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Who is getting interviewed? Some (very) anecdotal data

Seeing as there is always a great deal of debate about what it takes to land interviews in the academic philosophy job market, I took a look at the Smoker thread where people are reporting their interviews and other "vitals" (publication #s, where those pubs are, the Leiter-status of their PhD program), and compiled data from it (along with inside data from at least one other source). Although the sample size is small (only 36 interviews have been reported), and it is unclear how representative the sample is relative to all philosophy job-seekers, I still thought the data might be worth reporting and/or discussing.

Here, then, is the data. General data:

  • Total # of candidates reporting information: 29
  • Total # of interviews reported: 40
  • Total # of R1 interviews reported: 29
  • Total # of SLAC interviews reported: 11

Interviews by PhD program Leiter rank break down as follows:

  • % of interviews received by candidates from Leiter top-5 programs: 5% (n=2)
  • % of interviews received by candidates from Leiter top-10 programs: 15% (n=6)
  • % of interviews received by candidates from Leiter 10-25th ranked programs: 27.5% (n=11)
  • % of interviews received by candidates from Leiter 26-50th ranked programs: 27.5% (n=11)
  • % of interviews received by candidates from Leiter-unranked programs: 15% (n=6) 
  • # of candidates from Leiter top-5 program with no interviews: 1
  • # of candidates from Leiter top-10 programs with no interviews: 1
  • # of candidates from Leiter top-25 programs with no interviews: 2
  • # of candidates from Leiter 25-50th ranked programs with no interviews: 1
  • # of candidates from Leiter-unranked programs with no interviews: 1

The takeaway? Again, this is a very small sample. However, people appears to be getting interviews from all over the Leiter spectrum, and even outside of it, and the lion's share of interviews appear to be going to people from programs ranked between 10 and 50, not the Leiter top-5 or top-10 (contrary to the dictum — commonly recited on philosophy blogs — that "our discipline" is rankings-obsessed).

Next, here's some publication data. Here are the average publication numbers for people with no interviews:

  • Mean # of publications for people who received no interviews: 3.9
  • Mean # of top-20 publications for people who received no interviews: 1.0
  • Mean # of top-10 publications for people who received no interviews: 1.14

Here, in contrast, are the publication numbers for people who did receive interviews.

  • Mean # of publications for those who did receive interviews: 3.30
  • Mean # of top-20 publications for those who did receive interviews: 0.65
  • Mean # of top-10 publications for those who did receive interviews: 0.35

The takeaway? Again, we have a very small sample. However, the data are suggestive. First, >80% of people who report receiving interviews have at least one publication. Secondly — and more interestingly — people who received no interviews actually had higher publication rates, and higher rates of publishing in top-20 and top-10 journals, than those who received interviews.

The data, then, suggests a few things. First, having  publications appears very important for securing interviews (people with no publications fared badly). However, (A) how many publications one has, and (B) the rankings of the journals in which they appear, seems not so important

I must, again, point out just how anecdotal the data are — so we must be cautious. For all I know, the data are totally unrepresentative of the full population of job candidates (though, for what it is worth, the past two years data of job hires seem to support similar conclusions). But, in any case, since it is the only information we have, I thought it would be worth sharing it. Thoughts?

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22 responses to “Who is getting interviewed? Some (very) anecdotal data”

  1. Rachel

    It’s great that the data really bore out that having a publication is a great help, but getting interviews and getting a job is NOT about how many (and how good) your publications are. It’s not just a CV comparing contest.

    Reply
  2. Marcus Arvan

    Hi Rachel: absolutely! And that’s exactly what I think this sort of data — and other hiring data I have related in the past — is good for conveying.
    The data have repeatedly suggested that the job market is — just as you say — not about how many or how good one’s publications are, or a CV comparing contest.
    This is in large part why I like sharing such data. If comments on philosophy blogs are any indication, the assumption that the job-market is a CV-comparing contest seems very widespread. And I think it is important to bring real data to bear on that assumption, so that, if it is false — as it seems to be — we can help people avoid acting on that false assumption.

    Reply
  3. eyeyethink

    I find the result here, even though very tentative, disturbing.
    The reason is that when I’ve thought about dropping out of the discipline, my seniors have insisted that I can eventually “publish my way into a job.” The idea is that if I just rack up enough publications, all the competition will fall away.
    Now even if Marcus’ preliminary result is on target, it doesn’t follow that “publish your way into a job” is wrongheaded. Maybe after a certain point, the competition really does fall away (e.g. if you rack up 50 publications!) Still, Marcus’ tentative result makes me tentatively raise the question whether “publishing your way into a job” is unjustified optimism.
    Let me add to the doubt that, according to some, SLACs avoid candidates who seem like a “flight risk.” I.e., they avoid those whose too prestigious CVs suggest they would be discontent at a “mere SLAC”.
    What do others think? Is “publish your way into a job” misleading? By publishing more, do you inadvertently make yourself “overqualified” for some schools, and thereby limit your prospects??

