In the comments section of our "Ask a search-committee member" thread, Mercado writes:
(1) Should someone who is ABD apply to a tenure-track job and a postdoc that are in the same department? The worry here is that applying to both positions will cause the committee to undervalue your application.
(2) In this kind of case, is a job-search committee the same as the postdoc search committee? That is, do these committees have the same members?
Good questions. Although I could be wrong, I see no reason not to apply to both. To the best of my knowledge, there are usually separate search-committees for each job advertised. I also think it is unlikely (though not impossible) that the committees will talk to one another about their candidate pools–with perhaps one exception (one that might benefit you!): if the TT committee thought very highly of you but you end their second-place finalist, it's possible they could lobby with the postdoc committee to hire you into that position. I've actually heard of something like this happening before. On the other hand, if you don't fare well with the TT committee, the postdoc committee still might think highly of you. So, it seems to me best to apply to both jobs, as I'm inclined to think it will maximize your chances for both jobs.
But perhaps I am wrong about this. Admittedly, I haven't been in a department where simultaneous hires like this have been done, so I could be offbase! What do those of you in the know think?
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