Job-Market Boot Camp, Part 15: Where and When to Apply (Addendum)

Today's edition of our Boot Camp will be relatively brief. Now that we have finished discussing job-market materials (cover letters, CVs, etc), we come to the application process itself: specifically, how to find jobs to apply to, and importantly, when to apply. Although Helen De Cruz discussed some of these issues previously (specifically, whether one should apply ABD, how broadly one should cast one's net, timing the European job market, etc.), there are some additional issues I would like to briefly discuss here. 

Let us begin with how to find jobs. Everyone, I take it, knows about philjobs. It is probably the single best resource for finding jobs. Jobs appear on a rolling basis, one can search jobs by AOS, location, etc. But although it is a great resource, not all jobs appear there. In particular, not a lot of community college jobs do. If you want to find those jobs, the best place to look that I know of is HigherEd Jobs. Third, there is Vitae, which I found very difficult to use, but which advertised a few jobs that appeared nowhere else. Finally, there is the philos-l listserv, which you can sign up for.

Let us turn, next, to which jobs to apply for. A lot of this is, of course, up to your preferences. Are you looking for a research job, teaching job, community-college job, jobs in particular locales, etc.? How you answer this question is up to you. Other things are not so up to you: namely, whether your AOS and AOC fit with the job advertisement. While I've heard rumors of people getting interviews for "stretch jobs"--jobs that are not really in their main AOS--I suspect this is mainly for "superstar" applicants. I spend (gulp) seven years on the market, and never once received an interview for any job that was not directly in my AOS, not even "close by" AOS. For instance, although I am a moral theorist, I applied to a lot of applied ethics jobs (which are not really my specialty)--and I never received an interview for them. I also never, in my seven years on the market, received an interview for an "AOS: Open" job, presumably because they get a ton of applicants, and also, perhaps, because (or so I've heard) they are basically "core AOS" jobs (metaphysics, epistemology, etc.). Finally, although you are of course free to apply for those tantalizing jobs that a few top research departments advertise every year (yes, some of them appear to advertise for the same job year after year, rarely making a hire)...well, you read the writing on the wall. Unless you are an absolute superstar, good luck!

Finally, let us turn to when to apply. This is, I believe, one of the most underappreciated issues in the entire application process. Job advertisements state deadlines, some of which are absolute and some of which merely state, "For full consideration, apply by date X." Although I am having a hard time tracking down the relevant posts, I seem to recall some past posts at The Smoker where people were complaining about seeing interviews posted to the job wiki before the application deadline. Some people seemed to think this was unfair, as (in their view) the deadlines "state when one should apply by." I think this is a mistake. A deadline is a deadline. One is free to apply far before the deadline, and if you do, committees are free to consider your materials. Not only that, there are many reasons to think that it may be beneficial to do so.

First, I have had ample personal experience. In my first few years on the market, I sent in my applications near the deadlines, and received few interviews. My last couple of years on the market, I sent in applications way before deadlines and got many more interviews...many of which occurred (via Skype) before the application deadlines. Second, if you think about it for a moment, there are obvious explanations for why applying earlier is likely advantageous. Try to put yourself in the shoes of a search committee member. If you are like most faculty I know, you like to partition your time, getting things out of the way a little bit by the day so that you do not face mountains of work all at once. Suppose, then, that you are on a search committee. The deadline for the job you have advertised is November 1st. Are you going to wait until then to start looking at applications? No way. If applications begin to trickle in, you will likely look at them and decide on some candidates you like. Not only that, if you are a human being (most search committee members are!), you are likely to be subject to anchoring-effects--the well-known phenomenon of being biased in favor of early pieces of information, using them to discount later pieces of information. There's another way to put this: just like when house shopping, if your sights get set early on one home, you may pay less attention to other homes, if you like one job candidate early on, you may be biased in favor of them! Finally, when is your application likely to get a more thorough read: when it is one of a few dozen that came in early, way before the deadline, or when it comes in at the same time as hundreds of other applications close to the deadline? I leave it to you to decide. All I know is that my number of interviews was noticably higher in years that I applied early (though there may, admittedly, be other explanations for that too). In short, there's no harm in applying early, and significant plausible benefits.

