Rating people's chances on the job market?

[anonyms]

Based on my observations this year and last year on the market, this is how I would rate people's chances

"A-list": 5+ publications, or maybe 3 but at really good journals, or maybe your dad was Erving Goffman . Or maybe you just completed a prestigious postdoc and have some good pubs to your name. These people get the R1 or R2 jobs. They were mostly hired in the fall/January

"B-list": 2-4 publications at decent but not necessarily top journals, good solid teaching experience and maybe some service- this is the group getting the SLAC jobs this year. In a better job market year they would be getting R2 jobs and maybe a few R1 jobs. These people are getting calls now about interviews. (For instance I would put myself solidly on this list, and I've gotten 4 emails in the last week asking if I am still interested in jobs- after nothing for a couples of months). They will probably move on to good SLACs, some R2s or good postdocs (I hope, ha!)

"C list": 1 or 2 pubs at decent or less than decent journals, some teaching experience but maybe not a lot, or a lot of teaching experience with only 1 pub or some non-peer reviewed pubs, these people get jobs at lower ranked schools with high teaching loads, or community colleges, if they get a job at all. Some will move on to decent, but not top, postdocs, or industry jobs.

"D list": People with no teaching experience, or no peer-reviewed publications. These people will not be getting jobs this year, or will be staying in grad school an extra year, or will be moving on to a less prestigious postdoc (such as one set up with soft money through their program), or will be adjuncting next year, or will get a non-academic job.


So, this is based on rampant speculation., but also my observations on who is getting a job and when. How off would you guys say I am?

[dadude]

Perhaps it's a bit unusual, but a friend just accepted employment at an R1 and had no publications and little teaching experience at the time of hire.

I just declined a nice postdoc and have no publication record (only R&Rs).

Of course, our work leans heavily on interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary, so we have some opportunities outside of sociology.

[Bhere]

sounds sort of right, and I place myself solidly as a "B" although all I've made is 2 short lists and have heard nothing this past week. BUT you're missing a few key things:

- What sub-areas are hot at the moment. There are a ton of jobs in urban soc, medical/health soc, and crim, so those people are going to have an easier time finding something.

- "Fit" with the department. It's nearly impossible to predict what topics and specialties are going to attract a search committee.

- School ranking. I don't think this matters as much as people think it does, but it does still matter a bit (whether justly or not). Also who the adviser is and letters of recommendation.

- How much teaching is "good solid teaching experience"? A few semesters of being a TA or years of lecturing?

so, yeah, a lot of this is like a crap shoot.

[anonyms]

yeah, those areas you talk about are mostly part of the uncontrollable crap-shoot nature of the job market.

In terms of good solid teaching experience, I think some diversity in teaching/TAships- so have taught or TAed for at least a few different subject areas, and having taught your own class at least twice. I've seen a lot of people on the market who have taught their own class once (so that they have SOMETHING teaching related on their CV) and some have never TAed- which is enough for the R1 jobs, but the SLACs want more than that.

Certain classes matter more than others of course- teach Stats or Research Methods and you'll be golden, Intro and a lot of places will be interested in you. Teaching a class that is based on your obscure dissertation area might not be as impressive.

[anny]

Publications matter, but don't structure the job market that much. They matter for making the initial cut and then nobody cares whether you have 2-3 or 4-5. By your ranking, I should be C or D list, but I have interviewed at 2 top 30 places. Overall, the people doing very well this year are those with one or two solid solo-authored publications (solo-authored matters a lot) and then either a "sexy" project, lots of hype behind them, an influential adviser, some combination or all of the above etc...

[perrault]

I'm sorry, but this whole topic buys a bit too much into the whole myth of straightforward meritocracy.

If we look at every single article ever written about the academic job market, we see that publications and teaching experience are very, very far from being the main determinants of job market placement. Networks, prestige, and desirability of sub topic are all much, much more important.

To be on the A list, you'd need all that plus an advisor who is a relatively big name and is willing to write personalized rec. letters and contact others on your behalf, and who is in a top school. And you need to be specialized in one of the current hot topics (medical, environmental, urban, race, globalization, quant).

Oh, and you need to have a degree in hand.

And I think you are severely underestimating how bad the market is this year. A-listers will probably get all the r1-r2, and SLAC jobs. Many B-listers will get nothing. Depending on sub specialty, A listers will get nothing either. Several specialties that were hot 5 years ago have almost no positions open this year (culture, economic sociology, qualitative, social psych).

This is a year where I've seen at least two 4th tier or unranked 4-4, open enrollment, undergrad only institutions requesting research statements and that will base their hiring on possibility of external funding.

