspend searches. What is often the case in state schools is that the department (and college that they're a part of) is running a deficit. I think this year is going to be very tough for folks on the academic market.
The big, more reliable ranking is done by the National Research Council every 10 years. The results from 1993 or 1994 are here:
http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/area41.html
The results for the 2000s ranking are supposed to come out soon- maybe this fall?
I'm freaking out. I'm just saying.
I agree with 1:38. I feel the same way!!! This whole thing is making me crazy!!
I don't feel like I necessarily have to get a job this year. But I'm really sick of waiting around to find out if I'm going to get any interviews! It makes it almost impossible to get my work done.
I'm freaking out about job stuff too. I was fine two weeks ago, but now that a lot of schools have actually started making progress, I'm totally obsessing over it. Work on my dissertation is crawling at this point . . .
Dissertation? What dissertation?
count me as freaking out too...but when things don't go well, you can wait another year...except with the coming depression the market is likely to be dismal for another 5 years
shit, may have to go sell my stats skills to bill lumbergh
I heard Initech is a great place to work. :)
So given how bad the market is this year, and that it probably won't improve next year, does this mean you should be inclined to accept just about any offer, even if it's from a school you're not thrilled about? What are your chances of being able to find a better job in a couple years if you do that?
cv's from vaps aren't as strong as those from fresh phd's... sorry.
If you can't get a job, delay graduation/defense.
I should have been more specific. I am already in a postdoc. I meant, should we be willing to accept any TT offer (this is very much a hypothetical question)? What are the chances of being able to move later on? I ask because I've often been advised not to 'get stuck' somewhere I don't like. But at the moment, with next year's market not looking good, I wonder if that strategy still makes sense.
if you are productive in your less-than-ideal job (teaching and research), you should have not problem moving on if you desire after a couple years. my advice would be to take what you can get in this market.
I think many of you who appear concerned about departmental prestige are going to drive yourselves a little mad, especially when some of you find that other programs don't find your cv so hot. I know, I experienced this. I'm from a very well-known program, have 12 well-received publications, and the beginning of a reputation (even internationally). Still, my research avoids all academic fads (i.e. I'm no health, crim, or quant. person (though I now wish I persued any of those) and I don't quite fit into the methodological norm. It's been difficult finding a home. I've been lucky with temp spots in departments with really nice people and now this is what I want in live: a good work environment.
My advice: If you send out 50 applications and receive one offer, take the offer -- unless, of course, you have an AJS, ASR, SF, article in the pipe. Then, maybe hold off. If not, take the job, do your work, and if you don't like where you are work your way out. Meantime, read Val Burris' article on the academic caste system...
I think deciding to go on the market again next year vs. accepting a non-favored position this year is a matter of degrees and personal preference.
Does the job offered this year lack supports necessary for you to be productive and personally happy?
Will your CV look significantly different next year than it does this year?
As an SC member, I can tell you that seeing an application from the same person two years in a row isn't a bad thing, meaning it does not automatically count against anyone. But, we will compare your CV from the two years and see if you've made 'progress.'
Applicants who look good one year but don't look any different the second year are dropped from consideration. Even if they were on the short list the previous year.
Only you know how far from 'perfect' a specific job is going to be for you. When considering whether to gamble on a job next year, you should also weigh this against how much progress you will have from one year to the next.
One observation is that people writing book manuscripts seem to have difficulty looking productive from one year to the next on the CV and this can be problematic when applying to article departments. This is not meant to discourage the dissertation to book route, just an observation of how CVs are evaluated.
Question: Raise your hand if you have faculty making phone calls and emails for you.
To 2:49 - nope.
I had 2 faculty make phone calls on my behalf. I did not even make the short list.
I second the prior advice. I am from a top-5 department with multiple publications in general (second-tier) sociology journals. I have been on the market 2 years in a row, sending out 40-ish applications each time. I have never - NOT ONCE - even made a short list.
If you can land a job, take it!!
Could someone please post the address for the post-docs wiki?
