Job-market discussion thread (2020-21 season)

I know it's just the beginning of August and (sadly, but predictably) very few jobs advertisements have been posted over at PhilJobs and HigherEd Jobs. However, given that this job season is going to be unique--to say the least--and I expect there may be quite a few job-marketeers out there who already want to commiserate about how the market is already looking and how to prepare for it (including for Alt-Ac opportunities), I hereby open this job market discussion thread for the 2020-21 season.

Readers should feel free to discuss job-market matters in this post's comment section as they see fit, provided the discussion conforms to the blog's safe and supportive mission. As a rough rule of thumb, readers are expected to refrain from posting aggressive comments that can be reasonably interpreted as undermining a safe and supportive environment. As moderator, I will intervene if need be to let people know why I have elected not to approve their comments, so as to keep the discussion positive.

One other important thing. As in past years, the Cocoon will ultimately have two job-market threads this year:

1. A job-market discussion thread (the present thread): to commisserate about the market, discussing particular job ads, the market in general, questions about application materials, interviewing, alt-ac opportunities, and so on.
2. A job-market reporting thread: to post news about interviews, on-campus visits, offers, rejection notices, etc.

Because someone always asks, "Why two threads?", there are a couple of reasons for it. First, some people may want to discuss the market but not stress over daily news regarding which jobs they still do or don't have a chance for. Conversely, others may not want to discuss the market but just want news about the jobs they've applied for. Second, these threads can get very long already, so I think the best way for people to get the information they want in a well-ordered format is simply to have two threads.

A few final notes:

• Please reserve job-market news (i.e. interviews, on-campus visits, hires, etc.) for the job-market reporting thread, which I will open sometime in September.
• A 'permalink' to this thread will be on the upper right of blog's right sidebar. -->
• Because of Typepad's functionality limitations (which only permits 100 comments before starting a new comment page), readers may elect to bookmark each new page of comments (or update their previous bookmark) as each new page emerges. I recognize that is can be frustrating to scroll through page after page to get to new comments, and I think this is probably the best solution.

All that being said, this discussion thread is now open. 

Comments

[negotiate?]

@decisiontime

Are you not able to defer your tt job for a year or two for the postdoc? I know that is a thing that happens. I know people, for example, who negotiated to defer a tt position for year to take a Bersoff and I was a lecturer at a place where an incoming assistant prof deferred for a year to finish the second year their then current postdoc.

[Wondering]

Has anyone heard anything about Dartmouth's TT search? The deadline was November 1st but it seems no one has heard from them at all.

Also, I wonder what folks think about the APA providing some guidelines in terms of communicating with applicants. Given the horrible state of the market, it would be a good thing if applicants receive some word or communication from search committees within, say, two months from a position deadline.

[decisiontime]

@working person: Alas, I hear that. Are these decisions based on enrollment?? i.e. if there were more phil majors or phil classes were otherwise more popular universities would create more lines?

@negotiate?: right, that's the ideal option. I sense they have immediate needs but wouldn't hurt to ask, I suppose.

[anon]

The latest job posting for the American University of Cairo is strangely sparse: https://philjobs.org/job/show/16718

Even when you follow the link, there is basically no information about the job. I'm not sure if this is on purpose (i.e. for an inside candidate), or what. It's sort of baffling.

At any rate, best of luck to anyone planning to customize a cover letter for a job that has almost no description of the contract (is it TT? NTT? one-year? one course?), no stated AOS/AOC, and no details about the general expectations of the position, etc.!

(If anyone knows folks at AUC, perhaps it would be worth inviting them to add some detail to their posting!)

[working person]

decisiontime
Enrolments can affect whether a line is renewed when someone retires. But it is not always a good strategy for a department to try to build up enrollments in "popular" courses. You find you are all teaching a bunch of bullshit that appeals to students who are "consumers" and concerned with "popular" issues. I left a department that was going up in flames, as jackass colleagues were choosing to go down such a path. They have less than half the TT lines they had when I was there. It was largely their own doing.

[Anon2]

Anon re AUC...reading the philjobs ad, it seems to say quite clearly that it is a " fixed-term, one-year position" with open AOS/AOC. Not sure what the confusion is about

[Want to move to Egypt for one year?]

@anon2 The advertisement was updated yesterday to include all that information. @Anon was right that initially it included no description at all.

[no winning]

@working person: ugh, that's terrible! I'm glad that my department did not go that route.

Instead, we found ways to get our gen ed and minor courses stuffed with students. It didn't help: they still took lines for us and asked us to increase the enrollment caps.

There is no winning.

[artur]

Naive question: What is a "line"?

[straight talk on lines]

Artur,
A line is a TT job in a department. A department might traditionally have 5 TT positions (or 10 or ...). When someone retires or moves elsewhere, or is denied tenure there are two typical ways this can affect a department. They can retain the line, and hire a replacement in a year or so. Or the line is lost - and they are now a department of 4 TT positions (or 9 ... or ...).
Who decides: often it is precedent, but ultimately administrators decided. That is why it is important to make good hires. To hire and have someone move on, or not get tenure can be a disaster for many years to come.

