In our December "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
I'm curious if anyone has thoughts about how important it is to have university affiliation (either as part of a graduate program or as a VAP, postdoc, etc) when you are on the job market.
Given that so many of us will be unemployed next year, and for a lot of us it's not practical/possible to stay in our PhD programs for another year, what should we do? If we can find a way to support ourselves (through non-academic work) without moving for the sake of a short-term position with a very high teaching load, that would free up a considerable amount of time and energy to make progress on research and hopefully be a more competitive candidate for the next round of applications. But if it would look terrible on a job application to have no current university affiliation, then it might just be a priority for those of us who want to apply again next year to do our best to get *something*.
What do others think?
This is a good question. One reader submitted the following reply:
I think it is undeniable that having an academic affiliation on the job market is a +. Consider this. There are 200 applicants for a job. 150 have an academic affiliation, and 50 do not. Isn't it likely that for every one of the 50 without who has three publications, and good teaching evaluations, etc. there are 3 in the pool of 150 who have one. So other things being equal, you will be setting yourself at a disadvantage.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is a bit strong. Yes, a search committee member may notice absence of current institutional affiliation. And yes, all things being equal, it could be a negative. But are search committee members so narrow-minded that they wouldn't bear the candidate's entire record in mind when evaluating this? I mean, suppose the candidate is otherwise excellent: they have good publications, a good teaching record, etc. I have to imagine that most search committee members would still seriously consider the person. We all know how bad the market is, and surely this would figure into most of our minds.
So no, I don't think it would 'look terrible' to lack an academic affiliation for a year, and indeed, I seem to recall a few job-candidates who were out of academia for a year or two end up with good academic jobs--in large part, it seems, because they still published in good venues. The real issue, I expect, is how long one lacks an academic affiliation. A year seems fine to me. But beyond that, I expect it could begin to count as much more of a negative.
But these are really only some off-hand thoughts, and could be entirely idiosyncratic to me. What do the rest of you think, particularly those of you who have served on search committees?
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