This is a year where I know of at least one big shot student on a big shot department with a sole authored publication in a top 2 journal who is jobless (in great part because hu does econ. soc. and has had a hard time applying for open or methods positions). This is a year where I know of at least one very good student with a degree in hand, 3 sole or first authored publications in top specialty journals and 1 first authored publication at the final stages of acceptance at social forces who has had 1 interview and no offers so far (hu does straightforward culture, and has a hard time passing hu-self off as anything other than a culture person).

On the other hand, one of the persons I know that interviewed at a top 10 SLAC this year has 2 encyclopedia entries, abd, and last teaching experience a year and a half ago. But hu attended said SLAC as undergrad, and the advisor started hus career at said SLAC.

Personally, I interviewed unsuccessfully at an r2. The person they ended up hiring had no peer review publications (but stuff in the pipeline). What the person did have was degree in hand, significantly more teaching experience (3 year VAP at one of the 7 sisters colleges while I only have taught 3 classes), better fit and potentially more social capital (there are two professors in the dept. with PhDs from the same institution as the person who was hired). I have no real way of determining how each of these things affected the hiring, but I do know that I would fall between A and B on your rankings, and this person would be a solid D in publications and a solid A in teaching experience. If I was the search committee, I would have hired this other person too.

Point being, it's a crap shoot, and publications and experience have a lot less to do with it than we'd like to admit. And this is just talking about uncontroversial things, like social networks, prestige and specialization. A great deal of the hiring is also in the theatrics of it all: i.e., whether you do a good job convincing the SC that you will indeed accept the job and spend the rest of your life there, and that you will be a good colleague.

[anon52]

Feb 8, 2010 14:10:50 GMT -5 @perrault said:

I'm sorry, but this whole topic buys a bit too much into the whole myth of straightforward meritocracy.
...


Point being, it's a crap shoot.

Kinda all that needs to be said.

[perrault]

Feb 8, 2010 14:15:23 GMT -5 @anon52 said:

Feb 8, 2010 14:10:50 GMT -5 @perrault said:

I'm sorry, but this whole topic buys a bit too much into the whole myth of straightforward meritocracy.
...


Point being, it's a crap shoot.

Kinda all that needs to be said.

Brevity was never one of my qualities.

[anon52]

We're academics. With few exceptions, we only know the definition of the word "parsimony," and rarely apply it to anything except manuscript reviews we're asked to do.

[AAction]

If you merit being on the C or D list but happen to be "diversity" candidate, you get bumped up to the A+ list. Say what you will but it's true. There are several "diversity" candidates who have ZERO solo pubs and essentially no teaching experience who had their pick of R1 jobs this year. Flame me if you want, call me all sorts of terrible names, but this fact, not opinion.

[anni]

^This is simply untrue. Unless, you count all women as "diversity candidates"...but even then, the big hires this year seem to have broken down about 50/50

[bitter white dude]

AAction, what's your evidence? Not only is that not true, it's a fantasy mediocre people subscribe to and then try to spread on these forums year after year. I don't wish ill on anyone, but it's people who say garbage like this that I hope never find jobs! Who'd want some piece of racist rubbish like AAction joining their department?

Show us a shred of evidence that this is even remotely true. Ha. Good luck.

[sanity]

^ Well, it is partially true. But not to the extent that the original poster claims. Being non-white won't help get an interview, but it can be a factor during the offer discussions. (As a faculty member that has served on search committees I know for a fact that deans/chairs will occasionally override departmental hire requests in the name of "diversity.")
What's really amazing, though not surprising, is to see the OP being called a racist for bringing it up. Affirmative action does exist; s/he wasn't making a judgment about whether it should or shouldn't, just that it is a factor. It's so frustrating to hear sociologists talk about AA, because despite (generally) being strong advocates of it, they want to pretend that it plays no roles in job hiring. So ideologically our discipline is...

[gugol]

Feb 13, 2010 12:56:04 GMT -5 @sanity said:

^ Well, it is partially true. But not to the extent that the original poster claims. Being non-white won't help get an interview, but it can be a factor during the offer discussions. (As a faculty member that has served on search committees I know for a fact that deans/chairs will occasionally override departmental hire requests in the name of "diversity.")
What's really amazing, though not surprising, is to see the OP being called a racist for bringing it up. Affirmative action does exist; s/he wasn't making a judgment about whether it should or shouldn't, just that it is a factor. It's so frustrating to hear sociologists talk about AA, because despite (generally) being strong advocates of it, they want to pretend that it plays no roles in job hiring. So ideologically our discipline is...

Maybe it's because it's not true. All papers with empirical data on sociology professors still show minorities and women underrepresented*, and even though women have been the majority of the recipients of phds for the last 20 years, they are still proportionally underrepresented as sociology professors.


* see "Employment Chances in the Academic Job Market in Sociology: Do Race and Gender Matter?"

[112211]

Might depend on the subfield. In the case of someone going in to race and ethnic studies then there may be a distinct advantage to being a "diversity" candidate. Theory and soc of law may work the opposite.