Question (from "Algernon"): Do I need a competing job offer from another university to get a big raise where I am?

Question (from "Bridget"): Do I have to spend 10 years of my life to get a Ph.D. just so I can teach "Intro to Philosophy" at a research university?

Question (from "Claude"): Life in Smallville was intolerable, so I moved back to Extra Big City, but now can't get a job in my field. Is it because I've restricted my search to Extra Big City and its surrounding area?

Question (from "Delphine"): I'd love to teach at the school where I got my Ph.D., but they frown on "inbreeding." Are they apt to change their policy for me?

Question (from "Esther"): I'm a one-year visiting professor at Wonderful U. Does that mean I can't possibly get a tenure-track job here?

Answer: Ms. Mentor, as her loyal readers know, always encourages self-knowledge through epistolary therapy. She suspects that most of this month's correspondents, once they see what they've written, will cry, "Eureka!"

Her sage readers should also recognize that, with one exception, every one of this month's questions has a clear Yes or No answer.

The first Yes goes to Algernon, who believes (as all academics do) that he is underpaid. And so he has unearthed a stunningly nasty little fact: that his fellow academics do not trust their own judgments. They need someone else to offer Algernon big bucks -- whereupon he will scurry over to his bosses and say, "See? Peer University thinks I'm worth so much more."

Whereupon the dean and department chair will undoubtedly slap their foreheads and cry out, "Silly us! We never knew your true worth!" and give Algernon a raise that will bring him almost to the level at which he'd like to be paid. (Ms. Mentor isn't sure about the forehead slap. It is optional.)

Meanwhile, Peer University will have spent several months and several thousand dollars wooing Algernon, to no avail. Algernon himself will have devoted weeks to this failed mating, including a three-day campus visit and a load of lying to Peer U. about his unbounded enthusiasm for it.

Ms. Mentor does not approve of this waltz, but it is the way of the world.

As for Bridget and Claude, Yes and Yes: you need a Ph.D., and you need to be able to move. Ms. Mentor urges them to review her columns on "Can just anyone teach?" and "What to do when you've been exiled to the provinces."

For Delphine, the answer is No. "Inbreeding" is the peculiar agricultural metaphor used to mean "hiring our own graduates," and many universities won't do it. They seek diversity, and they shrink from feuding over whose protégé is most worthy. Some insecure professors, too, shudder at the thought of former underlings' becoming their equals.

Some departments may "inbreed" if a job candidate has unique skills or special knowledge. But unless Delphine is a very exotic cockatiel, she should try her wings elsewhere.

And then there is dear Esther, who has heard only one of the two contradictory myths promulgated to people in one-year visiting jobs. The one she's heard is that you can't be hired if "They" already know you, because They will be sure you can't possibly be the best. The other myth is that if you already have the job, they are panting to hire you on a tenure track, so they don't have to bother bringing in unknown candidates and wrangling over who's better.

Either plot can unfold, as Ms. Mentor noted some time ago in "How to make the most of a one-year job." It all depends on Esther. Her teaching and scholarship should be good, of course, but what really matters is whether she shmoozes delightfully at department parties ... and whether she asks thoughtful and respectful questions in meetings ... and whether she wisely seeks mentoring from The Powerful.

For what matters is "collegiality" -- whether They like you. Esther loves the people at Wonderful U. She must make them love her, too.

Question: If I, a tenured associate professor, apply for jobs as a beginning assistant professor because I want to start over in a different part of the country, will hiring committees think I'm insane and toss my application into the Immediate-Rejection pile?

Answer: Yes.

SAGE READERS: Ms. Mentor's request last month for opinions on academic confidentiality netted a very loud "Shhhhhh!" One reader sourly quoted another sage: "Yes, three people can keep a secret, but only if two of them are dead."

Still, Ms. Mentor has not encountered many academics who wear paper bags over their heads or speak in sepulchral whispers when discussing such holy topics as tenure. But most do agree that confidentiality is a myth.

People who always vie to be first in brain power do go into ecstatic fits when they know something no one else knows -- a literary theory, a mathematical proof, or the news that priapic professor Dirk has been canned for chronic sexual harassment.

By the end of the day, everyone in town, from janitor to judge, will know what's up with Dirk.

In truth, one such "Dirk," in a small Ohio town, was stunned to learn that he had been denied tenure -- especially because he heard about it from Jenna, the dental hygienist, while she was poking about in his incisors. Jenna murmured sympathetically while Dirk roared in pain.

Ms. Mentor, in her infinite wisdom, would abolish the charade of confidentiality. She believes that smart adults should be able to discuss hiring, job performance, and money face-to-face. Millions of real people do it every day, and hardly anyone goes postal.

Another of Ms. Mentor's queries -- "Must deans be tall?" -- elicited praise for an ultra-competent, 5-foot-2 female dean, together with the claim that male deans must be "very athletic and charismatic." One 5-foot-7 dean reportedly compensates by appointing a fierce 6-foot-4 assistant dean, known as "The Enforcer." Another man, dean for over a decade, admits to being 5-foot-8, but declares that it is "the majesty and power of the office that makes those of us who hold it seem more imposing than mere mortals."

Ms. Mentor invites more correspondence on such topics as height, shoes, earrings, appearance, and their impact on one's career. Has frumpy been replaced by fashionable even among the bookish classes?

Ms. Mentor rarely answers letters personally and will not do your library research ("How can we impeach our state's board of regents?"). She enjoys originality and likes to have her thought provoked and her fancy tickled. Anonymity is guaranteed to all would-be ticklers and provocateurs.