Best timeline for a postdoc search?

A reader writes in:

Longtime reader, sometime commenter on the Cocoon. I have a question I would love to have you throw out to readers. We are planning to do a search for a 2 year post doc this coming year. What is the ideal timeline for a post-doc search? "Ideal for who"? you ask. Well, that's part of my question. What's best for candidates? What's best for the hiring department? Because I think it matters to the answers: I would say our post-doc is attractive … Should we advertise it on the normal job cycle? Or much later (that is: wait for TT hiring to shake out)?

Good questions. Given that most candidates are presumably looking for a TT job, I guess I'd be inclined to think a later timeline for a postdoc hire is better. Then again, I'm an outsider with respect to the issue, so maybe there are things here I'm missing.

What do readers think?

Comments

[fwiw]

As someone on the job market, I can offer only my personal preference. I think I prefer to see post-docs advertised on the normal job market timeline, especially if it is an attractive position. The later in the job cycle a position is offered (late spring-early summer, for e.g.) the less feasible it becomes for me to drop everything and move for a position that begins in a few months time (or less!). But that's just my preference. Others who are more flexible may not care.

[Tenured now]

If you do it in the normal job cycle, my bet is that you get someone who also gets a TT job offer in the same cycle, and then defers the TT job for a year to take the postdoc. If you advertise it later (in the spring, say), you're more likely to get someone who missed out on a TT job and takes the postdoc while going on the market instead. I like the second option because the first option feels like the rich getting richer - but if you want the shiniest, fanciest person you can get, you're probably better off advertising in the fall.

[sahpa]

When I was on the academic job market, it stung very, very much to see the few favored candidates getting *and accepting* multiple, extremely enviable positions. As if the number of open positions was not already harrowingly low for the rest of us.

So I guess I'm echoing @Tenured now but adding some modest encouragement for a later-in-the-season posting date.

[Stress free]

Advertise in normal cycle (with only standard application materials), offer early and give at least one person on the job market a stress free few months waiting to hear back from TT applications, safe in the knowledge they’re not going to be unemployed. And don’t pressure them to accept/decline until those applications have all decided.