Job-market reporting thread (2018-19 season)

Each year, readers ask for threads for discussing and reporting news on the job-market. I just posted this season's discussion thread here. Please visit that thread if you are interested in discussing/commiserating about this year's market. The current thread (below) is for reporting news on the market (i.e. reporting interviews, flyouts, offers, hires, and so on). Although it should go without saying, commenters are asked to remember the Cocoon's supportive mission while reporting. 

Note: I've placed permalinks to both threads on the right-hand side of blog.

Comments

[AnotherAnon]

Colgate has started scheduling skype interviews.

[anon]

Phylo indicates that Villanova has started scheduling for its Critical Race search, but does anybody have word on the East/South Asian position?

(The two searches had the same chair, so I'm guessing it's the same committee.)

[Throwaway Name]

Did anyone ever hear about the Emmanuel search that had a deadline in October?

[No Name]

A second on the Emmanuel search update request.

[Dey Terk Err Jaorbs!]

Shandong University has started scheduling Skype interviews.

[Mercado]

I received a rejection from Barnard for their TT job. Apparently, 580 folks applied.

[Recent PhD]

PFO from Barnard College. The email said they had 580 applicants. I knew an open AOS at a school like that would get a lot of applicants, but I'm still pretty impressed with that number.

[third time's the charm]

Emmanuel College has started first round interviews.

[Job seeker]

PFO from Barnard.

[anon]

Barnard PFO. They received over 580 applications... That is soooo many!

[anonanon]

PFO from Barnard -- 580 applications

[anon]

Any word from Brandeis?

[Anon1]

Anyone got something from Rice? Any of the openings they have

[y2k]

How did Kansas contact you all for interviews?

[Dey Terk Err Jaorbs!]

580 applications for an open AOS/AOC position in New York City? That's to be expected. Calm down, people.

[Job seeker]

Dalhousie has scheduled at least some phone interviews.

[Job seeker]

Boston University has also sent out email invitations for at least some skype interviews.

[Nypd]

Any word on the Ancient Phil jobs besides Chicago?

[Michel]

Barnard PFO today. 520 applicants, if memory serves.

[job.]

Carnegie Mellon has scheduled flyouts

[Not normal]

"580 applications for an open AOS/AOC position in New York City? That's to be expected. Calm down, people."

No, 580 applications for a single job, even if it's open/open and in NYC, is legitimate cause for alarm. It is preposterous that things have gotten this bad.

[Job seeker]

For the normative job, Kansas State sent out emails. Not sure about the formal job.

[Mercado Ubër]

Has anyone received a rejection email from Boston University?

[normal]

Not normal,
I got a letter around 1999 or 2000 from a UC school, not Berkeley or UCLA, that was for an open position, and they said they had 600 applicants. This is not new.

[anon]

@job

Carnegie Mellon is not conducting Skype interviews?

[A little perspective]

"580 applications for a single job, even if it's open/open and in NYC, is legitimate cause for alarm."

It's been worse in the recent, post-2008 past. In December 2009, I received a PFO from Boise State stating that they'd received 588 apps. That's Idaho, mind you; not NYC. As I recall, around that time Barnard (or a similarly nice, NYC school with an open AOS search) received 800 or so apps.

[Michel]

A couple years ago I got a PFO for a postdoc in NYC that claimed 1200 applicants. 600ish is normal for open/open jobs.

It is a lot, however. For a real chance at a job, you'd have to apply for as many jobs as there are applicants. And we're clearly nowhere near that mark

[Sissy Fuss]

Any info on the language job at University of San Diego?

[Applicant]

For the formal job, K-State phoned, then sent an e-mail saying they'd phone but go no answer, and that they'd try me again later. FWIW, I think that's a pretty ideal way to handle things.

[Applicant]

For Carnegie Mellon, were there Skypes, or did they go straight to fly-outs? I know the latter sometimes happens.

[Kidding]

Barnard PFO. Over 580 people have posted on this thread about it.

[Individual 1]

Any word from Marian about the epistemology job?

[Job]

CMU was direct to fly outs

[Dey Terk Err Jaorbs!]

"No, 580 applications for a single job, even if it's open/open and in NYC, is legitimate cause for alarm."

