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[inthelab]

I'm am "S" in a biomed field; peer-reviewed articles count the most; books are more like vanities publications; abstracts are often left off CVs entirely.

My chair refused to negotiate start-up funds.

[sciencephd]

Well in science, it is unheard of to get a TT job ABD, or even PhD.  One always does one or more postdocs.  In biosciences, these are now on average for at least 5 years.  In addition, major publications need to come out first, before job applications will be viable.

For publications, you always want the most prominent author position that is possible.  That would be true whether you are searching for a job or not.

[quasihumanist]

Well in science, it is unheard of to get a TT job ABD, or even PhD.  One always does one or more postdocs.  In biosciences, these are now on average for at least 5 years.  In addition, major publications need to come out first, before job applications will be viable.

This is true for positions at research universities, but non-elite SLACs will hire fresh PhDs.  In fact, some of them have a tendency to interpret doing a postdoc as a sign that one is serious about research and therefore not as serious about teaching.

[scampster]

Well in science, it is unheard of to get a TT job ABD, or even PhD.  One always does one or more postdocs.  In biosciences, these are now on average for at least 5 years.  In addition, major publications need to come out first, before job applications will be viable.

I guess another difference between the S and the E - the last three hires in my department have all been fresh from their PhD. They weren't ABD at time of hire, but they were doing fake postdocs with their PhD advisor.

And not all of them even had publications out.

[sootgirl]

I agree scampster - the last few hires in my E department were also fresh PhD hires, I guess it just depends on the field.

[gonehiking]

Well in science, it is unheard of to get a TT job ABD, or even PhD.  One always does one or more postdocs.  In biosciences, these are now on average for at least 5 years.  In addition, major publications need to come out first, before job applications will be viable.

This is true for positions at research universities, but non-elite SLACs will hire fresh PhDs.  In fact, some of them have a tendency to interpret doing a postdoc as a sign that one is serious about research and therefore not as serious about teaching.

This is just one data point, but several years ago I was a VAP in a physical sciences department at an elite SLAC that hired a fresh PhD while I was there.  Before seeing that, I would have agreed with sciencephd for any institution where research mattered, but apparently it can happen.  (Hu is still there and apparently doing fine.)

But, this does represent a very important difference between most science fields vs. humanities; I was 5+ years out of grad school before I even applied for TT jobs, while still remaining fully in my field.  This also means that anything related to your dissertation should be published by that point.  Good for your CV, but you don't have the research momentum that you might have fresh out of the dissertation.  Then it hinges on how your postdoc job is structured with regards to publications and that seems to vary enormously.

On the authorship issue, at least in my field, if you are applying for a non-research intensive school, non-lead author papers can matter because they demonstrate that you have a number of potential collaborators.  First-author papers demonstrate that, too, but the reality for most people in the sciences is that with a high teaching load and/or not-so-great school, you are not going to be major player in your field and you have to scramble for good research opportunities.  In my field, you still need first-author pubs to get a TT job, but virtually everyone has at least one based on the dissertation even before they graduate and the other diss papers will be published during the (first) postdoc.

[galway]

Again interesting field differences, in my area of biology most research statements include a description of previous and current research as well as future plans. 

I guess my question on author order wasn't terribly clear but I was interested in relative weights assigned to non-first author papers.  Obviously first is best but given that there are trade-offs in time and energy sometimes you may have to decide if investing in collaborative work where you might get 3 non-first author papers at the cost of 1 first author one.  So, how do you value these and make that balance?  I'm curious because of my observations on hiring are at odds with much of the standard advice I've been given.  I've seen a number of people with 2-3 first author papers and multiple (6-10, up to 20 for one person who was a lab tech for years before grad school) non-first papers get interviews and jobs over folks with 5-6 first author papers but no (or 1-2) non-first authored papers (all within reasonably similar impact journals).  This has surprised me but it's been pretty consistent in the couple of years I've been paying close attention.  Obviously the number of papers, their impact, and the author order matter and also obviously there is no magic algorithm to optimize this trade-off but I'm curious how other STEM folks balance and value collaborative and independent work.

