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August 14, 2009, 03:00 PM ET
Some Real Numbers
Many conversations about the academic job market bandy around figures about the number of applicants for various positions. Comments on a recent post about my struggles to write the right kind of recommendation letter for a former master's student of mine contain dire predictions that she will never find a job, or will need to teach English in Asia, or that she should get a teaching certification (which she actually already has) and teach secondary English.
My own Ph.D. is in English, and I am deeply familiar with the trials of the academic job market from both sides of the table. Searching for a faculty job in English or in other fields (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) is highly competitive and can certainly be heartbreaking.
But here's something true. In the last nine years, I have worked as an administrator at three different institutions. All three of them have had many virtues and have been at least reasonably competitive in terms of salary and benefits. They have all been teaching-oriented universities (with a 4/4 course load) without a tremendous amount of research support (though my current institution actually does quite well), but the fact is, in the 25 or 30 searches I've supervised at one level or another over the past decade, we have never received more than 40 applications for any job. In some of our searches last year we received fewer than 10, and that includes some of those high-supply/low-demand fields for new doctorates.
In these very small pools, there have always been at least a few wonderful candidates, and for the most part we have been able to hire outstanding people for our jobs. But frankly, the search process has simply not been that competitive. Truly strong candidates have risen to the top, but their competition has been half-a-dozen candidates, not hundreds.
I simply cannot believe that my last three jobs have been at institutions that are uniquely unattractive to job candidates. While I am more than willing to admit that they have locations (and/or other qualities) that may not automatically scream desirability to young academics, they are all respectable institutions with a great deal to offer.
I in no way intend to underestimate the difficulty of the academic job market. But depending on how flexible a candidate is, there are still real opportunities to have a good academic career without striding over the bodies of hundreds of competitors to do so.
Categories: Faculty-hiring
Comments
1. oatmeal - August 15, 2009 at 07:26 pm
This is an interesting article. I have served on many search committees at three different institutions. I must say that on each occasion there were over 100 applications for each job (in the Social Sciences). Many applicants were highly qualified and most were a good fit. A few were not but on the whole it was very difficult to shorten the list for interviews. My colleagues and friends in other institutions and other disciplines find the same. I think the article above it not indicative of most positions in the humanities or social sciences. I would be interested to hear what others say.
2. jruiz - August 16, 2009 at 04:19 pm
" In some of our searches last year we received fewer than 10"
Perhaps that reflects how many find Storm Lake an attractive place to live.
3. david_r_evans - August 17, 2009 at 12:24 pm
" In some of our searches last year we received fewer than 10"
Perhaps that reflects how many find Storm Lake an attractive
place to live.
Jruiz, that's kind of my point. I understand why not everyone would want to live in Storm Lake, Iowa--I probably would have had my doubts as a 28-year-old job candidate too.
However, there are a lot of ways in which our jobs are quite desirable: good salary, especially when corrected for housing costs, good benefits, a very generous faculty development program, and a variety of other perqs. The main issue is, IF one can manage to feel positive about living here, everything else is really very good, and being hired here is not insanely competitive, though as I say, we generally get excellent candidates anyway, just not that many.
For oatmeal, I went back and recounted the searches I've been involved with as chair, dean, and vpaa in the last nine or so years: actually, more than 40. These were for jobs at Georgia College & State University (Milledgeville), Oklahoma City University, and now at BVU. Even in searches in a grossly oversaturated area like creative writing, no, never more than 40 or so applications. (Never once as many as 60.) Of course I'm invested in thinking of these places as at least decent, since I've worked at them, but in the range of possible academic jobs, none of them were anywhere near the bottom of the barrel.
4. jruiz - August 19, 2009 at 08:53 am
I actually interviewd at BVU well over a decade ago, and it was not an unpleasant experience. My plane ticket, rental car, and motel were all prepaid, so I suffered no initial out of pocket expenses. The people were nice. Storm Lake wasn't a bad place.
5. mhkirsch - August 20, 2009 at 01:47 pm
So tell us something about storm lake.
6. david_r_evans - August 26, 2009 at 11:33 am
mhkirsch,
Storm Lake is a town of about 12,000 people in NW Iowa about 125 miles NE of Omaha, 125 miles NW of Des Moines, and around 250 miles SW of the Twin Cities. We are about 75 miles due east of Sioux City.
SL is located on Storm Lake (amazingly enough!), which is the 3rd or 4th largest natural lake in Iowa, though it's not that large. We're in the middle of one of the largest wind farms in the US, and it is quite breezy here. You can buy a very nice house for $100,000, and there are VERY few houses that would cost more than $200k.
It's quite a diverse community, with immigrants from various areas of Latin American (mainly working in the meat industry) and Asia, including Hmong, Thai, and Cambodians. We have some decent small, independent Mexican and Asian restaurants as a result.
Our public schools are OK, but they are challenged by ESL issues.
There are a variety of small businesses in town, but unfortunately the retail situation isn't great. It's relatively flat here (not all of Iowa is flat; especially in the east and south, it's actually quite hilly). The overall infrastructure (roads, etc.) is very good, as is typical of Iowa.
It's certainly not a city, and if you live or die by city life you'd hate it here. But if you want a quiet place with acceptable amenities, a very low cost of living, an economically secure institution, and a clear sense of educational mission, it's a pretty fine place to be.
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