Three Job Market Anecdotes, with Commentary

I'd like to share what I take to be three interesting experiences I had at the Eastern APA, along with some reflections upon them. Each of the experiences was simultaneously somewhat heartening, somewhat disheartening, and puzzling (to me, at any rate).

My first experience was sharing an airport can with a grad student from Rutgers, who I quickly learned was on the market but had no interviews. Not surprisingly, this shocked me, and I said as much. He told me he knew "many" people from top "Leiterrific" programs -- he named Princeton specifically -- who had no interviews. This was both heartening and disheartening: heartening in that those without interviews are by no means alone, but disheartening in that, if people from *these* places aren't getting interviews, what are the chances for the rest of us?

This brings me to my second experience, which was with a senior mentor of mine in the field who I treated to coffee. After asking this person for some (rather specific) advice on how to improve my chances on the job market, this person related a conversation he had just had with two other very well-known senior people (whose names anyone reading this blog would presumably recognize). The gist of their conversation was this: it had taken them all several years to secure a TT job after grad school, with a great deal of scratching and clawing their way up in one years and post-docs (specifically, *seven* years for the person I was having coffee with). Interestingly, I've met many people in my career of whom this is true. It took one of my colleagues seven or eight years to get a TT job (he told me it was his last year on the market -- he was about to have given up). I also knew several senior people at my first job (UBC) who took a circuitous path (one of whom was even unemployed for a year before getting a TT). The individual I was having coffee with then shared the following little nugget of wisdom with me (one that pertains to recent conversations here and elsewhere about "staleness"): for every search committee out there looking for the next young brilliant mind directly out of grad school, there is a search committee looking for people who have been out (albeit productive) for several years -- for people who have a track record publishing and teaching. This is particularly true, he said, of search committees that are more risk averse: committees that can't risk hiring someone directly out of grad school (such people sometimes sink, though they sometimes swim). This was heartening and disheartening too. It was heartening insofar as the message was there are search committees out there looking for people like me, disheartening insofar as there are many that aren't.

This brings me to my third experience, which in many ways was the most striking to me: the air of confidence exuded by the grad students I knew who had interviews. I say this was very striking to me because it felt very much as though I could pick them out of a line-up at just a first glance. Many of them seemed impossibly young and even more impossibly self-assured. Having been one of them once upon a time, I had (understandably, I think) mixed feelings about seeing them. On the one hand, I couldn't help but feel, "Good for them." On the other hand, I couldn't help but get down. I couldn't help but feel, after having spent the last few years busting my tail to publish and become a great teacher -- and after seeing how difficult it was to transition from grad school to professional life as full time faculty -- that there is something terribly unfair about people who have no publications and no teaching experience getting interviews when there are many others out there with track records and experience who do not.

Finally, however, I'd like to share why, as tempting as these feelings are, I do my best to suppress them. First, and most obviously, it is pointless to cry about perceived injustices like these. There's little that complaining will do to change these situations. There will always be search committees out there looking for the next brilliant young mind fresh out of (or still in!) graduate school over people like me. More importantly, however, I am convinced the several year long struggle to find a TT job -- unpleasant though it may be -- can be *good*, all things considered. Although I expect some may attribute these thoughts to self-rationalization (perhaps with some justification), my feelings are these. One of the most interesting things I've noticed as I've gone along in my professional life is that the people I've gravitated toward -- the people who seem to me the most supportive and understanding -- turn out, to be precisely those who struggled themselves. In one sense, this isn't very surprising to me. If I reflect back to my grad school self, I can honestly say that I think that a TT job right then would have been to my detriment, if not as a philosopher, at least as a person, colleague, and (probably) as a teacher. For, I think, like many people in that sort of position, I had quite an ego. Getting a TT job out of grad school would have probably made me feel like quite a bad-ass, and I expect I might have acted like it -- as one of those egotistical people who behaves as though the Sun shines out of their you-know-what. I don't think I'm particularly uncommon in this regard. Human egos being what they are, success obtained too easily has (in my experience at least) an all-too-strong ability to corrupt and coarsen. So, while there have been many parts of the several year struggle to obtain a TT job that I have not enjoyed (though there have been some parts that I *have* enjoyed -- more on this in a future post), in the end I think the struggle is deeply beneficial, provided (perhaps) that everything turns out okay in the end (i.e. the goal of a TT job is eventually realized). For it is, again, little surprise to me that the people I've found who are the most supportive and understanding -- people I want and strive to be like -- went through these struggles themselves. Struggling for success is deeply humbling, and humility tends, I think, to breed good will and appreciation. None of this is to say, of course, that grad students can't come into a TT job with humility, good will, and appreciation. It is only to say that a several year struggle for a TT job, as unpleasant as it may be, can be the best thing to happen to some people.

Anyway, these are my three anecdotes. I wanted to share them because I know there are a lot of people out there struggling on the job market -- people who may or may not have interviews, and who may or may not be frustrated by perceived injustices in the hiring process. Believe you me, I know all too well how soul crushing of an experience it can be. All the same, I hope some of you find the anecdotes heartening. I do. As much as I would have loved a TT job out of grad school -- and as frustrating as it can be even today to see myself being passed over for interviews in favor of people in that position -- I truly, deeply believe that a protracted struggle for a TT job can be for the best. Not that I *like* it any more, for all that, but still, it's good to hear (at least anecdotally) that the struggle can turn out very well in the end indeed. For now, however, back to the grindstone...

Comments

[Scott Clifton]

Thanks for this, Marcus. Of all the consolatory/explanatory blog posts I have read during this dismal time, yours is definitely the most helpful and makes the most sense out of what is probably just senseless.

[Kyle Whyte]

Marcus, you raise some points that are real sticking points for me in terms of reflecting on experiences like you just had. On the one hand, everyone knows how hard it is to get a TT job in philosophy. But on the other hand, it's very easy for some folks, after getting some interviews, to take on that bias that maybe they somehow figured out the magic trick for succeeding. And they can come across in ways that are divisive, whether intentionally or not. I wish most folks expressed the views I generally see on this blog, which involves sharing experiences and respecting that peoples advancement in the field is contingent on a number of factors, not all of which are in everyone's control or are even things they can be aware of. In some ways, and this is a bit extreme perhaps on my part, I feel it's a kind of betrayal to the community of early career philosophers to be someone who forgets the difficulties and the contingent aspects of being on the job market.

[Marcus Arvan]

Scott: Thank you for your kind comment!

Kyle: I must confess that I'm a bit confused by your comment. Was it directed at me? If so, I think there may be some misunderstanding. I certainly haven't forgotten what it's like to be on the market. I'm on it right now! After re-reading my post a couple of times, I think I can see how it could come off the way your comment suggests (particularly if one assumes that I have a stable TT job, etc.). The intention of the post, however, was to share some heartfelt and honest reflections about these issues from the perspective of someone who is still struggling to reach the "promised land." I apologize if this intention wasn't properly realized in the post.

[Kyle Whyte]

Marcus: No I wasn't at all saying you're like that. I thought in the post you mentioned folks who you perceived as coming across like I mentioned. Does that make sense? I was getting at what you were talking about by suggesting that it can be frustrating when experience doesn't matter and there may be folks who did not have to jump through the same hoops, and might not even be sensitive to that difference given their "success."

[Marcus Arvan]

Kyle: cool - no worries!

[Walter]

I was ABD the first year I went on the market. I had five APA interviews that year. I thought, "this is easy!" Wrong! I was fortunate enough to get APA interviews for five years running (at least one each year), but didn't get a TT offer until my fifth year on the market. (FWIW, I come from a non-Leiterrific program.)