What's the point of the Cocoon's job-market advice?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I suppose I have a meta question. On the one hand, the Cocoon is an inclusive and supportive space. On the other hand, much of what goes on here is job market advice. However, the job market is inherently competitive, and so it seems to me that virtually none of the advice can truly scale: if everyone does x, then doing x doesn't give you the edge anymore. So the advice is only good if only some (not all) job marketeers follow it -- but then is this forum really meant to be inclusive of and supportive of *all* job marketeers? Isn't that something of a pragmatic contradiction?

I am putting the question in a rather, well, tendentious manner. But I mean to only be pressing the point in its most serious form, like we do in philosophy. And let me emphasize that I do not doubt the goodwill or intentions of Marcus and everybody else (including myself!) who contributes to discussions here. I suppose what I am really after is hearing how other people think about the advice they're offering in this environment.

Fair questions. To me, the Cocoon's job-market advice is for leveling the playing field and helping people compete on the market more on their merits than the "luck of the draw" they do or do not have as far as mentorship. Let me explain what I mean though a couple of anecdotes.

First anecdote: A number of years ago at a summer conference, I met a PhD student who was about to go on the market. During our conversation at dinner, it became clear that he had virtually no job-market mentoring in his program. He had no clue what to include in a teaching portfolio, or really even in a research statement. He hadn't even begun preparing materials, and the job market season was just about a month away. Maybe some of it was his fault for not being more proactive, but for all that, it was clear that his PhD program and dissertation supervisor basically provided no guidance--which seemed sad and unfair to me. This was in stark contrast to my PhD program, which a few years into my time there created a professionalization seminar (for credit, I believe) precisely to provide that that kind of mentorship.

Second anecdote: Also a number of years ago, I met someone from a well-ranked PhD program on a plane trip to an APA conference. They described their program as incredibly dysfunctional, saying that they virtually never placed any of their students in jobs. They were profoundly depressed, as they'd been in their program for the better part of a decade and felt despondent over their lack of career prospects.

The academic job market is already unfair--and to me, this stuff profoundly exacerbates it. Of course, there's no way to eliminate all unfairness in the academy, or in life, but to me the Cocoon is a place to help even things out: to help people prepare well for the market so that it's their actual accomplishments, skills, and qualifications--how good they are as a philosopher, teacher, colleague, etc.--that play a larger role in determining their success.

That, at any rate, is the intent--and I hope the Cocoon succeeds more in this regard than not. But what do readers think?

Comments

[Jordan]

I will be honest: whenever I see clearly good job market advice at the Cocoon, I am (of course) grateful but also a little annoyed, because I know everyone is reading the blog and so essentially every new bit of good advice is a new requirement I have to meet.

I'm sure that it also has some of the impact on fairness that Marcus suggests, and I don't mean to suggest that it's not a net good. Just registering how it feels sometimes to read it.

[Will]

I think Marcus has done a great job of explaining his justification here. But let me add that, in addition to helping even the playing field, having all this job market advice is also helpful for the mission of support and inclusion in another way. Having the cocoon provide all of this helpful advice helps make being on the market feel just a bit less terrifying and terrible. When you are on the market, it can help reassure you that you aren’t missing something everyone else knows already. When you don’t get jobs or interviews, it helps to know that it’s not because you missed some obvious thing in your materials that everyone else knows about and you don’t. The advice makes an inscrutable process just a little more scrutable. Also, the presence of the advice expresses that there are people in the profession who care and are willing to help others despite the fact that it is not directly benefitting them. So, trust me, I of all people won’t claim the market isn’t terrible. But having this advice and support on the website is a significant help (even if it only scratches the surface of the overwhelming awfulness of the market).

[S.]

As a recent PhD from a PGR-ranked program with "virtually no job-market mentoring", I can confirm that any discussion about the job market is useful.

[Michel]

!$&# competitive edges. I mean it.

The point is to demystify the market process and make the entire experience less unpleasant and more humane for anyone and everyone who can benefit from the advice.

Any edge you can get when competing against several hundred or a thousand-plus people is going to be pretty dull. Especially if you're left to sharpen it all on your own.

[anon]

I like the reasoning Marcus gives above.

Also: I think it's often a much more complicated than "do x to get an edge, now everyone needs to do x". Often there are multiple, reasonably conflicting responses to a question about how to approach some aspect of the market.

[Cap]

I would feel differently if I thought that the various materials programs ask for were diagnostic. Besides the writing sample, I don't really think they are so much. Since bad materials are still used to weed out candidates, I feel like taking advice on here to improve my materials gave me a shot.

[Bill V.]

The job market sucks. That's partly our fault as a profession, so we have a duty to help alleviate the situation. Anything we can do to de-mystify the process saves many people stress and avoids them failing for avoidable reasons. I agree with other commentators that this can help level the playing field, erasing some of the unearned dis/advantages that can accrue based on background, where one goes to school, how lucky one gets with mentors, etc.

[G]

This is actually an interesting question. But I want to think about it from another perspective.

For those who are familiar with "The Professor is In," I believe some criticisms of it are plausible. I do occasionally feel that the Cocoon is going toward that direction, and some criticisms of "The Professor is In" seem to apply here too.

Let me be clear though. The Cocoon is incredibly helpful. No doubt about it. I just want to add something to the discussion here.

[Thankful]

As someone who was on the market for the last five years, all I can say is that I appreciate this site. I have found the discussions and posts helpful as I crafted (and re-crafted) my materials over the years. My professors at my R1 had no idea what a compelling teaching statement looks like & they sure as hell didn't know what a 4-3 or 4-4 teaching load is like. Thank you, Marcus!

[academic migrant]

Even as someone from a great phd program that has an excellent placement record, I found much of the advice here useful. But more importantly, I feel a sense of solidarity, even if I know others here were my potential competitors. We are "pitted against each other," but we are part of a common struggle. (Also want to recommend "Pitting People Against Each Other" by Waheed Hussain.)