Here are some comments posted recently on The Chronicle's forum on Job-Seeking Experiences. To read more or to join the discussions, visit http://chronicle.com/forums.

Comment: I am wondering, based on the current economic climate, in particular, whether the old saying still holds true: "Your first (academic) job sets the tone for your entire career."

If one accepts a tenure-track job at a Mediocre State U or a Mediocre SLAC (small liberal-arts college) in order to get a foot in the door and, most important, to make money, pay bills, and keep the family afloat, will this move become a shortsighted one in the long run? In other words, is it better to turn down mediocre schools and keep floating along, trying to find a better position (more name recognition, better students and resources, better pay, better research support, and so on) or to just take whatever comes along this season and hope for the best, namely that the economy will improve and that whenever a better job is advertised in the future, the subpar reputation of Mediocre State U or Mediocre SLAC won't color one's chances?

Is financial survival in the short term more important that long-term career goals?

Response: I am not familiar with that "saying." While obviously it is less than desirable to be burdened with a 5/5 load if you are hoping to publish your way into a job at an R1, not everyone's career goals are the same.

I have known several people in the humanities who took nonacademic jobs at the end of the Ph.D., either to make ends meet (I'm talking here general office jobs, like receptionist), or who went into a different career and then returned to academia, and ended up at high-profile "elite" institutions in permanent academic posts. All things are possible.

I think being on the tenure track at "Mediocre State U" or "Mediocre SLAC" will put you on a better platform to make the jump to your preferred type of institution than being "still on the job market."

For me, a job is better than no job, and I have not been in the position of having multiple offers in hand to make a choice.

Response: Several senior professors that I respect very highly have used this expression recently with regards to my job search, and it put the fear of God in me. They believe that freshly minted Ph.D.'s who rush into the arms of the first mediocre no-name school that offers a tenure-track job are being, in essence, shortsighted, even during the current recession.

Personally, I find this to be more than a tad unrealistic, but I can't help feeling anxious. What if they're ultimately right??

Response: The ability to move up will be determined by your talent and industry, together with a strong dose of factors over which you have no control.

Wherever you begin you will have personal and professional duties that will detract from your ability to produce a lot of research. As a result, you will need to make extraordinary efforts, some of which may seem unfair, while other parts take time away from other things you would prefer/need to be doing, if you are to assemble a research dossier that will be attractive to research-intensive institutions.

That being the case, it will be possible/tempting/necessary to justify to yourself concentrating your energies on nonresearch aspects of your life. That is perfectly acceptable, but you should be conscious that you are making a choice in doing so.

You may not get a research job by publishing in top journals, but you certainly won't if you do not.

Your part of the bargain —the part which you can control and is not dependent on the economy, slow evaluation of submissions, etc. —is paid for by the number of quality hours you commit to developing a research profile. The higher the number, the better your chances. But this number comes at the cost of other aspects of your life and work.

In the end, the question becomes, "What things do you value, and what is their relative weight?" There is no right answer, but the choices you make will have consequences for your career trajectory and personal happiness.

Response: I have a feeling (nothing for sure yet, but indications) that I will be choosing between a tenure-track, teaching-heavy job at a good, but not flagship state university, and a postdoc (with a 1/1 teaching load) at a very prestigious university.

I'm going postdoc. As much as I plan to someday be at a prestigious SLAC, I don't think Regional Teaching U is the path to get me there. I'm going to put my eggs in the basket with the name and a teaching/research balance for a year or two instead. I'm hoping this might allow me to sit out on the craptastic market for a year or two and try again later.

As others said, there is nothing preventing me from succeeding and moving up from Regional U (and it's in a great location —I might love it and want to stay). But it would take a lot of hard work to get anything published under a heavy teaching load.

That said, I'd definitely take the tenure-track job if that was my only option. No question.

Response: I started my career at "mediocre SLAC" (just inside the U.S. News top 100). I was mocked for doing so by the placement director at my program. …

Half a dozen of the 15 or so people from my year never got an academic job, some of them because they took the advice of "waiting for that R1 job." Meanwhile, I'm vice president at another "mediocre SLAC" with a bunch of really smart and interesting colleagues, a virtually unlimited amount of support to do a lot of the things I want to do academically. I make more money than almost any English professor in the country (if that's a measure of one's success, and at least on some level it is), and have significant direct influence on the entire academic program at my school.

I loved being at a hot, intense, high-powered grad program. If I'd gotten a job at a similar place I'm sure I would have had a rewarding time there as well. But I'm a lot happier to be where I am now than I would have been to stay on the market for three or four years, getting progressively more broke, and never getting a thing, which is what happened to a lot of my peers back in another bad time on the market (early 90s).

If —if —you can't stand the idea of any kind of job other than a top-30 R1, you should heed your advisers' advice. If you'd rather be a professor than spend the rest of your life as an overqualified burger-flipper, take the job.

Response: Well, your first job may very well set the tone for your career, but no job sets the tone for no career. No need to get into the various stories of people who successfully "trade up," so to speak, if that is what they have their heart set on. The real issue is whether you can make the most of whatever job you have and do what you need to do to get the job you might prefer.