Thursday, January 4, 2007

General Job Market Questions

91 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ring, phone! Damn it, Ring! (or email...)

Anonymous said...

same here mate! Checking email every 5 minutes, these pages 10 times a day is pretty depressive. But I believe no country in the world is rich enough to leave a phd econ unemployed. Best luck!

Anonymous said...

Is anyone else having trouble getting any work done? I'm either daydreaming about the schools where I've gotten flyouts or I'm checking this board. I need to get out.

Anonymous said...

I don't think many schools will contact you by email regarding a flyout.

Anonymous said...

Both schools that I have flyouts to contacted me first by e-mail (responding to my thank you notes) telling me I'd have flyouts, then by phone.

Anonymous said...

I've received 3 fly-outs by email and 4 by phone. So keep hitting that check mail button!

Anonymous said...

Correction: 4 email, 4 phone.

Anonymous said...

does anyone know if colby college has called for flyouts?

Anonymous said...

I feel so depressed now, still haven't got any flyout. Though almost all the school said that they will not contact this week, but I see so many people here get several flyouts. I cannot fall asleep. Do you have the same desperate feeling?

Anonymous said...

10:22 AM - Don't worry too much. First of all, there's nothing productive you can do at this point except to work on your dissertation. Secondly, most of the people getting fly outs this week are the best candidates on the market this year, and they're getting fly outs to the best departments. So if don't consider yourself to be among the top 2-3 candidates from your department, OR most of your interviews last weekend were with places that are outside the top 25, then I think there is still hope. At least that's what my situation is and that's what I'm telling myself to stay calm. If you're still really worried, you can try applying to some private sector jobs if you haven't already do so. Best of luck, and try to keep things in perspective.

One more thing: You should keep your advisor and/or placement director updated on your situation. Sometimes a well-placed call or two from them on your behalf may do wonders. But that's conditional on your having done at least OK in your interviews.

Anonymous said...

to 10:22am
----------------
hang on there. I do not have flyouts either. just imagine the possibilities if you actualy do not get an academic job ... no more papers, no more sleepless nights looking at the data that noone else cares about (unless of course they want to crash your paper)... you can even get regular friends, who never would never ever ask you about cardinal utility or exogeneity issues...
but seriously, just get done with the dissertation and you will be free

Anonymous said...

10:22 - Have your schools been marked "Yes" at the wiki? If not, then do not even fret for a second. What I have been told is that many schools (particularly lower ranked ones) are not meeting until today to even begin the process of deciding. I spoke with one school who called and said I was one of their top choices, but they are not extending flyouts til T/W of next week. It's still very early. We got back from the AEA only five days ago!

Anonymous said...

Okay, show of hands. Who is actually working on their dissertation right now? I haven't touched mine. I need an offer accepted, I think, before I'll be able to get going again. I've got three flyouts at this point, and I can't seem to concentrate enough to work.

Anonymous said...

Everyone. PLEASE UPDATE THE WIKI with your callouts, if you haven't already. A simple "Yes" by the school's name is sufficient. The wiki is a public good, and while that means I shouldn't expect otherwise, please try hard not to free-ride. Some of us benefit tremendously from learning we're not in the running.

Anonymous said...

It's true that it's a public good, but the MC of contributing is practically zero.

So, stop the free-riding already!!

On the other hand, maybe no one is free-riding and the schools that are blank haven't actually called anyone yet. Wouldn't that be a more optimistic interpretation??

Anonymous said...

12:33 - I think people with callouts value the wiki board less than those without callouts. Not freeriding, but at this point, they have less of an incentive to alert the world about the status of a school. Hence my message, which is intended to promote altruism among those with information.

Anonymous said...

Good point.

Those people also have less incentive to be coming here at all, though! :D

Anonymous said...

I know the following schools have made calls, but I don't know how to edit the wiki, so if you are able to help, you can edit on the wiki:
University of Kentucky AF
University of South Alabama, AF
University of Alabama, macro
University of North Florida, Macro
Illinoise State University
University of windsor, macro

Anonymous said...

January 17, 2007 12:18 PM:

I made those changes.

Anonymous said...

I got some calls/emails last week and I was SO excited, because I did not expect to hear anything so soon. I thought I would get more calls/emails this week. But I didn't. The places I heard from last week were the only ones I heard from. I was really hoping to hear from some places that are now marked "yes" on the board.

Has anyone gotten any calls this week? Has anyone gotten any calls more than a day after a school was marked "yes" on the board?

