The Philosophers' Cocoon

Reader query on academic job-market competitiveness after an alt-ac job

In response to our most recent "how we can we help you?" post, Nate asks:

I have a question about alt-ac jobs. I'm not sure at this point that I want to leave academia, but I've come across a non-academic job opportunity that I think could be both enjoyable and rewarding for me. This year was my first year post-ph.d. on the academic market. I didn't land a position, but I had seven interviews (which I'm given to understand is pretty good in this climate). I've got an above-average publication record, and I'm somewhat confident that I can land a TT job in the next few years.

So, my question is this: how difficult is it to return to academia after leaving? That is, if I pursue this other opportunity will I be a viable candidate for academic positions if I decide after a few years that I want to go on the academic market, or is leaving academia for even a short time a death knell for one's academic career?

I'm curious what readers think--particularly those in a position of experience (i.e. both search committee members, as well as individuals who went back on the job-market after taking an alt-ac job). I'm inclined to think that time out of academic is a "death knell" depends in part on what you do with that time. If you spend time in an alt-ac job but find a way to publish in good journals, then I don't see any reason why search committees wouldn't at least take your candidacy seriously. Still, I have three concerns.

Cocoon mentoring program - brief update

Our Cocoon mentoring program is in full swing! We have matched up a good number of mentors and mentees, but we have some unmatched mentees (as well as mentors who don't fit well with our current pool of mentees). 

If you are a tenure-track/tenured professor or equivalent position and you would like to mentor someone, we are still looking for mentors with the following specializations: Art/aesthetics, philosophy of mind/cognitive science, meta-ethics, metaphysics. 

If you are someone with special mentoring needs (e.g., lack of access to mentoring), we have mentors with the following specializations: Ethics (including applied and biomedical ethics), epistemology, mathematics.

Of course, you can sign up as mentor or mentee if you are not in any of these categories. 

Reader submission: the perspective of a long-term non-TT faculty member

A few weeks ago, following Amanda's very nice suggestion here, I invited long-term non-TT faculty to share their perspectives on their jobs and the academy on the Cocoon. Here is the first submission I have received (if you would like to share your story, please just email me at [email protected]):

By Anonymous

I thought about writing a submission for the “Long Journeys” series on the Cocoon and then again when the “Real Philosophy Jobs” series came out but ultimately decided against it. When the invitation for a non-TT perspective appeared, I decided I would finally share my story and my observations. It includes a long journey and a real non-TT philosophy job at the end.  I am about to start my third year of a full-time, permanent teaching position in a philosophy department at a public university.  Prior to this, I accumulated many years of experience in the profession doing temporary jobs that are now becoming more of a norm rather than an exception.

Should You Go to Graduate School in Philosophy? (Revisited)

By Trevor Hedberg

In a post I wrote four years ago, I noted that certain discussions in our profession seem to resurface every year. One of these discussions is what we should tell undergraduate students who are interested in studying philosophy at the graduate level. Some views on this subject can be found elsewhere on the Cocoon, on the Philosophy Smoker, on Michael Huemer’s personal website, on Bleeding Heart Libertarians, on Goodbye, Academia!, and on plenty of other sites if you’re willing to dig through the search results. Since the job market is so tough and the attrition rate in graduate programs so high, there’s a fairly strong case for discouraging students from pursuing graduate study in our discipline.

Now that I have completed my graduate studies and my first full stint on the job market, I want to share how my views on this subject have changed. The last time I wrote about this issue, I largely echoed the criteria that Eric Schwitzgebel put forward in the opening post of his series on applying to graduate school in philosophy. He writes, “I advise students not to consider graduate school in philosophy unless (1.) they'd be happy teaching philosophy at a low prestige college and are willing to move almost anywhere in the country, and (2.) even if they never finished the degree they would have found the process of studying philosophy at the graduate level intrinsically worthwhile.” I read this advice for the first time in 2009 – when I was considering whether to apply to graduate school myself. I still believe that his second condition is the most important question for prospective graduate students to ask themselves.

Reader query on joint JD/PhD programs

In the comments section of our most recent "how can we help you?" post, 'Prospective Student' writes:

I'm a prospective PhD student, but I'm also a prospective J.D. student. I would like to enter a joint J.D./PhD program. I don't really care where. I love philosophy, and I want to write a dissertation and attend conferences. Surely, I want to teach; but I'm sticking to weak generalizations about my interests because I'm still a student.

My dilemma is this. I'm not really interested in the philosophy of law or value theory. I want to do a joint PhD/J.D. strictly out of interest and financial gain. I'm hoping to write a dissertation in metaphysics or in a related area. But I'm also hoping to graduate with a J.D. so I can leave academia if I can't find a job. I'm okay with not finding a job in philosophy. I'm not ok with not writing a dissertation, publishing, or attending conferences. I hope to do this my entire life, even if I'm not a professional philosopher.

That being said, will departments think that this is not feasible if I lack an interest in philosophy of law? For example, I am thinking about applying to UCSD for metaphysics and then UCSD law school; would it be audacious of me not to include that information in my statement of interest for UCSD and then, if I were accepted, to inform the department that I would like to go ahead with the joint program (or otherwise do a joint program elsewhere). Thanks all.

