accepting a job or a postdoc?

[question]

Inspired by the last post...

If it came down to a really good postdoc versus a mid level t-t track job, which would you choose and why?

What about a mid level postdoc versus a mid level t-t track job?

[isuppose]

I suppose that depends on your career goals and perhaps non-career-related concerns (like moves, location, etc).

[takethejob]

I'd take the tt position. Given how bad the academic job market is, there is no guarantee that the postdoc will land you a better tt offer or any academic offer for that reason in a year or two. I'd only take the postdoc over the tt job if I really felt that the tt job was not what I wanted/not a good fit for me. For example, if I really wanted a job at a R1 and the tt job was at a liberal arts college then I'd take the postdoc in the hopes of it helping me to get the kind of job I wanted. You should never take a job you don't want. But if I thought I'd be happy in the tt position, I wouldn't turn it down (in this market) to take a postdoc just because I wanted to do a postdoc or in the hopes some more exciting tt offer will materialize next year.

[respondent]

I took a post-doc over a job, even though I liked the job. The post-doc was in a really exciting location, and it doesn't have me work on other people's research, so it's 3 years of just working on my own stuff.

I did worry about the possibility that there will be no tt positions, but I figured it was worth it for me. That said, I did not apply to any 1-year post-docs this year - just not worth it for that amount of time for me right now.

So I guess I generally agree with the sentiment that a tt job is better than a post-doc even though that's not what I did.