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Tips for moving academic jobs?

A reader writes in:

What advice is there for someone who already has an academic job but would like to get another one in a particular geographic region?  Is it better just to beef up one's qualifications on paper? Or is it more important to start networking with the departments in the desired region? Or are there other things that are more important? How does one increase their chances of getting that second job? Would attempting to publish in two separate AOS-es be a good idea? Or maybe a better question is, of those philosophers who had a permanent job (TT or whatever) but left it for a second permanent job, what were the mechanisms that got the majority of them that second job? (I'm nervous here the answer might be something like "they were invited and didn't even have to apply".)

Great questions! Does anyone in the know have any insights they are willing to share?

Posted in

3 responses to “Tips for moving academic jobs?”

  1. Movin

    I moved. I moved up, by all objective (and subjective) measures. I moved to a place with a lower teaching load, the city where I now live is much better, there is far better support for research. It was purely on the basis of my research record. I published quite a bit in good venues, including a book with one of the big two presses. In the process, I had gained the support of a number of bigger names in my areas of research, who write letters of recommendation/support. But these relations are all based on research – they liked what I had written.
    I do know of other cases of people moving where they used their service & administration record to move. The catch is, you must then do that kind of work again. So if your sick of being a chair, but you apply for a chair’s job in the state you want to be, you will have to chair … at least for the first bit (count on 5 years).

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  2. Rosa

    Folks definitely get permanent jobs from permanent jobs by applying the usual way. (That’s how I got mine – 6 years TT, then hired as Associate through the regular application process.) Definitely do it before you get tenure, though – I think the vast majority of senior hires are by invitation and not application.

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  3. anonymous ethicist

    In addition to what Rosa says, it seems worth mentioning that being invited to apply to things at the junior level is fairly meaningless, as far as I can tell. (I was invited to apply for two junior jobs–one first-round interviewed me, the other did not interview me at all, and I ended up with an offer from a school that did not invite me to apply. Also, my own department has invited people to apply for positions and not interviewed (many!) of them. I don’t personally think this is great practice, but it makes sense practically–you want the strongest and largest applicant pool possible.) I think things may be different at the senior level (being invited to apply means much more). So if you are still junior, I wouldn’t worry at all about being invited to apply for things.

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