next »

[labkid]

I am a postdoc in a good lab. I am searching for tt postions. My husband just got a dream job in a good location. But it is 500 miles away from my current job.  There are several top R-1 universities and research institutes in the area. But I have not luck with getting an interview with any of them. Now there is a great chance that I am getting a career boosting grant. The score is good but it is waiting for budget approval, which will happen after the searching season ends. The grant require me staying as a postdoc for another year.  If I get the grant and search again next year, I will have more chance to be with my husband. Meanwhile because the grant is not finalized yet, I accepted several interview invitations. Mostly likely I will end up getting some tt offer but decline it because of my two-body problem and the grant. One interview I will do is with a top R1, but it is coast-to-coast from my husband's new job.

Yesterday I learned that a fellow postdoc in my department is applying the same job in that top R1 univ. He has his own two-body problem. His wife is near the  univ. They have been doing long distance for two years. He only applied few positions close to his wife. Our work are close. Our labs are equally good. We are competing with each other. I got an interview invitation and he only got reference requests so far. Our backgrounds are so similar. I feel I am the one that push him out of the game. In a normal circumstance I won't think about it, but now knowing by a great chance I will not accept the position, I feel guilty.

I am debating on giving up this interview because there is only a small chance that I will accept the position. But on the other hand, if something got wrong with the grant in the last minute, this position is my best choice although I will be miserable with my husband on the other coast. On the other hand, I don't know whether it will help or not if I quit the competition. This is a double two-body problem over one position and I am confused.

[crowie]

I come from a field where jobs are scarce so my mindset might be more paranoid about dropping interviews than is normal for your field, but I would say don't give up the interview unless you are already 100% certain that you would not take a job there.  And I don't know if you'd be able to make that decision until after an interview, anyway.  If your colleague was a stranger this might also have happened to him but you wouldn't know him and wouldn't think about it.  And as you said, there is no guarantee that he would be helped if you gave up the interview.  They might have already ruled him out for reasons you don't know about.  You owe it to yourself to keep your options open.  It's a hard situation.  Good luck.