In response, Craig wrote the following (which I have abridged due to its length):

My advice here is not to do the JD/PHD if you aren't interested in philosophy of law or value theory. You are right to suspect that programs will look askance at this. This is in part because a phd is hard and requires tremendous concentration, and disrupting it for three years to study a topic mostly unrelated to your research is going to make it far, far less likely that you'll succeed...

[B]y seeking the JD/PHD, you are going to limit the schools you might attend, on both hooks. There are good law schools where you won't find good phd programs (not naming names, b/c I don't want to be a jerk), and there are good phd programs without competitive or any law schools (e.g., UCSD does not have a law school). If you want a shot at academia, give yourself the best possible shot by going to the best possible school--it matters significantly.

Finally, your goals as I understand them would be far better served considering these projects in serial. A JD/PHD program is not a good way to save time or money or to increase one's employment chances--it is a good way to do interdisciplinary research...

Dissertation Reflection Series, Part 1: Is It Really That Hard?

By Trevor Hedberg

In Spring 2017, I finally completed my doctoral dissertation. While the experience is still fresh in my mind, I thought it might help graduate students to offer a little perspective on what it’s like to write a dissertation and what makes it such a difficult part of graduate school. In the opening segment of this series, I want to consider a question that crossed my mind several times during my first four years of graduate school: is writing a dissertation really that difficult?

How can we help you? (June 2017)

Given that it's been a while since we've done a "How can we help you?" thread, I thought now might be a good time for one. As summer break is about half over (!), a number of our readers may be either be heading on the academic job-market soon, or starting new jobs (postdocs, VAPs, TT jobs), or even starting graduate school. Do you have any questions you need help with? Consider asking asking the Cocoon community!

For those of you unfamiliar with this series, this is a chance for you to post openly or anonymously in the comment section on anything you can use help with. After you post your query in the comments section, I will then post new threads for readers to discuss your query.

Please feel free to post a query on anything we can help you with, including:

• Graduate school
• Academic and non-academic job markets
• Transitioning into new jobs
• Research & publishing
• Concerns about the profession
• Teaching
• Etc.

Fire away: we're here to help!

Reader submission: 'On (probably) leaving the profession'

By Probably Leaving

As the title suggests, I'm thinking of leaving academic philosophy. Probably not right now, I have a PhD dissertation to finish, and more importantly, another year of funding. That's exactly one year in case anyone was wondering. You may also have noticed that I'm posting this anonymously. That's because I do want to have a run at the job market this year, and maybe even next year if I can find a way to support myself in the interim. I'm worried that admitting in public that I'm thinking of leaving academic philosophy will significantly reduce my chances of my applications being taken seriously. I'll say a bit more about that below, but my main purpose in this post is to explain my decision to start looking for a career outside academia, and hopefully start a discussion about the reactions faculty and fellow grad students have to the mere mention of doing something else.

Friday fortissimos

Reader query on intro-to-ethics readings

An anonymous reader writes in:

I was wondering if you might ask the Cocoon if anyone knows of a neat, snappy, clear little essay/article along the lines of "Hey, this is what ethics is as a branch of philosophy," that could be suitable for first-time philosophy students. I am teaching an introduction to ethics class for the first time in the Fall (as a graduate student) and I'd like to open the course with something like this. Of course, if I cannot find anything I like, then I'll just begin with the Euthyphro, I think. Maybe you could ask the blog the more general question of what people like to use when they teach ethics. 

Also I'd be curious to know more generally how people like to kick-off their intro ethics courses. Many have told me to get relativism right out in the open, so some go for Rachels or Benedict. Others, of course, do start with the Ancients, or Mill. The options are endless I suppose. 

I think this is a great query. I've been thinking of revamping my lower-division ethics course for a while, and so would be very curious to hear what readers have to say.

Helping graduate students succeed: are better mentoring and admissions strategies needed?

I had dinner with an early-career philosopher friend the other evening, and at one point the conversation turned to a topic I have cared a great deal about ever since I was in graduate school: helping graduate students succeed. As readers may (or may not) know, I attended two different philosophy PhD programs: Syracuse in the late '90s, and then Arizona (where I transferred because four of our star faculty at Syracuse were simultaneously hired away by other programs). I have very fond memories of joining both programs. It was truly exciting--and more than a bit humbling--as a young person who loved philosophy to join programs with so many talented and brilliant people. I particularly remember the grad students in both programs. Basically everyone who entered the programs was smart as a whip, with a history of academic success. As a naive newcomer, I confess that I expected that most of the grad students I knew would succeed, get tenure-track jobs, and go on to have long careers in the academy.

Of course, and unfortunately, I was wrong. While I don't have the statistics in front of me, I seem to recall coming across a statistic several years ago that something like only 50% of philosophy PhD students ever finish the degree, let alone finish and get a tenure-track job. At any rate, even if this statistic is wrong, every graduate program I've ever visited or heard about has plenty of students who fit that description--students who hang around the program for 7-8 or even 10 years, only to fade from view, never finishing the degree. Moreover, at least in my own experience, it tended to be very surprising which students those would be. A few cases aside, I don't think anyone--neither I, nor the faculty or other students in the programs I joined--could forecast very well which new students would succeed and which wouldn't. For my part, some of the students I felt sure would succeed didn't, and some who I expected wouldn't succeed did. Indeed, from my perspective at least, some of the most brilliant grad students I knew didn't make it, whereas some of the "less talented" ones did. Why?