    Reply
  4. Marcus Arvan

    eyeeyethink: thanks so much for your comment. It is a really great one. I also agree that the situation is (somewhat) disturbing.
    I’ve written on some of the issues you raise before in my post, “A VAP’s Trilemma?” (http://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2013/09/a-plurality-of-vap-dilemmas.html)
    Because, very broadly speaking (and oversimplifying, to be sure), there are two types of jobs — research jobs and teaching jobs — there seem to be two ways into a job:
    (1) Publish your way into one.
    (2) Teach your way into one.
    Unfortunately, there are risks all around. First, if you focus on publishing like crazy (to the detriment of teaching), you may help yourself with (1) but harm yourself with respect to (2). Second, if you focus on teaching like crazy (to the detriment of research), you may help yourself with (2) but harm yourself with respect to (1). Finally, if you try to focus on research and teaching, you run the risk of being mediocre at both, in which case you harm yourself at both (1) and (2). Hence, a pretty awful trilemma.
    Honestly, I don’t have a real solution to the problem. The trick, or so I’ve been told, is to convince just one search committee that you’re what they are looking for. In other words, “do your best at research and teaching…it’s a total crapshoot.”
    This may be unfortunate, and it may be disturbing, but it seems to be the situation we face. As Rachel points out, it seems more and more that getting a job is not a matter of having the best CV. It’s being the person the department is looking for. And that is something quite different. It’s not the # of pubs you have, or the places you’ve published, or how good your teaching evaluations you have. It’s the whole person and professional you are. And that’s a hard thing to quantify.

    Reply
  5. Rachel

    eyeye: I got hired by a LAC (I wouldn’t call them a SLAC) as a “flight risk” (very strong publishing record, connections, etc.). So it happens. Some might have that worry, though.
    Here’s an additional worry: if you’ve been out of your PhD for a few years, but you have a relatively strong publishing record, this may lead some to wonder what’s wrong with you: why haven’t you been hired yet?
    I’m not saying it’s a good inference (although I’ve seen worse), but I think it is an inference quite a few people draw, to the candidate’s detriment.

    Reply
  6. Marcus Arvan

    Rachel: I know there is little (if anything) to be gained by complaining about the way things are, but I find the fact that people make these kinds of inferences stupefying. First, there are all kinds of reasons why a person can be out a few years and not be hired: historic economic downturns, the luck of the draw, etc. I, for instance, moved to Tampa because I had a wife in grad school, and didn’t go on the market for a couple of years for that reason, and because I wanted to improve as a researcher, teacher, and colleague. Second, if I were to be on a search committee and saw a candidate who had published/taught their tail off, I don’t think I would ask myself — and I don’t think it would be right for me to ask — “why haven’t they been hired yet?” I think I would look at the person and say to myself, “Wow, they’ve been out for a few years, and have accomplished a lot. Although they haven’t been hired, they are a great candidate, and deserve a job.” Anyway, I know there’s no helping how people behave, and I’m happy to live with the choices I’ve made, but I truly can’t help but find certain inferences (if indeed they are made) to be stupefying.

    Reply
  7. Ambrose

    “I’m not saying it’s a good inference (although I’ve seen worse)”
    It’s a patently terrible inference, especially in this economy and profession (etc). To suggest otherwise is pointlessly insulting (not very “supportive”).
    Maybe you haven’t been hired because there haven’t been enough jobs in your AOS, or because you have a family and haven’t been able to move to where the jobs have been, or because the market is just so bad that even qualified and competent people often end up out of work. Maybe you had a shot at one or two jobs, but through sheer bad luck a few of the people on the SCs were jerks. (It does actually happen sometimes that there’s something “wrong” with the people on the other end, you know.) Maybe you went through a divorce or a serious illness while finishing your PhD.
    The inference is totally indefensible, and it’s awful to think that people’s lives may have been thrown off course because of this kind of foolishness.