Ah, you have much to learn about the job market, young grasshopper. Squish you like grape!

[Bingepooh]

My department has a non-ethics but otherwise fairly open search, 300 applications

[Amanda]

Bingepooh what type of department/general location?

[Bingepooh]

Major urban location, r1

[whyamihiding?]

Northeastern is now scheduling phone interviews.

[Amanda]

Interesting, thanks! non-ethics seems to eliminate a lot of folks.

[anon]

Do search committees typically send out their interview invitations all at the same time (i.e. all at once)? Or do they sometimes send out their invitations over the course of several hours or a few days?

[SLAC tenured professor & chair]

I can't imagine any reason other than getting distracted as to why would would space out interview invitations.

When I send out email invitations I attempt to get them all done in a sitting.

[Bingepooh]

Some send out one by one. Get first on schedule, then second, and so on. So you can have 2-3 days spread. Others all at once.

[anon postdoc]

PFO Villanova renewable ethics position

[anon]

Berea has scheduled first round interviews.

[[pseudonym]]

Email from Clark confirming materials received; review still ongoing.

[jobjobjob]

PFO from princeton society of fellows

[Throwaway Name]

PFO from Emmanuel.

[grad student]

PFO from Emmanuel College

[Username]

Any news about GW's Ethics and IR asst/assoc line?

[Anon]

University of Oregon is scheduling flyouts

[Arsene]

McMaster has requested further application materials.

[Anon east coast grad]

PFO from Emmanuel, Notre Dame, and the Baylor Clinical Ethics Fellowship

[peterman]

Terrible copy paste job from Emmanuel, and grammatical mess of a PFO from Notre Dame.

[toobad]

PFO from Notre Dame Open Search.

[Anon]

PFO from Notre Dame (phil sc position)

[Philonous]

Does anyone know the number of applicants for the Notre Dame jobs (Open and Philosophy of Science)?

[Anon]

Purdue is scheduling flyouts

[job plz]

Has anyone heard anything regarding the Clark or Missouri State jobs? Those deadlines were at the beginning of November, but the wiki seems not to be aware of any interviews being scheduled. Clark sent me an email pretty much right away to confirm that they had gotten my application materials, but I haven't heard anything since, and Missouri State's application platform suggests that they haven't contacted (at least my) letter-writers. Has anyone else had a different experience? (Thanks!)

[Anonnie]

Loyola Chicago scheduled Skype interviews

[Nona]

Re: Loyola -- is that for the Plato or the Aristotle search?

[Moresimpotens]

Any news on the Cornell open search?

[Anonnie]

Re: Loyola. The Aristotle search

[Rusty Shackleford]

Any word on the New Mexico Tech Ethics spot? Deadline was November 1.

[AHP]

has anyone heard anything from Pittsburgh? Or UMass, since they asked for more letters?

[Job seeker]

PFO from Wisconsin PhilSci search.

[JOBZ]

PFO from Wisconsin phil sci: "To put the search into perspective, we can tell you that we reviewed more than 160 applications."

[anon1]

Not sure about phil science search, but there were 500ish applications for the Notre Dame open search

[Jobjobjob]

New Mexico conducted Skype interviews a few weeks ago

[Anon]

Ridiculous pfo from Wisconsin. If you were "impressed" by my application why are you telling me to f..k off?!.. These sc's really get to me, but I guess it's impossible to write a pfo that won't get to people...

[Job seeker]

Anyone know how Tulane sent out interview requests?

[jj]

I heard they used pigeons

[another postdoc]

Re: Tulane, email

[Marcus Arvan]

Anon: I know it is frustrating to receive a PFO that says they were impressed--and chances are it's just a form letter. However, having served on several searches, I can safely say that search committees *are* impressed by many/most of the candidates they see.

This is the real problem. There are tons of genuinely impressive job-candidates--and in my experience many search committee members wish we could hire most of you. But we can only hire *one*, and we can only interview something like a half-dozen. So it can be very hard to choose, and it is often small differences that make the difference in who is interviewed (and hired) and who is not.

Fwiw.

[Anon]

Marcus,
Like what small differences? Can you please give a few examples?
Pfo's are bad enough but pretentious and disingenuous ones add insult to injury. We are people, we deserve better!
Thank you for your reply...