Query for search committee members on candidates "taking risks"

In the comments section of my recent post, "Part 10: More on Standing Out for Teaching Jobs", I had a spirited discussion with 'Postdoc' beginning here on whether candidates should take "risks." Of course, what constitutes a "risk" is open to interpretation. What one person regards as a risk another person might not. Here, however, are what I take to be a few plausible types of risks:

• Pursuing ambitious research projects that fly in the face of received paradigms, authors, etc., that people "like."
• Pursuing research that defends morally and/or politically unpopular conclusions.
• Utilizing unconventional teaching methods.
• Engaging in blogging or public philosophy under your own name.
• Etc.

Here, in contrast, are things candidates might do to "avoid taking risks":

• Work on currently hot authors or topics, working well inside established paradigms that people "like."
• Pursuing research that defends morally or politically popular conclusions.
• Utilizing conventional teaching methods (e.g. "chalk and talk" Socratic dialogue).
• Avoiding online discussion, blogging, etc., under one's own name.
• Etc.

I have little doubt there are many candidates who succeed "taking few risks" (more on this below). Still for all that, my experiences on both sides of the market have led me to wonder whether this is generally the best strategy for individual candidates--particularly those who do not come from the highest Leiter-ranked departments. Allow me to explain.

Midweek melodies

Score two for Rightness as Fairness? New studies on psychopaths, power, and prospective regret

In my 2016 book, Rightness as Fairness: A Moral and Political Theory, I argue that morality emerges from a very specific form of concern for our possible future selves--a form of gambling avoidance that aims at preventing possible future regret, requiring us to care about other people's interests. I predict in the book that psychopaths behave immorally because they are not concerned with their future in the way we are, and that individuals with absolute power to accomplish their ends would similarly fail to exhibit the fear of potential future regret that makes morality rational.  (pp. 67-70).

Two new sets of studies directly support both of these predictions.

First, this new Harvard-Yale study (see here) demonstrates that psychopaths behave as they do because they do not consider counterfactual possibilities or worry about possible future regret (as Rightness as Fairness predicts):

The idea that psychopaths are cold-blooded, fearless and generally lacking in emotional responsiveness goes back more than 50 years...One thing that has always struck us about this model, though, is it has never provided a compelling explanation for why psychopaths seem to make such terrible choices all the time. In other words, while the purported emotion deficits in psychopaths make for great drama, what really matters about psychopaths is that they make choices that are bad for us and bad for them.

In our task both forms of regret can be measured: retrospective regret, which is the emotional experience you have after learning you could have done better if you had chosen differently, and prospective regret, which is when you consider potential outcomes for each option and contemplate which decisions would be regrettable in order to make better future decisions...[Our study found] They have a deficit in prospective regret, not retrospective regret.

Second, a number of other studies indicate that power (i.e the ability to get away with bad behavior) causes people to care less about the future and therefore less about others' interests: "Subjects under the influence of power...in studies spanning two decades, acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury—becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people’s point of view" (which Rightness as Fairness also predicts, my italics).

These aren't the first studies to support Rightness as Fairness' unique account of moral psychology. As I mentioned a while ago, a new meta-analysis shows that brain regions for gambling-avoidance and concern for one's own possible future selves are systematically implicated in moral judgment and motivation--and another set of studies show that prudential concern for one's possible future selves is neurobiologically inseparable from moral concern for others, and that stimulating concern for one's own future selves increases fair and altruistic behavior, whereas inhibiting concern for one's future selves diminishes them.

In truth, I have been a bit disappointed (though not entirely surprised) at the somewhat mixed reception Rightness as Fairness has received thus far. However, my hope is that--whatever the book's other merits or demerits may or may not be--emerging empirical evidence may reveal the theory to have an important basis in truth. 

Mentoring program update

I am happy to report that the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program has made about 10 mentor-mentee matches--with several more currently pending--since we opened signups a few weeks ago. To those who signed up but haven't been matched yet, please know we are doing our best and moving as quickly as we can! We get more signups by potential mentees and mentors each day, and so keep our eye out on a continual basis for good matches for those who already signed up (so, if you signed up a few weeks ago, we haven't forgotten you!).

On that note, as in past years, we currently have a surplus of mentees-in-need relative to the number of available mentors. In other words, we need more mentors! So, if you are a tenure-stream faculty member, please do consider signing up. Past mentors have reported that they found mentoring to be rewarding and not overly time-consuming (and, as a mentor myself, I agree!). Anyway, there are a lot of candidates in need out there--so please do consider taking part in our program!

New series? An invitation to non-TT faculty

In the comments section of my most recent post in the "Notes from Both Sides of the Job-Market" series, Amanda writes:

[M]aybe we should have more discussions about those who choose to make a career out of instructing philosophy in a non-TT position. There are many people I know, anyway, who have a career teaching philosophy at the college level but have comes to terms with never having a TT position. It would be nice to hear the story of one of those people, and hear if they are happy in their own philosophy career. Some of them have been in this position for over 20 years. They are the invisible members of the profession. It would also be good to hear from them for the sake of persons who are considering whether to go for another career path entirely, or a make a life of a non-TT philosophy position.

I thought this is a wonderful suggestion--and indeed, that it might be good to invite long-term non-TT philosophy faculty to share their perspectives on the Cocoon. Hearing from these faculty might be helpful, I think, in several ways. First, it might make all of us more aware of their perspective in our departments and the academy more broadly (viz. their views about the profession, their position in the profession, the job-market, and so on). Second, as Amanda notes, hearing their perspective might help those on the job-market--as well as graduate students and prospective/future graduate students--develop a more complete, more informed picture of the job-market and what different types of jobs are like.

