The venting page

Take me back: AcademicJobSearch

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


 * 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 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...?


 * 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.


 * 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.