The venting page

Take me back: AcademicJobSearch

Anyone object to converting this to a table so the threads are easier to follow?

Ok, folks, it's ugly out there. This page is for anyone who wants to vent about job market stress.


 * Can't believe I have to go through this whole horrible process again next year -- all the time spent preparing letters, syllabi, teaching statements, future research statements, and all the time that preparation "stole" from me, both from my creative time and my fragile psyche. The prospect is unbearable.


 * -It's easier the second time around. I promise.  Now, you have an application packet to build on; you won't be working from scratch.  Hang in there.


 * my CV is better than the search committee chair's CV - I'm a 2nd year postdoc. Guess who he's bringing in for interviews... NOT ME...but people with WORSE CVs than him (gotta feel smart some way, ya know).  My undergraduate mentee authored a paper in a journal at 2.0 impact factor... the search chair's impact is 1.0 level and so are the gag-me pathetic candidates.  My advice... pad your CV with CRAP papers, because no one gives a crap about quality or impact anymore.  Every day you wake, you can submit something to somewhere.  Search comms also don't care about student mentoring that leads to quality papers (just tell some kids that you'll mentor them and give them tubes to wash - save yourself some educational hassle and make sure you list it as mentoring on your CV).  More advice... rack up the funds ASAP because money talks and will get you on some short lists, even if your highest paper resulting from that wasted fed grant is in a foreign obscure "journal."


 * hey, maybe it is your attitude not your CV?


 * Not sure why you are so upset. Obviously you wouldn't have been a good fit in that department. Move on.

I definitely learned a thing or two from this site, especially that I am not alone.
 * I’m allowed to be frustated, disappointed, and pissed off. The search chair has a dog in the race, so it makes sense to rig it such that his special buddy dog wins against slower dogs.  I know it’s not a good fit for me, obviously, I’m not a slow dog.  And my attitude is just fine – this is the VENTING page.  I’m confident that with the patterns shown in this site (high application numbers, low success) that other people feel EXACTLY like I do.  It sucks, it hurts, and


 * yes, you're entitled to be frustrated, but there's no need to SCREAM at your fellow wiki colleagues!


 * I feel very disaffected from a community the majority of members of which value their collective "right" to choose a candidate (in a patently imperfect, limited way) to such a pathological extent, that they are willing to summarily dismiss a finalist who is also the spouse of a colleague, in favor of giving the job to some flashier candidate. If it is hard for people out there to find academic jobs, it is harder for academic couples--even those for whom, individually, it is somewhat easy to find job offers--to find a solution to the two-body problem.


 * I don't disagree that it's tough for academic couples (indeed, I am one half of an academic couple, so I know of what I write). But the truth is that it really IS the right of the department to choose the candidate they think is best for the position and the department in terms of teaching, research, and fit. So, is the outside candidate really merely "flashier," or might he/she actually be stronger, I wonder?


 * I will respond to the dubiously sympathetic response directly above. The point is not whether the flashier candidate is stronger, but whether if three candidates are roughly equally qualified for the job (as made evident by the fact that all three made the cut and are finalists), it is morally right for a search committee to throw away a host of considerations and go with the flashier candidate.


 * Reply from the "dubiously sympathetic" previous poster: I can certainly understand why you're upset, and the situation must be very disappointing (and truly suck) for the faculty spouse who was a finalist. But you're still referring to the outside candidate as "flashier" which seems quite derisive of his/her qualifications and of the search committee's assessment of them -- it suggests you don't think their chosen candidate is good or serious.  Are you perhaps kicking the cat?  THe situation is not the fault of the outside candidate you've dismissed as flashy.