So, then, are there any long-term non-TT philosophy faculty out there who are willing to share their perspectives? If you're interested, please just email me at [email protected] to express interest. I'd like to note that I would be more than happy to consider anonymous contributions, as well as contributions by faculty under their real names, as I recognize that not everyone is comfortable with blogging publicly. Anyway, I hope to receive some inquiries! 

Saturday sounds

Notes from both sides of the market, part 10: more on standing out for teaching jobs

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post in this series on how to stand out as a candidate for teaching jobs. Because I think this is an under-discussed issue, and because there was a good comment I neglected to respond to, I'd like to revisit the topic again.

In the comments section of my previous post, a reader ('Recent hire') wrote:

I think you're basically right, but the question is *how* precisely people can stand out in the ways you mentioned, especially people just finishing grad school.

At least among my friends on the market this year, *everyone* had excellent teaching statements, excellent student evals (at least since it's mostly up to you how you present it), and excellent letters. *Everyone* has had at least some publications, and mostly everyone had been on some committee / done some service at the department. Since at least in my grad school we weren't given the option to teach whatever we wanted, we had very similar teaching experiences, over which we had little control. (Yes, you could maybe adjunct in the summer -- I couldn't, because of visa status...)

I assume that a *lot of* finishing grad students have these very similar characteristics. I do think fit is a big factor especially for smaller schools where you'll hang out with the other few faculty a lot. And yes, probably the teaching demo gives some sort of estimate of how you would approach students. But how do you really distinguish *excellent* from *competent* teachers? As most people agree, student evals don't do it. I'd say teaching statements don't do it either. But then what?

As I will explain shortly, this comment raises a lot of really important issues in my eyes. But, before I get to that, I want to quote a second comment in the thread, this one by Stephen Bloch-Schulman: 

Now that I reflect on it, I ask because of my experience on search committees at teaching schools... particularly, I see very few applicants that, to my mind, have spent sufficient time and energy on their teaching. I understand the context in which graduate students work (around research-oriented faculty) and the need for graduate students to focus on their own research (dissertation and publications to graduate and be market-ready). In the end, I fear that many don't see that a teaching job is, at most schools, a very different type of job in which time and work would look quite different than at research schools. Many of my colleagues, and even many of the most research-productive of my colleagues, do not do any research during teaching semesters because of the amount of time and effort they put towards teaching, mentoring, and service. And that, it seems to me, would be a life that many would love, and others would never choose for themselves.

Katzav & Vaesen on peer-review in philosophy

Joel Katsaz and Krist Vaesen have an interesting new paper forthcoming in Philosophers' Imprint entitled, “Pluralism and Peer Review in Philosophy” (via Daily Nous). In brief, Katzaz and Vaesen argue on epistemic and moral grounds that, "journals should relax their standards of acceptance, as well as be less restrictive about whom is to decide what is admitted into the debate." As long-time readers of the Cocoon may recall, I'm very sympathetic with their overall position!

PhD graduates by AOS

In the comments section of my post on last year's job numbers by AOS, an enterprising commenter, 'Curious', writes:

I was curious so I spent a couple hours going through the AOSs of recent graduates (2012-17) from NYU, Princeton, Rutgers and Michigan. Here are the results:

Total: 194
Ethics - 39 (20%)
Epistemology - 28 (14%)
Metaphysics - 27 (14%)
Mind (inc. Action) - 25 (13%)
Language - 15 (8%)
Science - 13 (7%)
Political/Law - 13 (7%)
Ancient - 11 (6%) (NB. These are ALL from Princeton, so this is misleading)
Math/Logic - 9 (5%)
History (excl. Ancient) - 8 (4%)
Aesthetics - 5 (2%)

I interpret this as pretty bad news for budding epistemologists and metaphysicians, given the job numbers. Obviously more departments would have to be gone through to really get useful numbers. Princeton has a unusually large number of dissertations in Ancient (same for Rutgers in epistemology and Michigan in Law).

Another reader, 'Also Curious', then added:

I suspect - suspect - that the "relatively booming specialties" that you identify are areas of growth in "lesser" departments, that is, departments outside the top 20 (perhaps top 40) on Leiter's rankings.

Two decades ago, there was very little interest and training in applied ethics at elite (and even below that) schools. Bowling Green, for example, was noted as one of the best in the USA. That again is an area where there are great teaching "needs" at non-elite schools.

Because I too was curious, I quickly looked up Carolyn Dicey Jennings' 2016 update on her earlier job-market report, and found the following chart:

As you can see from the purple parts of the pie-charts (indicating graduates whose dissertations were in "core" areas), many departments appear to be graduating somewhere between 20-40% of their PhDs in core areas...when only something like 8% of available jobs appear to be in those areas.

One can also pretty plainly see some anecdotal support for Also Curious' hypothesis that lower-ranked departments may be graduating more people in "booming" areas of the job-market (i.e. value theory). Just looking at the chart, one can see that departments like Depaul, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Marquette, McMaster, Rochester, Sussex, Hawaii, and Macquerie are graduating comparatively larger proportions of PhDs in value theory than some more highly-ranked programs.