[anon]

I know this is a perennial issue, but it bears repeating: if you are on a search committee, and you interview someone, and you tell them you will be in touch in X days, and it's 3X days now, that's incredibly rude.

In general, I don't find it compelling whatsoever that departments have to abide by various HR requirements, and thus, cannot share more details, etc. There are ways to inform candidates where they stand without violating HR requirements. There is no reason to string them along, and then ghost them.

If you are reading this and are a search committee member, or will be in the future, please consider finding ways to show some humanity to the people you interview. It's already such a miserable, soul-draining process. There's no reason to make it worse through neglect and indifference.

[artur]

straight talk on lines,

Many thanks for your informative answer. I didn't know I could have so many mysteries resolved by such a short paragraph. I'm very glad I asked.

[artur]

How many candidates typically comprise a "long list"? And what sorts of factors are typically used determine who makes it off the long list and onto the "short list"?

[Fantasma]

Just to harp on the issue of search committees neglecting to communicate with a job candidate after an interview:

No matter what is the case about HR or whatever university regulation, if an SC member tells a candidate at the end of an interview that they will communicate with them about the next step by X date, then they should communicate something to the candidate by that date.

Out of three first-round interviews that I’ve had, 2 SCs didn’t communicate anything to me by a date they set as X date.

Just don’t tell a candidate anything if rules preclude it.

Better yet just tell candidates that if they don’t receive news by X date, then they haven’t made the cut.

[limning limbo]

There's bizarre comfort in reading Fantasma's and anon's posts. I'd echo both, and stress that a lack of communication seems especially challenging for a candidate if the interview in question was a final round/on-campus interview.

[Clarity]

Did anyone get on-campus/final-round with LSU Philosophy and Religious Studies and if so, have you heard back?

[artur]

@Clarity
You're asking in the wrong thread--try the Job-market reporting thread (top of side bar).

[Listing]

Long and short list can very A LOT. Sometimes a long list is just a first round of cuts, where each search committee members, say, chooses 10 final candidates. If so, it might be as long as 40. It might also mean it is the list of "skype interviews" so as few as 8. Short list might mean second round cuts, or might even mean flyouts. So it could vary from 3-20.

Having search on search committees, often being on the long list doesn't mean you have close to a shot. The committee rules demand choosing so many people in a first round cut, and the top candidates are so far above the bottom ones that the bottom ones might as well have been cut from the start.

[artur]

@Listing thanks very much for the demystification!

[UK Grad]

I recently saw a job posted online with an application deadline of less than 48hrs after the job was posted. I've been scanning the usual venues for such posting pretty frequently and I have not seen this particular job advertised elsewhere. Is this unusual? And in particular, is this evidence that the post is set up for an inside hire? If it matters, this is in the UK.

[Amma]

@UK grad, what is the listing?

[from afar]

About long and short lists
Just to state the obvious, the terms mean very different things in different national contexts. Where I am the people who make the first cut are on what is called a short list - and they will be told that they are shortlisted. But they may not get an interview - a shortlist can include 12 or even 20 people. Maybe only 3 will get interviews. But this is the way the terms are used where I work - and this is the way they are used across the nation.
This causes some confusion for people who think if you are shortlisted, then you are one of the three finalists.

[artur]

@from afar: thank you very much—for me at least that was not an instance of stating the obvious.

I have to ask: what is the point of contacting people on a list, long or short, if they are not going to make it to the next stage? Which isn't to say it's bad. It seems like it will get people's hopes up, but on the other hand it is encouraging to know you were at least in the running.

[Amanda]

Artur - It is probably a policy, that might or might not have been made with good intentions - by either the admin or the department. However, whoever made the rule might have left that school long ago, and the policy continues without much thought.

As to why persons might have come up with it in the first place? Well faculty and/or admin were sitting around a table, talking about job searches and how to conduct them, when someone points out how hard it can be for candidates to be left in the dark about the stage of the search. Then another faculty points out that by not letting top candidates know they are in the running, the department might lose a top choice to another school. What soon follows is a proposed rule about notifications, a vote, and then a very long-lasting and rarely reflected on policy.

[from afar]

Artur
I think you are misunderstanding the sort of way the system works here. Candidates deemed qualified are on a short list (it could be 12 to 20). They are assessed by one group. And then another committee then invites a subset of these people for interviews, ranging from 3 to 5. But all 12 to 20 are called shortlisted. It is a difference of terms - a difference of cultures.

[JDF]

For some jobs, especially some in the UK, long-listing also comes with a request for further information, such as requests for letters of reference or writing samples, which are not included in the original application.

[artur]

Thanks Amanda, afar, and JDF. Really appreciate the insight. I don't have much to add but I will say on reflection that I have been long-listed for a couple of jobs for which I was ultimately not interviewed and there was considerable epistemic value for me in knowing my materials and references were good enough at least for that. So (again on reflection) I would support letting candidates know, whatever the real rationale is.