That's all for today's post. The next entry in this series will be a co-authored post by Helen De Cruz and myself on in-person conference (i.e. APA) interviews. Stay tuned!

Comments

[thoughts]

Hi Marcus,
I think you are correct to warn people against applying (i) for jobs outside their REAL AOS, and (ii) "open" jobs. At (at least some) state schools, Human Resources Departments keep a close eye on searches, and will not allow committees to stray far from what is advertised. And there really has to be evidence that a claimed AOS is really an applicant's AOS. And, even back in the late 1990s, I received letters from search committees from departments with open ads saying they had over 500 applicants. Be realistic. Do not waste your time.

[Marcus Arvan]

thoughts: Glad to hear you agree. I think candidates worry that if they don't apply to everything (even real stretches beyond their AOS), they will be selling themselves short. This is basically what I thought: "why not buy a lottery ticket?" This seems to me an understandable thing for candidates to think--but again, after seven years on the market, I did not receive a single interview for a "stretch" job. They do indeed, as you say, appear to be a waste of one's time, not to mention the time of search committees.

[Michel X.]

It doesn't really seem like there's much of a downside to applying for the "open" jobs, though: they're just another thing to add to the pile. I guess one shouldn't really pin any of one's hopes on the open searches, but then the same seems to apply to any other job ad. Or is there a cost I'm overlooking?

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Michel: I didn't mean to suggest that there are costs to applying for "open" jobs (above and beyond wasted time). Far from it. I applied to basically all of them myself! My point was just that--based on personal experience--one shouldn't expect too much from them.

[Scott Clifton]

Marcus,

I think the argument that setting up interviews before the deadline is unfair goes something like this:

Search committees will have a limited number of interview slots they seek to fill. When they schedule interviews before the deadline, they are beginning to consume the precious resource of interview slots. Those ads that are worded in the way you state above--in order to receive full consideration, you should apply by X--imply that, so long as you apply by the deadline, you WILL receive full consideration. I don't think any reasonable person reads ads worded in this way as leaving open the possibility that you might not receive full consideration even if you apply by the deadline. What this statement signals is that, while you may apply past the deadline--for which some job ads don't even allow--you should be aware that you might NOT receive full consideration.

But if the statement does imply that you WILL receive full consideration so long as you apply by the deadline, it seems to many--and myself, I think--that setting up interviews prior to the deadline is deceptive or outright dishonest. If you apply well ahead of the deadline and get an interview scheduled not long afterward, then when I apply just before the deadline, I am not receiving full consideration, or as full as you did, since some of the interview slots--at least one: yours--are not open to me. The reasonable person, I think, assumes that the full consideration-type deadline indicates that application materials will not be seriously reviewed until the deadline has passed.

Now, all of your practical points are still correct, since what should happen often doesn't, especially when it comes to job searches. So we should all take steps to increase our chances when we can. Nevertheless, it does seem unfair, or maybe just deceptive, for search committees to conversationally imply that you will be equally considered so long as you apply by the deadline, and then to give "fuller" consideration to those who apply early.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Scott: Thanks for your comment. I think that's a fair point! In full-disclosure, I do not know (or have reason to believe) that I received any interviews before "For full consideration, apply by X"-type jobs. I do think it is wrong for those types of jobs to offer interviews before those types of deadlines. But this was not the complaint I recall encountering at the Smoker, and I am not aware of any cases of those types of advertised jobs setting up interviews before their "for full consideration" deadlines (if there are such cases, I would like to know!).

Rather, the complaint I encountered at the Smoker--if I recall correctly--was that it is unfair *simpliciter* for jobs to offer interviews before their deadlines. I think that claim is mistaken, for reasons I give in the post.

In any case, thanks again for your comment. I completely agree.