 * The point of using the word flashier in my original post was to emphasize that the strength of the different candidates ought not to have been incredibly disparate, not to dismiss the person who, through no fault of his or her own, earned the top spot: I'm not even in the same department as my spouse and so I have no way of knowing--at this point--what the other candidates are like, let alone who earned the offer. Besides, I was the flashier (i.e. the one that showed, in the artifical environment of a campus visit, the more attractive attributes) candidate several times when on the job market and I don't subscribe to a silly theory of conservation of virtues according to which "if someone is flashier, then that someone must not be as substantively good," or "Obama gives better speeches, hence he lacks substance."  Re: the merits of the search, certain annoying particularities set aside, I don't think I'm qualified to dismiss the search committee's assessment of relative strengths of the candidates, but that is not the point of my venting.  I do believe I have a very legitimate grievance with the culture of academics, as I have laid out on this venting page.  If I am skeptical of the ability of a search committee to assess the relative strength of candidates, this skepticism is quite generic, and nowhere have I said that it is directed particularly to this search committee.  I do know that if I am ever in a search committee, however, I will bring with me a profoundly different moral outlook to the one that seems to have triumphed in our situation.  (It is simply not the case that my spouse is an inviable candidate.)  And good luck to other couples (especially those in different departments).


 * Some of the considerations that institutions should take into account: it is often the case that academic couples (including those of us unlucky enough to work in different departments) who wish to stay together (like us) end up turning down good offers in order to move to a place where they hope to maximize the probability of solving the two-body problem: my wife abandoned a tenure-track at an institution that had no opening for me and turned down an offer at a much more competitive school than the one I'm working for, and I turned down four offers from institutions one or two orders of magnitude more competitive than the one I'm working for. I turned down an unsolicited offer from a wonderful school just last year, out of loyalty to the institution I'm working for (and this is a known fact to the Dean).  Also, when a couple works for an institution, it becomes a link to the local community, as it takes roots in the area.  So there are some benefits from having a couple work at an institution, especially an institution that is searching to be better linked to the community surrounding it.  Finally, unless an institution is an R1 institution, there really should be many ways in which a vast majority of the top twenty or so candidates for a position could all be beneficial to the institution.  Are search committees so delusional to think that their grand-task is to find the one person who can get the job done?  I suspect not.  The thing is, most people in Academia have internalized this culture of free-market competition to a degree so surprising, given the supposed ideological biases of the community, that they react with instinctive suspicion whenever someone--in the venting page of the job search wiki, of all places--vents about a two-body problem and about the lack of conscientiousness of search committees.  I could also vent about the way some departments treat adjuncts, but let's not go there.


 * - On the other hand, there are lots of searches out there that are predetermined ... the school has to conduct an outside search, but there is an inside candidate who is a spouse or other departmental associate. My school is currently in the midst of such a search now.  I feel terrible for the hopefuls coming through.


 * The fact that, in such a situation, the school has to conduct an outside search only highlights how institutionalized and inflexible the culture of conducting national searches is.


 * I'm convinced search committees are on drugs.


 * the interviews for the "ecology" job at Stanford have been posted. I can't spot any ecologists in there. What a waste of time applying for that job.


 * reply to the above post: the "winter seminar series" on the website is for the molecular/cell asst prof search. There's also an ecology & an evolution search, and none of those seminars are posted.


 * Just found out a campus visit has been scheduled with a school I really liked and for a job I really wanted. Pissed. Also getting bitter. Grad school colleagues who somehow got tt jobs have been there for 2-3 years and no publications yet... seems rigged.


 * I'm pissed; as you all know, it takes a heck of a long time to get materials together and what-all. The search committees can't even bother to write a form letter or email to say, "Sorry, we don't want you?" I'm finding out about stuff from Wiki and it makes my blood pressure rise to a-boiling!!


 * What are we doing? So many years of "training" for no security, a crap-shoot for jobs, no money, lots of negative feedback. Academic freedom isn't free...Will definitely keep my kids away from academic career paths.


 * Evil friend! I am sitting at home, my wife answers the phone- she hands it to me with a look of excitement...  "It's Bob from University of (Fill in your dream school here)"  I grab the phone with a lump in my throat.  "Hello?"  "Hey, it's Randall- just messing with you guys, you want to play ball tonight?"  I nearly killed him.


 * Why only "nearly"?!? I'd have throttled him on the spot! Evil friend, indeed.


 * Annoyed. I did a conference interview in November and found out that they scheduled on-campus interviews in early December but I have not even had a rejection letter from them (as of 1/11). That stinks. SCs really need to be more polite about this - a 2 line email (x 15) won't kill them.


