{"id":2630,"date":"2019-07-19T00:34:33","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T04:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/phdplus\/?p=2630"},"modified":"2019-07-13T15:46:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-13T19:46:13","slug":"takin-care-of-business-the-job-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/phdplus\/2019\/07\/19\/takin-care-of-business-the-job-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Takin’ Care of Business–The Job Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month, I\u2019d like to discuss maneuvering the job market. Why in July? Because this is when you need to start your apps.<\/p>\n

I was surprised the only previous PhD + epsilon post I could find on being on the market (note: not reading apps, or attending the JMM, etc.) was this.<\/a><\/p>\n

While the article offers (much needed) sympathy, since I\u2019ve literally killed a cactus my post obviously will be different. Those on the market (including graduate students) also need advice<\/em><\/span><\/strong>. That\u2019s the intent of this post and I hope those who have \u201csurvived\u201d add as they see fit in the comments. But I\u2019d like to remain as universal as possible. I\u2019m not, say, going to describe a female\u2019s experience in the male-heavy math world. To mimic Dorothy Parker<\/a> in wit and crassness: my goal is to hit a broad audience, not an audience of broads. I want to focus on what regardless of gender or relationship status or number of times entering the market you can do right now.<\/p>\n

To address the elephant in the room: being on the job market is brutal. It\u2019s time-consuming and nerve-wrecking; you\u2019d better have a good network of family and friends\u2014you\u2019ll need them. You will lose jobs to more qualified candidates, which will make you feel self-conscious and depressed. You will lose jobs to less qualified candidates, which will make you feel furious and depressed. That there is an aspect of \u201cluck\u201d to this entire thing actually makes it ridiculously unfair. There will be (if my rejection letters have any truth to them) up to 1000 applicants for a SINGLE JOB. It will make you doubt that there is a STEM deficit in this country (the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms \u201cthe [STEM] academic sector is generally oversupplied\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n

It is very easy while on the market to become completely self-absorbed and obsessed with the search. So my first bit of advice is to remember that it takes a village to get you a job.<\/p>\n

Consider the hiring committee. I have not yet had the pleasure (note the sarcasm) of being on a hiring committee. But I do have some experience on the other side of the table; for three years I ran an REU with Jeremy Rouse of Wake Forest<\/a>. Each year we received between 200-300 applications for 8 slots. We set Valentine\u2019s Day as our deadline (long story). The NSF REUs had agreed to a common reply date when the first-round picks had to commit officially to a program. That gave us roughly 3 weeks to read the applications, discuss the candidates, interview via Skype our top 15, and make offers. We learned to split initial readings by last name. Among other things, this allowed us to start reading completed apps before the official close should we by some miracle have a little bit of free time. This meant we could have discussions about who to interview earlier, we had more time for interviews, and we could get an offer out to our top candidates sooner.<\/p>\n

I strongly suspect hiring committees, especially if swamped by 1000 applications, could behave similarly. It\u2019s certainly plausible. The parallel of the common date of course is the JMM (though between the quarter system and the weather in January and travel budget cuts, a lot of places are now conducting pre-JMM interviews online).<\/p>\n

So even though the application may not be due until December 15, and even though it is still completely possible to succeed turning in the app the day it\u2019s due, you\u2019re better off submitting early. Be realistic that the people reading your app will \u201cknock a few out\u201d while waiting at a laundromat, or as a break from grading. A final advantage to getting it done early: it\u2019s off your to-do list, and you can go back to research, teaching, and networking.<\/p>\n

Hopefully I\u2019m starting to convince you that those reading your app are human. Still, maybe you aren\u2019t convinced you need<\/b> to start your search in late summer. So next, consider this: a basic complete job app includes<\/p>\n