Anonymous said...

Same here. All my flyout requests were made last week, and nothing this week. Five flyouts in total.

Anonymous said...

Want to post some advice to the random person out there who does not know this already. I received a flyout to a place in the same city of a department I was really interested in, but had not yet heard from. I called the department's search committee and told them I was going to be in the city and that if they wanted to fly me out, they could now do so at lower marginal cost. I managed to get an interview as a result. Be sure you do that if you can - the law of demand operates even in this stage!

Anonymous said...

1:24 - I assume you have had an interview with them on ASSA, haven't you? (You've said you've managed to get an "interview," so I have been wondering whether you have had initial interview before; if not, I would be impressed and surprised)

Anonymous said...

2:16 - sorry. I meant flyout. I got a flyout at a place in place A, and called another place with whom I'd interviewed in place A, told them they could have me come out for a campus interview at lower cost, and got it. Just got another one that way, too, in fact.

Anonymous said...

Good advice. That's worked for me in the past, but not this time. I had three prospectives very near one another. Two said "no thanks" even knowing I would be in the area!

ugh.

Anonymous said...

I have tried the same, but got no reply. I got no response so far (not even a "no thanks"). I am worried that my email got lost somehow...what do you think? should I write again?

Anonymous said...

That's a tough call 4:52. Almost certainly they got the message.

But, it's the "almost" that kills you. Look at it this way. If they are indeed ignoring you, then you pestering them won't make them like you *less* b/c they've already decided. Maybe try a different member of the interview team.

Anonymous said...

9:52 - Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I was wondering, does anyone know anything about the job market scramble. Are these just crappy jobs no one wants or what? Or is it a case that ok places like UC Santa Cruz just lose all their candidates. Any ideas at all?

Anonymous said...

I know someone who placed at a fairly decent university in the JM scramble.

Me said...

how much time after the offer is made I will most likely have to accept it?

Anonymous said...

If a school asks me what other schools I have fly outs to or job offers from, how can I politely withhold that information? (Of course I realize it's to my advantage to let other schools know of the existence of such offers.)

Anonymous said...

To Me: It is usually two weeks plus one week if you ask for it

Anonymous said...

To Jan 20 4:52 (and 9:52). Another possibility is that they can't decide (b/c someone is not there or b/c they have not started the process yet). So, you don't want to be too annoying. This said, you can e-mail an administrator telling them that you have e-mailed the chair before, worried that he is away (whatever) and asking him/her to forward to the appropriate persion. Administrators do not decide, but reply much better. I know someone who eventually got a (positive) reply that way.

Anonymous said...

7:35---generally it's expected that you will provide this information.

You can hedge a bit, in a few ways:

* "Well, i'm going to A and B, and a couple other schools."
* "Well, i'm going to A and B, and I'm still scheduling others."
* "So far I've been to A and B" (silence on others that are scheduled).
* "Well, it's a bit early for offers, but ..."

That said, it's generally in your interest to be forthcoming about schools that are at or slightly above the institution.

If I'm at Alabama, I'd want them to know that I'm talking to Tennessee. If I'm at Harvard, I wouldn't want them to know that I was talking to Keane State (and vice versa possibly).

Anonymous said...

12:51pm -- thanks. I was mainly concerned about my best fly out school asking me what other places I'm talking to and my answer possibly having a negative impact on their impression of me. It's sort of like your Keane (Kent?) State vs. Harvard analogy, but the distances are not so large.

Anonymous said...

I'm on my second flyout. I was picked up at the airport by a faculty member, and every thing I said during the conversation seemed to annoy him! I'm sure he hates me. I can't wait for this to be over. I'm tired of feeling like I'm somewhere between throwing up and fainting all the time.

Also, can someone post some advice about how they plan to tackle interviews? Do I pitch my research talk like I did at the AEA, or is this not the place for it? I've been thinking I would use the research seminar to do all that kind of stuff. What are you trying to do in these interviews? I had more general questions I was asking interviewees during my flyout earlier this week, but I'm looking for some more advice. I had a great mock interview at school that prepared me for Chicago, but I now realize no one has much talked to me about the interviews at the campus.

Anonymous said...

