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

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  • A centralized job-application system?

    In our November “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:

    I recently learned that applicants for law faculty positions use a centralized online system called the Faculty Appointments Register (FAR), which is run by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). Candidates complete one standardized profile (upload demographic info, CV, writing sample, teaching statement, etc.), and law schools then search the database to identify candidates who fit their hiring needs. The FAR is not a formal HR application. It functions as an early expression-of-interest stage, and candidates only complete school-specific HR paperwork if a school has already shown interest.

    I would be interested to hear what obstacles people think might stand in the way of a system run by the APA, the PhilPapers Foundation, or another organization. Concerns might include whether university/college policies would permit this, cost and access (AALS charges a fee for each candidate profile, though hardship waivers are available), administrative demands on the organization running the system, whether departments would adopt and rely on the system, and whether a standardized form could accommodate the range of often tailored/job-specific materials philosophy searches request.

    Spending hundreds of hours on job applications seems very inefficient. A centralized system wouldn’t solve everything, but it could help reduce some of these burdens. Law schools’ FAR seems to provide a compelling example of how such a system might work.

    For reference: https://www.aals.org/recruitment/candidates/far-information/

    I love the idea of this. Being a job-candidate is hard and time-consuming enough. All of the time wasted going through each individual university’s job-application system would save applicants an immense amount of time, and I don’t know what the downside would be.

    What do readers think?

    4

  • Articles receiving citations in dubious journals?

    In our November “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:

    One of my papers has recently gotten a bunch of citations from non-philosophical articles in dubious journals that don’t have anything to do with (and don’t engage with) the paper. These fake citations now make up about a third of my citations on Google Scholar. I find this a bit annoying, partly because it makes the real citations harder to see, and partly because it just looks strange and unprofessional. In the worst case (though this seems unlikely), it could even raise implicit questions, since these kinds of citations can be bought. Has anyone else encountered this phenomenon, and is there anything that can be done about it?

    I’ve never gone through my Google Scholar to look, but I expect that this sort of thing is common given the number of predatory journals out there and (baffling-to-me) willingness of some people to publish with them. I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done, given how systemic the issue probably is.

    Do any readers have any helpful insights?

    2

  • Do job-candidates pay for their university’s academic/political scandals?

    A reader writes in by email:

    I’m pretty sure everyone is fairly familiar with the recent events at the University of Oklahoma. Mind you, that all happened in a psychology class between a psychology instructor and a stem major. However, I’m wondering if something like that actually does impact the impression a hiring committee gets when looking at a CV of a candidate with credentials from OU. Are there simply inescapable bad associations now that such a candidate might just have to pay the price for?

    It’s hard for me to see how it would be at all reasonable for hiring committees to hold things like these against job candidates. Then again, I never cease to be surprised at the kinds of things that people say they take into account.

    Do any readers have any helpful insights or experiences to share?

    2

  • Best grad programs for philosophy/ethics of AI? (re: academic & non-academic jobs?)

    In our November “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:

    Students are asking to know where to study philosophy/ethics of AI. Since it’s such a brand new field, and there’s no LeiterTM Rankings or any guide I can find, do people know which grad programs have faculty who are specializing in AI, and/or which programs are best preparing their grad students working on AI for the academic/alt-ac market?

    Good question! Any tips from readers?

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