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Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2025-26)

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Staying on the market just after accepting a job?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, anon writes:

If you formally accept a TT position that you're not crazy about, is there really anything wrong with keeping your options open and to continue applying to other jobs? Like if I gave myself a deadline of May 1 to see if any of the other positions work out, is that unreasonable?

One reader submitted the following reply:

It is a job MARKET. You are on the market until you retire. So it is perfectly fine keep looking.

However, Bill Vanderburgh submitted a very different response:

While nothing prevents what you describe, this is a bad practice. Many people would consider it to be unethical. When you accept a position, the department to which you have promised you will come starts making plans around your arrival. Most especially, if you renege on your acceptance, it is extremely unlikely the department will be able to or allowed to fill the position for next year, leaving them in the lurch and amounting to the department having wasted all their time on the search. They might even lose the line altogether, depending on budget and politics next year. Instead, when you get an offer and you have other interviews coming up soon, ask for a longer timeline to give a final answer to the department which made you the first offer. (You can also email the next place you are interviewing to tell them you have an offer in hand, to see if they can speed up their process.) You won't always be given more time for your answer, in which case you need to make a judgment to accept or not accept before you have more info.

I'm curious what side of things most readers fall on here. What do you all think?

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11 responses to “Staying on the market just after accepting a job?”

  1. Craig

    I am sympathetic to Bill’s comment, in no small part because I have been on the side of a department dealing with a surprising vacancy. However, ultimately, I stridently disagree. It is true, of course, that leaving a job after you accept it hamstrings the department. And so I would take that into account.
    But a job choice is a big deal, and location and job type can make a mammoth difference in the long run to the quality of someone’s life. I wouldn’t leave one job for another just because it is a few thousand more—but I certainly would for a big chunk of money, for a significantly less poisoned dept, for a two-body solution, for a much better research environment, etc.
    Maybe more explicitly: so much of the job process is so hard of applicants that I am very loathe to ask them to bear others’ pain. This behavior is perfectly legal. Do what is best for you and your family.

    Reply
  2. UK Postdoc

    Leaving a job – whether `prematurely’ or not – will always cause inconvenience. But that doesn’t mean that you can never leave your job! If you have been offered a job but not yet signed a contract, then there is nothing which prevents you. If you have signed a contract, then that contract will specify the terms, e.g. there might be a notice period. It’s your life!
    It might seem that the inconvenience is particularly bad for academia, since universities can’t easily find a replacement: they’d have to start the search next year, if at all. But I don’t find that argument very convincing. In almost every profession, a hire can be made within a month or two. If somehow the academic profession is unable to do that, then that’s just too bad for them. But I don’t see why you, as a (prospective) employer, should face the consequences.

    Reply
  3. anon

    I’m also on the “just keep going” side, for all the reasons Craig mentions. I’ll add that I think this goes especially for departments that ran their searches particularly out of synch with the average rhythm, and in a way which might have forced you to say “yes” to something quite early in the year, and before you had a good understanding of your options.

    Reply
  4. Amia

    It should be pointed out that if it were widespread, this practice would rightly incentivize hiring committees not to give definitive rejections to alternate candidates.

    Reply
  5. Assistant Professor

    Fair point that the job market is a market, but I tend to think you take yourself off the market when you sign a contract. If someone is “on the dating market” but then partners up with someone in a committed, monogamous relationship, sure they could still be swayed away from their committed partner by a more enticing offer, but we wouldn’t say they are still actively on the dating market – we would say they are “off-the-market.” The same seems to go for accepting a job and signing a contract. You could be swayed by another offer and go against your commitment, and it might be the better life decision overall and you might be much happier with this result (and yes people do it all the time) but I don’t think it is fair to say that this individual was still “on the market.”
    I do think it is different to go back on the market later, to get poached away, etc. In those senses sure, professionals are always on the broader job market, potentially. Those are different kinds of circumstances than staying actively engaged in job searches once you have accepted an offer in the current cycle. Perhaps you don’t have to formally withdraw from every job you applied to an didn’t hear anything from, but I would tend to think if contacted by another institution for an interview at this point in the season the appropriate thing would be to indicate that you have already accepted an offer and therefore they should fill the interview slot with someone still actively looking for a job.
    In my mind this is less about obligations to institutions or individuals at those institutions or even to other job seekers, though, as much as it is about professional reputation and integrity, in the end.

