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[aristotelian]

If "everyone in your department" is telling you that you have an unreasonable expectation, that's definitely says something.  These are the people that are most familiar with your field and your department's placement history.  You might win the lottery, but it is better to have a backup plan just in case. 

[sibyl]

Small schools are usually eager to make faculty happy, but their ability to do so is much more constrained than that of large institutions.  If the biology department has five faculty and the English department has seven, and the English department wants to hire a brilliant new Shakespeare expert who is married to a botanist, but the college already has a botanist, they can't afford to create a second botany position.

All of which is another way of saying "patience, flexibility, luck."