The Philosophers' Cocoon

The Cocoon has now had several series offering job-market advice: a Job-Market Bootcamp, Notes from Both Sides of the Job-Market, and most recently the present series. I hope you have found these series helpful, and hope to continue to dedicate new series to the topic in the future. That being said, these series have offered a lot of advice, and I suppose it can be a bit overwhelming. Consequently, to simplify a bit, I thought it might be good to have a post discussing top-5 list(s) of job-market advice. I'll begin by offering (and explaining) my own top-5 list. Then I'll invite discussion of the list and also invite those of you who have experience on the market–either as job-candidates or search-committee members–to share your own lists. Here goes!

Although my list may or may not be correct, I found it surprisingly easy to put together. In my experience–as a many-year job-candidate, three-time search committee member, and given some empirical evidence I'll share below–the following tips are without a doubt my top 5:

Tip 1: if you want an R1 job, you had better come from a highly-ranked Leiter program. If you are not from a highly-ranked school, it can be incredibly difficult to publish your way into these jobs.

This tip isn't just my opinion. First, there is empirical evidence for it. In an article forthcoming in Ergo, our own Helen De Cruz found that, "There is a structural lack of upward social mobility in hiring practices: someone from a prestigious school may end up in a lower-ranked institution, but the reverse is unusual." (p. 4) Here is De Cruz's 'money chart':

Here is what this chart suggests: while it is not impossible to publish your way into a ranked research program, candidates graduating from PGR 21-50 and unranked programs are at a vast disadvantage in terms of competitiveness for ranked research programs. For instance, while 188 candidates from top-20 programs got jobs in ranked research programs, just fifteen candidates from unranked programs got jobs at one of those institutions. Second, this data coheres with my experience. I personally know candidates with multiple top-10, even top-5 publications (and, in one case, someone with a book with a top-5 press) who have still been unable to get jobs–and, visiting other blogs, I have found the following story remarkably common: "I have X number of top-ranked publications. Yet I get no interviews and will have to leave the profession." Helen's study can help us understand why. A while back I offered up a hypothesis that gained a lot of discussion on social media. The hypothesis was that many candidates coming from lower-ranked programs are being socialized into a counterproductive job-market strategy–the strategy of trying to compete with candidates from top-ranked Leiter schools. Again, none of this is to say that it is impossible to publish one's way into an R1 program. It is to say, if this is your plan, you had better know what you are up against.

Tip 2: if you are looking for "teaching jobs", be skeptical of the conventional wisdom you have been taught in grad school (e.g. that you need top-ranked publications to get a job).

Chances are, you were taught the same piece of conventional wisdom I was. That wisdom was simple: namely, "If you want to be competitive on the job-market, you need as many top-ranked publications as possible–and stay the heck away from bad journals. Search committees will hold it against you!"

Let me be clear. My experience has been unequivocal: the conventional wisdom I just summarized is laughably out of touch with reality. First, I know candidates with a bunch of top-ranked publications who get no interviews. Second, I gathered a bunch of job-market data years ago (which I did statistical analyses on in private), and guess what I found: the biggest correlate (by far) for new hires was…not top-5 publications…not top-10 pubs…not even top-20 pubs. It was total number of publications, regardless of where those publications appeared. And you know what? I tried that strategy myself. I stopped shooting for top-ranked journals, published a ton in lower-ranked journals…and my interview numbers and fly-outs skyrocketed. 

Tip 3: you should decide which job-market you want to be competitive in, and go "all in" for that market.

Two other pieces of conventional wisdom, which I have questioned on this blog multiple times, are the ideas that there is one academic job-market, and that the job market is like professional sports, where the "best players" get the job. This is basically all wrong.