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~vburris/caste.pdf
Here's a link to the article mentioned by 6:55.
Personally, I recommend doing what you think will make you happy, not what will make you famous. No one besides other sociologists has heard of "famous" sociologists anyhow. And to be really famous, you usually have to be dead. Anyone who thinks happiness lies in working at a top 5 institution rather than a lower ranked R1 or a regional state school or an SLAC should talk to all the people who actually work at these places.
many at the Top 5 programs and "up and coming" R1's are on anti-depressants
from someone currently hiring and who is a faculty in a top SLAC.
I had the chance yrs ago to go to a top R1 and turned it down. We have a five course load, very smart and eager students, and lots of support for research and "professional growth." We want to tenure our hires. Frankly, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to be at a top R1 these days. At least when they deny you tenure, I suppose you might have a credential that could land you at a lower R1.
many grad students, at all levels, are on antidepressants, too
I wasn't trying to imply that you couldn't be happy at an R1 or that you would definitely be happy at a smaller or less prestigious school. You can be happyor unhappy anywhere, depending on circumstances. It seems that getting a prestigious job makes people happy--but that stage is fleeting. The happiness of having the job depends on many factors that have little, if anything, to do with prestige. Focusing on prestige seems to be an existence in a constant stage of schadenfreude--the delight that you have in your job is that other people weren't deemed worthy of it. What does prestige have to do with the quality of your day-to-day life?
I'm not on antidepressants, but I'm starting to think I should be.
I would suggest St. John's Wort and/or SAM-e.
Being on the job market has definitely pushed me closer to the "needing anti-depressants" column. Most jobs (top R1 or not) would be an improvement.
just a random warning- st. john's wart acts great (and I love it) but it also messes with the pill if you are on it, so don't take it if you're on the pill and don't want to get pregnant.
And thanks for whomever mentioned antidepressents, you've inspired me to make an appointment with a shrink today, cause for the past month I've been so depressed and anxious about the job market that I've made no progress on my dissertation...or really on anything.
from the context, I think I understand, but what exactly does "VAP" stand for (in contrast to a fresh PhD)?
if i don't get a job, i may lose it...i guess in the end, it is truly Reagan and Bush's fault, they did this to us with their tax cuts and inability to heed the advice of the Keynesian school
VAP=Visiting Assistant Professor
I find it very frustrating that I don't know whether my lack of job market success is due to shortcoming with me as a candidate or factors outside of me. I wish I could send a comment card to all the SCs: Tell us what you did and did not like about this candidate?
As a chair of a SC, let me reassure the last several posters who wondered, "Why didn't I get the job?" that the main problem is the abundance of highly qualified candidates. I'd estimate that 40% of applicants for our positions (this year and recently) would have made a good-to-great colleague. The SC lacks sufficient information to make finer judgments. Much of the filtering is based on raising possible doubts (a bit like our current presidential election): ""Wow! Five years as ABD....?!" We aren't even allowed to pursue some informal sources of information that might help. Often a search is unfair competition, in that applicants who have had several years post-PhD are vying against ABDs. The final decision among short list candidates may hinge on such factors as secondary fields and useful skills (e.g. webpage building, journal editing), or on visit impressions (e.g. knowing about the faculty and curriculum of your would-be department). A few times candidates have lost support through visit mistakes (e.g. one was irritably rude to the wait-person at the faculty luncheon -- who wants THAT new colleague!?) SCs are generally not permitted to explain why someone didn't get the position; administration warns us that lawsuits can result from such disclosures.
that doesn't help those who are ready to blow their brains out
I am not reassured, but thanks for giving it the old college try.
if i don't get a job...and the embarassment of sinking 10 years of my 20's and early 30's into this...I may just have no choice but to end it
This is exactly why the job market sucks - it is largely out of our hands and the world is filled with great qualified people. I appreciate the pep-talk, but knowing that I might have been close to good enough is not going to feed my kids next year when I'm unemployed.
