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[anthroid]

(I am a chair),

You don't say?


Well, I'm at the lower end of the totem pole, and from the ABD perspective, here's what the world is like:

Jobs are advertised starting around October-November, ten full months before I will defend. Ten full months, during which I will finish and defend the dissertation.

I will be applying ABD. There's simply no way around it. And the reason why I will be applying ABD is that I cannot afford to sit idle, with no job and no scholarship, for an entire year. I will (hopefully) start a job while I still need to do revisions. This will suck mightily, but not paying rent and not eating would suck mightily more.

So, yes, even though the chances are slim that I will get work, I will still apply.

I don't think anyone is bothered by ABDs on a market that goes 10 months in advance.  In this situation, ABDs on the market is normal.

On the other hand, folks are bothered by ABDs who are still ABD and no where near finished when time for the job to start rolls around.

Apples and oranges.  Some departments require that the dissertation be complete before the contract is final or require a firm defense date or keep the new hire as a lecturer (and perhaps with lower pay) until the dissertation is defended.

No, I wouldn't be worried in the first situation.  ABD in that case doesn't mean ABD.  It means AB plus a D draft.  I suspect Grassy has at least part of her diss drafted.  That's what I want to see.  I just worry about folks who apply who are still in the first year of coursework.  Sadly, I hired someone like that....

Now, I'm thinking that ABD means "all but dissertation."  Perhaps that's wrong.  If it's "all but defended," that's something else entirely.  I would hire the second category in a second.

[dogvomit]

I think the people posting here are mostly the successes.

Those who spent their dissertation years seeking jobs they didn't get, or who got jobs ABD and then didn't finish--those people are generally out of the profession now, and not apt to be posting here.

So the answers here may be a little misleading, about whether you should be on the job market while ABD.

I disagree with the last poster who says "Every situation is different." No, it's not. That's a cliche that keeps us from thinking and from seeing patterns. What we're sharing on these fora are our observations of patterns. Any version of "It's up to the individual" is always a discussion stopper, and it prevents people from sharing information.

The Fiona

You got it!  I have a friend who worked at walmart while doing his phd.  then left for a community college as ABD.  HE ended up taking eight years to graduate and cost himself tens of thousands of dollars of real income as well as lost opportunity for additional income due to the lengthy delay in graduating.  Had he waited, his dissertation could have been done at least three years earlier.  I applied for jobs as an ABD and made damn sure I got my dissertation done before the school yer started.  Of course, a certain amount of luck is involved here too.

[st_alfonso]

Now, I'm thinking that ABD means "all but dissertation."  Perhaps that's wrong.  If it's "all but defended," that's something else entirely.  I would hire the second category in a second.

I was hired at an R1 ABD. I've been on search committees and interviewed ABDs. I've also been on dissertation committee for ABDs.

When I was hired ABD I had data in hand and the first three chapters, if not part of the fourth, written. I defended a month or so after the interview season and had the completed dissertation submitted to the college by the end of June. When SCs called my advisor he guaranteed that I would have my dissertation completed by the end of summer. I imagine if I had not worked 80+ hours weeks for three months on chapters 4 & 5 he would have hit me with a stick until I did.

I've been on search committees that hired ABDs in similar circumstances. It's common, especially at universities that can only afford beginning professors. However, no data, no advisor guarantee and no programmatic research agenda I'm not interested. Sure things can go astray with candidates that have data and a advisor guarantee, but not as bad as someone who has not proposed and collected data.

An issue that I've recognized is the ABD who is hired prematurely. I often serve on committees to provide methodological/statistical guidance. I recently served on a committee where the student had a t-t job. Helping with the analysis was a near impossibility. When he came to defend it was a disaster. There was a sense on the committee that he had to pass. Who wants to deny him a job/better pay? He barely passed. I would have voted to fail him if I was senior faculty. The dissertation is a mess and will never be published. Maybe this doesn't matter at the small undergraduate college he was hired at. They likely could care less if he publishes. Personally, I don't want to be signing off on dissertations like the one he wrote, but when you're junior faculty you often STFU.