Although I don't have the time to look more closely, I'm sure an enterprising reader or two could use Jennings' data to better evaluate Curious' and Also Curious' hypotheses!

Second call for reviewers

I am almost done reviewing submissions for this year's Philosophers' Cocoon Philosophy Conference, but could still use a few volunteer reviewers. Papers I still need to review are in:

• Philosophy of language (Gricean stuff)
• Metaphysics of 'Grounding'
• Political philosophy: ideal & nonideal theory
• Applied ethics
• Epistemology (Williamson-type stuff)

Anyone willing to help out? I'd be very appreciative. Just email me at [email protected]. I just need a quick read and a verdict, not any detailed comments. And thanks to everyone who volunteered in response to my first call for reviewers. I'm grateful for the help!

Thanks so much everyone - I now have enough volunteers!

Notes from both sides of the market, part 9: The elusiveness of "fit"

One of the most common things one hears about the academic job market is that it is a "crapshoot." It can often be very puzzling which jobs one gets interviewed for, and which jobs one doesn't--and of course, it can be frustrating to see people get hired who seem to be a "worse fit" for a job (viz. fewer publications, less teaching experience, etc.) that you do. What gives? Well, one of the other most common things one hears about the job-market is just how important "fit" is--but how very difficult it is to quantify or predict. What is "fit" exactly, and how do search committees go about determining whether a candidate is a "good fit" for a job?

Here, I think, is the basic problem with the issue of fit: there is no good way to adequately define, enumerate, or predict its various forms. "Fit", quite frankly, is whatever search committee members treat it as. Whether you "fit" a position, in a given search committee member's mind, can involve everything ranging from whether they like your personality, to whether they like the brand of philosophy you do, to whether you have experience teaching some random course the department could really use a teacher in, to whether they think you'll stay (rather than jump ship for another school) if they hire you. This is, in essence--in my experience on both sides of the market--one of the biggest reasons the market is such a "crapshoot." You never really know what a given search committee member's picadillos might be. Maybe they had a bad experience with Continental philosophy in their past--so they don't want to hire anyone who even so much as dabbles in Contintental. Maybe they had a bad experience with a difficult colleague in the past--so they want to hire someone who is friendly and cooperative. Or maybe they have strong political views and want to hire a potential "ally." You never know how you may or may not "fit" a given search-committee member's hiring preferences.

Crowdsourcing job-applicant #s by AOS?

A lot of people have been discussing the job numbers I posted yesterday. One of the more common things I've heard is that it would be helpful to know how many applicants there were by AOS, as that would provide some measure of how many jobs there are in different areas per applicant. I agree, and today I came across a suggestion here at Daily Nous that it might be feasible to crowdsource that information from hiring departments. In reply, I added that it might be even easier to crowdsource that information from job-applicants--as job PFO/rejection letters often include a statement by hiring departments on how many people applied for the position. Over at Daily Nous, one commenter already took me on up this suggestion, writing:

My PFO from Toronto (Ancient search) stated that there were “roughly 100” candidates. This seems to imply that there are roughly 100 job seekers who might qualify for an ancient philosophy job.

Given that there were 11 jobs in ancient this year, this tentatively suggests something like a 10:1 applicant to job ratio in ancient (side-note: there are often applicants who apply for jobs outside of their AOSs, hoping to get the job as a "stretch"--though it's hard to know how many of them there are). What about other jobs? Any job-applicants willing to weigh in on what their PFO letters said about the jobs they applied for? This might help us better gauge--albeit only anecdotally--roughly how many applicants there were this year in different AOSs! 

Where the jobs were(n't) in 2016: by AOS

Updated - June 14th: Figures now include August 2016 (percentages by AOS changed very little).

I haven't done this in several years, but I was curious how academic jobs were distributed by AOS this year and quickly went through the philjobs advertisements from August 1, 2016 - May 31st, 2017. Because I figured readers might be interested as well, I posted the numbers below along with a bit of commentary.

A few quick notes. First, when I encountered jobs with multiple AOS (e.g. metaphysics, moral philosophy), I counted each job as '.5' jobs in that area (or in the case of 3 AOS, '.33' jobs, etc.). Although I recognize this is a bit odd, it seems to me to make sense, as a job like that could go to someone in any of the listed AOSs, not just one particular AOS. Because I did this with all jobs, the numbers seem to me to accurately weight whether a job is in a particular AOS simpliciter, or whether it was also available to candidates in other AOS. Second, I only counted "entry-level" jobs, i.e. postdocs and Assistant Professor positions, not Associate or Professor level jobs. Third, while I tried to get the numbers right, this is just a "quick and dirty" tally. While I don't think there are any major errors, I wouldn't be surprised if made a minor mistake or two.