I have no interest in a high-status job, but I sure would like a job...any job at all...
i think this dismal market is about to take out my marriage, things are tough for everyone, definitely seek help
the possibility of a total breakdown of the university system (especially public ones) is very near...e.g., UMASS is nervous, schools are uncertain and they are cutting lines like crazy....you may want to think about other possibilities now...it is late October
I have the slight impression I will not be getting a job this year. This anxiety is psychological torture. But it is not in the hands of the SC's (they are constrained by the larger macro-social forces of the economy, budget, recession, recission, etc.)
I completely regret having ever gone into sociology. This SUCKS!!!!
seriously people, stop the suicide talk, even if in jest. Is the market that bad? Some schools cancel searches every year. Is it slow or are people not posting?
all of you convinced you will not get a job, what type of school are you from? What are your pubs? It sounds like drama but maybe it is a tough year.
If the bad economic news had come in March, we'd all be whistling dixie right now.
Not sure what planet you are living on, sir/madam: THE MARKET SUCKS THIS YEAR. You must have gotten some kind of job/interview/etc. otherwise you'd feel really bad like the rest of us.
It does not look good, most of us will not have jobs for next year. Even adjuncts are getting more difficult to get. Health insurance? Forget it. This is the worst its been since the recession of 1982 according to senior faculty in my dept.
now i dont feel so alone...i have several peer-reviewed first author (2nd tier) and have not heard anything yet...i am not from the best of the departments though
But there are numerous schools that have not moved forward-the vast majority. Can't we have some hope here?
So will next year be better? Should we hold off if possible? It seems like it could be worse.
some say next year will be even worse than this year...it probably depends on how the global recession works out and how public spending gets allocated, Obama may have a plan to increase public university funding, but it will not happen overnight
My goodness...I've never seen so many negative nellies before, ever. If you already have degree in hand, pressure your school to hire you as a visiting instructor for another year. If you're still ABD, spend another year off the market, take out student loans, and go back out next year. The private sector is worse than the academic sector these days so it's better to stick it out.
Also, going on the market ABD and then rushing to finish is often not a good mix for tenure success. Take another year if necessary, finish and then go on the market.
the budgets of some schools are so bad that a VAP strategy is not very helpful
I'm thinking about alternative careers. All the Stata training could go far in market research. This job market is really scary and I am not sure staying in academia is the best thing (at least for the time being).
to make things even worse, Zep may tour with robert plant:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27417890/
I understand the fear, anger, and depression that goes along with the uncertainty and the rejection of the job market - especially this year. But, we are too skilled at the verbal downward spirals.
Pep talk: Sociology doesn't define who we are, what we are worth, or what we will be able to contribute - that is unless we let it. We have to figure out how to negotiate the structure or get out of it. I think looking at alternatives to academia are good ideas. We deserve to be appreciated. And we should respect ourselves and each other in the process of negotiating the market. We have to find ways to empower ourselves. Good luck and take care!!
11:27 - Not all of us have the options you describe. A with most things, there is variation in the alternatives we have. But for some of us, it really is "that bad" this year.
the academic job market bubble is going to burst this year according to a senior faculty member in my department...it's not looking good as state budgets usually push hiring freezes as a first resort to a tough budget
i second that, 1:13, getting locked into academia is really what happens,...my resume for a "regular" job is probably not looking so good while for an academic position I did everything I was supposed to do (published, presented, networked, taught several courses)...it sucks when we experience the reality of the structural forces we teach about
brace yourself for a very rough market :-(
I agree that things may be looking grim, but there are still many jobs where the deadlines haven't even passed yet. The job market isn't over in October but March (I had interviews in February last year). Hang in there and check out the jobs with later deadlines (I know I am trying to focus on these right now).
stock market bounced up 800 points, but remember moving averages and volatility are not good indicators for deans, university presidents, boards of trustees, or state govenors ...the state of NY is making massive cuts
Let's assume that the budget damage is nearly catastrophic and 25% of job searches get cancelled (which I think is a huge overestimate). There are 158 jobs on the wiki, and I know that MANY jobs are not posted - so let's say in the range of 200-250 jobs in the rough population of "jobs that will hire sociology Ph.Ds". I would guess there are about 400-450 folks on the job market (though some number have jobs already). If 50 jobs (again, a number that I think is a dramatic overestimate) get canceled, how much worse is the job market than it was before?
