As the job season slowly comes to an end (except for a few places that will tell you on July 27th that you can move across the country and start August 15th), a thorough evaluation of the process from Dr. Belle, previously posted on “Tenure She Wrote”.
Today’s post is by Dr. Belle, a fourth-year postdoc
Job openings are both a blessing and a curse. They can infuse both search committees and applicants with a sense of hope for the opportunities to come, but at the same time the search process is stressful for everyone involved. Search committees and departments spend their time and energy reading through applications, selecting candidates, and making choices. Are they making the right decisions? Are they selecting the ideal candidate for the job? But, no matter the stress the current faculty are under, the applicants are under more. Each of us applicants are applying for dozens of jobs, possibly year after year. What’s a minor annoyance in one application, such as a system that keeps crashing, or having to ask for yet another letter of recommendation that may never be read, can become a heavy burden when you multiply those annoyances by…
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