Re: Revealing competing interest

From the mid-tier demand side point-of-view, we want to get the best candidate we can but wish to avoid a bidding war that we will lose. If a candidate reveals that she has, say, seven other flyouts, we want to know if we can compete with the other institutions. We may have more infomation about the competing institutions than does the candidate allowing us to update the probability of acceptance of our potential offer. Giving us a list allows us to update our expected probability of converting a flyout/offer into an acceptance. In the past, we have kindly 'unscheduled' proposed flyouts for candidates who are unwilling to be forthcoming. First, it is just too risky. Second, do we want a colleague who is thinking this strategically when, realistically, the scope for strategic behavior is quite limited?

BTW, the fact that a lower quality institution is interested does not lower our opinion of the candidate. We think we can jusdge on the merits pretty well.

Anonymous said...

I have a stupid question about flyout, do we really need to bring transparency as back up for the ppt? which is chance of technology failure in the school? I find it troublesome to bring transparency because I have to change the flow of job talk when presented in transparency, it is different from ppt. I would appreciate your comment.

Anonymous said...

7:26---very good points. thanks.

11:23---you are preparing for the worst. imagine something goes wrong... a bulb burns out in the projector... do you really want to be in a position of presenting your talk entirely verbally?

At the very least bring hardcopy handout versions of your slides that they could reproduce (4 slides to a page or whatever). then at least they could follow along in a worst case scenario.

Anonymous said...

to 11:27
Thank you very much for your comments, it is very good suggestion and helps a lot.

Anonymous said...

11:27 AM - That's great advice , thanks!

Anonymous said...

Do you think two flyouts in one week will be too much? I don't want to get over-tired in the second school. Any comments is appreciated.

Anonymous said...

I know that many ppl do 2 and more flyouts in one week... but make sure that the time zone is the same for both visits and your home place and travel does not take too much. any airport transfer adds an extra day and it is quite exhausting.

Anonymous said...

I just had 2 flyouts this week, with a day's rest in between. I did excellent at both, and the day off really helped. I think you might be able to do three in a week of you had to, but I would definitely make sure the logistics are sound. All in the same time zone and work back towards your home base if you can.

Anonymous said...

I will have 3 interviews in one week (MWF) in a +7h time zone.

Anonymous said...

I hope you travel well and like caffeine......

Anonymous said...

Is it ok to ask department chair/tenured faculty about health benefits, living expenses etc? Thanks.

Anonymous said...

4:09 PM - haven't you asked this very same question on the other thread? someone answered you there

Anonymous said...

To 4:09: Please don't ask the same question everywhere, it is really very annoying. We don't want to waste time to read it everywhere!!

Anonymous said...

for the living expenses you can check the web. There is a bunch of salary converters and information on places in the US. Search for a "salary converter".

Anonymous said...

I really do not believe those salary converters. the results are too extreme. It's one useful piece of info, but only one.

Anonymous said...

I am wondering how many of you seriously read your interviewer's paper before flyout? Will reading paper going to help a lot?

Anonymous said...

It depends on a person. One of my interviewers was a real pain trying to show off who he knows in my field who are his co-authors. I think it would help to read at least an introduction of the recent paper or paper with co-authors you heard about.
I also noticed that people generate a lot of conversation once you ask them an informed question about their research. - so make them talk about themselves, look interested and you both will have fun.

Anonymous said...

The wiki shows very few offers made so far (proportionately). Is this accurate, or just a lack of information?

My one flyout said that it would be "two to three weeks" at the earliest (since around the 18th or 19th). I assumed that they were hedging, and that the top choice offer would be made late last week or early this week.

Anonymous said...

11:35 - I've actually overkilled. I've been writing freaking referee reports for each person's most recent papers at the schools I really like! It seemed like a great idea at the time, but now I'm not so sure...

Anonymous said...

6:31 - it's still early for offers. At my favorite, I was the fourth person they flew out (out of six). They told me I might hear something in 2-3 weeks. I've been operating off the assumption that I should see the wiki fill up (relatively speaking) by Monday, February 12th. By then, I think most of the schools will have flown everyone out, and will have extended the first offers.

Anonymous said...

Let's get a discussion about competing offers. Can people talk generally about how they intend to handle receiving an offer from a school to pressure the other schools? Say you interviewed with schools A,B,C,D,E and F, and you prefer them in that order. School F makes an offer. Will you just email A-E about the offer (or phone call), and leave it at that? Or do you do something more than simply make a call?

Also, say you really do not want school F - the trip out convinced you you'd be better off painting houses than working there, for instance. How do you intend to use an offer from them in regards to the other schools? Does it hurt me, for instance, to show off the offer only then to say no to them later before I've received a counteroffer from one of the more preferred schools? For instance, maybe they see me as just being strategic, and as someone said elsewhere, the scope for strategic behavior is quite limited in this context as it is.

