Now that many job application deadlines have passed and news is starting to trickle in on our job-market reporting thread, candidates have to endure the proverbial waiting game. I remember all too well from my 7 years on the marker how stressful of a time this can be, and I often had to console myself listening to music on long walks around the neighborhood with my dog.

For me, music has always been a source of solace in tough times. So, I was thinking we might crowdsource songs from readers that people might use to put together job-market playlists. Some of us (like me), tend to prefer downcast songs, others of us upbeat, uplifting ones. Here are a few of the former that I used to listen to while I was on the market… 

What about you all? Any recommendations?

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3 responses to “Job market playlist?”

  1. SmallStellatedDodecahedron

    My strategy for pairing music with life circumstance is to reflect the emotion produced by the circumstance in a humourous way – to lean into the absurdity of the situation.
    So, my job market playlist is a playlist entirely composed of songs named after and about the various cities of the world (eg. New York, New York; Chicago; Kalamazoo; the St. Louis Blues). No thought is given to genre, quality, or tone. Where will I be next year? What will it be like? I don’t know. Nobody knows. This playlist doesn’t know either. Set it to random shuffle and you could end up anywhere. I’ve collected just over 100 of these songs, and I’ll gladly accept suggestions for more!
    Maybe it reflects something kind of disturbed in my personality, but it really works for me. Here’s a link for the interested: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3SfQ65Rn2zoXKKw0u9mZ7H?si=02edb00bcd6542c0

  2. Ben Roth

    Two excellent ambient works:
    Aphex Twin’s calming Stone in Focus (field recorded)
    https://www.youtube.com/embed/qvQy10Nv35o
    William Basinski’s elegiac Disintegration Loop 1.1
    https://www.youtube.com/embed/ObdZ8lhC0f0

  3. Greg Stoutenburg

    Paul Simon’s album Graceland got me through my dissertation and job market seasons.

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