[sciencephd]

I've seen a number of people with 2-3 first author papers and multiple (6-10, up to 20 for one person who was a lab tech for years before grad school) non-first papers get interviews and jobs over folks with 5-6 first author papers but no (or 1-2) non-first authored papers (all within reasonably similar impact journals).  This has surprised me but it's been pretty consistent in the couple of years I've been paying close attention. 

With all other things being equal, the above situation seems more or less balanced in terms of the two cases.

In that case there is probably a factor other than author order.  Obviously, research topic and plans, as well as what the journals that they are published in, plus communication ability. 

Many people who can publish papers cannot give a good talk, or write for that matter.  This is a huge factor.

[sootgirl]

Many people who can publish papers cannot give a good talk, or write for that matter.  This is a huge factor.

Excellent point - the recent conferences that I have been to support that.

[geonerd]

I'm glad to see this thread.  Another issue I haven't seen addressed (I don't think comes up in social science/humanities searches) but am curious to folks thoughts on is author position on pubs. I think those fields tend to have fewer multiple author papers.   Obviously being first author is best but how much value do papers where you're second out of two or 4th out of 8 (etc.) add to your application?  I'm sure journal profile matters but in general what are the thoughts on this and how do you talk about these papers in your research statement? 

I wouldn't worry about explaining the order of authorship in your research statement. Focus on what you are doing now, what you plan to do next, where your funding comes from, where you plan to seek funding, ways of involving both undergraduates and graduate students in your research, and give some examples of the type of student projects that would take place under your supervision.  If you have previously supervised student research then devote some time to explaining what you and the student did, and whether or not the student presented or published the results.  Good luck.

[ruralguy]

My school has hired ABD's in the sciences (as recently as 2004), but I doubt it ever will again, and keep in mind that this a 100-ish ranked SLAC, so in today's market, you'd probably have to go to 3rd tier schools to find any that would hire and ABD, but even then unlikely for many.

[chomp96]

On the "M" side, I got my TT position (at an SLAC with a 3/2 teaching load) a few months before my defense (but had my degree in hand before the start date), even though I had no publications at the time and was graduating from a public R1.  However, I had lots of college-level teaching experience, a strong background in K-12 education, and my research is in an an in-demand interdisciplinary subfield.  I was fortunate to be a good fit for what the department wanted, and two years later, all sides appear to be happy.

At institutions like mine, I'm seeing that new TT hires in the sciences typically do have several years of post-doc (whether academic, industrial, or government lab) experience, so that they're ready to take on undergrads as collaborators in publishable research.  In math, a couple of years of VAP work (to get more experience teaching a variety of courses and developing new ones, while doing a bit of publishing) is more typical than a post-doc, but it's still very tough get a TT line at such a place straight out of grad school.

[threepoint14]

...the last three hires in my department have all been fresh from their PhD. They weren't ABD at time of hire, but they were doing fake postdocs with their PhD advisor.

And not all of them even had publications out.

What kind of University is this?  I fear I might be in the wrong field of S&E.

[sootgirl]

actually, now that you mention it - i am familiar with this 'fake postdoc' idea - just hadn't thought about it like that. it turns out to be pretty common in my field for your advisor to keep you on a bit - I've seen it happen at my own school and at another prominent public R1 that has a similar program. huh.

[scampster]

...the last three hires in my department have all been fresh from their PhD. They weren't ABD at time of hire, but they were doing fake postdocs with their PhD advisor.

And not all of them even had publications out.

What kind of University is this?  I fear I might be in the wrong field of S&E.

It's an R1, but ranked in the 30s. I'm sure higher ranked R1s have higher standards - but they seem to base a lot on perceived potential. I don't know if this is an anomaly amongst engineering departments though, so take this as anecdotal data.

actually, now that you mention it - i am familiar with this 'fake postdoc' idea - just hadn't thought about it like that. it turns out to be pretty common in my field for your advisor to keep you on a bit - I've seen it happen at my own school and at another prominent public R1 that has a similar program. huh.

I just kind of kiddingly call them fake since most people are not starting a new project with their advisor but rather wrapping up PhD work and getting out papers and maybe helping set up some new experiments related to their dissertation work. This is totally different from starting a completely new project in a completely new lab with a completely new advisor. I'm not sure if search committees make the distinction though.