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Norms for applying to new jobs after being hired?

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

this probably comes up every year, so I ask again (I couldn't find a specific post through search). I am lucky to have found a great TT job, starting Fall. However, a new TT job opened up in what is geographically a much, much better place for the kind of work my partner does.

What are the written and unwritten rules around applying out immediately after? What are the norms and thoughts? I imagine a range of views are possible, but anyone have experience with this, good and bad, that they could share? e.g., applied out, didn't get it, home institution heard about it? Awkardness should my home institution hear about a job talk I'm giving, and how to deal with it? (FWIW I love the faculty here, made me feel very welcome, etc). Should I give my present institution a heads up, or not?

What do readers think?

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20 responses to “Norms for applying to new jobs after being hired?”

  1. Assistant Prof

    My two cents: (1) You’re generally not wronging anyone by applying to a new job. In any case, you might not take it, and it can become a bargaining chip to improve your conditions at your current job. (2) That said, the value of being already happy at your own department cannot be overstated; there are many departments where people are not happy, either because of issues in the department/university/location/etc. (ranging from bad to truly horrible), or simple lack of fit. (3) It’s hard to predict how people would react, but I think you should tell your chair at some point. If you get a campus interview that’s a good stage. That can also help your chair start a conversation with hire-ups about a potential plan to retain you, if you get the offer. I would only tell others who you know quite well and know the external app won’t affect your relationship.
    With all this in mind, I’d say: if it’s a slight improvement in the situation, it’s probably not worth all the work and emotional toil that applying out takes. Moreover, I at least would feel like I should give a chance to my new department, given your impressions of it as a good fit. However, if this is more like a dream location for your partner, and an opportunity like this is unlikely to arise again, go for it!

    Reply
  2. Bill V.

    The new place might not like it because it creates a set of challenges for them (trying to get permission to hire and the real possibility that the line is taken away, the delay between your departure and getting a new hire, the workload of doing another search so soon, etc.). But a job is just a job, however we romanticize it. You are allowed to seek employment wherever you like.
    A caution: Having been successful on the tt market this past year is not a very strong signal that you will be successful next year. For one thing, the market has tightened up considerably (or so I read the tea leaves so far): With fewer jobs than normal available, the already-high competition will be even higher. For another, different departments evaluate files differently, and different local conditions can make the same file competitive in one place and not at all at another. The odds of getting the new job are low. That chance of success has to be weighed against the likelihood of some awkwardness in the current department.
    I agree that there is no need to tell your new chair anything until you are invited for a campus interview. It would be worth emphasizing that you applied because you felt you owed it to your partner and that you are otherwise happy.

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  3. dew it

    I think the rule is “do your best to get the better job.”

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  4. The Real SLAC Prof

    Having been on the other side, i.e., the side of chairing the department that hires someone only to have them immediately apply elsewhere, I will say that I think you owe it to the department to give them a heads up, especially if it is a small department and people have done their best to create a good environment for you. Academic philosophy is a small world. And learning about a colleague’s applications from sources other than the colleague is not likely to land well. And burned bridges are not always something that one can easily walk away from.
    I would let the chair know that you are very happy in the department but that you will likely occasionally selectively apply for other positions since the current geographic location is difficult for your partner. You can say this once and then not bring it up again until you actually get an on campus.
    Most reasonable people will understand that a happy, committed, colleague might occasionally apply out. But it is much harder to learn about this from third parties (which will very likely happen). In that scenario, the department could feel like trust is broken, they may suspect that you are applying more widely than you are actually applying, and they may jump to the conclusion that you are deeply unhappy are ready to leave at the drop of the hat. If they think this, they are unlikely to actually want to work to retain you and keep you in the position.

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  5. Associate Professor Wisdom

    What Assistant Prof says is basically right here. Be tactful and open with your department when and where you need to be. The job market is not good, and everyone knows it.
    I think that junior folks sometimes forget that you don’t actually owe anyone in your department anything beyond performing the duties of your role. You especially do not owe them anything when your own personal life and needs are concerned. It is a job. Nothing more, nothing less.
    Do what suits your life plans, but avoid being an asshole while so doing.

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  6. tenure

    I would balance The Real SLAC Prof’s concerns with the very real possibility that letting your colleagues know that you are applying out may negatively effect your application for tenure. (Yes, this does happen, unfortunately).