I guess I don't know the answer, but I think it's a better thought exercise than "the market is going nuts, everyone panic."
$47 billion budget crisis in state of NY
Actually, the current budget deficit in New York is 1.5 billion, which isn't that far off from what it has been. They are projecting a possible $47 billion budget deficit over the next four years.
Again, so what? By my count, only 3 of the 158 positions posted on the wiki are New York public universities, and two are also funded by the city of New York. Additionally, as noted in the NY times article discussing the budget crisis, "roughly 31,684 people have been added to the state payroll since the freeze was declared. The majority of them were professors and teaching assistants at the city and state university systems, which by law have control over their own staffing."
I think we should stop freaking out.
Yep, I agree.
In my 11:09am post, I resisted calling the 10:44am poster a fear-mongerer. :o)
Look, every year, people have to cancel searches. This year is no different. In the past few years, there have been a surplus of soc jobs for the number of phds available (see ASA's report on this). Schools had their budgets for this year approved last year, so any hiring "freezes" do not necessarily affect faculty hires for this year. Stop freaking out. Brush up your CV, develop a stellar job talk, get as many apps out as you can, and then don't worry about it until you have actual proof that you will not get a job.
I think the ASA report on this is somewhat misleading, or at least does not do a very good job of considering a number of important variables.
First, there is a very big difference between good jobs and bad jobs in academia (and I mean this in the Kalleburg good job/bad job sense). There are a substantial number of sociology jobs with low pay and little autonomy, even in academia. The local community college here pays about $30K/year with no flexibility to create your own course. So when we talk about available jobs, we need to differentiate between those jobs and the jobs most of us envision where we have some autonomy and earn a living wage.
I totally agree that there is something that most of us could get a job doing. At the same time, it is a bitter pill to swallow to have to take a job not doing what you want when you have invested as much as most of us have in grad school. ASA even reports that 5% of sociology PhDs are "involuntarily out of field", and that number has been trending upwards since 2001.
When you add together the number of new Phds, post-docs, and assistant professors on the market, the number of candidates is greater than the number of openings and far greater than the number of "good jobs" (and I do NOT mean prestigious jobs here!).
On the plus side, ASA also reports that the ratio of new PhDs to retiring professors is currently 0.3:1, which are pretty good odds! Also, on average, 75% of sociology PhDs end up employed in academia.
Finally, I respectfully disagree with the advice to wait until you really don't get a job before you worry about it. I went on the job market last year in earnest and did not get a job. By November, it had become apparent that things were not looking good so I started making Plan B. Its a good thing too, because it turned out that I needed that Plan B! My advice is to go ahead and work on your plans for what to do if you don't get a job, but try not to stress too much. I ended up with a great post-doc opportunity that allowed me to publish enough to be a much stronger candidate this year.
Always plan for your worst case scenario situation, but keep in mind that what you think today is the "worst case" could turn out to be a wonderful opportunity!
Best of luck to everyone, and thanks to all the anonymous folks who have been posting information and helpful advice. I read this blog daily and have been impressed that posters have generally been positive and supportive (unlike last year!).
-cpl
I didn't mean to say "don't worry" as in "don't plan." I would hope that everyone has a plan B in the works. I just meant to say that all of this frantic chatter that's been going on is a bit early, given that many deadlines have not even yet passed. Getting all frantic and crazy is not going to help you give your best when the time, hopefully, does come for a job interview. Keep calm for now!
Does anyone know what it means when a department invites applications for a "full-time, career contract, Assistant Professor"? What do they mean by "career contract"?
My understanding was that that type of wording meant 'not tenure-track'...
couldn't it also be the language used on campuses with faculty labor unions? Is this a Canadian institution? Or a campus with a union?
