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Jobs and professional ‘plums’: do you need to be well-regarded by people in elite departments?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I wonder if others also feel that in philosophy, the only way to get a job or other professional plums is to be liked or well-regarded by the "right" people (in elite departments, etc). I see people who are "hyped" who get all the plums, and they all seem very well connected or otherwise widely liked or highly visible. Our obsession with rankings only fuels this worry. I'm a junior member of the profession and it makes me anxious that I need to be liked by all the big wigs… do others feel this way, or do I have the wrong picture?

I definitely don't think this is true of jobs in general, particularly jobs at teaching-focused institutions (see here), where in my experience few people care about rankings. However, when it comes to 'plum' jobs in elite departments, Helen De Cruz found that the vast majority of hires are from elite grad departments–though there are, obviously, competing explanations for this (such as that elite PhD programs put the best candidates on the market). As for other 'plums' (such as awards), being well-regarded by the right people obviously seems important, though again there are multiple competing explanations for why someone is well-regarded. 

I have to confess that although at various points in my career I've worried about this kind of stuff (particularly when I was on the job-market), I found it more productive–both then and now–to simply try to do good work. On that note, although there may well be elitist parts of the academy, my experience again is that large segments of it are not. For example, I've never encountered anyone at my university who seems to care "where you came from" or "who you know." So, if elitism bugs you, maybe the thing to do is to try to get at job at a place where it's not really an issue and not run in elitist circles.

Anyway, these are just a few quick thoughts. What do you all think? 

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12 responses to “Jobs and professional ‘plums’: do you need to be well-regarded by people in elite departments?”

  1. It’s about class

    [I only really have experience of UK having worked here for nearly 40 years – I suspect what is below is true elsewhere, but don’t know for sure]
    Sad truth is, yes. It matters who you know, and who you know is (at least in my experience in the UK) heavily influenced by various aspects of your social status (including the still shockingly little talked about issue of class in philosophy). It matters where you (are perceived to) come from.
    I know people that have significantly out-published others, been better cited, even had ‘better’ jobs, and yet who gets invited to do what talks, to keynote what is decided by which (normally Oxbridge educated upper/upper-middle class) person knows which (normally Oxbridge educated upper/upper-middle class) person (with occasional people from elsewhere, but still only really if they are from one or two other ‘elite’ departments, and ideally if they still formally had some role/education at Oxbridge)
    Unfortunately, until we sort out philosophy’s appalling track record on class (again, at least in the UK, this exists and has never been tackled by anyone despite senior people saying they care about it), things won’t get better. Improvement has been made on gender in my experience, but the improvement has really just meant that some normally Oxbridge educated upper/upper-middle class women get the privileges previously only given to normally Oxbridge educated upper/upper-middle class men.
    At least in the UK, we are all playing on a very uneven playing field – if you are rich/otherwise privileged or lucky enough to go to Oxbridge, you will get invites to present your work, contribute to volumes, help from senior people in the field, and other things that will significantly impact your career. If you don’t go to Oxbridge, and/or if you come across as not at least upper-middle class, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. You can make it, but it’ll be so much harder, and no departments genuinely care about this. Working class kids will be judged by standards designed to help the privileged because the privileged folk in positions of power protect the ‘plums’ that get you ahead for other folks like them.

    Reply
  2. An Anon

    Perhaps not directly on point. But having participated in multiple rounds of hiring at my very non-elite institution, I’ve noticed both myself and my colleagues counting it as a serious negative if a candidate seems overly concerned with their various “elite” status markers.

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  3. Why look up?

    One practice that seems relevant here is that departments/universities require letters from professors at more elite universities in tenure consideration. This practice makes me feel like I need to be well-regarded by certain people in “elite” departments in order to get tenure. I’m sure such regard is helpful in plenty of other ways as well–such as being competitive if I try to lateral. I don’t think I have much interest in lateraling, but it still seems like some professors in “better” departments need to think well of me for me to get tenure.
    Am I wrong?

    Reply
  4. Wanna Research

    I’m interested in this question, but from the angle of research vs. teaching institution rather than “elite” vs. non-“elite”. How much does this matter for hiring at a relatively non-prestigious research institution?
    (A lot of the advice about where to focus in the market overlooks research vs. teaching preferences. At least for me, this has nothing to do with desiring prestige. I just like research a lot more than teaching!)