[Job seeker]

Anon: when I served on a TT search committee, there were tons of unbelievably impressive people we couldn't even interview. We had a bunch of different considerations (were interested in certain kinds of work, could talk productively with various members of the department, would be interested in certain kinds of interdisciplinary work, had taught courses we needed to be taught, etc) and there were so many great candidates that we really didn't have to compromise on any of them. The people we interviewed were better fits for our job, but they weren't necessarily better philosophers overall.

[peterman]

PFO from Arizona (moral sciences search).

[Marcus Arvan]

Anon: The smallest differences can make a difference.

Take two candidates (A and B) a committee likes basically equally well. Suppose the department needs someone to consistently teach course X. Candidate A has experience teaching X, candidate B none. This may be the *sole* difference in a decision to interview (or even hire) candidate A over B. A committee might literally know no other way to decide, as the candidates may be basically 'tied' in their mind. So they use the slight difference in experience as a tiebreaker.

Here's another tiny difference that might make a difference: only candidate A has a background in subject-matter Y, the committee thinks students might be really interested in Y, and candidate B has no background in Y. Even if Y isn't listed in the AOS/AOC, that could be a tiebreaker.

Here's a third case: suppose candidate A and candidate B are basically "tied", but one candidate has actively sought out interesting service experience (e.g. interest in and experience designing websites, doing assessment stuff, including formulating assessment measures and statistical analysis) that the department needs (believe it or not, some departments need faculty to do these things, and depending on the university, the relevant skills may not be very easy to learn). That too might be a little thing they use to break the "tie" between the candidates.

I could go on. These kinds of decisions, based on tiny differences, might seem totally absurd to candidates--but I would expect that many, many search committee members would maintain (on the basis of substantial experience) that they are not absurd at all.

[Anonymous]

Toronto direct to fly out for South Asian philosophy. Washington and Lee APÁ and Skype interviews.

[Anon]

Thank you for your efforts to explain but telling someone that they are a good philosopher but they are not hired is never going to be something that can be explained away... Especially when it's done using impersonal template form emails from the hr department...

[Anon]

There's more to say; how impressed by a candidate sc members may be has no meaning or value. Every pfo is evidence of a failed academic career because very simply a career that cannot provide a decent living is a failed career. So sc's should stop sending such insulting and disingenuous pfo's. They do not serve any purpose other than exacerbating the already awful situation the candidate is in.

[Random job market person.]

What would you prefer? "Sorry, we just don't think you are worthy of employment"? They have to say something, might as well be something nice.

[Anon]

What I've been trying to say is what they do say is dishonest. Telling me that I'm impressive yet dismissing me without even a Skype interview is self-contradictory and ends up being insulting. And yes, I would prefer smt like "you are not good enough for our department." That at least would be honest.

[Marcus Arvan]

Anon: a few years ago a SC sent out a “cold” PFO basically telling candidates they were judged unsuitable for the job...and candidates on forums like this criticized it relentlessly. There’s no way to write a PFO that’s going to make every candidate like you happy. That’s why they are called PFO letters.

[Amanda]

I think the best way of doing it is something like, "We wanted to inform you that you were not selected for an interview. Alas, there were far more qualified applicants than we could select." But Marcus is right: first, many search committee members are impressed by candidates they do not interview (anon I know PFO's suck, but your argument that it is impossible for a search committee to be impressed if the candidate is not interviewed just doesn't make sense.) Also, there is no way for search committees to send PFO's that are acceptable to everyone. That said, I do think there are better and worse ways to do them.

[Philonous]

California Riverside (core analytic philosophy) will conduct Skype interviews next week.

[recent SC member]

"Telling me that I'm impressive yet dismissing me without even a Skype interview is self-contradictory and ends up being insulting."

It's not self-contradictory at all. As many others have pointed out, and as I can attest from my own experience on a search committee, there are a lot more impressive candidates than interview spots. Why are they impressive, you ask, if they don't get interviews? Because their work is good, because they publish in good places, because they have good letters, and so on. It's just that there are a lot of those people and sometimes little things make the difference.