In any case, here are a few highlights, followed by some commentary and then details (viz. breakdowns within each AOS):

TOTAL jobs = 482

• Value theory = 176 jobs (36.5%)
• Open AOS: 117 jobs (24.2%)
• Science (including cog. sci) = 44 jobs (now 9.1%)
• History = 43 jobs (now 8.9%)
• Core (mind, language, metaphysics, epistemology, logic) = 39 jobs (now 8%)

TT jobs = 231

• Value Theory = 78 jobs (34%)
• Open: 39 jobs (17%)
• History: 30 jobs (13%)
• Core (mind, language, metaphysics, epistemology, logic) = 23 jobs (10%)
• Science (including cog. sci) = 18 jobs (7.8%)

Non-TT jobs = 251

• Value theory = 98 jobs (39%)
• Open = 78 jobs (31%)
• Science  (including cog. sci) = 23 jobs (10%)
• Core (mind, language, metaphysics, epistemology, logic) =16 jobs (6.4%)
• History = 15 jobs (6%)

Notes from both sides of the market, part 8: tenure requirements

This post on tenure requirements at liberal arts colleges at Daily Nous reminded me of several important issues that we didn't touch on in our Job-Market Boot Camp: the importance of knowing a university's tenure requirements before accepting a job, and the importance of getting such terms in writing. Allow me to say a few things about both before opening things up for discussion.

One thing that the Daily Nous post drew attention to is just how different tenure requirements can be at otherwise "similar" universities. From what some of the commenters on that thread say, some liberal arts colleges expect about one peer-reviewed publication per year post-hire (more on this below). Some of these same colleges apparently also expect at least some articles to be in highly ranked journals. I saw more than a few people remark on social media that these requirements seem onerous, especially given how important teaching and service are at liberal colleges. I agree. My experience is that, depending on how high tenure requirements are, liberal arts colleges may be some of the most desirable but alternatively some of the most stressful jobs there are. Yes, of course, jobs at research institutions can presumably be stressful as heck too, given their high research tenure bar (more on this below as well). But at least at research institutions the focus is on one thing: research. At liberal arts colleges--at least those that require ample research for tenure--you really do have to "do it all": publish lots of articles, teach tons of classes, serve on lots of committees, do other service work, etc. It can be a real high order!

But these are only some schools. At Daily Nous, a few other commenters noted that their liberal arts schools have much lower research requirements for tenure--in some cases, expecting perhaps only a single peer-reviewed article post-hire. Indeed, on that note, like one of the commenters over there, I've personally known some people who have gotten tenure with only a publication or two post-hire. Long story short: tenure-standards can differ dramatically between otherwise "similar" schools--in ways that can very much affect not only one's likelihood of getting tenure, but also one's daily stress levels once in the job (something not to be underestimated, let me tell you!). This isn't just true of liberal arts colleges. It's true of research schools as well. Indeed, I've even heard through the grapevine that there are some R1 schools where people notoriously almost never get tenure, regardless of how good their research record seems. And, on that note, I've personally known a person who failed to get tenure at a school like that--someone who, from my perspective, has an exemplary research record (not mention other desirable qualities) but miraculously failed to get tenure.

Because not getting tenure is a very big deal (it is always possible to get another academic job, but by no means assured), these things should matter a great deal to job-candidates--and there are precautions job-candidates can take.

The first thing job-candidates can do is get very clear, both at the on-campus interview stage as well as in negotiations: get clear on precisely what the school's tenure requirements are. As some Daily Nous commenters wrote, at some institutions official tenure requirements are very vague--which can be dangerous, as at those institutions tenure requirements may unexpectedly shift higher (due to trends in faculty publishing, etc.).

A second, related thing candidates might do (though I am less sure about this one) is ask how often people have been denied tenure, and on what grounds. It is one thing for a department or institution to have tenure policies, for instance--and quite another to see how they shake out in practice.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, get everything in writing. In most cases, anything you do or publish prior to getting hired will not count towards tenure (only things after you are hired do). In some cases, however, you can negotiate counting some of your previous work towards tenure. If you do, however, you must get it in writing--as I have heard of horror stories (including one in the Daily Nous thread) where verbal agreements were not respected.

Anyway, these are just a few of my thoughts. As these are important issues, it might be helpful to hear from readers with experience in these areas as well!

Reader query on grants

An anonymous reader asks:

I’ve been trying to work on some grants with the help of more senior people. I applied for a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (it’s a UK thing), after working on it for two months. Suffice to say I didn’t get it. 

I then looked through the past awards given (it’s all available on their website), and over the last five years I could only find two fellowships awarded for philosophy projects (out of dozens and dozens). 

I then was thinking of submitting my proposal through a different grant pathway at leverhulme (major project grants). I decided to check out what’s been awarded in this area, and found one, just one philosophy award. 

It was my understanding that Leverhulme funded Philosophy, but are they not in fact a good route for philosophers to pursue grant funding? I’d like to know this before pursuing another grant with them. 

P.S. When I speak of philosophy I’m talking about western analytic philosophy. 

As I've never applied for a grant, I'm not positioned to answer. But what about readers? Also, it might perhaps be good to hear from readers which grants are particularly good ones for philosophers in various places (the UK, EU, US, etc.) to apply for!

Friday fortissimos

Notes from both sides of the market, part 7: standing out for teaching jobs

In my fifth post in this series, I wrote about how to stand out as a researcher in a crowded field of applicants. Generally speaking, when it comes to research jobs and elite liberal-arts colleges, we all know what this involves: coming from a top-ranked program and publishing in top-ranked journals. However, as I explained, my experience on both sides of the market is that originality can matter too. Because a lot of candidates may work on slight variations of the same "hot topic", working on something totally different can potentially set a particular candidate apart from the field.

