Well, I got the job! (The one I had the phone interview for in my last post.) It’s tenure-track and seems like a terrific fit, all around. Now I just have to figure out how to move all my stuff to Mississippi…
How’s everyone else doing? Hope some of y’all have good news.
Congrats, FP! 
As far as I can tell, those of us who applied by April 1 for a full-time position in my department are still waiting to hear one way or another.
Congrats!
Not bad for an gadfly…
Congratulations! That’s awesome.
Try ABF shipping-- I’ve had good luck with them and cheap.
Now I’m off to throw myself off a bridge. . .
Just as expected, I received an email from H.R. telling me that I have not been selected to interview for the FT position.
Fuck it. I’m having a beer and looking seriously into health occupations for a career change.
Wahoo! They are not moving you? You can often get that as part of your offer (or you can spend your start-up funds doing it). See if the school has a preferred mover that they work with - it can help. Also, remember that you are moving for work - big ol’ tax write-off for next year.
Ah, I have another phone interview for next week, believe it or not (someone’s getting to the market very late)-- possible stay of execution for my career. . .
So, Fretful, to back up, you got an offer from the phone-interview-school without a campus visit? Is that common, anyone?
A great search engine for academic jobs (in case you haven’t used it yet) is Indeed. It links to way more than The Chronicle or similar engines.
For newbies, always remember that not hearing anything for two months doesn’t mean you’re out of the running. Some colleges take that long to actually contact interviewees (as anyone who’s ever been on one of the accursed search committees can tell you).
Accursed is right.
I’m a grad student about a year out from going on the market, and over the past few years i’ve lost count of the stories from friends and colleagues about rude, inconsiderate, disorganized, and just plain assholish search committees.
Memo to people on search committees:
I don’t give a fuck if you had 300 applicants for that position, when you make the first cut, the very minimum you should do is send the discarded applicants a form email. If you’re a faculty member, and too fucking important for such trivial tasks, then make sure your department has an admin assistant or even a goddamn student worker who can do it.
In my field (History) and in many others, the people who make the first cut usually have to travel to the profession’s annual meeting for the first round of interviews. In History, it’s the American Historical Association meeting in early January. For English, the MLA; for Philosophy, the APA, etc.
Those dozen or so people have been selected as among the best from (usually) upwards of 100, and often over 200 candidates. They have often flown all the way across the country, and booked hotel rooms, at their own expense to attend the meetings and the interview.
The absolute least you owe these people, if they miss out on the job, is a personal email. The absolute LEAST. Preferably a personal call from the head of the search committee, or a personal letter. And these should go out as soon as you decide who your on-campus job candidates are. Don’t just call the people you want for on-campus interviews and leave everyone else swinging in the breeze.
If you tell one of these candidates that you will have a decision in two weeks, then you need to ring the candidate at the end of two weeks, even if it’s only to tell him or her that your search committee is too stupid to make a decision, or some asshole Dean hasn’t yet approved the hire.
And once you do make a decision, call the successful candidate AND the unsuccessful one/s, and let them all know. Any search committee that doesn’t personally contact someone who had an on-campus interview deserves nothing less than the rack and/or thumbscrews.
In case anyone thinks i’m exaggerating here, i’ve seen all this shitty stuff, and more, happen to friends of mine. These were all excellent candidates, many of whom now have good tenure-track jobs at R1 universities or decent state schools. And i’ve also heard stories of places that actually do things properly, and treat their applicants like human beings.
My wife had two on-campus interviews this year, and both places were great in terms of how they treated their applicants.
The first place called right when they said they would, and let her know that she had missed out on the job. The head of the search committee explained why the other person beat her out, and told her that she was a very strong candidate (one reason she missed out was that the other candidate had completed the dissertation over a year before, and had been teaching; my wife had not, at the time of the interview, finished her dissertation, which is a disadvantage in a tight job market like this).
The second place called her at the allotted time, and told her that she was their first choice for the job, but that the money they had been promised for the position was possibly going to disappear in California’s budget crisis. They university, and the department, were going to have to look at finances. The chair of the search committee said he’d get back in touch as soon as he knew anything.
A week later, he called and said that they had put her name forward to the Dean and made clear that they wanted this position filled.
About ten days after that, the Dean called and offered her the job. This summer, we leave Baltimore and join vivalostwages in the Governator’s clutches.
Bolding mine
Amen to all you said, but I particularly hate the inconsiderate and disorganized parts. I’ve been on interviews where people straight up front let me know that they didn’t really want to be going to dinner with me, they really had a lot else to do, but kind of got drafted into this. I smile and nod and say “Yeah, I understand that” while thinking “Fuck you, you little she-bitch or he-bitch! I assure you that I could get along the rest of my life just fine without going to dinner as part of the fucking application process. I would in fact rather be on my own as I’ve had enough of this, I can’t really imagine how much I chew being something you need to know about, and if I haven’t mentioned it there’s such a thing as common courtesy, and such a thing as having a pair of pissed on shoes and as you obviously lack the first I’d really love to supply you with the second.”
The organization thing is also irritating. Please know where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to do and don’t wait until I get there to let me know I really needed to go get a parking pass and that I was supposed to meet with the tenure committee but we forgot that Thursdays is the day that they spay and neuter homeless people so let’s move that to 5:50 p.m.- I don’t give a FUCK what order it’s in, frankly other than the “be at 1234 Academia Lane Floor 3 at 8:30 a.m.” you can keep the agenda til I get there, by which time you really should have it worked out for both of oru benefits.
Then there’s always the special types and the having to answer the same goddamned question 12 times that could be done away with if you took the chance to plan so that the people in my 3 p.m. meeting would preferably be the same ones at my 11 a.m. meeting so that I won’t have to answer my professional development goals again. Urrggh.
The time that I chaired a search committee, incidentally, I insisted that those meeting with the candidates wear “hello my name is” tags due to one of my own major peeves. You get 201 names thrown at you that day and nobody can remember them all, and this is just a courtesy. I also made sure that they were mailed an answer the day that the decision was made and told them up front that it was absolutely okay to talk about money because “we’re all adults”- some people honestly aren’t sure if it’s okay to do so. (Since I myself don’t drink I also assured them it was quite alright to drink at dinner.) Matters such as where to park and if they needed a parking pass were addressed way before hand, I got rid of the ridiculous breakfast meeting the next morning, and gave them a full 90 minutes between last interview and dinner as I always was irked with the usual 30 minutes I had. (I’d cancel the dinner part altogether if I could.)
Algher – Sadly, this school doesn’t pay moving expenses (they told me that up front, and were generally quite forthcoming about the unspectacular salary and benefits, so I knew what the deal was before I got the offer). Will definitely save the receipts for the tax write-off, though.
capybara – No, I had a campus interview. I’ve occasionally heard of people getting offers without the campus interview, but only for short-term lecturer positions.
Apologies for the profanity in the above; I forgot this wasn’t in the Pit. In absence of a “hangs head sheepishly” emoticon I’ll go with this one. :eek:
Congrats to your wife!
I’m sure I’ll still be here, though I don’t know in what capacity.
Ok, some luck in the last minute “lightning round”-- I have 3 phone interviews coming up this week (2 one-year gigs that pay well here out west and one TT job back east). It feels like February again! Maybe I’ll get something out of pure attrition-- everyone who looks clearly better than me is already taken and out of the race.
Cross your fingers for me!
Good luck!
Yay for last-minute action! Good luck, capybara!