 * The silence is killing me! I need to know!  Just reject me already!


 * What a great idea! A place for me to say that I hate everyone, everything and everyplace! argh!  I'm sick, I'm tired, i'm pissed.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ok, got that off my chest! Isn't it nice that we moved to this new and improved wiki page!
 * All those jerks should hire me, and offer me millions!


 * This page is the worst idea in the world! We all need to be grown-ups about our serious deficiencies (both professional and personal).  I mean, let's be honest, anyone that has to write something on this page obviously lacks good judgment and is an academic imposter. Oh. no. I guess that includes me.  Damn. I knew it.


 * I'm just depressed because I don't have a fallback school. Sigh. Everything sucks, including the Internet, which never calls me back.


 * and if I get another darn email from 1800 flowers while I'm waiting to hear from the committee, I'm probably going to go crazy (er.)


 * i don't have any interviews this year. granted, i'm abd, and only applied to about twenty or so places, but still. . .it hurts. and i'm ivy, pubs, really strong recs, etc. don't know how to make sense of it. anyone else in my position? and if so, how are you coping?


 * Reply: I had the same experience last year as the above poster when applying as an ABD to selective positions. But this year went on job market with a finished dissertation, which made all the difference. So don't be too discouraged!


 * Reply: Me too. I'm west coast ivy, multiple pubs (incl single author), but ABD. Don't know if I'm just not an attractive hire, if my advisor isn't writting strong letters, or if the ABD things just kills you. V. much appreciate the above reply. Trying to believe it's the ABD status (too many claiming they'll be finished and not actually finishing I guess), because that way I can believe it's not me. Hate that I have to wait a whole year to find out if it really is just me.

-from ABD applicant: thanks. i find this comforting.


 * Hmm. I had at least a few interviews when I was a callow ABD with a book about to come out.  Now I'm a grizzled Ph.D. with two books, and zippo.  Sorry, but that's discouraging.


 * Exactly. my experience. ABD is all about potential. When you have actually finished and published you are old and grizzled and uninteresting. They want fresh meat.


 * Last year's AHA advice to a room of hundreds was that it was better to go on the market with a finished PhD. I had more interviews ABD than PhD (i.e since then none - except with my local community college and they said I was overqualified!)


 * The concerns over being ABD or PhD in hand are being lost in the fact that some fields are drastically changing the rules of the tt hiring game. Some fields are putting an emphasis on teaching skills rather than publications this year. I am ABD and I have been contacted by a bunch of schools for letters and/or more information. I have a few minor publications (i.e.: book reviews) but I think it is my teaching portfolio that gets the attention of potential employers. I have a lot of teaching experience through adjuncting, not just TA'ing. The reviews of my teaching skills from faculty and students have been quite favorable. In my field (anthropology) most tt job ads specifically state that they want to see evidence of effective teaching skills BEYOND TA'ing. The ads also rarely mention a publishing record unless the position is with a prominent school. In my field, the emphasis seems to have shifted to teaching skills and the assumption is that publications will come later. If other fields are doing the same thing, then ABDs with publications who have virtually no teaching experience are at a disadvantage and their departments and universities need to address these issues. With this shift in mind, somebody who has published two books and a bevy of articles might be viewed as over-qualified for a tt asst prof in terms of publishing yet under-qualified in terms of teaching, which might reduce overall interest in the candidate particularly is the school wants to hire a good teacher.


 * This is a good point. Of course, if you have a decade of teaching experience (and *not* TA'ing) AND publications, then it's pretty hard to figure out where you've gone wrong.  Buyer's market = misery for the sellers.


 * The wiki has informed me that the place where I interviewed on campus has given the job to somebody else. I can't even scream.  Maybe I can be a consultant and make a shit-ton of money and be able to afford the intensive therapy and drugs to make me recover from grad school.


 * I wish you well with that, and though I don't want to come at you with (more) bad news: I'm already in "intensive therapy," and I'm only holding on to my sanity by my fingertips this job season. I suppose the upside is that if I had a shit-ton of money and didn't have to face the academic job market, I'd be able to kiss (most of) my problems goodbye.  Enjoy the break, if you're able.


