life, apparently

What a season, huh? Double digit job talks. Enough rejections in one week to cause consecutive days of crying. Multiple offers in the following 2 weeks. I believe I'm just now moving past the exhaustion and mindfuck that is the academic job search. Here is the first in a series of posts about the whole process.

Let us start with rejections. Despite my sizeable experience with the topic, I really have no advice for job seekers. Everyone and their brother will tell you not to take it personally. Of course that is impossible. IM-POSS-I-BLE! I have zero advice on how to maintain sanity during rejection-o-rama. If that is the goal, I failed miserably. I do, however, have advice for the department chair, search committee head, or other contact person to make the whole process less repulsive.

Be respectful and forthright. Do not send mixed messages. For example, this is not OK: I received this query from #1 "The department has met and we are near a decision. I'm writing to find out if you are still available to consider a position here?" I replied. I was expecting an offer, why else would you ask? I told people about this and everyone agreed that indeed I would receive an offer shortly. A week or two later I received another email claiming that they were still gathering paperwork. Six weeks passed and I received a rejection. (In the interim I figured out that I was most likely not getting an offer given the timeline.) The process was misleading and just plain rude.

Let me know when you've offered someone else a position, even if you want to keep me hanging on in case they decline. If the offer comes my way and I end up accepting, I'll eventually find out that I was the 2nd (or 3rd) choice, so tell me now and let me get over it before I'm on the tenure clock. Some departments are upfront about each step of the process and I cannot express how thankful I am for that. It is calming to know where you stand, even if the news is not pleasant. And calm might be as good as it gets during the search. Others (see above) play these ridiculous games and others say absolutely nothing at all. The fact is that your reputation as a department and as a person is on the line here and reputation is everything in academia. People talk. Even without words I can convey enough to make others shudder at the thought of you(r department).

When you send the final rejection, please tell me who you hired. I'm going to find out anyway and it often makes the rejection less painful. In some cases I looked up the CV of the person who was hired (of course) and thought that the department hired the right person (which obviously was not me). I was actually happy to be rejected and happy for both the department and the newly hired person because it was right. It gave me hope that the (hypothetical) world can be perfect (on paper). If this person can get their perfect job then I can get my perfect job. In the midst of rejection we all need hope. (Of course other times, I thought geez what a bunch of idiots I can't believe you hired person B. I don't want to work with such a bunch of fools anyway! But honestly the vast majority of my responses fell into the former category.)

I don't think any of these suggestions are unreasonable. The glut of PhDs, the insanely long duration of the entire search process and the votes based on the elusive "fit" make the job search painful enough (even for those of us who are relatively successful). Clear, honest and respectful communication between the chair and the candidate does wonders to subdue the agony.

Labels: job search