It was a posting for a US-based private university.
Here's a topic: Why is it that I should not consider a temporary position? Why is proving that I am able to teach and conduct research at the same time outside of my cocooned PhD program a negative?
I don't think it is a negative, at least in my case. I am currently a visiting assistant professor and am on the job market (selectively). Of 14 places that I applied to, I have made the short list of 5 with several deadlines to come. The extra year out of grad school has allowed me to teach, publish, seek external funding and therefore I'm a much stronger candidate than last year. I don't think many schools see that being a VAP is negative, unless your CV hasn't improved at all in that additional year.
What I've been told is that it all depends on the temporary position. If it's one that allows you enough time to publish or do other things that add to your CV, then it's seen as a productive way to spend a year or two. But many temporary positions are fairly exploitative, with heavy teaching loads and low pay.
I have heard that a VAP is generally better to have on your cv than a non-TT adjunct position.
I have to say, this was quite depressing to read:
Tough Times Strain Colleges Rich and Poor
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/education/08college.html
salary question- I recently had an interview where a friendly prof told me that if they offer me the job (which I will find out in 2-3 weeks) I should ask for a salary that is at least the prevailing average salary for an assistant prof. I really liked the place, and I think I would take the job if offered.
So my question- how do I find out what the average sociology assistant prof salary is (google hasn't been much help)? What salary should I be willing to take, and what salary is too much to ask for?
For context, this is for a publicly funded school that is unionized, that heavily emphasizes research over teaching (2/2 teaching load and the chair basically said nothing but publications and outside reviews of your research counts in terms of getting tenure), but that has no grad program in sociology on this particular campus. It is also in the NYC metro area, so the cost of living is very high.
I don't want to insult them or sound like a prima donna or something by asking for too much money, but I don't want to low ball myself either...I know this is totally jumping the gun, but I'd like to be prepared in case they offer me the job.
Anyone have any insight?
ASA report on salaries in sociology:
http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/Salaries%200708%20Brief%20Revised%200608.pdf
If the campus is unionized, find the union page; they often post average salaries and/or offer to put candidates in touch with a union member on strategies for negotiation.
Also, most publics will fall under their state's information act. In the past, I had a friend/relative with a different surname send in requests for salaries in the hiring department and a couple of other publics in the same state. Such requests usually are handled centrally and the department probably won't even know there's a request, but I used a friend for the request anyway. Usually, by law, they have to answre within about a week, and sometimes you have to pay for the photocopies. Highly recommended.
chronicle salary survey (not specific to sociology):
http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/
Does anyone think it is peculiar how there are a lot of visiting positions advertised now (and even earlier)? Before, the visiting positions did not come out until the spring.
Things are moving faster now. This week I scored a flyout, a phone interview and 7 or 8 meetings at an upcoming conference. I also recieved 4 rejections when I emailed to check the status of my applications. At least I got good and bad news at the same time!
re: 1:43. Where are you seeing visiting positions posted? I haven't seen many at all...
Re: 2:38pm
I was told that emailing to check on the status of your application was a no-no. Are a lot of people calling or emailing to check on the status of your applications? I'd love to know where some of the schools are at in the process, but I have been told not to bother them and wait for them to contact me (if they want to).
Any thoughts?
3:42: The ads for visiting or short-term positions are all over the place: ASA Job Bank, the various listserves, etc. In fact, the locations and institutions of the visiting and short-term positions are more desirable than the tt positions, in my opinion.
i emailed about the status of my app in a couple of cases, I don't care, if they want you they want you, just cuz you email doesn't mean they throw your app out b/c you are too pushy (obviously don't send 30 emails every week)
To November 9, 2008 8:00 AM -
In the recent past, I got an offer for an assistant prof job (unionized) at a SUNY last year. The initial offer was $58,500 plus one month of summer funding ($5,850). It was in an area that has a lot lower cost of living than metro NYC. I negotiated the salary up to $60,000, but I focused my negotiations on things other than salary. FYI.