 * I was just on the old wiki, that idiot deleted the start page again! I guess he/she hasn't realized no one is using it! Maybe can't read?


 * Is anyone else tired of spending night after night working on manuscripts that just get scathing reviews and rejections? How the hell can you write a faculty application that says how great you are if all you ever get is negative feedback from reviewers? I have anxiety dreams about my "h-index", the rejections, and the goals that seem unattainable. Am I the only one who feels like this?


 * you're not the only one who feels that way. I don't know what else to say.  I haven't submitted anything for publication recently because the last rejection was so mean-spirited I decided I couldn't take it anymore.  Academics are assholes. Remind me why we want into their club so badly...?


 * Rejections from publishers can be a horrible experience, especially when they are nasty about it. I have recently been accepted for publication with revisions. However, the journal wants me to revise my paper to fall in line with the established conventions of the topic and I was criticized for raising more questions than I actually answer-- despite the fact that my abstract clearly states that I am seeking to challenge old ideas, point out the questions we should be asking, and propose ways to answer them. Additionally, one reviewer's feedback indicated that he read my paper incorrectly and he thinks I was arguing in favor of a point I was actually rejecting. This pointed out a lack of clarity in that section of the paper that I have rectified. But it also leads me to wonder how carefully reviewers read article submissions.  When established scholars can publish 5 page blurbs that say nothing or they can publish articles that rehash their old ideas ad nauseum, why can't a new scholar try to pose new questions or alternative ways of approaching old problems? Isn't advancing knowledge supposed to be what academia is about? I think new ideas from fresh young minds make established scholars feel threatened and obsolete and their penchant for cruel criticism and refusing to publish new ideas is based on their own disdain for being challenged.

Hey, maybe we should make a new page for rants about reviewers!
 * Reply to "rejections" (above post): I recently got reviews back from a journal where one reviewer, in the same paragraph, said "The data are poorly presented" then applauded the excellent writing and organization. So... were the data poorly presented or not? Make up your mind. I also got comments saying that I was challenging paradigms with too few data... the reviewer actually said that the paper, and probably the author, was "audacious". You can ALWAYS have more data, but you gotta get the ideas out there to stir the pot! In my view, if they are reacting badly to the ideas you are definitely on to something. Hell, if the letter has "accept" anywhere in there... it's a good thing.


 * I'm another historian-in-training that shares the concerns of my colleagues. Having earned a professional degree and worked for eight years in private and public sector consulting, I am disenchanted by the insensitivity of search committees.  They are poor at communicating information in a timely manner.  Their communications are often cryptic and mechanical, indicating no forethought.  Many simply fail to recognize and treat individuals as sentient and feeling beings.  In the strategic planning consulting world of state government, non-profit hospitals, and municipal government -- these are the organizational qualities that I was called in to help resolve because they prevented these organizations from progressing and improving themselves. For as smart as "we", academics, are supposed to be -- we sure are horrible and inhumane managers.  (Boy, I never thought I'd see the day when I viewed the dysfunctional governments I used to serve as better than...well...any thing else.)


 * you know what, though? dealing with one really great school can change your mind about all of it.  I'm interviewing with a place that is completely unlike my graduate institution.  It's a beautiful thing and it gives me hope.


 * Today I wished to choke my chair like a chicken. Insists we're not behind in scheduling on-campus interview, but we are.  Like a chicken!


 * Welcome to my world. My department couldn't even get it together to post the ad before MLA. And yesterday the chair of the search committee circulated an e-mail pleading for us to contact people we might know who could apply. Response of a senior colleague to my fuming: "Don't worry, we'll get someone." Like a chicken!


 * It really sucks that someone deleted the linguistics wiki. I'm trying to start it up again but can't put up all the positions.  If you are on the job market in linguistics and have time to put up a few positions, that'd be great!


 * Reply to the last post. What?  Someone deleted the entire Linguistics Wiki?  What a colossal jerk.


 * religion is gone, too. except for biblical studies.


