A reader recently posed some interesting questions about the purpose of the job-market advice that circulates on the Philosophers’ Cocoon. The basic worry is that the widespread dissemination of this advice prevents it from “scaling” in a way that gives a person a competitive edge over others on the job market. So, for the advice to be most helpful, it would need to be known by only a portion of those on the job market, which would appear to go against the Cocoon’s supportive and inclusive mission.
Marcus responded by emphasizing the point of providing this information was to help students at programs who do not receive adequate mentorship or who otherwise receive guidance about how to prepare for the job market. Having a venue for discussing these matters helps to “level the playing field” by demystifying the preparation, application, and interview processes. Having encountered many graduate students that are largely uninformed about the realities of the job market, I want to reiterate this point. However, given the importance of this inquiry, I also want to highlight some additional reasons why these discussions are valuable.
First, building on the matters mentioned in the prior paragraph, a fair amount of resources and advice about the job market are significantly outdated. The job market has undergone two major changes in the last 15 years. The first change was the normalization of graduate students publishing, which resulted from increased competitiveness on the market in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. The second change was the shift to virtual 1st round interviews. This transition began about 10 years ago and quickly become the norm. With that change, the APA Eastern no longer became a hub for job interviews, and since departments no longer had to schedule their searches around interviewing at this meeting in late December, the rigid timeline for applying for jobs eroded. However, many placement directors and other tenured faculty mentoring graduate students got jobs before either of these changes to the job market took place, which means that their experiences and corresponding advice may not be very accurate or helpful unless they have been diligent in reading about and discussing these developments in the profession with others. Additionally, some departments develop specific placement guides or resources for graduate students that have not been updated to reflect all that’s changed.
Second, as one reader pointed out, how to approach various aspects of the job market will be a matter of disagreement even among informed people. Even relatively minor things like whether you should take the time to tailor your cover letters is not something everyone agrees on. One reason to present job market advice and prompt discussion is to identify these points of dissensus. Job applicants can then use their own judgment about what strategy to pursue.
Third, applicants need to be informed about the job market so they can choose which market they are going to target. Back in 2015, Marcus floated the idea that there were multiple job markets in philosophy. In that post and some of his follow-up posts echoing this idea, he distinguished between a research market and a teaching market. Things that make you more competitive for research jobs (such as publishing a lot in top journals) can make you less competitive for teaching jobs and vice-versa. I suspect the picture is actually more complicated than just two job markets, though. We might distinguish community college jobs from jobs at liberal arts colleges, for instance: even though both these jobs could be classified as “teaching” positions, there may be some differences between what makes someone’s credentials best suited for each job. (Many folks I know who got jobs at community colleges had experience adjuncting at community colleges, for instance.) Here’s the important takeaway: it will usually be impractical (if not impossible) for someone to target all the distinct job markets simultaneously. Instead, folks need to think about what job market they most want to target and how they might develop their application materials and improve their credentials to suit that type of job.
Fourth, discussing the challenges associated with the job market is crucial to helping people decide whether academic employment is actually something that they want to pursue. Sometimes, when I have discussed the philosophy job market with those nearing the end of their graduate studies, it has ultimately led them to pursue alt-ac positions or other non-academic employment. Not everyone wants to traipse around the country for several years while pursuing a permanent position, which is a rather probable outcome even for “successful” job applicants. This state of affairs led one recent Cocoon reader to ask whether pursuing an academic career is worth it, and some answered no. Those considering an academic career in philosophy need to have widely available information about the job market not just so they know what they will need to do to be competitive in the future but also so that they can decide whether the job market gauntlet is something they even want to attempt.
There are probably other reasons why discussing the job market is worth doing. Some readers, for instance, cited the sense of community create by reflecting on the common struggles of job seekers with others in similar positions. But in any case, the reasons I have mentioned above are the main things that make me think it’s not a waste of time and doesn’t conflict with the Cocoon’s mission.
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