P.S. If you get any summer money, I strongly recommend asking for it the summer before you start your job. That can be an extremely rough time financially.
The economic crisis is cutting into state university/college budgets and into endowments and donations of private schools too. Temporary positions are being cut as teaching salary budgets are reduced. Post-docs and research positions look good as ways to ride out the storm. One can retool in a different direction while publishing and networking. Law school could be a smart choice: having a doctorate in sociology should be an advantage in certain fields of the law pertaining to evidence, research, even jury selection.
i posted something about how the sky was falling early in October and everyone said I was crazy, but good for me, I'm prepared to ride out the storm
i agree that law school can be a good option, but i can't handle another 2-3 years of school and poverty. ugh!
Abe Lincoln didn't need to go to law school. :-)
Dear Search Committee chairs,
I can be a great asset to your department in the areas of medical sociology, quantitative methods, social stratification, race and ethnicity, and political sociology.
I have several sole-authored peer review publications written and published while a graduate student. Various drafts of papers are in the pipeline now.
I have also prepped and taught nearly eight different courses at a large Research 1 in the Northeast where I am finishing my doctoral degree.
I have sent out many applications and only made a few long-lists. Most faculty said I would have an easy time on the market, but as we all know this is not the case for anyone.
I work very hard and would love the opportunity to work as a tenure-track assistant professor in your department.
I understand making sacrifices in hard times.
I will take a $5,000 pay cut for my first two years (depending if there is a loophole in your faculty contract that allows such). I can also teach an extra course each semester for the first two years.
I will defend my dissertation in early Spring of 2009.
While I recognize this is unorthodox, I really hope you might consider contacting me. I am a serious person.
Interested Search Committee chairs please email at:
sociologyphd2009@gmail.com
Thank you for your time.
To avoid professional embarrassment, I prefer to remain anonymous.
Good idea to post a letter. I've wondered why no one does that in Footnotes or some other professional source.
The problem is that there are hundreds of ABD/recent PhDs who have a few publications and some teaching experience, and who want a TT position.
There also are slightly more senior faculty who want to move, and are applying to junior positions but with the advantage of years of teaching and c.v. pages of publications.
Good luck on your "Hail Mary" endeavor.
i recently started a sociology blog and am looking for some co-authors. i envision this as being a collaborative discussion about all things sociology, a la scatterplot, but from the perspective of the newest batch of sociologists to enter the field.
i read an article many months ago (can't remember where, sorry) on the changing nature of academic sociology. there was an interesting contrast between Professor A: 63 years old, openly activist, public intellectual, ethnographic researcher, studied racism, and Professor B: 28 years old, professionally neutral on political issues, scientist, quantitative researcher, studied mortality rates in developing countries.
i think it would be interesting to have a forum devoted to how those of us who constitute this "new generation of academics" see our field and the issues we study.
so i thought...why not post an ad looking for co-authors on the one board where new PhDs are likely to see it? if you are interested in participating in the project, please email me at bleached144@gmail.com. give me the one-minute version of your background and interests. don't worry, i'm not going to hand-pick people! the first couple who respond will be in (assuming anyone at all responds), but i'd like to know a little about who i'll be writing with.
Here's a recent article on the discrepancy between increasing sociology students and static faculty lines:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/11/19/sociology
On this year's Wiki, there are about 200 jobs posted, but the ASA report on "plentiful jobs" said that there were about 600 jobs for assistant professor listed in 2006.
Can that be true? When were the 600 jobs posted? Were they really 600 different jobs?
There are fewer jobs posted this year than last, but I just can't imagine that there 600 jobs posted in 2006. How did ASA get those numbers?
i assume ASA counts every job ever listed during the year. that would include a lot of jobs that aren't listed on the wiki, like at western black hills community college.
I think it is fair to say that ASA reports are not peer-reviewed. The data, as it is for any lobby/marketing organizing is going to be skewed favorably. In other words, don't trust the ASA.