Based on the above experience, I dropped off a committee because an ABD student took a job prior to proposing. The job starts this September, the proposal meeting was in May and the defense is in August. This is a completely unrealistic timeline. Especially, when she is collecting data in a field where people are unavailable in the summer. I can imagine the quality of that dissertation. It won't be much better than the surveys elementary kids do to learn the scientific method (can anyone say, "what's your favorite soft drink?"). In the future, I will continue to refuse to serve on dissertations for ABDs who have accepted jobs that are not within striking distance. One of the first things I tell them when they walk in my door is "you take a job prematurely you'll need to replace me". Funny how one bad experience can set policy.

To make a long-winded post short, there's a distinction that Anthroid has identified. There are ABds and ABDs. The capitalized D indicating defended rather than dissertation. ABd can be anytime after comps. ABD requires the student to analyze, writeup and defend their dissertation prior to stepping foot in their new office. I'll hire/work with an ABD.

By the way, has anyone seen ABDs put "ABD" after their name on applications or conference presentations? Bwaaahahhaha!! That's funny!!

[habanero]

Here is a different perspective from the ABD application process...
I was the only candidate this university brought in for an interview for a position in their faculty. The search committee knew I was ABD prior to bringing me in. The job description mentioned that the successful ABD candidate may be given up to 24 months to complete the degree upon being hired.
During the interview and subsequent presentation to faculty, the entire line of questioning focused on my thesis and the literature around it, as if I was defending perhaps a year too early. Clearly, I was caught with my pants down on these kinds of questions and perhaps that's my lack of foresight. The chair of the search committee became a kind of mentor to me through their interview process. He kept saying to me at the end of each interview event, "I thought we brought you out here to interview for a teaching position. I didn't know we brought you here to defend your thesis."
Needless to say, I was not offered the position as they clearly wanted someone who had completed and defended their thesis.
So maybe it would be helpful for universities that want to entertain the idea of interviewing ABD's to have very clearly outlined criteria of what constitutes ABD in their opinion, as well as presenting a description of the kinds of questions that ABD's might be asked to answer, as most of us ABD's haven't been on that many tenure track interviews. I know for me, if I had seen the criteria ahead of time, I would have certainly prepared myself in a much different way, focusing less on my teaching ability and more gearing up to defend my thesis and the literature around it.
I hope this posting doesn't come off as a person who is grinding their ax, but more as a how to better help ABD's prepare for the time when they are invited to interview.

[prof_smartypants]

Maybe we need a new acronym. Once you have completed an entire draft of your diss and sent it to your committee, you can now call yourself, "AFD." "Almost F'ing Done"

[sugaree]

I think there's a difference between ABD and ABD. I first went on the market ABD, but with only drafts of the first 2 chapters completed. I knew it was unlikely that I would get a job, but I wanted the experience and interviewing "practice" and would happily take something if offered. It, predictably, was not. The next year, I had 4 chapters complete, a fifth drafted and kind of "pre-defense" completed and a defense date tentatively set for the following June (before any new job would begin). I had many more interviews and landed a VAP - not unusual for a first job in my field of history. It was not, however, until I had a completed, and defended, dissertation and some experience at a school that wasn't my grad institution, that I had several interviews and a few campus visits. Even then, I had to take another VAP position at a different place. Serious interest, campus visits and two TT offers came only after my first journal article came out. But I am in a crowded field.

I think going on the market ABD is absolutely a good idea, as long as your expectations are in line with your field's tendencies. If you are in a field - like an AHA or MLA field - that is highly competitive, don't expect that R1 job when you have only a chapter complete. Other fields have different expectations/tendencies of course.

[wxdude]

(I am a chair),

Well, I'm at the lower end of the totem pole, and from the ABD perspective, here's what the world is like:

Jobs are advertised starting around October-November, ten full months before I will defend. Ten full months, during which I will finish and defend the dissertation.

I will be applying ABD. There's simply no way around it. And the reason why I will be applying ABD is that I cannot afford to sit idle, with no job and no scholarship, for an entire year. I will (hopefully) start a job while I still need to do revisions. This will suck mightily, but not paying rent and not eating would suck mightily more.

