Thoughts About Emotional Investment in the Philosophy Job Market

By Andrew Moon, assistant professor of philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University.

An important practice I learned while on the job market was to manage my degree of emotional investment. If you are too emotionally invested in getting some job, and you do this for many jobs, then the job market will crush you emotionally because you'll be getting the same rote rejections that everybody but 1 out of 300-400 applicants experiences.  Better, I thought, to just not emotionally invest at all. Rejection is hard when you’ve emotionally invested yourself.

I thought this way for a small period of time.  Then a friend noted to me that if I didn’t emotionally invest at all, then I wouldn’t put in the sort of determination and energy into my applications that they deserved.  I agreed.  So, what should I do?

Well, here’s what I did. There were the "schools I wasn’t particularly thrilled about but it's better to have a job than nothing" schools and the "wow schools! but I don’t have the right pedigree or publications or abilities or whatever, so they won't accept me anyway" schools. These were all worth applying to, but I normally put less emotional investment, time, and energy into those jobs. Somewhere in the middle were the jobs I would put more emotional investment into: schools I was both excited about and also thought I had a little more of a chance at getting than the rest. In the end, I’ll admit that I’d often be surprised about where I ended up actually getting an interview, and it wouldn’t always be at the schools where I put more time and energy into the application.  Still, this strikes me as good advice.

Here’s another piece of advice that compares the job market and romantic relationships. Put only as much emotional investment into something (or someone) as it (or that person) has put into you. In romantic relationships, one errs when one is already daydreaming about a wedding when the person hasn't even said "Yes" to your request for a first date. And the first date is the first-round interview. If you haven't gotten an interview, then you haven't gotten to the first date.

Therefore, all schools, before a first round is offered, should have very little emotional investment from you. For nearly all of my schools at that stage, I expected rejection, and I honestly didn’t even read most rejection e-mails beyond merely seeing that I was rejected. Still, you should submit an application (i.e., ask the person out) and put in due effort while doing so!  But with small emotional investment. Only if you get that first-round interview should you start letting yourself emotionally invest to any serious degree (and you can raise the time and energy you devote to that school), but even then, it should be pretty low.  You can start to ramp it up more if offered a fly-out interview.

Well, those were some thoughts about what helped me when I was on the market.  Maybe they’ll help you too.  Comments, disagreements, and other tips of advice are also welcome!

Comments

[Amanda]

My default was to assume I wasn't getting the job. That's why I never really understood the wiki, because I already assumed I wasn't getting the job, or even an interview, so I don't know why I would go check a site to find out what I already took for granted. I also think the first round interview isn't much better than nothing, or at least one shouldn't get any hopes up with just that. For a first round interview you are maybe 1 of 16 or 12, and the search committee might already have a pecking order. I knew from some skype interviews I wasn't being taken seriously at all. And I remember another one where I royally screwed up within the first minute and remember thinking, "Well, so much for that."

Once you go to a flyout things are bit more serious, but still, I figure even if the odds are one in four they are still against you. My first year on the market I had 3 flyouts for very prestigious postdocs and I assumed at least one would work out, and not one did. After that I learned that until I have the contract in hand, I really should try to hold back my hopes and dreams. One thing that helps is having some sort of back up plan for what you will do in the fall if no applications work out. Hopefully, of course, you will get some sort of position. But I found it takes a lot of stress away when you already have a game plan for what will happen if things go awry.

[lategrad]

Here's a very different sort of strategy, at least at the "I haven't heard anything from anyone" stage. Try to get excited about/attached to as many jobs as psychologically possible. That has two benefits: (1) when you get a rejection from a job you were excited about, you can just think, "Oh well, I'm excited about these 20 other jobs." (2) It will also increase your chances of being happy with the job you get--I think we have more control over our preferences than we often assume, and that we can bring ourselves to like things we initially didn't.

Another benefit of this strategy is that it helps avoid the problem Andrew points out with being detached: if you're excited about the job you're applying to, you'll put together a better application.

[Amanda]

latergrad given your suggested strategy, I am curious (sincerely) why would we even bother with philosophy? I mean given it is so competitive and everything, wouldn't it make sense to leave academia and go be excited about whatever job we get out in the "real world"?

[lategrad]

Amanda--well, the answer (for me, at least) is kind of boring. Even though I have some control over what I'm excited about, I can still get myself way more excited about philosophy jobs than other jobs. It's not like we can just get ourselves to love whatever we choose. (But I do think that we ought to exercise the same preference-control concerning non-academic options, given the academic market. I.e., we should get as comfortable as possible with those options, even as we pursue academic jobs.)

[Andrew Moon]

Amanda,
About your first comment, yes, I agree w/what you say!

lategrad,
I'm curious if you actually tried what you suggested. It sounds exhausting!

[Amanda]

I see, thanks for sharing latergrad.

[Amanda]

Just realized your handle is "lategrad" and not "latergrad". Interesting how our mind sometimes reads things...

[RR]

I agree with lategrad’s strategy (that’s what I am doing). It keeps me from focusing on the negative aspects of the market and the enthusiasm that comes with getting excited about applying for every job as for a cool job helps with staying positive overall. For example, it helps me see that there are after all many places where I can see myself as meaningfully contributing to something worth doing.
Since this is my first round, I am not sure how long this will last and how this strategy will play out at later stages, but it has brought me through my first 75 applications so far without major emotional distress, which is already something, I guess.