[Anon]

Amanda,
Why does it not make sense? I think it is quite reasonable to expect that if a sc is impressed by a candidate then at least they should interview the candidate. Otherwise they shouldn't say they are impressed...
What about this essential courtesy "just doesn't make sense"?..

[searchin]

Anyone know how/when Kentucky scheduled fly outs?

[Marcus Arvan]

Anon: That is absolutely absurd. A search committee member may be impressed by 40 candidates. However, they may only be permitted by their institution to interview 6. Thus, they will choose the six that they are *most* impressed by, or at least the six they are most impressed by who *fit* what they are looking for in a candidate, given the job-description. Consequently, a search committee member may be very impressed by a given candidate yet choose--rationally and morally--not to interview them. I don't see how this is very hard to understand.

[non-Leiterific grad student]

Barnard's PFO seems to hit the right notes:

"Dear [X],

Thank you for applying to our Assistant Professor position for the coming academic year. It was an extremely competitive search: we received over 580 applications and had to decide among hundreds of excellent candidates. We’ve now decided on the candidates we will interview, all of whom have now received invitations from us. I’m sorry that we were unable to consider your application further.

I wish you the best of luck in your future pursuits."

No sloppy cut-paste job, no comma splices, no disingenuous praise. (Surely, at least one of the 160 applicants who put in for the Wisconsin job did not "impress" the committee!) Barnard just said "thanks," noted how competitive the search was, and offered well-wishes. Why can't everyone follow this formula?

[Another job failed candidate, but no failure]

Probably not the best idea to go to graduate school if your only grounds for doing so rest in the hopes of getting a job. If there’s no way for you to see the endeavor of having studied material that you find interesting for a number of years as successful failing getting an academic job, then you’re setting yourself up for failure. There just aren’t enough jobs. Graduate programs in philosophy need to do better at emphasizing this, and candidates need to get better at knowing what they’re signing up for.

[anon]

The form letter line that I hate the worst is

"We received many impressive applications and our decision not to interview you is in no way a reflection of your quality as an applicant."

That just sounds like an unnecessary and transparent nicety. Clearly, your decision had SOMETHING to do with the quality of my application.

[Anon]

Marcus,
I do not deny the fact that sc members may be impressed by more candidates than they can interview. But it is not absurd to ask for the tiniest bit of common courtesy and understanding to not say you are impressed by candidates whom you won't interview. The reason is that when you get a pfo saying you were impressive you infer that, as you and many others say repeatedly, you were rejected for some little reason you can't do anything about. It is worse than a cold pfo because it creates learned helplessness and exacerbates pessimism and despair. It is not much to ask sc members to send out more considerate pfo's...

[anon]

Can anyone who got a Gonaga fly out provide more info?

[anon for snark]

Barnard PFO is decent, to be sure. "Sorry not be able to pursue your application further" is a bit of a false note, however: surely they cannot honestly say that to all 580 applicants! Not collectively, certainly (who could be sorry not pursue at once) and not distributively either (surely they are glad not to have to pursue some of them).

[Anon]

Also curious about Gonzaga fly outs... can someone confirm?

[Amanda]

"I think it is quite reasonable to expect that if a sc is impressed by a candidate then at least they should interview the candidate. Otherwise they shouldn't say they are impressed...What about this essential courtesy "just doesn't make sense"?.."

Because a search committee can be impressed by more candidates than they can interview. Unless there is some logical part of our universe that makes it impossible to be impressed by more candidates than there are interview spots, then it is easy to see how a search committee can be impressed by candidates and not interview them.

And as I already said above, I do think a straightforward PFO stating that one didn't get the job and that there were more qualified candidates than spots is the best way to go. I get why praise sounds disingenuous: because it is a form letter, and the committee obviously doesn't have genuine praise for every applicant.

[J]

PFO from Northwestern. No mention of how impressed/unimpressed they were, for those wondering.

[Anon]

PFO from Purdue philsci. No disingenuous praise.

[Alas]

Searchin, I got an email from Kentucky just now (after having a Skype interview earlier this week) that said they had put together their list of "only a few candidates," of which I am not one. (You probably got it, too.) So I guess they notified fly-out candidates yesterday or this morning and then sent out the rejection emails today.