So, yes, even though the chances are slim that I will get work, I will still apply.

In my field this is quite common and we do consider (and hire) candidates who are ABD for TT positions. However, the position is targeted to completing the degree. If the degree is completed (i.e. successfully defended and approved by the institution), then the appointment is at the assistant professor level. If the degree is not completed, then the appointment is as a lecturer (at a lesser salary) with a year to get the degree completed. Assuming the degree is then completed, the appointment changes to a TT assistant professor. If not, then we're in negotiations with the dean to extend the position for another year (which may or may not be approved.) In the hiring process, we rely on dissertation advisors to provide a candid assessment of how close their students are to finishing.

Most of the time things work out fine; the new hire completes the dissertation and defends during the summer and arrives on campus ready to start in the TT line. In a couple of instances, however, the dissertation wasn't finished, and it took the new faculty the entire year to get the degree completed -this was as a stressfull year for all. Fortunately, we haven't been in the situation where a position was terminated due to lack of completion of degree (but it has happenend in other departments.)

So, if you are confident that you will be able to defend your dissertation within the 10 month period, by all means apply.

[finallyfullprof]

I was ABD when I went for my one-year VI position, but I had completed all the research and field work and gotten approval for the outline.  During the VI year, I completed two chapters and came back once to meet with my committee. Then I got hired at the CC.  My school's policy is that for each promotion, one must have completed 12 more hours past the master's level. If someone were ABD, that person could use those hours for the first promotion. But then for the next two, those previously earned hours would not count. Thus I would have had to sit through "professional development" classes taught at the local university if I wanted to advance beyond Assistant Professor.  Candidates who earned doctorates were exempt from all this and just had to put in their time, teaching, and committee service.

That was a powerful incentive. I finished one more chapter my first year on the TT. Then I had everything written by the end of that summer. I did my revisions over winter break and graduated the following spring.  In my department, several people have taken that same route. Of the "younger" hires (meaning within the last 10 years), three of us finished our doctorates while teaching. Two others are in the pipeline now.

[aristotelian]

I think a lot of this is dependent on the competitiveness of the field.  In my field (a very competitive humanistic subfield in the social sciences), I'd advise most ABDs not to spend much time on the market.  ABDs are going up against PHDs and even advanced assistants looking to move to other locations, so it's just not realistic to be competitive.  As a result, even if they are offered a job, it's usually for undesirable positions.  I think a lot of ABDs end up in this situation.  If they feel pressured to take a job their first year on the market, they will probably end up with a crappier job than if they could afford to wait a year and apply with PHD in hand and a publication or two. 

The only exceptions to this are ABDs from the top two or three programs in the field.  They have a shot at convincing a committee that they are up and coming stars in the field.  Otherwise, however, you are just an ABD going up against PHDs that have more accomplishments and no risk of not finishing.

I went on the market as ABD, and after a ton of effort the only tenure track offer I got was at a terrible school in an even worse location.  If I could have done it over, I would have applied to a few tenure track positions early in the year that I would take without hesitation, then to visiting jobs late in the season.

[grasshopper]

Tenure track? That's a dream.

I mean, I'm applying for those tt jobs that I'm (theoretically) qualified for, but I'm far from banking on them.

If I'm perfectly honest with myself, I'll be lucky to get a one year contract. Very, very lucky.

The only absolutely certainty is that if I don't apply, I won't get a job.

[scratch32]

Well, the original question was whether to seek a job while ABD, not take a job while ABD. As many have noted, in many fields there is often a ten month difference between when job applications are sent out and when the job starts.

I see no problem sending out job applications while ABD, if you and your adviser think it certain that you will finish in that time frame. In fact, in my experience, I was more successful garnering interviews (conference and campus), from top-tier R1s while I was ABD rather than with PhD in hand. There was a feeling, since reiterated by others I have talked to, that ABDs can be more attractive to these places because they are all potential which means both 1) they are possibly going to produce some top work in the field and 2) more cynically, without significant publications and fresh out of grad school, it is much easier to deny these people tenure in 5 years.