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[philadelphonic]

Right, here's the deal...doing one application won't HURT you, and will certainly help you in your search in the coming years by giving you a bit of perspective on how much work it takes to write and perfect a cover letter. But honestly, it would probably be a miracle for you to get an interview. It's hard enough to get an interview when you're 90% done with your dissertation and have a defense date scheduled before the position starts, let alone when you haven't even written a word. The likelihood that a university will gamble on you finishing your dissertation during your first year of a TT job is slim to none these days, at least in the humanities.

Do the application even if you get nothing more out of it then the experience of having done it, though. It certainly never hurts to learn how to succinctly describe your research projects and teaching philosophy.

[berkeleygirl]

I think that is great advice philadelphonic. Go ahead and apply for this one job, and get a taste of the process. I have had 6 interviews so far and most have asked for specific details of each chapter, conclusions, significance etc. of my dissertation.   I couldn't have answered most of these questions after my exams, or even last year. This information also went into my cover letters, which were drastically improved from last year, when I decided to try out the market early, and failed. After my QEs I thought I would be done in two years, I was wrong. If you can crank out your research and writing in a year or so, kudos to you. For me, and most others, the dissertation was an unknown beast that takes patience, sometimes even breaks to complete. Good luck!

[firstgeneration]

^ I agree 100% with berkeleygirl.  I've worked on my dissertation for 2 1/2 years, and I'm *still* one of the first to (likely) finish.

A professional contact emailed me a year and a half ago about the possibility of a position.  Although the position was at a great school, I knew that I wasn't ready.  I had just finished initial data analysis, and only had one (shaky) chapter draft written.  I couldn't talk about my findings, or the implications, or what (modest) contribution my original research might make to the field.  It would have been a miracle to land an interview.

Incidentally, I did apply to the school this fall, albeit for a different position in a closely related field.  I didn't receive a call or a peep.  So that is the risk that you run, wsr88d.  Only you know your funding situation, your life circumstances, etc.  For me, it would have been nice to earn a real salary this year instead of my graduate student stipend, but I didn't want the pressure of trying to complete a dissertation while on the TT clock.  I already experienced a slight version of that pressure when I was working in my field and trying to write a master's thesis.  I wouldn't personally go through it again unless I absolutely had to, but I can only speak for myself.  Whatever you decide, best of luck to you.

(BTW, way to go, berkeleygirl!  Hats off, and six glittery unicorn stickers for you... one for each interview!)

[berkeleygirl]

Thanks Firstgeneration! Congrats to you too, you have been busy with your own!

[abdbcb]

Back after a much needed break. Got 3 interviews last week for the upcoming disciplinary conference, hoping for 2 more but at least there are some coals in the fire. One of the jobs is awesome but in a place that makes my SO cringe. We'll see what develops. Jumped back into the diss today, slowly slowly slowly making some headway. Anyway, hope everyone is hanging in there, only a few more months before we have some indications of our possible futures...

[kunsthistorikerin]

May I whine into cyberspace for a moment?  A few days ago a trusted source wrote me a happy note to let me know the grapevine says I have an interview with a certain R1.  Then the very next day, several people posted to the wiki that they have interviews with said R1...and I have not heard a thing.  I know from many threads that this sort of thing happens all the time and that nothing means anything until the fat lady sings and all that...but damn it sucks, and somehow the assurance from the inside source just makes it all the worse for the moment.  What if there's a glitch with my e-mail account?  What if there was a typo on my cv?  What if the source had me confused with another KH?  The mind boggles with what-ifs.

 

[berkeleygirl]

Sorry kunsthistorikerin! I am so tired of the wiki and the grapevine.  Both seem to be filled with evil smurfs, taking pleasure in inflicting pain onto us. I am tired of crickets, wikijections and rumors, and its only January.

Here are my stats so far:

TT jobs applied for: 25+
Visiting positions: 2
Post docs: 4
Total:30+
phone interviews: 7
campus invites: 0 (*I am an alternate for one, whatever that means)
application still out/crickets: 9
rejections/wikijections: stopped counting

I need some of the 7 and 9 to turn into campus invites. All of my phone interviews were in mid-late December and early January.  I think they were drowned by scotch and chocolate.

Good luck ya'll, and lets hope for a second wave of positions this spring and successful "dissertating."