First, there isn't one market. There are multiple markets–the R1 market, SLAC teaching market, community college market, etc.–and search committees in different markets tend to look for different things. Second, the academic job markets do not plausibly work at all like professional sports. In professional baseball, the best hitters and pitchers get promoted to the big leagues. All of the clubs are looking for the same thing: the best pitchers, hitters, etc. However, what makes one the "best candidate" in one academic job-market (i.e. publications in top-ranked journals) can actually be counterproductive in other markets. I've seen it happen: if you are looking for a job at a teaching school, too many top-ranked publications can make you look like a flight risk. And believe you me, for right or wrong and better or worse, people on the hiring side of things care about this. When I was a candidate, I was told by people on more than one committee that they worried I would be a flight risk…and I don't even have top-ranked publications. If that is the way I was judged, can you imagine how search committees at small teaching schools might evaluate people with lots of top-ranked publications?

Second, I've seen the benefits of "choosing your job" market–and costs of not doing so–first and third-hand. As I mentioned above, I have a friend who has tried to publish their way into an R1 job. This person has a number of very highly-ranked publications. Yet they have not only not gotten a job. They hardly get any interviews–and approximately none from teaching schools. On the other hand, I have another friend whose unranked program has its graduates shoot for teaching programs (e.g. by focusing on getting their candidates teaching experience and developing their pedagogy). His grad-program's overall TT-job placement rate is something like 70% according to the ADPA report. If that is not an important job-market lesson, I have no idea what is.

Tip 4: be different.

I mentioned the importance of "originality" earlier in this series. I do not think its importance can be overestimated. As a job-candidate, you are in pile of anywhere from 100-500 candidates. Almost all of these candidates have received roughly the same job-market advice and preparation in their PhD programs. The unintended consequence is that PhD programs actually come across something like job-candidate Pez dispensers, churning out candidates who mostly look alike: candidates with similar publication numbers, similar teaching styles (usually traditional Socratic dialogue), similar dissertation projects (in many cases variations on the same currently-"hot" topic), and so on. It's not impossible to get a job this way. But, in my experience, the biggest difficulty candidates have is standing out. As a search committee member, you read dozens or hundreds of files, they all seem to blur into each others…and then someone is just…different. Their project is cool and different, their teaching style is unique and pedagogically well-explained and justified, they have been involved in university service, they have a public presence (perhaps as someone who does public philosophy)…and as a search committee member, you just think to yourself, "What a breath of fresh air!" Here's my advice: be that candidate. Be different. Stand out. Not every search committee member will like the way you stand out. But standing out is better than blending into the woodwork.

Tip 5: prepare assiduously–when it comes to your dossier, for first-round interviews, and on-campus interviews–and present yourself as a professional.

They say football is a "game of inches." The same is true of the job-market. Take it from Tony D'Amato in Any Given Sunday:  

You know, when you get old, in life, things get taken from you. I mean, that's… that's… that's a part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losin' stuff. You find out life's this game of inches, so is football. Because in either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don't quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch…And I know, if I'm gonna have any life anymore it's because I'm still willing to fight and die for that inch, because that's what living is, the six inches in front of your face.

Again, luck plays an unfortunate role on the market, as it does throughout life in this world (sigh). But I mean this seriously: if you absolutely kill it–if you have a good CV, one that shows you care about more than research; and if you present yourself the right way in your cover letter, teaching statement, research statement, not making the mistakes that many candidates make; if your prepare for and practice the hell out of your interviews, actually taking the time to learn about the place you're applying to; and so on…it all makes a difference. The job-market really is a "game of inches." Decisions about who to interview often come down to small things. A few interviewees blow their interviews, most perform roughly the same, and one or two kill it. It's the latter who tend to be hired. While there is much about Stoicism I disagree with, there is one thing I don't: as much of this life is out of your control, it's the parts that are under your control that you should focus on. Because those are the only things you can make a difference with…and they may well make the difference in the end. I've been on three search committees. I've seen it happen.

Those are my top-5 tips. They may be right, they may be wrong. As always, I am happy to listen to dissenting voices, and encourage you all to share your views, and indeed, your top-5 tips. But these are mine and the reasons I give them.