Last question - how big of a signal is it to learn one of your candidates received an offer from F (assume you're a school in A-E)? Does it cause a re-evaluation of the candidate often? I'm asking these questions because 5 of the 7 places are interesting to me, but 2 are not. Unfortunately, it seems like the 2 are interested enough to make me an offer based on things said in the interviews. I'm trying to understand this process a little better is all.

Anonymous said...

8:39. Thanks. I was starting to get anxious. I'll wait another week or so for that, then!

Anonymous said...

Re negotiating: By all means call/email A-E to let them know that you have an offer. There's no need to tell A-E the details of the offer unless you get an offer from A-E.

A-E may have been considering you, and may have the flexibility to move quicker if there's a need. No guarantee though. I did this my first year out. I had an offer in hand from a SLAC, and was trying to get a 30-40 department to move. In essence, they said, "thanks, but no thanks." So, it didn't work in that instance. (I'm guessing that they had an offer out to their top choice and that I was number two or three, so they couldn't move in the time I needed them to move.)

Anonymous said...

I'm hearing salary rumors of low 80s (academic/9 month). Is that right? Can anyone confirm?

Anonymous said...

I believe the salary is very much dependent on the "quality" of the school, ie perhaps the publication ranking or some other measure.

Anonymous said...

Also differs across state, private universities, Phd, Masters, and BA schools. Here's what I heard upto now: University (not top 30) with PhD program 80-88K. Teaching colleges upto 70K. State School (not top 50) without PhD: 70K.

Anonymous said...

Without revealing schools' names, but indicating whether state, private, phd or teaching school and maybe the ranking, can you post the salaries you have heard?

Anonymous said...

3:17 - I was told to look at the Arkansas salary page (not the Cawley report, but another report out of UA - I saw it a month ago, but I'm too lazy to look it up now). The school told me they were somewhere between the MA/PHD points, which meant they were between $75k-85k. This place was a MA program itself. So, I figure that puts it at around 80k.

Anonymous said...

California university (3/3 teaching load): $70k. Discount that some, since cost of living is stupid there.

Anonymous said...

Most Liberal Arts Schools (except maybe a few of the very top ones) offer salaries in the 50s -- at least thats what I've heard. Incidentally, if you look at Cawley, for BA and MA granting institutions, the average is 60 with a sd of 10, but the range starts from 28.8k. Who would pay that for a PhD in economics I wonder?

Anonymous said...

I actually wonder who took the 28k job. Post-docs pay better than that and you can concentrate on research.

Anonymous said...

Any idea on what's the typical "research money" part of the compensation package?

Anonymous said...

Top SLACs are paying around 80.

Only one of those offers summer support (for, say, two years).

Anonymous said...

1:04 - is "research money" the same as summer support? If so, I got 20% of my 10-month base salary for two years guaranteed, plus a third conditional on passing pre-tenure review.

Anonymous said...

11:22 PM - No, research money is not the same as summer support. Summer support is what you just described. Research money is a fund for buying data, computer, hiring RAs and so on.

Anonymous said...

7:25am - Ah, got it. In my package, they laid out an allocation of graduate student hours (10+/week), plus "we'll buy you whatever computer you need, plus software and documentation," and they gave me a travel assurance of 2-4 conferences paid for a year. Do you want them to spell this out in more detail, though? Just curious. Also, if one gets a second offer from a school that is similar (so no real difference in the 10-month salary, let's say), what are the dimensions of negotiation that should be pursued and which ones should not be pursued? I've been told that the 10-mo base salary is fairly fixed, whereas other things are more negotiable.

Tatonnement said...

There is now a section for discussing salary, compensation and negotiation. Let's move all that talk there.

Anonymous said...

What's the level of under-reporting on the wiki? 50%?

Anonymous said...

10:30 - I suspect for better schools, the under-reporting is more severe only because I suspect the best students are not pouring over the wiki the way that I had been. They were involved in a market that wasn't nearly as open-ended as the one I have been on - where I did not receive any solicitations ex ante and so sent almost 100 applications out. So for those higher quality schools, I would suspect fewer people are reporting to the wiki. For instance, Stony Brook apparently made their invitiations a long time ago, and yet no one ever updated the wiki this entire time.