[abdbcb]

This whole process is so strange. I am getting interviews from apps I sent in despite the fact that they ask for sub-specialties that I don't really do, and am not getting interviews from places at which I - and my advisors, and my colleagues - thought I would be a shoe-in. Go figure!
My stats:
TT jobs: 25
VAPS: 1
Post-docs: 3
Scheduled Interviews: 4
Rejections, wiki or otherwise: 5
crickets: 16
I am hopeful about two of the interviews, one is for a VAP and one is for a school in very undesirable location. And still hoping for one more for the upcoming conference!! We'll see how it goes. Good luck to everyone!

[kunsthistorikerin]

Thanks to Berkeleygirl (can we call you CalGal for short?) for the sympathy...so, ready to laugh at how technologically idiotic I am, and/or to hear a cautionary tale?  The story about the R1 that a trusted source said would interview me came to a more or less happy conclusion - a few days ago I got a nice e-mail from their admin saying "Dear KH, we still haven't heard from you about that conference interview, can you let us know if xyz times will work?"  ... I wrote back right away to say "Yes!  Those times work!  Yes, please!  This is the first e-mail I have from your Uni, and I'm not sure why, but I'm happy to hear from you now!" ... after some panicky head-scratching, it turns out that the original e-mail they had sent me landed -- oh, yes -- in my spam folder.  An e-mail from a pretty fabulous dept chair sat in a spam folder for nearly a week while I went nuts.  How stupid am I, and how lucky that they decided to ask twice?

Here's my stats so far:

17 applications (12 tt, 5 postdocs)
4 interviews (3 tt, 1 postdoc)
4 wikijections (3 tt, 1 postdoc)
9 crickets chirping, though 3 of those are for postdocs that won't announce til March


I'm pretty thrilled to have some interviews - the good news is that the wikijections are for the places where I was worried about fitting in (and one in a city that had Mr. KH's eyebrow raised very high) while the 4 interviews are all rather dreamy from my particular point of view.  I'm nervous as all hell, but happy to have made it this far with sanity more or less intact.  And believe me, I now check my spam folder hourly.

Good luck, everyone.

[david_perlmutter]

I have a question for the thread. The wikis, blogs and Fora that talk about interview and hiring rumors and such. I can see how they can help. But it sounds like some of you are wiki-overloaded as well. IF a position is open; there will be an ad. If you get a job, presumably you will be informed. If you don't, don't wild rumors just add to the tension? And can you trust the "tip" by someone who also wants the job? Or by a mean troll?

I wrote once in a column about how I was happy to be uninformed--especially when so many false facts were flying about. But maybe it's generational. Middle aged folk like me Are used to not getting information instantly. This is NOT intended as criticism, just asking for an explanation.

http://chronicle.com/article/Please-Dont-Keep-Me-Informed/44629/

 

[berkeleygirl]

Good luck KH!  I think I need to check my spam folder! I like Calgal, but I also grew up in Berkeley, which is actually why I picked the name.

As for dprlmutter's question, I've asked myself the same. I think in such a time of frantic anxiety its nice to get some sort of answers, even if they can be misleading.  For me, having a  school on my list creates nervousness, when I can cross it off due to a wikijection, my nerves settle a bit.  I realize now that wikis pretty much only bring bad news, sometimes fake, and good news usually comes via email and/or phone. I really need to stop looking at the wiki.

Thanks for the link!

[glowdart]

dperlmutter,

Interesting question.  

I am in the generation that was on the market when the wiki started to pick up steam, and it terrified me.  It felt voyeuristic and slightly unethical.  It was easy to see how inaccurate it was then, though, because so few people were updating it.  The jobs where I interviewed were not even listed, I don't think.  So, even now, when I might dip my toes into the market for a dream job move every now and then, I naturally view the whole thing with skepticism.  

I can understand, however, why candidates would find the more developed incarnations of the wiki useful, if used in moderation.  My discipline does not do convention interviews, and our job "season" lasts all year long.  It is not uncommon to apply for a job in October and not be invited for a campus visit until January.  We are also particularly bad, as a discipline, at keeping in contact with candidates.  In the years when I was on the market, I received contact (rejection, EEOC, anything) from maybe a third of the jobs to which I applied.  (I'm actually still waiting to be told that I was rejected from a campus interview from a few years back.)  

