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Just Shut Up About It

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By Gene C. Fant Jr.

No topic dominates the conversations of graduate students more than the job search. I am now a department chairman, but years ago I spent a lot of time in the graduate-assistant lounge, trading gossip and information with my classmates. Those chats were a welcome relief from the drudgery of the dissertation, but I also remember how they took on a life of their own.

People talked about where they were applying and recounted arguments with spouses who didn't want to move away from their current location. One classmate constantly bragged that he had a standing offer at his alma mater. The words flowed freely, and I know that I personally spoke too often and too frankly in some of those conversations.

In hindsight, I wish that I hadn't been so obsessed with talking about the search. Most of the words were wasted at best and counterproductive at worst. Usually I left the lounge feeling depressed.

To whom should you talk -- or not talk -- about your job search? How much information should you share? Here are a few rules of thumb to help you keep your discussions in check.

Classmates: As tempting as it may be, the less you tell your fellow graduate students about your search, the better. It may be educational to listen to what they have to say, especially about interviews, but try to avoid getting caught up in either negativity or bravado.

Yes, the job search is complicated, but sitting in a room under a black cloud doesn't make it any less so. Also remember that people who talk about their adventures on the market are a little like high-school jocks who brag about their romantic conquests. Most of it's exaggerated, and no one really wants to hear about it anyway.

Likewise, don't brag that you have a lock on a position for which you haven't even interviewed. You don't have a position iced until you have a contract in your hands; don't look foolish when one of your classmates defends her dissertation early and ends up with that very position.

Resist the urge to tick off the phone interviews you've had or how many EEOC cards you've returned. Better to be quiet and leave everyone curious than to run off at the mouth and look ridiculous.

Nonacademic Friends: Here, too, the less you tell, the less you'll need to explain.

It's not uncommon for an academic search to take six months or more, from application to offer, which is an eternity in the business world. Having friends ask for weekly updates can be depressing, especially when you have no new information to report.

The timing of an academic search is different from a nonacademic one as well. Searches in most professions can be completed at any time of the year. In academe, the searches are started in the fall, completed in the spring, and almost nothing else happens at other times.

If you go through the academic cycle unsuccessfully, you have another year to wait for the next offers to be made. People who are not employed in higher education will falsely assume that you are being unmotivated or even lazy during those vast stretches of time. I personally reached a point where I never said anything at all about the status of my job search to my nonacademic friends.

Mentors: Be sure to talk about the search in general with your mentors, but don't fall into the trap of droning on about the minutiae. It's OK to let your advisers know where you've applied; in fact, they may have friends on the search committees and can give your application a quiet little nudge.

Beyond that, however, I would recommend that you mention little else unless you have a formal interview of some sort. Use your time with your mentors to work on your dissertation or publications.

Members of the Search Committee: This will seem like a rather odd group to include, but enough people try to talk about the search with committee members to warrant mentioning it here.

When I was on the market, I had several friends encourage me to call the head or a search committee or its members, just to chat or to seek out additional information. While doing so won't necessarily sink your candidacy, it really isn't a good idea.

Ethically, the committee members can't give you additional information, so the conversation will not really accomplish anything. I knew one guy who used to call the search chairs and then tell everyone in the graduate-assistant lounge that he'd had phone interviews that had gone "incredibly well."

If you have a friend or a mentor who knows committee members, that is a different issue and sometimes that kind of contact does help a candidate, but as a rule, leave the committee alone. When you land a job and start to serve on search committees, you will understand that advice much more completely.

Parents and Relatives: Your folks need to know next to nothing about your search. They only need to know that you are looking, but it's important that they not be given details, particularly locations of institutions where you've applied. Unless your folks are academics and understand the ins and outs of the search process, just let them know that you are hopeful and active.

When parents and relatives send you news of an opening not in your reasonable search market (either way out of your league or way below it), thank them for their interest and promise to look into it. If they don't understand that your dissertation in molecular biology doesn't qualify you for that interesting-looking wildlife-conservation position, don't make a big deal out of it.

I actually applied for a couple of positions just to be courteous to family members. The $2 in postage was worth not having to explain why it was a waste of time. Whenever I applied for positions that were located near relatives, especially my parents and my wife's parents, I made sure to avoid mentioning the applications in any way, shape, or form. I didn't want to get their hopes up (or ours!) and then have to feel guilty when the application didn't turn into an offer.

Your Spouse or Significant Other: This is the one person who needs to be a part of your search conversations at every step.

Since you probably can't stay in the town where you've earned your doctorate, you need to be clear about that with your partner up front. I brought up the topic on one of the first dates I had with my wife: My career would not likely allow me to work in her hometown. I might even end up on the opposite coast in order to find the best job. She understood that before we were married, and I made sure to include her in my choices of which positions to pursue.

I've known several doctoral students who have been offered jobs only to find that their spouses refused to move to that part of the country; in some cases that issue has led to marital breakups.

A caveat to this liberality of discussion is the wear and tear that a spouse can feel over too many possibilities. Don't give into the temptation to treat every opening as though it were an offer, looking at Realtor.com and dreaming about "what if?" It's awfully hard to avoid doing that, but you need to spend your emotional time and energy on completing the dissertation or on starting your first book, not on planning moves that may or may not happen.

One of my favorite Shakespearean plays is Henry IV, Part 1. In it, King Henry tells his son Hal to avoid being profligate in public appearances. He advises the prince to be seen and heard on rare occasions, to create a sense of awe among everyone else: "By being seldom seen, I could not stir but like a comet I was wondered at."

Newcomers to the academic job market are in a similar situation: You should do what's necessary for a position, but mention your efforts only rarely among your peers until the news gets out that you have been crowned with that plumb position at Dreamy U. Then everyone can be filled with a sense of awe about your success on the job market.