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I'm Applying As Fast As I Can

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By Paige Gordon

I'm in the market for a job, but also for job-seeking advice. What jobs do I apply for? Where do I draw the lines?

If I'm interested in pursuing gender studies, for instance, but don't yet actually have a "record of achievement" in that area, are all posts specifically in gender-studies departments out of my range? In applying for jobs, should I follow the rules of dating etiquette for the class-conscious and not embarrass myself by trying to associate too far "up" or "down"? What long shots are too long?

On these matters, I receive conflicting but equally reasonable and sincere instructions. "Don't apply to jobs for which your skills and interests aren't really applicable," one camp tells me, "don't waste your time." "Apply to everything," the second camp booms, "it's a game of chance." Both rules bump against reality.

Departments advertising positions may not know precisely what they're looking for when they write advertisements, and search committees (and we as applicants) may not always know what they (and we) want before being confronted with it. So the basic assumptions of rule No. 1 falter. And there's something to be said for not limiting your options unnecessarily when others will so readily do it for you.

The reality of my discipline is that there are too many unemployed anthropologists for the limited number of full-time anthropology faculty jobs available. There are so many more applicants than jobs that most searches don't even request recommendation letters unless you make the first-round cut. Most posts draw well over 100 applicants.

I've already received a rejection letter for a postdoctoral position I had sought, reassuring me that it was "in no way a negative judgment of [my] work or prospects," since they had received nearly 900 applications for the 16 available positions and had to turn away many "worthy" candidates. OK, I won't take it personally, but I still find it difficult to look especially optimistically upon these odds.

In fact, many in my department have had long, difficult struggles for work in academia, where I know most set their sights. Although the National Research Council in 1995 ranked my department in the top 10 (of 69) of U.S. anthropology programs, only half of our Ph.D. alumni hold academic jobs. And less than 14 percent have tenure-track or tenured jobs in departments granting doctorates (the holy grail of academic jobs).

So I can see the sense of rule No. 2: Apply to everything. When the chances of success are already low, why eliminate ANY possibilities?

At the recent American Anthropological Association meeting in Chicago, I polled my former grad-school colleagues who had found academic jobs. Although they hadn't always followed their own advice, they all leaned toward casting a wide net of applications. One tenured friend (with a development budget that happily included conference refreshment for unemployed colleagues) sat me down with a beer and explained that "the job market is all a crap shoot," and in order to win, you have to play (and play, and play ...). In his year on the market, he had applied to 56 postings, gotten four interviews and two offers. That's a high 4 percent success rate -- beating the odds, I figure.

But perhaps rule No. 2 cheerleaders are unaware of or have forgotten the hectic nature of life on the job market: finishing the dissertation, trying to start one's career, and struggling to survive financially. Allow me to refresh their memory:

I teach three classes of a freshman culture and writing course while still revising my dissertation in anticipation of the forthcoming defense. I rewrite (and rewrite, and rewrite ...) a journal article to accommodate encouraging but frustratingly contradictory reviewers. I give conference presentations on my dissertation research and draft a longer version for a job talk. I research and design syllabi for my future courses (and for the job searches that request them).

I spend hours every week researching positions and attend all the relevant job-search seminars and on-campus talks I can fit into my schedule. I write this column. At the same time, I try to maintain sanity and a personal life.

Individually, each activity is enjoyable, manageable. But taken together, when do I find the time, attention, and energy to breathe, much less to apply to large numbers of jobs? Please don't tell me this is simply the nature of life in academia, the precursor to working for tenure. I want to believe quality counts over quantity -- in my scholarship and my job applications.

I know friends who've applied to jobs they didn't want. "Oh, I hope I don't get that one," they confide, "I couldn't stand to live there." Nevertheless they write specially designed cover letters attesting to their commitment and desire, package up vita and recommendation letters and send them off. We as job seekers are NOT always rational. We quietly hedge our bets, make desperate attempts for the security of getting a job -- any job. Rejections trickle in. Perhaps we panic.

I can relate. Next year, post-Ph.D., looms like an empty void -- what I'll be doing, where I'll be living, whether I'll have money for rent and pet food, all up in the air. This anxiety can make you desperately apply to everything -- see rule No. 2 -- or conversely, it can make you freeze up and fail to accomplish anything (failing even rule No. 1). So far, the job-search stress is helping me to keep up gamely with the traffic; I haven't frozen in the headlights or bolted off into the undergrowth (yet). But I don't know if my stamina will hold out.

I set out with the best of intentions -- in the interests of survival and quality of life and applications -- to follow rule No. 1: apply relatively judiciously to openings, enjoy my work, not get overwhelmed or waste effort. But time has gone on, and here and there I've lobbed out a few particularly long-shot applications. And they (and the time they require) add up. I'm only halfway down my list for October through January deadlines, and I've already sent out 16 applications.

Rule No. 2 claims another unwilling, exhausted adherent.