    Reply
  7. Jobs aren’t families

    I’m not sure why, in the context of employment, there’s discussion of breaking “trust.” These are jobs, not families. Faculty are employed by an institution to perform work for pay. While there’s a default assumption that the job will continue for a long time (especially once someone is tenured), unless one has a contract stating they are to remain in the position for X number of years, faculty are legally and morally able to leave, for any number of reasons.
    Sharing with one’s chair too early about applying elsewhere also runs the risk of other uncharitable jumps to conclusions, especially since even an on-campus interview doesn’t guarantee an offer. Personally, I would even be cautious about sharing at the stage of an on-campus interview. If they know about your partner’s situation, they should make the appropriate inferences about the multiple ways you might seek to address that.
    Finally, it’s unfortunate to think that learning that a colleague has applied elsewhere constitutes a “burned bridge” for the Real SLAC Prof (at least that’s what it sounds like), though I suspect this is not an uncommon view. In my mind, a burned bridge would be failing to perform one’s contractual duties, treating one’s colleagues poorly, etc. What one does on one’s own time, e.g., applying to another job, shouldn’t count as “burning bridges.” Yes, replacing faculty is tough, and yes, there’s work involved in bringing people onto faculty. But that doesn’t outweigh people’s responsibilities to partners and their own personal health.

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  8. The Real SLAC Prof

    Sigh. I never said or implied anything about jobs being families. I never discouraged OP from applying for another job, despite being brand new to a TT position. It is Hobbesian state of nature out there, and people should follow their bliss.
    But there are costs. There are potential costs associated with quick job jumping and potential costs associated with keeping your job-seeking secret and potential costs associated with telling your department about your applications. And these costs will potentially need to be shouldered by both the individual job-seeker and the department. People will obviously need to decide for themselves how to manage these costs and figure out how to also be a decent person, if being a decent person is important to you.
    I mentioned, without going into any detail, some costs that might be associated with keep the job search secret because I’m not sure that these costs are readily apparent to someone new to the profession.
    I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I’ve had experience, as a department chair, where the department did a lot of future planning and allocation of resources based on the assumption that a new colleague planned on staying in the position for many years. Of course, I don’t think new hires are obligated to stay in a position for any length of time, but in this particular case, the person gave the distinct impression that they wanted to stay in their position at least through tenure. If the department had known that they were actively looking for a very different kind of position, right from the jump, we would have made different decisions in terms of planning and allocation of resources. This ended up being quite costly to us, both as a department, and as individuals, who had to then invest a great deal of time and energy undoing some of the decisions we had made on the basis of our colleague’s explicitly stated commitments about their future in the department. If they had given us a heads up about their applications, we would have taken a different tact with regard to the planning and funding allocations. And, yes, I understand that one can just assume that anyone might leave or die at any time and all stated commitments about the future are just strategic hot air, but if you do that, it is quite challenging to make any plans at all about anything.
    So yeah: do whatever you want, but please remember that your departmental colleagues are not “the man”; they are fellow people who are owed a basic level of respect. For some people, all that respect requires is fulfilling their contractual duties. To me, keeping one’s applications a secret, can, under certain circumstances, be disrespectful to your colleagues.

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  9. Tenured now

    It’s also worth thinking about what it will look like to the department that you’re applying to – will they want to hire someone who is applying for a new job after having only been in their current job for a few weeks?
    One way to balance to concerns here, I think, is to apply only extremely selectively this year, and to make that clear in your cover letters: tell them that you are new to a job that you like very much, and that while you would not normally apply for jobs in your first year, this seemed like a unique chance to apply for an especially perfect job. You can also say, given that, that you would appreciate if, under the circumstances, the department would keep your application confidential. This isn’t a guarantee, of course, but you make it at least less likely that the news will get back to your current department, and you do something to reassure the hiring department that you are not unreliable or an immediate flight risk.
    (And I agree that if you get a fly-out you should at that point tell your current chair, and also explain to them that you applied because you owe it to your partner.)

