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Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
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Best timeline for a postdoc search?

A reader writes in:

Longtime reader, sometime commenter on the Cocoon. I have a question I would love to have you throw out to readers. We are planning to do a search for a 2 year post doc this coming year. What is the ideal timeline for a post-doc search? "Ideal for who"? you ask. Well, that's part of my question. What's best for candidates? What's best for the hiring department? Because I think it matters to the answers: I would say our post-doc is attractive … Should we advertise it on the normal job cycle? Or much later (that is: wait for TT hiring to shake out)?

Good questions. Given that most candidates are presumably looking for a TT job, I guess I'd be inclined to think a later timeline for a postdoc hire is better. Then again, I'm an outsider with respect to the issue, so maybe there are things here I'm missing.

What do readers think?

Posted in ,

4 responses to “Best timeline for a postdoc search?”

  1. fwiw

    As someone on the job market, I can offer only my personal preference. I think I prefer to see post-docs advertised on the normal job market timeline, especially if it is an attractive position. The later in the job cycle a position is offered (late spring-early summer, for e.g.) the less feasible it becomes for me to drop everything and move for a position that begins in a few months time (or less!). But that’s just my preference. Others who are more flexible may not care.

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  2. Tenured now

    If you do it in the normal job cycle, my bet is that you get someone who also gets a TT job offer in the same cycle, and then defers the TT job for a year to take the postdoc. If you advertise it later (in the spring, say), you’re more likely to get someone who missed out on a TT job and takes the postdoc while going on the market instead. I like the second option because the first option feels like the rich getting richer – but if you want the shiniest, fanciest person you can get, you’re probably better off advertising in the fall.

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  3. sahpa

    When I was on the academic job market, it stung very, very much to see the few favored candidates getting and accepting multiple, extremely enviable positions. As if the number of open positions was not already harrowingly low for the rest of us.
    So I guess I’m echoing @Tenured now but adding some modest encouragement for a later-in-the-season posting date.

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  4. Stress free

    Advertise in normal cycle (with only standard application materials), offer early and give at least one person on the job market a stress free few months waiting to hear back from TT applications, safe in the knowledge they’re not going to be unemployed. And don’t pressure them to accept/decline until those applications have all decided.

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