Plotting Our Strategy

By T.J. Boxem

More than the hubbub of moving day in the neighborhoods around campus or the growing crowds of students gathering downtown during our evening walks, the arrival of the season's first job ad signals the beginning of fall for me. Soon, the CV's will have to be updated, the research statements rewritten, last year's teaching evaluations copied. A part of me begins to feel weary, to long for the day when we can skip this yearly ritual.

I'm fairly happily ensconced in a tenure-track position at a good university. But because my wife recently defended her dissertation, we're on the job market together for the second year in a row, looking for tenure-track positions in the same field and the same city.

Strangely, the season's first job ad came from our alma mater. It arrived as I sat sipping my morning coffee and reading my e-mail. "Get in here," I called to Regina. "You have to see this."

She shook her head as she read the announcement. "They'll never hire me," she insisted. "I don't even defend my dissertation until next week."

"So what? You always say that your research is nothing like your adviser's. Maybe we should give it a shot."

"And what about you?" she asks. "They don't even do cultural studies anymore."

"Well," I stammer, "they list my area as one of their specialties. Maybe they wouldn't mind my approach."

We go on for 10 minutes, speculating about who might write recommendation letters and how the department will react to our application. Will Encouraging Committee Member put in a good word for us? Should I send him an e-mail? Will Scary Department Chairman really ever agree to interview us?

Speculation about job ads has almost become second nature, though we tend to take very different tacks: Regina veers toward the pessimistic, worrying that her research is too obscure for this department, or that she isn't productive enough for that one. I take the optimistic tack, imagining us into positions and departments that don't really fit.

That disconnect has led to some of the nastiest fights of our marriage, as I try to wrench Regina's pessimism from her and she clutches it ever more tightly. We've made a strict no-speculation rule, but frankly, neither of us follows it too strictly.

I think the reason we find it so difficult not to speculate is that it gives us the momentary illusion of control in uncontrollable circumstances. The decisions of hiring committees seem so capricious, and the job market so overpopulated, that the only way we can summon the courage to apply is by speculating how our applications will be received. Speculation helps us understand rejection, when the only official explanation is a letter saying how well we performed in the search. Speculation keeps our hopes up and our expectations in check.

Ultimately, even though something deep inside tells me it pays to stay positive, I doubt whether optimistic or pessimistic speculation is inherently more comforting or effective.

Another tool we wield in trying to deal with our fears about the job market is strategizing. Sometimes, our strategies have a certain logic to them that gives us the impression we're wisely using what little power we have. At other times, the strategies are more arbitrary, but at least they make us feel as though we're doing something to take command of our careers.

Our first strategy, even before we entered the job market, was to talk about the relative importance of our careers and our marriage for each of us. Unlike some friends we have in academe, we are a "together" couple. Ever since we met in graduate school, we've researched, written, and planned our classes together. When we got married, our first purchase was an L-shaped, two-person desk.

Would we be able to handle being apart? For how long? How would each of us feel if we had to make career sacrifices for the other? How much did each of us want children, and how long were we willing to wait? We've decided that we can spend one or two years apart, but after that, one or both of us will begin to make career sacrifices.

For now, we've put off the difficult question of who will sacrifice what, in the hope that we may not have to answer it.

Another strategy we've adopted is never to be sentimental about our situation. Now, we're both overly sentimental by nature, but we've discovered the sad fact that there's no room for that in the job-seeking process. We've seen from our own experiences and others' that even the nicest colleagues slip into department-think when it comes to spousal hiring.

Recently, a senior colleague who is always congenial and thoughtful expressed the hope that Regina might find adjunct work at a nearby college, permitting me to stay in my current position. I gently reminded him that we both still hope she can find a full-time position at a research university. Indeed, part of the reason I moved two years ago from Satellite State University to Big Moo U, which has a top program in our field, was that we figured that lower-ranked departments might be interested in both of us when Regina was finished.

Last year, we put that strategy to the test, applying as a couple to several second-tier universities. Whether it was successful depends upon which of us you ask.

The job season ended with three near-misses, which I found encouraging and Regina found disappointing. I interviewed in humanities departments at two second-tier universities. One department had invited me to apply, and I said upfront that I would only be interested if it could also provide a tenure-track position for Regina. At the other department, which had two openings, I knew the head of the search committee and sent him an e-mail outlining our situation. He encouraged me to apply, and the department wound up bringing me in for an interview.

In addition, Regina interviewed at a top-tier university in a department that knew we were a couple, and a week later I got an e-mail from an acquaintance in that department requesting a copy of my CV to circulate among its faculty.

Unfortunately, in the end, no one came through with an offer.

One more strategy warrants mentioning: I've made it quite clear, especially to the senior professors in my department, that I'm on the market, but only because they won't likely have a position in Regina's specialty any time soon. It's possible that my institution will counter if we get an offer, but otherwise there's nothing on the horizon here for her.

Still, my being on the market makes the senior faculty members a little nervous, especially since we've lost several colleagues recently for a variety of reasons. At least, we figure, it gets them talking about what the department can do, and it may even lead to something. This year, for instance, Regina was offered a one-year appointment and, while the department's immediate needs were the primary reason for the offer, we suspect that our public job search may have helped some.

In the end, speculation and strategizing eat up a lot of time and take their emotional toll. We are each dealing with some of our deepest fears, from the career dreams we've nurtured for years to worries about our relationship to the desire to start a family -- all things that we desperately want, but secretly fear we may never get.

As far as the positions being advertised at our alma mater are concerned, we quickly decided that of course we'll be applying. After all, that's one of our hard-and-fast strategies: Apply everywhere there are two jobs!