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[Maggie McGuire]

I was told that a well-bred lady always acknowledges correspondence, yet, in my search for a tenure-track position, I have found that hardly anyone does. I have applied for numerous positions at academic institutions, but only two have ever contacted me to tell me that I was not a finalist. Usually, if I want to know what is going on, I have to contact them.

The university at which I am currently a lecturer is in the middle of a tenure-track search. Recently I asked how the search was going and was told that the search-committee members had chosen their top candidate. I asked if they had contacted the non-finalists and was told that they hadn't. They said that they were just too busy.

This attitude amazed me, and I told the search-committee chair as much. She seemed very surprised by the concept that candidates devote a great deal of time, money, and effort to applying for a job.

I just returned from an on-campus interview. The search committee promised to contact me by Friday. Whether or not I hear from them, the thank you notes are in the mail. I may not get the job, but at least I will show them that I have good manners.

[Mark Marlopal]

Author: Mark Marlopal 
Date:   03-23-02 15:18

In my many years of searching for a job in philosophy I've rarely gotten a letter informing me of the status of my search, but I've usually gotten a letter telling me when the search was over. Such letters have usually been so late in coming, that I've already known the job was filled by someone else. I've never been told why I wasn't selected. I don't think I'll ever know. Sometimes I think that if colleges didn't have to send me the affirmative-action form to fill out, I wouldn't hear from them at all.

[Mayra C. Daniel]

Academia is a world where common courtesy eludes the masses of its population. Those who have positions forget that those who don't await notification of accceptance or rejection. With my December 2001 graduation began my voyage of discovery. In answer to application letters I received inmediate polite affirmative-action-letter requests from all to whom I wrote. Two institutions sent me thank-you/no-thank-you letters, two sent me personal notes through e-mail, three offered me an interview. The rest, well, the rest of the search-committee members have yet to surface. C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?

[SMN]

In reference to Maggie, Mark, and Mayra's thread:

I, too, put my thank you notes in the mail after an interview, and sometimes even after an informative telephone conversation with someone on the inside if the information I asked for and received as a courtesy was not already published elsewhere.
 
I must agree that many business and educational institutions in America's public and private sectors, by and large, have long since dropped the practice of social etiquette when it comes to letting applicants know their status in a job search. Various school districts adopted different responses to the issue of informing candidates that did not make the cut. Businesses are no better (regardless of the size of the company).

Over the course of the last 50 years there's been a gradual reduction of professional courtesy on the part of our businesses and American educational institutions -- especially when it comes to recognizing selected job applicants and candidates. In fact, it's reached the point at which the very idea of courtesy is in jeopardy. As with personal correspondence, it comes down to the fact that some people write and some people don't. Service orientation is based on perception, response/reaction, and reality. The hospitality industry is based on this concept, and it is what people want in the short run and pay for in the long run.
 
Consider those institutions to which we apply but from which we get no response don'ts. What they don't realize is that, in the greater cosmos, what goes around comes around.
 
Professionally speaking, saying they are just too busy is an excuse -- it is either policy or it isn't. A very wise educational administrator once told me, "Just know it's not you, its the system."

When it comes down to it, wouldn't you rather work at an institution where the people are more like you than work at one where people aren't?

SMN

[Newbie]

I recently applied for an entry-level admissions position at my alma mater. I even had a friend of the dean of admissions (and fellow alum) call on my behalf.

I've since found out that the position had already been filled (they posted the job because they had to, I guess).  But I never received a note, letter, or phone call from the admissions office or human-resources office acknowledging my application. This is my alma mater! I even worked in the admissions office during my four years there.

[BP]

Sometimes it isn't a matter of bad manners, but of inexperience. I've seen search-committee responsibilities fall on junior faculty who are overworked and unprepared to handle the large volume of letters. I appreciate universities that provide real secretarial help to their committees. At least you get rejected with style sometimes.