 * Before accepting an on-campus interview, ask the search committee chair up-front if they have an in-house candidate. If they do, you're probably going to waste alot of time preparing for a bogus interview only to be disappointed in the end.  Many searches are not as open as advertised.  I went to one only to find out from two independent sources, one within an hour of getting off the plane from the interview, that the job was already filled.  They turned out to be right.


 * religion is gone, too. except for biblical studies  That actually sounds somehow profound.


 * "We are not looking to hire a white male" The hypocracy of academia makes me want to puke.


 * Response to above post: I was adjuncting last year and the department wanted to fill a three year temp position. O the day they began reviewing applications, I watched 3 old white males rifle through the file of about 150 applicants and I heard them say they were specifically looking for minority women. One of them took an application for further review that was from a person whose name was neutral in terms of gender and ethnicity (think a name like Jordan Lee, which I just made up). 5 mins later, he came back into the office and told the other two "Nope. White male." The job eventually went to a woman of SE Asian background.


 * Aw, stop complaining. At least people don't assume because you're of SE Asian background you are some sort of obvious immigrant and "speak English REALLY well!!" despite the possibility you may have been BORN in the US and received a 99th percentile in the GRE verbal section. Furthermore, in my place of work, I'd like to see more Asian Americans. There is not one in the whole huge department. Then again, the Chronicle had an article today stating that Asian Americans lose out because of Affirmative Action. So go figure. The people who get tenure more than anyone else are white males. Why are you so scared that your "supremacy" is in trouble? HypocRISY.


 * Waiting to hear the outcome of my AHA interviews is KILLING me! Enough already! If I don't have campus interviews just TELL me!!! I'll wind up in the loony bin if this goes on much longer. Why can't SC chairs keep candidates updated as to the status of the search? ARGH!


 * So-called "inside" candidates aren't shoo-ins, by any means. In my experience, the non-tt "insider" is just as likely to get passed over as not--due not simply to the fact they've had a chance to piss people off, but also to the silly "grass is always greener" mentality that often possesses search committees.


 * I agree with the above posting that inside candidates do not by any means have an automatic green flag. I'm not sure, however, that the odds are necessarily stacked against them either (in a "grass is always greener" manner, i.e.).  What I have seen in my institution is that inside candidates (and also, for that matter, so-called "spousal hires" under consideration) are thrown under the same microscope as other candidates. What ultimately seems to rule the day is which candidate best fits the desired "niche" and best meets the department's needs. (Yes, i know this sounds overly roseate...


 * Your above points are well taken. However, I do know this, our department is currently advertising both nationally and locally for a tenure-track position in ...  Reading the ads one would think there is truely an opening.  But what is really taking place is that the funding source (e.g., soft vs. hard) for the person currently here is changing, which requires a new "search."  It is very sad to see the mail come in each day with applications from persons who stand no chance of even the slightest consideration, as the position is filled.  But you would never know this from reading the solicitation.  Perhaps universities need to change the way they do business on these matters because it's wasting a lot peoples time.


 * Wow, that's certainly an edifying and rather depressing tale! As if it isn't already hard enough for candidates to compete for jobs that really exist... to go through all that for a mirage is really a shame.


 * I was at a CSU for a 1yr temp teaching position. The students loved me, I filled a major need in coursework, and when the dept. advertised for a position that I could have easily filled they completely passed me up and didn't even give me an interview.  Talk about uncomfortable and hurting, try going to a welcome social for an interview candidate that is there for a job that you applied for as an "in house".  It all depends on what the search committee wants.  Me, I was too much of an integrated biologist and not a "true" discipline.


 * I know how that goes. I was an "inside" candidate for a job (there as a visiting lecturer), and didn't make it to on-campus stage.  The search committee then asked me if I'd attend the job talks, so that they could get my "input" on the quality of the candidates' research and presentations (none of the SC members, of course, had any expertise in the field).  I conveniently managed to have other commitments (at three different times, no less!)


 * Just found out that my recommender (who had been out of the country and ignoring my emails for the last 5 weeks) DIDN'T send the references he said he would before Christmas. So I will have been disqualified from three jobs. What an a******. I really hate him right now.