    Reply
  8. Rachel

    It’s not totally indefensible. I’ve been part of searches where we interviewed just such a person and it eventually became known that they were jumping ship right before their tenure review because they probably weren’t going to get tenure for some big personality conflict reasons. Their publication record was really impressive, but they were a jerk to work with (though not during any part of the interview process). That this person wanted to leave their job, and come somewhere that they didn’t have family or other obvious reasons to come for raised a few tiny red flags. I don’t think thinking that way is “totally indefensible.”
    I do, however, agree that it’s a VERY dangerous and unreliable inference to draw.

    Reply
  9. Rachel

    …I was also part of a search where just such a person was also a finalist and my vote was to immediately pounce on this person and snap them up. They turned out to be a research powerhouse and really raised the research profile of the institution.
    That inference thought was still there (why was this person teaching there for their first job?), but it was swamped by other considerations.

    Reply
  10. eyeyethink

    Thanks Marcus and Rachel for your replies. For what it’s worth, my seniors have also told me that in this economy, “why hasn’t s/he been hired yet?” does not really have any force. (Though prior to 2008, it apparently did.) When rifling through applications, it’s supposedly obvious to search committees that there are waaayy too many outstanding candidates.
    Still, I’ve also been told I need to stay “fresh.” Mainly, that means getting publications, but it also helps to get more outside rec letters, demonstrating your potential to impact your subfield(s).
    Marcus, what does it mean exactly to teach your way into a job? Is that a matter of getting teaching awards and such? (I assume pretty much everyone has a choice set of student evaluations to show a search committee.)

    Reply
  11. Marcus Arvan

    eyeyethink: I can only tell you what I’ve heard, but I have heard a few things “from the horse’s mouth”, as it were (from people on search committees at SLACS). I don’t think they are looking for “a choice set of student evaluations” — for, as you’ve said, many people have a choice set. From what I’ve been told, people at teaching institutions are looking for some combination of the following:
    (1) A consistent, long-term (i.e. several year) record of exemplary evaluations.
    [I know Rachel has disagreed with this one in the past, but I have heard it directly from at least one person that their SC cares very much about, and looks to hire people with, the very best student evaluations].
    (2) Broad teaching experience, teaching a lot of different courses at different levels.
    (3) A very thoughtful, compelling teaching philosophy.
    (4) Innovative teaching methods.
    (5) A “lights out” teaching demo.
    And, presumably, a teaching award or two doesn’t hurt. Anyway, I don’t know for sure what SC people at teaching places are looking for, but again, I would suggest that the most likely answer is that they are looking for “the complete package” — a person who doesn’t just have a choice set of evals, but an overall body of work as a teacher that sets them apart from other candidates.

    Reply
  12. Marcus Arvan

    eyeyethink: I can only tell you what I’ve heard, but I have heard a few things “from the horse’s mouth”, as it were (from people on search committees at SLACS). I don’t think they are looking for “a choice set of student evaluations” — for, as you’ve said, many people have a choice set. From what I’ve been told, people at teaching institutions are looking for some combination of the following:
    (1) A consistent, long-term (i.e. several year) record of exemplary evaluations.
    [I know Rachel has disagreed with this one in the past, but I have heard it directly from at least one person that their SC cares very much about, and looks to hire people with, the very best student evaluations].
    (2) Broad teaching experience, teaching a lot of different courses at different levels.
    (3) A very thoughtful, compelling teaching philosophy.
    (4) Innovative teaching methods.
    (5) A “lights out” teaching demo.
    And, presumably, a teaching award or two doesn’t hurt. Anyway, I don’t know for sure what SC people at teaching places are looking for, but again, I would suggest that the most likely answer is that they are looking for “the complete package” — a person who doesn’t just have a choice set of evals, but an overall body of work as a teacher that sets them apart from other candidates.

    Reply
  13. Jg132703

    Thanks for putting this data together, Marcus. It’ll be interesting to see if this pattern holds as more info comes in.
    Speaking of, I’ve been suspicious of something, and I wonder what people think. I’m suspicious of the 3.9 pubs/no interview set. In short, I’m worried that there are some number of despair-spreading misanthropes among the posters, who are making fake posts about their results. I remember several overly dramatic posts from last year’s thread, when the comments were less strictly by the numbers. It struck me that some of the posters must be trolling; even accounting for flight risks, etc, there couldn’t be that many people with 6+ pubs getting no interviews (indeed, that there could be that many with 6+ pubs at all might be a stretch).
    So here’s my question: does anyone else worry that some of the data here are unreliable? Or am I just overcome by motivated reasoning?