So, if the wiki can tell you that you're out of the running for a particular job, then at least you know you might really be out of the running.  That removes a layer of stress, rather than adding it.  But, I'm in an overloaded field, and my default assumption is that I'm always out of the running because there are at least 200 other people applying as well.  This is my coping mechanism:  rather than wanting to stay "uninformed," I just assume that I'm not going to make the cut.  If anything, it is a relief to see the wiki updated, because then I know that I can really forget about that application rather than trying to pretend that I've forgotten about it.  (Because, no matter how often I personally tell people to put it in the mail and forget about it, I still found myself rehearsing possible interview answers for particular dream school jobs in the shower.  Some I could forget about, but others....)  

You and I, however, are viewing the wiki from a position of relative security because we're both currently employed; we've also been at this a whole lot longer (and you significantly longer than me) -- we've been rejected, reviewed negatively, and generally put through the academic critique grinder more than many of the ABDers who are on the market.  That position of career-youth is, I think, more problematic than the wiki itself.  I don't think the wiki freak-outs are as much borne of the need for instant knowledge as they are borne out of not having been subjected to the critique meat grinder as often.  

In school, if you do well, then you get your reward.  On the job market, if you do well, then you still might not make the cut for the phone interview. For people who have spent most of their life in school, that is a major adjustment to make, and it is coupled with the stressors of the job market, finishing the dissertation, the s***ty economy and a positioning on the brink of a new (and unknown) life.  The job market & arrangement of our profession forces people who are already in on the verge of a major life change to then get used to not being rewarded despite being excellent -- and this generation has to do so without the safety net of the extra year of funding that the chair pulled out of his back pocket even when I was in school less than a decade ago.  We change the rules as we pitch people off the cliff and out of the nest.    

Like you mention in your article, I know my strengths and weaknesses as a candidate, and I know that there are any number of totally uncontrollable factors which influence who gets interviewed -- but I know this because I've been rejected from hundreds of jobs, I've been on a number of search committees as a student and a faculty member, I've been in contentious & peaceful departments, I've had other careers, I've been at a number of different kinds of schools, I've been rejected from journals and conferences, and yet I've been accepted at places, too.  I have a very good understanding of my place in the academic hierarchy, but that only comes with experience -- of rejection and success outside of your grad school.  This is not information that most ABDers and recent grad students necessarily know, simply because they're still pretty new to the whole profession.  When you're at my point or your point in life, then the wiki becomes a source of potentially reliable information.  If you're not at those points yet, then I can see how it leads to panics, but I'm still not sure that a need for instant knowledge is part of it.  


Other factors:
We're also not one of those disciplines which is full of cut-throat whackos who falsely update the wiki all the time.  We are, however, one of those disciplines where the wiki seems to be mostly updated by ABDers and recent grads who are all attractive for all of the same jobs.  Thus, the wiki is very uneven in its ability to provide information.  Senior searches are sometimes updated by grad students in the relevant programs, though.  This unevenness, though, stands (I hope) as a testament to the inherent flaws in the whole wiki system.  

Personally, I won't update the thing, but I know that my IP address can be traced back from the site, and I still harbor a sense that I am doing something slightly uncouth by posting what is normally private information in such a public setting.  (Yet, oddly, as a SC member, I watch the wiki for our jobs and am not phased by accurate updates which are clearly posted by our candidates.)  

[berkeleygirl]

glowdart- beautifully said.

[watermarkup]

The great advantage of a wiki is that it often lets you deal with information on your schedule, not when the SC gets around to sending a rejection, and not on Christmas Eve when you finally admit that you aren't going to get the MLA interview you really wanted. It's also helpful to see the actual hiring schedule in your field, rather than anxiously waiting for a call during all of October and November when SCs rarely contact anyone before December. For my discipline, the wiki is well maintained, reasonably well updated for non-senior hires, and mostly free of misinformation. If it's well done, a wiki can be a useful source of information about the state of one's field. You don't want to start obsessing over the wiki, but you don't want to obsess about your inbox, either. (One of my undergrad students sent me an e-mail last week with a subject line reading "Interview" that just about gave me a heart attack.)

[david_perlmutter]

Glowdart & waterMarkup: Well said! I guess another factor I have taken into account is indeed that no information is indeed trustworthy unless it comes in the form of a signed contract. Wikis aside I have heard too many stories of job candidates told by well intentioned SC members that "you are our pick!" Then long silence followed by rejection letter. Even insiders can be wrong. But if Wiki use can help ease some anxiety or give closure in this time of the Apocalypto of the job market, then bless them.