In what other profession do so many highly qualified candidates compete for so few poorly paid positions? In the academic job market, search committees regularly collect 200 applications from Ph.D.'s for a single entry-level teaching job. These days, even institutions that do not emphasize faculty research demand a solid record of publication from applicants.
The surfeit of job seekers has emboldened academic departments to force candidates through increasingly onerous tasks on their way to a coveted job offer. I write this as someone whose hunt for a tenure-track job has ended successfully; I will soon become an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. But during my job search, I encountered unreasonable requests that seemed designed more to weed out unsubmissive applicants than to assess our suitability for the position.
After sending a cover letter and CV to one department, I received a reply from the search committee indicating it wanted to pursue my candidacy further. To do this, the committee needed a representative writing sample and three letters of recommendation (at least one attesting to my teaching abilities). In addition, the department mailed me a copy of the department's course list, asking me to devise a syllabus, in the style of their catalog, for four different classes I would like to teach there.
Although I had a few syllabuses already prepared, the instructions required me to create new ones that did not duplicate their existing offerings while conforming to the college's stylistic conventions. Because its demands were so specific, I would not be able to recycle these syllabuses for other job applications. Meanwhile, this department amassed dozens of free suggestions for courses from all the queried applicants.
Three months later, the chairman of the search committee sent an apologetic letter informing me that his department had never secured approval to make a hire, and so the position would go unfilled.
Several search committees asked for letters of recommendation from all applicants, not just the ones who had advanced past the first cut. To lessen the burden on my advisers, I established an account at my university's dossier service, which keeps generic letters on file. But I did not resort to this costly solution until one department informed me that they were missing one of my three letters. After I had accused my recommender of dereliction, the search committee sent me an e-mail message saying that it had had the three letters all along.
Emily Peters, another diarist on this site, has calculated the financial expense incurred applying for an academic job. Between laser printing, postage, airfare to conferences, and interview attire, graduate students must stretch their meager stipends even further than usual.
However, the process of job searching exacts an even more debilitating toll on our mental health. At every step, hiring committees remind us of our subordinate position in the academic hierarchy. They're looking for reasons to put our applications in the "no" pile: one missed deadline or one typo in a cover letter dooms us. We are often kept in the dark about how the search is proceeding and fear that a phone call to the chair would unfavorably bias her against us.
This fear has made us utterly compliant to the rules of the game as set by the departments. One of the most awkward sensations is leaving a hotel room after a conference interview and seeing the next candidate waiting for her turn. Protocol dictates that you smile graciously and nod with no more significant an exchange than, "Good luck." Similarly, as you both peruse the bulletin board of advertised jobs and your attaché cases bump, you're allowed no more than a polite, "Excuse me."
We who don't hesitate to jump into debates during seminars or confront advisers with questions about our latest chapter have been silenced. I wanted to track down these other well-dressed conference attendees and debrief them. Who has called you for interviews? What did they ask you? Did you receive the e-mail about the new job opening?
But like the rest of my colleagues, I deferred to the power of the search committees, not wanting my inquiries to somehow get back to the search committee and give it a reason to put me in the "no" pile or to give another candidate an advantage. I found that I shared my specific experiences only with peers in completely different subfields, so there would be no danger of revealing too much. As my isolation increased, so did my worry that my obedience would not be rewarded with a tenure-track job.
Part of our disempowerment is structural. Many disciplines show more interest in producing doctorates than providing employment for them all. I would never have imagined that 200 people with Ph.D.'s in anthropology would be willing to relocate to Norman, Okla. Our academic mentors are ill-equipped to suggest alternate careers that might absorb many of the job-seeking Ph.Ds.
At the same time, higher education has not grown at a sufficient rate to accommodate the demand. Here in California, the state refers to the coming demographic trend of college students as a "tidal wave," yet it has capped university budgets and instituted a hiring freeze. Even tony private colleges have to conduct gargantuan fund-raising campaigns just to increase the size of their faculties.
Change at the structural level is not imminent, but that does not condemn us applicants to endless subservience. To break the silence that competition breeds, we need to share information. At the major disciplinary conferences, instead of shying away from one another, we should have an informal discussion about our adventures on the job market, where we swap news and advice. More than anything, it is the lack of information that makes the job search so frustrating. Since we can't expect the search committees to keep us updated, we need to inform each other.
As long as I'm dreaming, wouldn't it be great if job applicants could coordinate their protests? Currently when an announcement demands three letters of recommendation from every applicant, we submit them, because if we don't there are hundreds of others who will. But if we all agreed to send no more than a cover letter and CV (until we make it to the shortlist), there would be no fear of automatic disqualification.
In this fight for respect, the only weapon job applicants have is our number. Yet it is also our number that makes such prospects for organization implausible. In the end, by being patient and suppressing my radical impulses, I landed a tenure-track job. With this step up the hierarchy, I am no longer powerless about my institutional future. But with the title of assistant professor comes a whole new reason to be deferential: the tenure-review committee.