 * my diss director forgot at least one of mine--I know because the school contacted me about it. Who knows what became of the others....?  I'm sure I've been rejected from those places by now.  you would hope they would take their responsibility seriously.


 * Be sure to sort your email by #, not date. I applied for a job and the HR monkey sent an email that was sent to page 47 of my email because it had no date. The first email said "please send us your transcripts by date x"... the second one said "you are no longer eligible because we didn't get your transcripts on date x". I got both emails on date x+ 25 days. Bummer. Don't we all have telephones? Why would a reputable agency rely ONLY on email?


 * On other blogs, people think Ivy League PhDs have a hiring advantage. Don't be so sure about that. Being Ivy is a double-edged sword. I have applied for jobs with small colleges and state schools where I meet every one of the criteria listed in the ad and I hear nothing from them. Yet elitist schools I should never hear from because I don't fit their search criteria well at all contact me for more information. I wonder if non-Ivy SCs think twice before they consider an Ivy PhD or ABD for a job opening because they are afraid that the Ivy candidate won't consider them. A few times, I've encountered non-Ivy schools who try to intimidate me while they court me. I have received brusque emails from SC chairs that have a demeaning tone and they point out that I am merely one of a number of highly qualified candidates they are considering. It's like they assume that I think I'm the best candidate simply because I have an Ivy degree when I am well aware that lots of people are qualified for any job I apply for and some applicants are more qualified. My Ivy degree may open doors to a small set of elitist liberal arts colleges and universities and major research universities that a State U degree might not. But I honestly don't want to work with elitists among the student body or the faculty. I did my BA and MA in a state college system and I adjunct with state colleges and universities. I like people who are like me-- from a poor, working class, or middle class background who work hard and do the best they can because they want more out of life. I don't want to work with the spoiled rich kids I've TA'd for over the last 5 years for the rest of my life even for the huge money elite schools pay to tt new hires. SCs need to treat Ivy and non-Ivy candidates equally and set aside their stereotypical prejudices. Many Ivy league PhDs and ABDs are not rich and many are willing to work wherever they can. And many State U PhDs and ABDs are worthy hires for the elite schools as well.


 * I don't feel sorry for you. That said, I think you're right.  Everyone faces their own set of issues.


 * It's so hard not to get your heart set on one of these academic jobs... the freedom to study what you want and inspire young people. Then, in a moment, it all just evaporates. All the time, preparation, thought, emotional energy... gone.


 * Reply: very well put; you've captured my feelings perfectly.


 * Anyone else sick of rejection letters claiming that this "shouldn't be taken as a negative evaluation of your qualifications" (or similar verbiage)?? Of course this is a negative evaluation!  If it weren't, you'd have given me the job.  Search committees: could we please dispense with the patronizing, "it'll be OK" crap?  I'd much prefer a letter that told me, bluntly, why I was passed over: "your research interests didn't appeal to the department"; "you haven't taught enough"; "we need more diversity in our department"; "you've been around the block too many times, and we think you wouldn't be appropriately deferential to your senior colleagues".  It's OK--I can take it.  Plus, I'd actually have an honest sense of why I'm not being interviewed (or hired)...


 * "your research interests don't appeal to the department" is not a negative evaluation of your qualifications. I think that's the point.  They're telling you it was something benign, something beyond your control--something you couldn't or shouldn't change.  Something some other department might want.  Some of the rest of it...they may not even be conscious of worry about how many times you've been around the block.  rejection sucks but I think it would be difficult and unnecessary for them to tell you why you were rejected in blunt terms.  Oh, also...I have friends who have gotten letters than told them "you were strong in x and y but we needed someone stronger in z."  So if they're telling you it's not about your qualifications, maybe it isn't.


 * [different respondent] It might be asking too much for search committees to give specific reasons for every applicant. BUT the original point, I think, is right: I much prefer a simple rejection without any attempt to make me feel better. All I ask for is professionalism! Say you went another way, the end. I don't need consolation, especially since it tends to seem self-aggrandizing. I still remember one rejection I received, many years ago, that empathized about how disappointed I must be, and encouraged me to keep at it. (I wasn't that disappointed! Actually I got a better job than that one!) The rejections I *don't* remember are the simple ones. So I second the request -- Search Committees: Dispense with the patronizing!


