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Post by danceoff on Jan 24, 2012 17:41:13 GMT -5
...given the discussion in the name names thread...
What are people's thoughts on:
a) Whether ABDs are getting a disproportionate number of jobs b) Reasons for this c) Facing unemployment with a PhD and experience in hand
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Post by drbearjew on Jan 24, 2012 18:08:47 GMT -5
I'm not ABD - I received my PhD in August, and am on the market for the 2nd time (I went on the market as ABD).
To point (A)...disproportionate to what? What you think they should be getting? Can you provide some context to this question.
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Post by thoughts on Jan 24, 2012 18:17:54 GMT -5
My thoughts:
a) I have no idea. I would assume ABDs frequently make up the bulk of the asst. prof hires in any given year.
b) If it is disproportionate (which it probably is given the supply of PhDs, but maybe not given historical trends), then I think there are a few reasons:
1. The first year in an asst. prof. position (or even a postdoc) is a lot of grunt work: moving, new prep, becoming familiar with the new location, IRB bullshit, etc. I've been told to expect to get very little done research wise during the first semester or two. This, I would think, is especially true for people in more teaching heavy first positions (and extra-especially for adjuncts/temp/etc.). So, compared to a new ABD (or *just* graduated PhD), a 1st or even 2nd year assistant professor may not show a sizable difference in their CV quality, simply due to time constraints placed on them by the new position. Thus, when SCs compare ABDs to relatively new asst. profs, they may decide the ABD shows equivalent productivity given their shorter time in the field, and thus more potential in the long run.
2. Related to #1, a lot of people who might have been underplaced might not feel comfortable going back on the market prior to the *expected* timeframe of the 3rd year review. If these people are also hindered in being as productive as they want to be due to these underplacements (high teaching loads, new preps, etc.), then after 3 years their CV will look worse in comparison to a newer ABD when time in the field is accounted for.
3. Related to #1 again, if someone *doesn't* place somewhere their first year out, with Ph.D. in hand, then this too may hurt their productivity, especially if they lose their university office space/accounts/face-to-face contacts/etc. It might also lead to the 'numbness' discussed in the previous thread, which further will hurt them when they get back into the market.
4. Building on #3, after a few years of unemployment or otherwise temporary positions, some people maybe become the equivalent of an untouchable, especially when compared to fresher candidates or those looking to move up from a less-than-ideal-but-still-relatively-good placement.
c) As someone who was lucky enough to land a good (but not ideal) offer as an ABD candidate last year, I can't really comment on this aspect, other than say that it would scare the crap out of me were I in that position (PhD in hand without a job offer), and likely be quite depressing. I'm sure this feeling would only compound the more years I went without a TT offer. It's a shitty time to be on the market, albeit some signs that the market is generally improving. It's even shittier when you don't have the 'I could stay as an ABD one more year' option to fall back on, and when those damn direct loan people start calling.
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Post by jobless ABD on Jan 24, 2012 18:21:40 GMT -5
This discussion does not make sense to me. A few ABDs landed jobs. A few postdocs landed jobs. There are loads of unemployed ABDs out there. Is the point to question their sense of how bad the market really is based on their tone on the boards or to suggest that they are somehow taking jobs away from you?
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Post by numbers on Jan 24, 2012 18:24:53 GMT -5
I did a very quick count over on the Name Names thread. Of the 49 positions with names attached to them, 26 are ABD. That's barely over 50%. Is that disproportionate? Also, very few of the R1 hires are ABDs. Like the last poster, I would assume that most assistant prof hires in given year are ABD. Why wouldn't they be?
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Post by I started it on Jan 24, 2012 18:52:49 GMT -5
...but didn't say exactly what I meant, or mean exactly what I said.
I also did not intend to suggest that people who have slogged thru grad school for the better part of a decade -- with all the hardships entailed -- and are not getting permanent jobs as their theses wind down, are not experiencing genuine distress. Time will tell if it amounts to downward mobility. (For some it already has, for sure.) But there are also people on this board who got their PhD's eons ago, have experienced lots of academic career turmoil, and (God knows why) are still applying for positions now and again, and check out this board accordingly. (I know b/c I'm one of them.)
Nobody seems to have definitive stats on whether or not the percentage of Asst Prof jobs going to ABD's is unusually high. My guess is that it is a little higher than normal, but that's only a guess. Just as there are more PhD's on the market b/c of a very shitty job market for the last three years -- the new normal -- there are probably also more ABD's who are remaining in school, taking longer to finish their PhD's than might otherwise be the case, scoring TAships or Instructorships or adjuncting locally or whatever.
Because the raw number of ABD's is probably bigger, I'm guessing (I could be very wrong of course) that a higher than average proportion of jobs is going to ABD's too... departments like to make a big show about "good fit" and whatnot, but more than ever before they have their pick of the litter, and they prefer to hire ABDs who they can mold from the get go, everything else being equal.