ASA are a bunch of careerist kiss-asses with no balls.
7:42, considering that most of the leadership positions at the ASA are held by women, you are correct about the "no balls" claim.
ASA reports might not be peer reviewed, but that particular report was written by the former editor of ASR and the head research person at ASA. Are you saying that just becuase the article is not peer reviewed, it's wrong in some way? Chronicle.com articles on careers aren't peer reviewed either...should we just throw those away too?
I find it slightly hilarious that people are so insistent on doom and gloom scenarios that they find ways to ignore all evidence to the contrary. Even if it's scientifically collected, their methods must be wrong, or it's not peer reviewed, things must ACTUALLY be horrible, even though the stats say they arn't!
I find it slightly hilarious that you are surprised that people are worried about getting jobs. Yeah, really irrational fear. Why would anyone be afraid of spending 10 years of post-high school education and not getting a good job out of it?
If you want to be helpful, stop telling people their fears about getting a job are wrong and start being part of the group that tries to concretely address those fears as if they matter.
1:59 here -
I don't think the ASA report on the job outlook for PhDs is flawed in the sense of using bad methods or statistics like we might say a journal article is flawed. Rather, I think the authors of the report overstate their results.
In my opinion, it is not correct to state that the job market is strong for PhD graduates simply by looking at the number of graduates vs. the number of job postings in a given year. The omitted variables in the article are the number of people competing for jobs who are not new PhD graduates (professors, post-docs, ABDs) and the qualitative difference between a job making $55K/year with a 2/2 teaching load and a job making $38/year with a 4/4 load.
Note that these flaws do not mean that the conclusions of the report are wrong. It just means that the evidence they present is not sufficient to draw the stated conclusions. I don't have enough data myself to make any sweeping assessment on the relative strength of the job market.
dude, a former deputy editor with 20 years experience, blah blah blah is never one to get excited about anything and always super skeptical of everything... he thinks the job market looks dismal and will be worse next year
doom and gloom? Obama said the economy has not reached its low point and the scary thing is that he is simply recycling the establishmentarians who created the mess in the first place to head his top economic posts. An old women down the street is going to talk about how she celebrated the holidays during the depths of the 1930s today at our community center in new england
before there was Zakk Wylde and after there was Randy Rhoads, there was: JAKE E. LEE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D69ILnVrk&feature=related
A couple of us currently on the job market have started a new sociology blog. We're looking for others who would like to collaborate on this. Visit the blog at:
http://sociologylife.blogspot.com/
and drop us an email if you'd like to participate. Active blogging should be going by next week. Thanks!
Does anyone know the correct address for the postdoc wiki? The one listed in another thread on this site is not functional. Thanks.
what do people think of academic positions outside of sociology?
There seems to be a few positions on cultural studies/critical media departments.
Does taking one of these essentially end your chances at good research departments?
Presumably some of those cultural studies/critical media studies posts are also good research departments, just with slightly different expectations about where/what to publish. As long as you stay productive and maintain strong ties to sociology, you'll be okay.
The School of Ed at one of our local colleges has a strong Media Literacy program. Think about all the places you can market your skills.
It seems like this year is not only a bad year for the job market, but an unusual one as well.
That is, not only are there fewer depts. hiring, but there are more positions in unusual areas.
There are as many if not more positions on "globalization and the environment" than on "globalization" by itself, not to mention some of the areas that were so popular recently, and therefore have tons of people on the market: organizations, culture, political economy and etc.
Whoever thought about doing anything with the environment about 5 or 6 years ago is in a nice position right now. What is the next big thing? Economic sociology, with the crisis and all?
Well, I'm an environmental sociologist, and I'm not getting many calls. So it's not just picking the right research area, I guess...
Here is a miscellaneous question:
A TT position was advertised in the Chronicle very briefly (i.e., 1 month). Now the ad is no longer there/has expired but the application deadline isn't until January. The job wasn't posted in the ASA job bank. So, is this an indication that there is an inside candidate?
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