 * I don't see why search committees are so busy that they can't write two sentences to candidates who have first-round interviews (so the 8-15 on the short list) why they didn't get to the next stage. We invest our time and money and put our egos on the line to go through this process. If there's not going to be a job at the end of it, I'd like, at least, to be ABLE TO LEARN SOMETHING FROM IT. Instead, one is left wondering what went wrong and then having to consider everything as a possibility, which just amounts to trying to see why some mystery people could find fault with ANY and EVERYTHING about one's research, personality, self-presentation, etc. And that's just a crappy position to be left in for a year.


 * It's four weeks now post-AHA. I'm still waiting to hear back from people who interviewed me. What the hell is taking so long??

SOMETHING POINTLESS YET CHILDISHLY GRATIFYING TO DO WITH ALL THE ANXIETY, indignation, self-doubt.... you get the picture: Look up the members of the search committee on ratemyprofessor.com Do this by university so you can be sure to find someone on the committee whom the students dislike. Then you can take childish pleasure in reading about what an arrogant so-and-so they think Prof. X is, and how Prof. Y is always late to class, etc. You can learn that the students don't give them any points for hotness and that they are completely garbled and unclear and uninteresting. Of course Profs X and Y still control our lives, but it's fun to see them in the position of the person being evaluated--even granting that there's not a lot of real evaluative merit to ratemyprof. This is just a way to siphon off a little bit of the anger....


 * Okay, okay...this is the same respondent from 4 responses ago. i think first round candidates deserve two sentences describing why they weren't pursued.  meanwhile, I got a rejection today that addressed me as "Miss" and I'm inexplicably annoyed by this.  I mean....wtf?  Miss?  That's Ms. Jackson if you're nasty.


 * I got one that actually called me "Dr." (thanks for noticing), and then proceeded to get my LAST NAME WRONG. Not just misspelled, wrong.  Oddly enough, the name on the envelope was correct.


 * Ok, so why are campus visits in January? The weather is horrible everywhere--snow in Chicago, New York, and in a freak act of nature, Altanta; heavy rain in Dallas and Los Angeles; ice storms in Pennsylvania; fog and rain in San Francisco.  Would it be too much to ask for visits to be scheduled in December or February?


 * Thing is, sometimes it really is hard for search committees to give any productive feedback. How does it really help to know that one of the other candidates happens to be able to offer a course that the SC chair has been wishing someone would offer for ten years even though it's not listed anywhere in the ad/description? Or even that you mentioned a theory/author/whatever that happens to be the pet hate of one of the committee's most cantankerous members and hence that person got a bee in their bonnet about you and it was easier for the rest of the SC to give in and agree on another candidate? Those aren't things that are going to help you improve your application for another job - they're just circumstances beyond your control. You don't learn anything from them except that this whole thing is a crapshoot. That being said, I know people who write back to a SC after first-round interviews and (politely) ask for feedback on how they could improve their application. They've got answers, too. So it's always an option, if it's so infuriating.


 * I've had a hard time getting papers published. One paper took 3 rounds of revisions before they accepted it, and another was canned after 2 awesome reviews and 1 lousy review. I've been in my PhD program for 3.5 yrs and have had just one paper published (on ms research), one accepted, and one flat-out rejected. I am beginning to view this as a sign that I'm not going to make it in academics. What do you more experienced scientists/academics think? Is this normal? Or, should I accept my deficiencies and steer clear of an academic career?


 * totally normal.
 * Yep, totally normal. Over and  above that, the fact that you've had one paper published and one accepted while still a graduate student is a GOOD sign -- most definitely NOT an indication of "deficiencies," and NOT a reason to "steer clear" of an academic career. On the contrary: congratulations on such a good batting average!


 * Speaking of rejection letters, on about 1/3 to 1/2 of the jobs I apply for I don't even get a rejection letter or email of any kind. How F-ing rude and unprofessional is it to not even have the coutesy to send a letter with 2 lines saying I didn't get the job. Come on now.