Academics who've been through the grind of getting tenure or who have tenure themselves and have all internalized mainstream professional norms -- "productivity" no matter how useful/useless or innovative/copycat or intriguing/banal the "scholarship" -- tend to look on people who've had their PhD's for a year or two or three, even if they are doing good stuff in the interim, with more suspicion.
Everyone (well, nearly everyone) here agrees that the job market sucks for everyone and that's the biggest problem of all. One that will probably never, ever go away.
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advantage PhD in hand
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Post by advantage PhD in hand on Jan 24, 2012 20:11:16 GMT -5
It is very obvious that a disproportionate number of jobs are NOT going to ABDs. A lot is made of people who have degree in hand and are back on the market this year, but that number never does eclipse the number of people who are coming out in a given year; the idea that people can just remain as ABD for another year is flawed, since many departments are attempting to push people through to the degree as fast as is possible regardless of whether they will be competitive vs. other PhDs when applications start going out.
Looking at the list of reported hires thus far, we see that barely 50% of them have gone to ABDs, meaning that even if there was -- theoretically -- one job available for each person graduating this year, almost half of those people would still remain unemployed or have to secure other options, and this is not even limiting the sample to tenure-track jobs. Furthermore, do take note of where the ABDs who place are coming from and recognize that there is stratification amongst this lot, as well, as has been discussed ad nauseum on this board.
I understand the frustration of being on the market for several years and watching others who are going on for the first time land, but the reality is that first-timers are not doing nearly as well as should be expected. Indeed, first-timers have more reason to lament the goings-on than usual because of the number of underplaced people looking to move, qualified applicants who took postdocs rather than weaker job options over the last few years, and well-published people who were able to turn an extra year in grad school into something meaningful despite loud protests from their DGS's that they should graduate and just see what happens.
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anon
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Post by anon on Jan 24, 2012 20:12:09 GMT -5
I find this discussion incredibly odd. Of course ABDs should be getting many TT assistant positions...sociology as a discipline doesn't have a strong post-doc culture like the natural sciences. People generally move from ABD status to the tenure track. Post-docs are more common in certain areas like demography or health; I just mean sociology as a whole. Assistants will often move around, but they are getting way more action in the R1 market.
Take a look at who is getting the R1 jobs: ABDs are vastly underrepresented. If you go through the list of hires for R1/RU VH institutions, then only 37.5% have gone to ABDs and the other 62.5% have gone to post-docs, assistants, and PhDs (the list I used is below). I'm ABD and am only really suited for an R1 type gig and I'm finding it incredibly difficult to even get an interview even though my CV is stronger than several post-docs/assistants who have gotten jobs. There is a definite bias towards those who have their degree.
Here is the list I used--it was intended to be quick and dirty so I may have missed a school or two. Baylor University-Jeremy Uecker (UTexas PhD, UNC Postdoc) Boston College- Kimberly Hoang (Berkeley PhD, Rice Postdoc) Brown - Josh Pacewicz (Chicago PhD, Stanford Postdoc) Emory- Sabino Kornrich (U-Washington PhD, Juan March) Georgia State University-Benjamin Kail (FSU PhD, Duke Postdoc) and Daniel Carlson (Ohio State PhD, Ohio State Postdoc) Harvard- Alexandra Killewald (Univ of Mich. PhD, Mathematica) Indiana (qual)- Jessica McCrory Calarco (UPenn ABD) Memphis- Zandria Robinson (Northwestern, currently asst. prof at Ole Miss) North Carolina State Univ- Michaela DeSoucey (Northwestern PhD, Princeton Postdoc) Penn State- Jason Thomas (U-Washington PhD, Wisconsin Postdoc) Princeton-Tod Hamilton (UT-Austin PhD, Harvard Postdoc) Rice (gender/family) - Erin Cech (UCSD PhD, Stanford Postdoc) Rutgers- Hana Shepherd (Princeton) U of Alberta- Michelle Marato (U-Washington ABD) U of Cincinnati - Ervin Matthew (ABD Ohio State); Sarah Mayorga (ABD Duke) U of Chicago (Urban)- Forrest Stuart (UCLA ABD) U of Delaware - Asia Friedman (Rugers PhD, UMDNJ postdoc) U of Illinois-Chicago- Bethany Everett (U Colorado ABD) U of Iowa - strat: Sarah Bruch (Wisconsin ABD) & crim/law: Marina Zaloznaya (Northwestern ABD) U of Kansas (social demography)- Emily Rauscher (NYU ABD) U of Mass - Amherst (labor) - Jasmine Kerrissey (UC Irvine ABD) U of MASS Amherst (Open-Assistant)- Jonathan Wynn (CUNY PhD, current VAP there) U of New Mexico (Asst., Health & Medicine)- Owen Whooley (NYU PhD, Rutgers Post-doc) U of South Carolina (first social psych position)-David Melamed (U-Arizona ABD) U of Southern California (demography)- Jen Hook (U-Washington PhD) U of Western Ontario - Kate Choi (UCLA PhD, Princeton Postdoc) Yale- Llyod Grieger (U-Michigan PhD, Yale Postdoc) and Andrew Papachristos (Chicago PhD, RWJ, Asst. Prof UMASS)
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Post by ABDer on Jan 24, 2012 21:14:46 GMT -5
I'm ABD and am only really suited for an R1 type gig and I'm finding it incredibly difficult to even get an interview even though my CV is stronger than several post-docs/assistants who have gotten jobs. There is a definite bias towards those who have their degree.