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  10. details

    One consideration I’m not sure about from OP’s post is whether they currently live in the same city as their partner and whether their partner already has an academic or TT job, i.e. whether you would be leaving to optimize for your partner’s career or to solve an otherwise unsolved two body problem.
    If it’s the latter, my senior advisors and colleagues tell me that people are much more sympathetic to this than we might expect and it’s completely par for the course that you’d be open to jobs that resolve a distance problem. As long as you’re socially competent about it and you don’t deceive, you share that you have a job talk if you get one, you don’t jerk them around with retention offers you intend to reject, etc.
    It might be a different story if it’s more marginal improvement. My sense is that how much departments feel betrayed in the way SLAC describes roughly tracks how much they feel the candidate foresaw and covered up the consideration that pulled them away, and also whether they would do the same thing in your position. “I love it here but my spouse can only do academia if we leave” is more relatable and hands-tied than “I always knew I didn’t plan to stay”. Even “I simply can’t convince my partner to stay” is different. So the details of your partner’s situation may make a reasonably big difference to how people feel.

    Reply
  11. dream chaser

    I think that even in a general case of a marginal improvement, and not a genuine two-body problem or anything, you should apply to the jobs you want.
    Suppose you just got hired, and it’s a good job, and you expressed enthusiasm about it, and you’re happy (it’s a TT job after all!). But then an ad for your dream job pops up. It’s your favorite kind of school (R1 or SLAC or whatever), the teaching load is better, it’s an hour from your friends/family instead of 8, whatever the case may be. Are you really going to not apply? (I’m not sure I’m disagreeing with anyone here, just giving my two cents. I’d be really interested if people don’t agree).
    That said, you need to be alive to the potential consequences of your actions, and I think everyone here is saying very sensible things about what those might be. I’d like to think that your colleagues will get it. They’ll be bummed, for sure–who wouldn’t be?–but these things come with the territory. They’ll move on. Or they should. But they very well might not. It’s a risk. (And I agree with the Real SLAC Prof–they are people, not “the man”).
    Personally, I wouldn’t mention anything to anyone unless I got an offer. I think. Though I’ve never actually been in this situation; maybe I’d change my mind about this. I’d also like to think that if you’re on the receiving end of an application from someone in this situation, you wouldn’t say anything to anyone connected to their home institution!
    Final caveat: the details matter. If, while you were getting hired, you repeatedly said things like “I will never leave this place,” “I’m here for life,” “I couldn’t imagine a better situation,” etc., then yeah, you lied. Maybe just don’t say things like that…
    Am I totally off base?

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  12. MPA

    THIS: “…do whatever you want, but please remember that your departmental colleagues are not “the man”.”
    100% agreed. So many details are persona, location and situation-dependent, that I think the best one can do is frame interactions with colleagues not as family (as some have at least minimally suggested above) or as actors in the state of nature, but as members of a small professional group/network. For me, my perspective on my colleagues changed post tenure. My reactions to OP’s questions would have been much different pre-tenure.
    When I asked a colleague about how to interact in a situation one time, the colleague said, “Don’t be a jerk.” I think the same applies here. It’s obvious what to do in such situations, but your departmental colleagues are (HOPEFULLY) decent people and are certainly not “the man”.

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  13. details again

    @dream chaser oh I agree, apologies, I didn’t mean that if OP and their partner are “merely optimizing” they shouldn’t apply. Just that OP’s colleagues may feel slightly differently about that scenario depending on whether they would do the same thing in OP’s shoes. I was only thinking this is a guide to how much extra care is needed with the interpersonal relationships to avoid leaving people feeling annoyed. Mainly I meant to reassure OP that if it IS a 2 body problem I’ve had a lot of reassurance that people completely understand the importance of solving them!

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  14. market forces cut both ways