One thing we have not explored, however--either in this series or in our earlier Job-Market Boot Camp--is specifically how to stand out as a candidate for jobs at teaching schools (i.e. non-elite liberal arts colleges, community colleges, etc.). My own admittedly anecdotal experience is that many candidates--and unfortunately, the graduate programs, advisors, and placement officers that prepare candidates for the job-market--appear to be fairly unaware of just how different teaching institutions are than research institutions. This is not a put-down, and indeed, in some ways it is probably unavoidable. For better or worse, the faculty who work at PhD granting graduate programs have likely spent their entire careers in research-focused institutions. Given their experience, how could they be well aware of what life and institutional priorities are like at teaching institutions? For my part, it took several years of actually working at such an institution to learn these things!

Consequently, I thought it might be helpful to outline some of the things that I think--as someone who has worked at a teaching institution for a number of years now--may serve to set job-candidates apart when applying for jobs at institutions like mine. Please bear in mind that these are only my own impressions. As someone who has only worked at one teaching institution (but who also knows people well who work at others!), my impressions should be taken with a grain of salt. Not all teaching institutions may be similar--and for that reason I would like to invite readers who work at such institutions to share their impressions in the comments section as well. With these caveats in mind, here goes!

Reader query on being a bad reviewer

Shay Logan (postdoc, NC State) wrote in with the following interesting query:

We've all received horrible referee reports. I'm curious if any of us has ever *written* a horrible referee report and then realized it. That is, have you ever written a referee report, then (for example) on receiving the author's responses come to realize that you'd misunderstood the paper in some completely boneheaded way?

Bonus points if you can say what made you realize you were at fault.

I think it could be very instructive to hear readers' experiences. It might help us all better understand what being a "bad reviewer" amounts to! So, then, have you ever been a bad reviewer? How? Alternatively, if you haven't been a bad reviewer but have been on the receiving end of bad reviews, what exactly was bad about them? I suppose I'll begin...

Notes from both sides of the market - part 6: interpreting interview results

As someone who was on the job-market for a number of years and who now mentors job-candidates, I know how tempting it can be to want to interpret interview results. You thought you had a good Skype interview...but you didn't get invited for a fly-out. Then, for another school, you thought you had a bad interview...but did get a fly-out. What gives? Given that I've now been on both sides of the job-market--as both a candidate and two-time search committee member--allow me to try to provide a bit more insight.

One of the things I really didn't know about the hiring side of the process as a job-candidate is how committees rank candidates prior to initial interviews. Sometimes, members of a search committee can all be on the same page, ranking candidates similarly, in some cases even agreeing that two or three candidates in particular are at the very top of their list by far. Other times, committees can be much more split. In some cases, one or more committee members may have candidates at the top of their list that other committee members don't have anywhere near the top of their list--leading to substantial disagreements in the committee about who to interview. Indeed, committee members may even be so divided on candidates that they might strike deals with each other (viz. "I'm fine with interviewing your favored candidate X if we also interview my favored candidate Y").

These different types of situations can plausibly have effects on deliberations before and after first-round interviews. From what I have heard, search committees typically extend first-round interviews to anywhere between 6-12 candidates. So now consider the two different types of cases I mentioned above:

• Case 1 (agreement): the committee largely agrees that two or three candidates are at the very top of their list.
• Case 2 (disagreement): the committee is pretty split between their candidate rankings prior to interviews.

In Case 1, it may be difficult for candidates lower down on the committee's list to help themselves much in the first-round interview. Let's say a given candidate is toward the bottom of the committees list of 6-12 interviewees. Then suppose that candidate has a very good interview, but other candidates higher on the list have good interviews too. In that case, even though they interviewed well, they might not get invited for a fly-out--largely because the committee was already pretty sure who their highest-ranked candidates were. Case 2, however, is very different. In a case like this, where a committee is split on candidates heading into first-round interviews, a good or bad interview can plausibly make a much larger difference in terms of who gets invited to campus.

For these reasons--and others to be mentioned momentarily--it can be very difficult to read into "interview results." You may interview well but not get invited for a campus visit because you weren't the highest on the committee's list. Conversely, your interview might not go so well but you still might get invited to campus because you were so high on the committee's list to begin with (and they might figure you just don't interview well). Finally, it can be hard to read into interview results because you don't know how well other candidates interviewed. Because you are competing against many other very accomplished candidates, there's a pretty decent chance that if you interviewed well many of them did too! Although these remarks may be a bit discouraging, I think they explain in part the oft-made claim that the job-market is a "crapshoot." There are just so many moving parts--including search committee members with different priorities--that it is hard to read too much into anything. Still, allow me to end this most with a more encouraging set of thoughts.

In my seven years on the market, I did notice a few clear trends. From my vantage-point, I thought I nailed about 10-15% of my interviews, did fairly well in about 70-80% of them, and then totally bombed about another 10-15% of them. As they say, we all have good days and bad days. Still, my experience was this: although my interview results were a "crapshoot" in the 70-80% of cases where I thought I interviewed "pretty well" (in some cases I got fly-outs, in other cases not), the other two categories were much more clear-cut. If I thought I totally aced an interview, I almost always got a fly-out; and conversely, I never got a single fly-out for any of the interviews I bombed. These trends cohere with my experience on the other side of things (the hiring side). Many candidates interview well--and it can be difficult to choose between them when they do. But when someone has a spectacular interview? Then they may be hard to pass up. I still don't think we should be doing first-round interviews at all--but, be that as it may, these have been my experiences on both sides of the market.

What if your philosophical idea is the wrong length to work out properly?