Ditto
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Post by also ABDer on Jan 24, 2012 21:19:29 GMT -5
I'm ABD and am only really suited for an R1 type gig and I'm finding it incredibly difficult to even get an interview even though my CV is stronger than several post-docs/assistants who have gotten jobs. There is a definite bias towards those who have their degree.
Ditto What do you mean when you say you're only really suited for an R1 type gig? You have little teaching experience? You are coming from an R1 program? I'm ABD at a top-20 program and have several pubs (including a couple in great places), but I never really thought I was only suited (or even very competitive) for "R1 type gigs." And do you really think you can engage in that kind of CV-comparing? That's difficult to do, I think, since it's always tough to know what search committees are looking for.
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anon
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Post by anon on Jan 24, 2012 21:30:23 GMT -5
also ABDer: it simply means that my preferences, priorities, and preparation strongly fit with the R1 model and not at all with SLACs/etc. I don't want them and they don't want me, which is fine. It isn't a value judgment that R1s are better or any such nonsense.
Of course you can compare relative CV strengths...c'mon. If you are at a top-20 program you should be very well aware of how publication fetishism works.
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Post by also ABDer on Jan 24, 2012 21:42:04 GMT -5
also ABDer: it simply means that my preferences, priorities, and preparation strongly fit with the R1 model and not at all with SLACs/etc. I don't want them and they don't want me, which is fine. It isn't a value judgment that R1s are better or any such nonsense. Of course you can compare relative CV strengths...c'mon. If you are at a top-20 program you should be very well aware of how publication fetishism works. I didn't think you were making a value judgment. And I can definitely see your point. I'm not sure I'm well suited for SLACs, either. But it's not like there are just R1s and SLACs. There are loads of places in between. True, teaching loads are higher at non-doctoral universities, but there are still expectations and support for research. I can totally get why many folks feel like it's R1-or-bust, but I guess I always accepted that an R1 gig might not be in the cards for me. And like I said, I'm at a top-20 program and I've basically been bred to be at an R1.
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Post by cyclorama on Jan 24, 2012 22:21:11 GMT -5
I find this discussion incredibly odd. Of course ABDs should be getting many TT assistant positions...sociology as a discipline doesn't have a strong post-doc culture like the natural sciences. People generally move from ABD status to the tenure track. Post-docs are more common in certain areas like demography or health; I just mean sociology as a whole. Assistants will often move around, but they are getting way more action in the R1 market. Take a look at who is getting the R1 jobs: ABDs are vastly underrepresented. If you go through the list of hires for R1/RU VH institutions, then only 37.5% have gone to ABDs and the other 62.5% have gone to post-docs, assistants, and PhDs (the list I used is below). I'm ABD and am only really suited for an R1 type gig and I'm finding it incredibly difficult to even get an interview even though my CV is stronger than several post-docs/assistants who have gotten jobs. There is a definite bias towards those who have their degree. Here is the list I used--it was intended to be quick and dirty so I may have missed a school or two. Baylor University-Jeremy Uecker (UTexas PhD, UNC Postdoc) Boston College- Kimberly Hoang (Berkeley PhD, Rice Postdoc) Brown - Josh Pacewicz (Chicago PhD, Stanford Postdoc) Emory- Sabino Kornrich (U-Washington PhD, Juan March) Georgia State University-Benjamin Kail (FSU PhD, Duke Postdoc) and Daniel Carlson (Ohio State PhD, Ohio State Postdoc) Harvard- Alexandra Killewald (Univ of Mich. PhD, Mathematica) Indiana (qual)- Jessica McCrory Calarco (UPenn ABD) Memphis- Zandria Robinson (Northwestern, currently asst. prof at Ole Miss) North Carolina State Univ- Michaela DeSoucey (Northwestern PhD, Princeton Postdoc) Penn State- Jason Thomas (U-Washington PhD, Wisconsin Postdoc) Princeton-Tod Hamilton (UT-Austin PhD, Harvard Postdoc) Rice (gender/family) - Erin Cech (UCSD PhD, Stanford Postdoc) Rutgers- Hana Shepherd (Princeton) U of Alberta- Michelle Marato (U-Washington ABD) U of Cincinnati - Ervin Matthew (ABD Ohio State); Sarah Mayorga (ABD Duke) U of Chicago (Urban)- Forrest Stuart (UCLA ABD) U of Delaware - Asia Friedman (Rugers PhD, UMDNJ postdoc) U of Illinois-Chicago- Bethany Everett (U Colorado ABD) U of Iowa - strat: Sarah Bruch (Wisconsin ABD) & crim/law: Marina Zaloznaya (Northwestern ABD) U of Kansas (social demography)- Emily Rauscher (NYU ABD) U of Mass - Amherst (labor) - Jasmine Kerrissey (UC Irvine ABD) U of MASS Amherst (Open-Assistant)- Jonathan Wynn (CUNY PhD, current VAP there) U of New Mexico (Asst., Health & Medicine)- Owen Whooley (NYU PhD, Rutgers Post-doc) U of South Carolina (first social psych position)-David Melamed (U-Arizona ABD) U of Southern California (demography)- Jen Hook (U-Washington PhD) U of Western Ontario - Kate Choi (UCLA PhD, Princeton Postdoc) Yale- Llyod Grieger (U-Michigan PhD, Yale Postdoc) and Andrew Papachristos (Chicago PhD, RWJ, Asst. Prof UMASS) Great point anon - the R1 jobs are definitely disproportionately going to postdocs/asst profs. Additionally, I would suspect that they are overrepresented with the other jobs as well. As stated earlier, sociology doesn't have a strong post-doc culture. How many post-doc ads are there compared to job positions? For post-docs, it's only 4 pages on this forum and many of those postdocs are open to numerous disciplines. There are 25 pages dedicated to job positions. Maybe Archivist could make a table of postdocs over the years, how many are for sociology only, and then we can see what we're dealing with in terms of who is disproportionately getting these positions.
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Post by fellow ABDer on Jan 24, 2012 23:27:02 GMT -5
also ABDer: it simply means that my preferences, priorities, and preparation strongly fit with the R1 model and not at all with SLACs/etc. I don't want them and they don't want me, which is fine. It isn't a value judgment that R1s are better or any such nonsense. Of course you can compare relative CV strengths...c'mon. If you are at a top-20 program you should be very well aware of how publication fetishism works. I didn't think you were making a value judgment. And I can definitely see your point. I'm not sure I'm well suited for SLACs, either. But it's not like there are just R1s and SLACs. There are loads of places in between. True, teaching loads are higher at non-doctoral universities, but there are still expectations and support for research. I can totally get why many folks feel like it's R1-or-bust, but I guess I always accepted that an R1 gig might not be in the cards for me. And like I said, I'm at a top-20 program and I've basically been bred to be at an R1. I am an ABD, as well. Trained at a Top 20 R1, I also feel that I am best suited for such a setting, so I approached the market with the mindset that I wanted either an R1 position (without regard to ranking, because this is not a market in which one can be so choosy at the outset) or a path to one. It isn't that I am opposed to SLACs, and I actually think I could do fairly well at one, but research really is my passion, and I can't see myself being happy in a place that doesn't support it well or a place that has tenure requirements that are incongruent with building a record that can get noticed by an R1 somewhere down the line. For these reasons, I applied only to research departments or SLACs that explicitly value research; my alternative options were to apply for postdocs or to hit on one of the government research jobs I applied for. Fortunately, I did end up with an R1 job.
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Post by postdoc sweatshop on Jan 25, 2012 10:09:25 GMT -5
I'm in my second postdoc, and am finding getting a job EXTREMELY hard. I've got 6-9 pubs and have taught several courses. I think my references are pretty good [or at least have been told so at interviews].
I've applied to ~70 positions this year. Applying across the board, I've gotten interviews at several places. Things are still pending, but several places I've applied to and even interviewed at have gone to ABDs. These include R1s where I've fit well on paper. At the school I'm at, ABDs have been hired. They have told me that dept. chairs have informally said they are looking for ABDs. They an be paid less, are younger, and postdocs [especially people like me with 2 positions] are viewed as beig unable to make it as a TT assist. prof. My inability to get a job seems to mean I am suspect for being successful as a professor.
I realize I am a case of 1, but my prospects seem dim. It looks like I have put in 70-80 hr/wks for three years, and just delayed my life. Hoping I can get a job in industry, as becoming a professor seems beyond my research.
The current market signals to me that the VAP/adjunct tract is one route where Phds go, but the other route is the perpetual research position. I think I am making about $13-$15/hr, which makes me very cheap labor that a) can be treated as a temp and b) sent packing when the grant funding runs out.
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