job market in sociology/social work

[non-sociologist]

What is everyone's sense of the overall market this year? I've heard there are more jobs teaching social work than there are applicants--is this true?

[social work options]

Indeed the percentage of job candidates and job openings is much better for social workers. But social work search committees are pretty much against hiring non-social workers. They think psychologists and sociologists are too abstract, theoretical, and research based. Most SW programs demand that faculty have a MSW and several years social work practice before they even consider them for a job. The council of social work education requires such training only for practice classes, but most social work programs still require such stuff for all potential candidates. Some of the larger R1 universities will hire sociologists, but these institutions are then looking to people who are grant finding cash-cows.

[Susan]

It depends some on your specialty, too. There are way more schools that want a gerontological social worker than there are PhDs in gerontological social work, so they often have to resort to PhDs outside of social work.

Also, look for the larger departments with PhD programs that are aiming to climb the rankings--they know perfectly well that sociologists have much better methods training and research skills than social workers do, and they'll jump at that because they need people who publish a lot in high-impact journals (social work journals are pretty universally low impact). Larger programs can hire other folks to do the departmental work that requires the MSW and practice experience.

[9888038310]

Social workers do job very well, they perform in all society with our best efforts