Why is the market so difficult?

[exhausted]

As a sociologist, I like to explain things. Not long ago, the sociology job market was so much less competitive than it is today. We are seeing a flat-out arms race for publications among grad students. What happened?

[me too]

I agree. It's exhausting to apply, wait, hear nothing and then realize the year is gone and I have 6 months to get more publications (impossible). I look at some CVs and wonder how people are so productive. It's depressing.

Apropos security code: feeding frenzy

[economist]

Jan 29, 2012 10:45:16 GMT -5 @exhausted said:

As a sociologist, I like to explain things. Not long ago, the sociology job market was so much less competitive than it is today. We are seeing a flat-out arms race for publications among grad students. What happened?

Supply and demand.

There are way more people looking for TT jobs than actual TT jobs.

There are way more people trying to get the 'top tier' pubs now than in the past, and only so many spots in each issue of AJS/ASR/etc.

There are way more people with "any" publications, due to the billions of journals that have sprung up, so just having a publication or two doesn't make you attractive, you need a "good/top" publication or to to distinguish yourself from the smelly masses.

So more people, more people looking for jobs, with pubs, more competition for top tier pubs, and fewer TT jobs (at the very least in comparison to the number of searchers), means much more competition.

Further, once you land a job, tenure requirements have gone up across the board. A couple solid articles won't get you tenure anywhere except a heavy teaching load department, since most new hires already have a couple solid articles on their CV by the end of their first or second year. Grant money plays a larger role than it did in the past, so there's more competition for grant funds, and that can lead to more competition for the 'best' candidates who show promise of funded research, which can leave out some people who specialize in a not-very-marketable subfield.

So all of this means there's so much more competition, and more competition with pubs behind them, and more pressure to get grant funds/top tier pubs, and THEN you throw in the historic prestige argument for department ranking, and it leads to a bloodbath.

Security code: extraordinary rendition

[silentbub]

In my opinion, some departments are neglecting certain nuts and bolts of a good grad program and focusing just on publication. This can be a good thing but I "once" had a colleague that felt ill-prepared to teach/lecture on anything but their research. I'm currently on an SC right now and some candidates seem to have taken very few graduate courses

Of course, some have also been well groomed to become superstars. For example, one of my fellow peers in grad school always had their advisor looking out for them and was presented with many opportunities during grad school. To be honest, I was a bit jealous (but not sour - I'm happy at my SLAC). The person I'm talking about is really brilliant, and in this individual's case, it does seem that the cream does rise to the top. My peer ended up with several offers from R1s.

My point here is that the success of some is not just by coincidence and sometimes not even based on how hard someone is willing to work. With fewer lines opening up due to the economy, it's only natural that grad departments will make changes to try to ensure the success of their students. This doesn't take into account other inequalities that exist between students (e.g., married with children versus single). The only thing you can do is to learn how to play the cards you are dealt with or get more cards (i.e., get more pubs out). To be very honest, I had only one pub and a couple articles under review last year and I received a lot of attention from SLACs. I knew R1s wouldn't even look at me, so I didn't bother (I'd rather be at a SLAC than an R1 anyways - better fit for me).

[more to the job]

Jan 29, 2012 13:29:19 GMT -5 silentbub said:

In my opinion, some departments are neglecting certain nuts and bolts of a good grad program and focusing just on publication. This can be a good thing but I "once" had a colleague that felt ill-prepared to teach/lecture on anything but their research. I'm currently on an SC right now and some candidates seem to have taken very few graduate courses

Of course, some have also been well groomed to become superstars. For example, one of my fellow peers in grad school always had their advisor looking out for them and was presented with many opportunities during grad school. To be honest, I was a bit jealous (but not sour - I'm happy at my SLAC). The person I'm talking about is really brilliant, and in this individual's case, it does seem that the cream does rise to the top. My peer ended up with several offers from R1s.

My point here is that the success of some is not just by coincidence and sometimes not even based on how hard someone is willing to work. With fewer lines opening up due to the economy, it's only natural that grad departments will make changes to try to ensure the success of their students. This doesn't take into account other inequalities that exist between students (e.g., married with children versus single). The only thing you can do is to learn how to play the cards you are dealt with or get more cards (i.e., get more pubs out). To be very honest, I had only one pub and a couple articles under review last year and I received a lot of attention from SLACs. I knew R1s wouldn't even look at me, so I didn't bother (I'd rather be at a SLAC than an R1 anyways - better fit for me).

I concur that departments overlook the many elements of the job and focus so exclusively on pubs that students appear ill-qualified to land at other places. I landed at an R1, but they cared about my teaching success as well as my publication record and the quality of my work. Really, the job of a professor is not just to publish papers that nobody looks over, but there are other matters, including teaching undergrad and grad courses, mentoring grad students and serving on their committees, and serving on department and/or university committees, all things that people can prepare for and exhibit competence in to varying degrees in grad school. If I am on a search committee at an elite institutition, I want people who are great researchers, but also people who can teach well enough to satisfy the expectations of those who attend and also someone who can pitch in and help the department in other ways.

I think that the public has an overly simplistic view of what professors do (which is why they ask me where I teach, as though that is the primary definition of an R1 professor), but we also sometimes offer an overly simplistic view of another sort with the "publish, publish, publish" mentality, and we share this corrupted view of academia with our grad students.