    Reply
  14. Rachel

    There are potential confounds, especially if Marcus isn’t “confirming” the publication claims (which would be silly to expect of him), because it’s possible that those not getting interviews are inflating their publication numbers by counting things that shouldn’t count, like grad student journals, R+R papers, book reviews, etc.
    Who knows?
    Maybe the data is totally felicitous. It doesn’t mean that having fewer publications is good. It could just be a fluke in the data.

    Reply
  15. Jg132703

    Addendum: One of the original Smoker lots-of-pubs-no-interviews posters contacted me personally to confirm his numbers. One or two more anecdotes like this and we’ve got ourselves some data!
    On a more serious note, its a shame that the market is not a meritocracy. And fine job Marcus of focusing on positive ways of dealing with the situation rather than allowing this to turn into a complaint thread.

    Reply
  16. Rachel

    Meritocracies are a myth, anyway. They ignore structural biases and injustices, for example.
    There’s actually a discussion of this going on right now at FP: http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/so-you-think-you-are-not-biased-against-any-group-so-what/

    Reply
  17. Go figure

    Jg: I am not on the market this year, but last year I had 7-8 pubs as Abd when applying and got no TT interviews. Got a post-doc through sheer luck.

    Reply
  18. Marcus Arvan

    Jg132703: thanks!;)
    On that note, to the person who just submitted a response to Rachel’s comment, I did not approve your comment. You are entitled to express disagreement on this blog with individuals’ views about what is just or unjust. You are entitled, for instance, to assert that you think certain responses to injustices are themselves unjust. What you are not entitled to do — at least not by my moderating standards, anyway — is simply assert (in a way that purports to be factive) that someone who holds different views than yours is complicit in injustice. That is to morally denigrate a person — rather than merely disagree — and it is not (in my judgment) consistent with this blog’s “safe and supportive” mission. If you would like to express your disagreement in a respectful way — as moral disagreement — then I encourage you to do so.

    Reply
  19. Jg132703

    Thanks for that link, Rachel. In hindsight I guess we shouldn’t be surprised when a system that already has a number of built-in biases ends up rewarding the people that conform to them rather than to some abstract idea of quality.
    I also like the Stanley paper from the original post; it makes an interesting counter-point to some of the claims about a cultural tradition in the Rosenberg piece that Leiter posted the other day.

    Reply
  20. Holding out for Health Insurance

    I think it’s telling of the way the folks over at the Smoker think about the job market that the request for data left off any questions about teaching experience. My sense is that many schools care more about how many courses you’ve taught and how devoted you are to improving your pedagogy than they do about how many publications you have. These schools tend to out number the ones that only or mostly care about your research.
    So if, for example, you are ABD/PHD in hand at a top ten school with 4 or more publications and lead instructor on 0 courses, the set of schools that will consider you a viable candidate is likely much smaller than the set of schools hiring in your area, not because your multiple publications hurt you, but because your lack of teaching experience does.
    It’s possible that all the Smoker’s with numerous publications also have stellar teaching records, but my point is that we don’t know because no one thought that a question worth asking. If we can infer anything from the data set it’s that rank of program + number of publications isn’t alone sufficient information from which to infer job market success (but even this seems like jumping to conclusions given the limited information)

    Reply
  21. Scott Clifton

    “My sense is that many schools care more about how many courses you’ve taught and how devoted you are to improving your pedagogy than they do about how many publications you have.”
    That’s what people say, but I can no longer believe it. I have teaching experience in spades (11 different courses over several years teaching as a graduate student, with online teaching experience, at several different universities), extremely positive student evaluations and positive faculty and peer evaluations. Zero interviews this year. People say that teaching matters and it’s probably true to a certain extent–if you’re a demonstrably bad teacher or have no teaching experience, then search committees at non-R1 schools will be reluctant to interview you. But I suspect there is a minimum threshold beyond which there are diminishing returns. Echoing what Rachel argued against Marcus several months ago, I am convinced that what departments–even teaching-oriented departments–want is adequate teachers who are very promising researchers and not adequate researchers who are very effective teachers. Unfortunately, this means that anyone who spends more time trying to become a good teacher than trying to publish is wasting time, practically speaking.

    Reply
  22. Rachel

    To be fair, I don’t think being a great teacher and a great researcher are mutually exclusive, and I don’t think that one can’t do both at the same time. But, thank you, I still stand by my point that departments, even SLACs, want a strong researcher/adequate teacher more than an adequate researcher/strong teacher. Ceteris paribus, they’ll take a strong researcher/strong teacher over a strong researcher/adequate teacher.

    Reply

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