    Reply
  6. Incredulous Assistant Professor

    I just can’t understand the position that staying on the market or even taking a new job offer accepting another is “bad practice”. In which world does one HAVE to work for someone? How is “reputation and integrity” related to deciding where to work? Seriously not following. I know academia has funky non-written rules sometimes, and in some ways it is different from other industry jobs (e.g. the job market runs on yearly cycles instead of on a continuous basis). But for whatever is dearest to you, I beg you, listen to how this sounds: “I have to work (at least for one year) at a place I don’t want to work at because I promised I was going to work there”. It’s insanity! No academic contract I know of has penalties the professor for quitting. How could it?! We’re not contractors who can be financially penalized for not delivering the service/product as promised in a contract. It’s a job, and you don’t need to do it. I 100% agree that not taking an academic job close to starting is an inconvenience to the department. Sure. But the reasons offered in the OP “it is extremely unlikely the department will be able to or allowed to fill the position for next year, leaving them in the lurch and amounting to the department having wasted all their time on the search. They might even lose the line altogether” are 100% the problem of the university, not the professor’s. Not being allowed to fill the position next year or losing the line because someone didn’t take the job is university admin malpractice and academics should not pay for it. The waste of time is a shame and we are all disappointed when someone doesn’t accept an offer or changes their mind. But the idea that one is (morally) forced to take the job doesn’t compute for me.

    Reply
  7. Conrad

    Incredulous Assistant Professor gets it.
    On the same note, how bonkers is the following thought: “Here’s a great, life-changing opportunity that ticks all the boxes for me and my family. But if I take it, some people will be paid to sit in a bunch of meetings next year. So I shouldn’t take it.” O.o

    Reply
  8. walnut

    I think part of the worry is not only that reneging on a contract has a negative effect for the department, but that it also has a negative effect on other candidates on the market. Even if the department gets a line for the next job cycle, accepting the job and then reneging on the contract to take a different job in the same year means that another candidate potentially endures another year of precarity or leaves the profession altogether. I know this isn’t a compelling line of thought for many people who frequent this blog, as it’s a concern that has been raised in the past (specifically with respect to people who move TT jobs laterally) and it’s only ever met with hyper-individualistic responses about how “it’s not my job to think about other candidates”, but I do wish that as a profession we gave in less to that solipsistic pattern of thinking and were more committed to each other’s (and the profession’s) well-being too, not just our own. That’s not to say that the burden should lie solely with individual candidates, but on hiring committees, permanent faculty, admin, etc. as well to make an effort to fight against the structural problems which exacerbate the collective effects of doing what is best for oneself… which is itself also not to say that job candidates have zero responsibility here. I just wish things were different!

    Reply
  9. another assistant prof

    I think prima facie one should not be on the market once one accepts an offer, because accepting an offer does not just indicate a recognition of the offer but also some commitment to that position. If not commitment, it at least carries some weight against chasing other offers.
    That being said, in today’s job market where one is pressured to accept a job that is barely better than nothing, I find it very understandable that one stays in the market afterwards.

    Reply
  10. Market Ethics

    I think it’s permissible to do this, given the terrible state of the market. I do think this should be done however in full knowledge that, in doing so, you are most likely preventing another qualified candidate from getting a job this year that they need and would accept (either at the department who made the original, or at a new place). Strangely, I think our obligations to each other may be more salient in these cases than our obligations to departments (which may put out in the short term, but who can easily rectify this in the longer term). The worst thing to do, which I have seen in my own department multiple times, is to keep applying to new TT jobs when you already have a TT job for the purposes of increasing your salary/deal at your current one. That is, when you have no intention of going for the new TT offer and refuse it when offered.

    Reply
  11. Karl

    Like most philosophical issues like this, they are both right.
    The system is usually rigged in favor of the department, though in this case it is slightly rigged in both their favors.
    I would not blame the candidate for staying on the market, but the department would be right to be very angry that their gamble didn’t pay off. There is no right answer here. Don’t assume there must be one.

    Reply

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