I've just organized the British Society of Aesthetics Fiction Writing Workshop for Philosophers. We learned how to write stories and how to publish them. My motivation for this workshop is the suspicion, voiced by Martha Nussbaum and others, and embodied in the work of writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Iris Murdoch, that fiction provides us with a way to do philosophy that cannot be expressed in the classic format of a philosophical article or monograph. 

But along the way, I also learned that writers of fiction have many good potential outlets (by good I mean, recognized in the profession) for works of different lengths. We learned in a special session on publishing that there are many literary magazines and journals that specialize in flash fiction, others in short stories, yet others in novelettes, and of course there are plenty of publishers for novellas and novels. A fiction writer can thus pick and choose a publisher for works of various lengths, as follows

• flash fiction: under 1500 words
• short story: 1500-7500 words 
• novelette 7500 - 17500 words
• novella: 17500 - something still short of a full novel, which is usually at least 40k
• novel: 40,000 and up 
• a series of novels
  

This is a pretty seamless range of lengths. Compare this to philosophical prose, and we get a much more patchy choice of publication venues. 

• flash philosophy: typically, philosophy under 3000 or even 2500 words. There are not many journals interested in this genre (Analysis goes up to 3k, Thought up to 4.5k). Now some journals do accept shorter work, but in practice it is hard to get a short piece published. APA submission papers also have this length.
• shortish but more substantial articles, typically under 7-8k, examples include Journal of Philosophy and American Philosophical Quarterly. 
• the ordinary philosophical article, 7-10k (increasingly, they ask for 8-9k maximum for initial submission): this is most philosophical journals
• longer articles, 10-15k. This is a sparse market, it seems to me. To my knowledge, Phlosophers' Imprint and Philosophical Review are among those that regularly accept longer works. Many journals do not impose hard limits, but actively discourage submissions over 10k. For example, the Canadian Journal of Philosophy states "A typical Article for this journal should be no more than 10,000 words."
• for works over 12-15k and under the length of a monograph (maybe 50-6ok at minimum) there is not a big market, although publishers have recently started with such series, including Springer Briefs, Cambridge Elements, and Palgrave Pivot. These are exciting developments (I am working on a Cambridge Element on religious disagreement for the moment), and it would be nice to have a philosophy journal devoted to this format
• monographs (70k-120k). I've heard the sweet spot is between 75 and 90k. Our book with MIT Press had a clause in the contract that our final version needed to be under 100k, everything included. Anything above 100k becomes increasingly hard to sell, especially for a non-famous author.
• series of books (e.g., Parfit's On What Matters) - much rarer than novel series. I think again, a tough sell.  

So although philosophers do have a range of lengths available, they seem to be much more constrained than novelists. We need to do most of our philosophizing in chunks of about 8000 words. This is problematic--I've often heard, anecdotally, of people who end up with a 15k paper, which they then try to cut into smaller chunks to send off separately to journals. Do we need more journals that cater for shorter works, or longer works?

What about the assumption, made explicit in some journals, that a long article should be of exceptional interest to be published, compared to a regular-length article?  

Psychological stress & models of peer review

I have argued many times (see e.g. here and here) that our current anonymized peer-review system is outdated and problematic, and that we should reform our system in the direction of the public review process practiced in math and physics. Although there are some good things about our peer-review process (I, for one, have received some vital feedback from reviewers), I believe there are many reasons to move away from our current system. In this post, I suggest some additional reasons to the mix: psychological stress. I think our current peer-review model is unnecessarily stressful--especially for authors, but also for reviewers and journal editors. Before I explain how--and how I think the math/physics model would be less stressful--allow me to briefly recap some of the basic reasons why I think our model is outdated.

Open Signups! Job-Market Mentoring Program

Helen De Cruz and I are happy to announce that we are now taking signups for this year's Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the program, it is a service that matches job-candidates in need with job-market mentors currently in tenure-stream faculty positions--mentors who may help candidates refine their materials, interview skills, etc. (Helen and I recently reported feedback we received from mentees and mentors who took part in last year's program).

The program is open to all job candidates in philosophy, from every background, regardless of geographic location, race, ethnicity, gender, age, and so on—and we have been able to successfully match job-candidates from all backgrounds each time we have run the program. However, we also do prioritize candidates with special job-market challenges--for example, bi, gay, and trans* candidates, candidates with disabilities, non-white candidates, and candidates of all backgrounds and identities with inadequate access to job-market mentoring (e.g., candidates out of graduate school lacking access to their grad program’s placement director/mentoring, etc.).

If you are a job-candidate in need or mentor interested in taking part in the program, please visit the program website, where you can learn more details and access the sign-up link. We will begin matching candidates with mentors immediately. However, it may take some time for us to find suitable matches, so if you sign up please be patient--we will do our best to make as many matches as we can as soon as we can! Also, if you signed up last year and we were unable to match you with a mentor, please make a note of it when you sign up—and we will do our best to prioritize finding you a match.

On that note, because each year we have had significantly more candidates in need than mentors, we would like to encourage readers to (A) consider signing up if you are in a tenure-stream faculty position, and (B) pass along the program details to any tenure-stream faculty you might know who could potentially take part. As someone who has mentored several candidates in the past (and will do so again this year), I can say that in my experience mentoring isn’t very time-demanding, whereas it is very rewarding. Please do consider taking part, or at least passing on this call for signups to other people who might!