    Reply
  5. Trevor Hedberg

    Being well-regarded by people with significant influence in the profession is obviously beneficial for one’s career trajectory in many ways. But it is absolutely not necessary for progressing in one’s career, getting a good job, and so on. I also second Marcus’s suggestion that focusing on consistently producing quality work is a much better strategy for success than trying to curry favor with the biggest names in the profession.

    Reply
  6. Up for tenure

    To “why look up” I am also frustrated by this. Im going up for tenure and my letters all have to be from places more elite than mine, regardless of how well considered the person is. Given how hard it is to move jobs, that seems ridiculous. I know people who would be perfect but I can’t include them because their university isn’t “elite” enough.

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  7. tenure stuff

    @Why Look Up? and @Up for tenure: I’ve done a lot of informal asking about this when I was younger, and now am on the other side of it and have written tenure letters, and I just don’t think it’s accurate that people who write you tenure letters must already know you/have a positive personal/shmooze-y impression of you (which I thought was what this post was about); my sense is in most cases, they needn’t even know your work (it probably helps them say yes to the request if they have already read some of your work, but plenty of people I talked to said that they regularly write tenure letters for people whose work they were less familiar with). Also, if you’re publishing in top 20-ish journals on things that relate to their work, these people are probably familiar with your work.
    (@Up for tenure seemed less concerned with this than the peer plus requirement for tenure letter writers… my experience is that usually a case can be made for exceptions, but also sounds like you should count yourself lucky that you have any sort of control over recommending or asking for particular writers to begin with! Many people have no control at all over that or even any say in it whatsoever.)

    Reply
  8. AnonyComs

    At my university we don’t require tenure letters from people who are higher up. The only requirement is that they can comment meaningfully on your work, and so are expected to be experts in your area. I think all of my writers were from people higher up, but that was not the point. On the main issue about cozying up to people higher than you, I think it is important to be connected and know people in your area and network so people know you. But I have not found that this has to be mainly at the “elite” places. I’m not a super climber type and am at an R2 to maybe my perspective is skewed a little, but some networking helps.

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  9. Sighee

    Don’t ppl dislike it when you’re just trying to “network” though? Flattery is transparent, right? But then I guess I also think “doing good work” isn’t enough since plenty of good papers/philosophers go underacknowledged. Sigh.

    Reply
  10. Michael Titelbaum

    There’s another aspect to this that doesn’t get commented on as much. Even when you’re submitting your work anonymously to journals, conferences, or prizes, whom you know can affect the content of that work. Figuring out what are currently considered interesting research questions or approaches often depends on all sorts of informal networks. So knowing the right people—or at least being indirectly connected to what they’re up to—can affect your ability to do work that gets taken seriously.

    Reply
  11. Santa Monica

    “I wonder if others also feel that in philosophy, the only way to get a job or other professional plums is to be liked or well-regarded by the ‘right’ people (in elite departments, etc).”
    Cynicism does not help people succeed–nor, of course, does being overly optimistic. Period. Being “undogmatic” (to borrow a complimentary phrase for Gukesh D, in a different context, by Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen) and eager to cut one’s teeth and become part of existing networks of productive researchers are much more important than “who you know.”

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  12. Madeleine Ransom

    I’m from a non-elite university, and my strategy in grad school, for what it’s worth, was to work on topics that interested me, publish papers in journals, give talks at lots of conferences, and apply to several essay contests or awards (sometimes you are automatically put in the running for these things when you get accepted to a conference).
    All of these things (I think) depend not on who you know but on the quality of your work. A bonus of doing lots of conferencing is that you will get to know the people in your field organically, without having to engage in any contrived networking.
    Another bonus is that you will get feedback on your unpublished work, allowing you to make it better and increase your chances of publishing it. Even just preparing my work to present was helpful to me, as it forced me to think about my audience in a more direct manner.
    If you are from a non-elite university then I think these external markers are especially valuable when you are on the job market because they are proxies for the quality of your work, and indicators that you are likely going to continue to publish, the thing you really need to do in order to get tenure. It also helps even the playing field when it comes to comparing your file to those from plummy departments.
    Maybe who you know is more important once you have a TT job and are seeking tenure. I’m not sure about that yet. But even then, it seems like the quality of your published work should speak for itself, along with your other scholarly activities.
    Maybe there are some plums reserved only for certain people (what are these? I don’t even know and I suspect I am better off not knowing), but I doubt they are worth stressing over for most of us.

    Reply

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