    This is only tangentially related to the current discussion, but I figured it may be relevant for those like the real SLAC prof who have been on the receiving end of new hires immediately applying out. I’ve personally had faculty lament this happening to them at their departments when, from the outside, it was pretty clear that the candidate was always going to leave when the market improved (this happened a lot following the 2020-2021 market year, for instance). When the market is particularly tight like it will be this year, SLACs and departments in less-than-ideal geographic locations tend to leap at the chance to hire a tippy top candidate, who then almost always leaves after one or two years. As someone who has been a runner-up to this sort of situation where the chosen candidate quickly leaves a job I would’ve stayed at for life, I wish hiring committees would try to evaluate the desirability of their department/location (etc.) with a bit more objectivity when they’re deciding who to hire. Of course most people will tell their colleagues they’re planning on sticking around! It would be weird not to, and it could harm their tenure case if they do end up staying there if they didn’t act committed throughout. But, if you’re not going to be honest with yourselves about whether a person with a certain CV would want to stay very long at your institution in a rural part of the country, or in the midwest, or in a place with extreme weather (etc.), then don’t be mad when the shiny person you sprung for leaves when the market improves. Some people do legitimately want jobs in stereotypically “less desirable” locations because of family reasons (etc.), but it seems like hiring committees rarely take those factors into consideration as much as they ought to if they’re trying to maximize retention.

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  15. Cuts more ways

    @market forces cut both ways
    I’m in broad agreement that search committees should be honest with themselves about whether a candidate would stay or not. And I’m sorry you were the runner-up. But I also want to push back on anyone’s ability to tell whether it’s “pretty clear” that a candidate would apply out, or that competitive candidates “almost always” leave after one or two years. I know mult junior ppl who left jobs in rural areas or SLACs not because they were planning to all along, but because of family, harassment, or being offered a job without applying. It wasn’t just lip service when they said they wanted to/would stay. Plus, the job market being what it is, it’s difficult to move and nobody counts on being able to do so! Just want to suggest that there’s more than meets the eye in many of these situations & we should be slow to speculate.

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  16. Cuts more ways

    P.S. and of course I hadn’t even mentioned the many- if not most?- who stay!

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  17. Not quite sharing market forces’ thoughts

    I actually HATE HATE HATE the “guess if they will stay” plan. You don’t know peoples’ lives. You don’t have access to their preferences. And you don’t know where their lives will take them. It’s a fools game. And the notion that people with shiny resumes are mostly trying to leave is a weird combination of sour grapes and low self-esteem. I have known plenty of people with very unshiny resumes who have spent their time trying and trying to leave– and been malevolent angry stuck presences if they do stay. And plenty of people who could have left and didn’t because they built lives they liked.
    I also think that while there are real values to retention–there are also real values to being places that smart people stay for awhile and leave, if you can pull that trick off. And real dangers to bringing in people you think are less qualified and otherwise a less good fit because you “guess they might stay.”
    I’ve lost many a dream job in my life. I get how painful it feels– but I don’t think that makes the guessing game a good or even really justifiable practice.

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  18. right

    Not quite …
    Yes, you are absolutely right. There are many (not so good, but fine) people who spend a lot of energy trying to leave, and end up being pissy colleagues because they are not perceived to be a great as they see themselves. And there are great colleagues who could move on and don’t because they are enjoying other things besides how high they can climb. There is no guessing. I lost a great young colleague … but so be it. I left a place once as well, a place I was prepared to stay until retirement.

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  19. Chris

    Just to follow up on “not quite” and “right” – I once interviewed for a job in a “not very populated area” where the department (it turned out) was worried about retention. I actually had family in the area and would have happily taken the job. However, at the end of an interview they asked “Do you have anything else to tell us?” and I went on about being philosophically well rounded, etc. (which was true – I also thought it would go over well in a small department). Later, they told me (in a letter!) that I didn’t get an offer (or become a finalist) because I “didn’t express enough willingness to take the job if offered”.
    So apparently I should have said something about my family in the area instead of what I did talk about (which I thought was more directly related to the job). But this just shows you how epistemically risky it is to “guess if they will stay”. (Ironically, I did get another job – perhaps in part because it was perceived to be near where I was from (near my undergraduate program). Had to leave that job because it wasn’t a good fit for my partner, however (and my partner is not an academic, and there is no way they could know what geography would be a good fit for them, etc…)

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  20. your partner matters more than your department

    Don’t let any perceived disciplinary norms, rules of etiquette, or social pressure prevent you from acknowledging and acting on the most important fact in this case, which is your partner’s quality of life. You owe nothing to a department who hired you if that means staying at the expense of your partner’s happiness and career prospects. My partner sacrificed a lot to live in the middle of nowhere town we live in for my TT job (which I’ve desperately tried to leave each year since getting – this is year 3). I won’t stay here forever just do to philosophy at the expense of their happiness. Keep that in mind.

    Reply

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