Addressing a gap year due to COVID?

A reader writes in:

My guess is that many are in similar positions, so I’d like to ask:

I think I won’t get an academic job this round. So far I applied for 70+ jobs, got longlisted 4 times, and shortlisted once. I have an acceptable record, like 3 publications in Leiter’s top 20, and a decent amount of highly-rated teaching. I don’t think I’ll have more publications or teaching this year, as I don’t have time to do anything in academics given financial pressures since mid 2020, roughly when I received my degree.

Will the fact that circumstances prevent me from making my CV more attractive after one year of graduation put me at a huge disadvantage on the job market next round? Or will search committees take into consideration pandemic circumstances and not take a blank year on one’s CV as a bad signal? Should I say something about this on my cover letter? Or is that my record is simply not good enough, and there’s not much hope for me anyway, since the job market won’t get anywhere better?

These are really good questions. I'm not sure what the answers are. I do expect that search committee members will notice this kind of 'gap year' on your CV. What I'm not sure is how they will treat it, especially given the reality of COVID, or whether the OP should mention it in a cover letter. Personally, I'm inclined to think it is probably best to not draw any additional attention to the gap, as I'm not sure that it would help. I also think that search committees generally want to interview and hire the candidates they take to be best for the job. So, if (like the OP), you already have a strong publishing and teaching record, I'm not sure a gap year will hurt much. Each job market year is unique, and the OP could do better on the market next year than this year depending on how many jobs are advertised in their area. Indeed, given that the end of the pandemic appears to be in sight due to vaccines, it's entirely possible that there will be more jobs advertised in the OP's AOS/AOC next year than this year. So, who knows: maybe they'll have more luck next year. Their overall record sounds strong, and this was a uniquely terrible year. 

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Comments

[Jared]

If it's possible to say, I'm quite interested in what kind of jobs you applied to. My guess is there is a broad range, given the volume of 70+ jobs you applied to. But because your CV sounds quite good, it makes me wonder whether most of the jobs you applied to were R1. If there was a range of R1, R2, postdocs, etc., then the market is even worse than I thought (and I've thought it was quite bad).

[Tom]

Jared: you seem to be a bit out of touch with the market. The market is far far far worse than you seem to imagine.

Applying to 70+ jobs and not getting a single interview was a common experience for many many people with this person's publication record *before* covid. It's going to be the norm going forward.

And you just can't apply for 70+ jobs and have most of them be R1 jobs. You probably can't apply to 20 jobs and have most of them be R1 jobs. There just aren't enough of those advertised for that to be a real possibility.

[passerby]

The OP's experience makes me realize how bad the current job market is... I am an ABD and the number of jobs I've applied this year was only 20. I remember my friend telling me that she applied for only North American jobs which meant 80ish applications. I didn't limit my search to North America. I applied all over the world. What makes me more depressing is that I don't have 3 publications. Well...

[Tim]

Speaking personally, I wouldn't hold it against a candidate that there is a "gap" or "blank" year. However, such a year does correlate with things that will make a candidate less competitive, such as less teaching. But, if I were OP, I wouldn't necessarily draw any attention to it. Search committees have some many applications to begin with that most members probably aren't thinking too hard about this issue to begin with.

[Same boat]

10 publications here - 8 of which are peer reviewed and have been published in top journals (Synthese, Erkenntnis, etc.); another 8+ papers currently under review. Graduated in 2019. I havent been able to secure a job after 100+ applications. I've got shortlisted twice. The job market is really competitive right now (and/or I am doing something wrong!)