Also, one more thing. I think the wiki was utilized more leading up to the AEA/ASSA meetings, and has been much less utilized after flyouts were extended. Which makes sense - the number of flyout invitations is very small (as few as 3 in several cases). So the thinner the network, the more under-reporting is likely. But since at the AEA/ASSA, chances were that schools were interviewing 2 or 3 dozen people, much better chance of learning if your school had made any invitation offers at the AEA.

So my conclusion is that the wiki has more measurement error the further along in the job search we all are. It seems to have been amazingly accurate up to the AEA, I thought. And has been more hit or miss subsequently.

Anonymous said...

Good points.

Also, once one has an offer in hand, I suppose the incentive to even come here at all diminishes to zero.

Anonymous said...

This is 11:21 again. Just looking over the wiki's second to last column makes me think my reasoning is right. I counted less than 10 "Yes" by "Offered extended". I seriously doubt that that is the case - especially since I actually put two of those "Yes" myself (one being an offer I have, another being an offer I'd heard when I called to take myself out of the running with someone else and learned about their verbal offer).

Here's a question. The wiki is a public good. So we expect people to under-report. But maybe it's a tit-for-tat game up until invitations are made, because up until invitations are made, we are all needing information, and so feel obliged to report information. But as the field narrows, we are able to make more accurate predictions about where each of us individually will end up. As our own personal uncertainty narrows, the value of the wiki itself decreases. And as it decreases, those with more certainty visit the wiki less often. So, it causes selection out of the wiki community - those people with the most information (people we want to update the wiki, mind you) end up using it less, leaving only those people with the least information to view it.

So what you're observing is the last stage of a tit-for-tat game where everyone defects and quits contributing to the public good. QED

Anonymous said...

11:27 - Exactly. If you come here because of self-interest, then this is more than likely tit-for-tat. If you come out of altruism (which, actually, is why I come here - I intend to update the wiki as long as I have new information, regardless from where I get it) or to show off, then the wiki remains more accurate.

Which goes back to something that was happening earlier where contributors were shaming people for showing off. If you shame people for showing off (ie, posting their information), you screw the whole thing up. The more people are not playing a strategic game with this thing, the better off everyone is.

So encourage people to show off. Note for next year's blog. Remind everyone that this thing is a public good with these kind of unique characteristics, and reward the appearance of all information, regardless of the person's motivation. At the last stages of the job match, where the wiki's value is nil for informed parties, altruism and status signaling are going to be the only motivations that will help keep the wiki utilized.

Very cool. I feel like I understand this thing a little better now.

Also, because I do feel a little altruistic, tantanemount should start thinking about a way to seamlessly hand this thing out to next year's graduating class. I personally found it welfare-maximizing. For instance, when I saw the two schools I signaled had already made invitations, I no longer had to suffer in ignorance thinking they might be about to call me. That actually allowed me to get them out of my head. But this was kind of costly for tantanemount to do - especially the emailing everyone from the NBER job candidate page. I also created the wiki, which I think was also really valuable to everyone. The wiki should take care of itself, but somehow the information about this year's blog should be passed to the next year's cohort so that it can be set up quickly and efficiently.

Tatonnement said...

The blog will be here next year and all of this years conversations will be archived here.

I doubt getting the word out will be as difficult next year. I hope this thing becomes as institutionalized as it is in other fields.

What is really needed to make this work is a readership beyond the current crop of students. The more junior professors and grad students that read/post the more info there will be out there. More info begets more info as people feel they are not revealing who they are by posting.

Anonymous said...

the "blog" comments format makes this website a bit cumbersome to use. for example, you can't tell whether a thread has any new posts (unless you memorized the latest number of posts) except by clicking on it and scrolling to the bottom. instead, it would be better if *somebody* with skillz (not I) started a web forum / message board where people could post anonymously, create their own threads, etc.

Anonymous said...

I second the previous comment (5:38 PM). It seems like there are multiple "conversations" taking place at once in each section. A message board where you can start new threads would be nice. There are "Google Groups" and "Yahoo! Groups" which provide free message boards. The only problem is that you have to register for an account, and I believe your username is always associated with your posts. Anybody know of any a message board service with anonymous posting?

Anonymous said...

Most of the things you guys are talking about like having new comments only shown etc would require a registration system. That increased cost would cut the number of posters.

Anonymous said...

10:31 - I agree. In my experience, the price elasticity of participation on blogs/forums/whatever is greater than 1. Even when all I have to do is register somewhere - which takes maybe 1 or 2 minutes - I won't do it and won't go to the blog. I think this system with blogger is pretty easy - all anonymous posts, with enough categories for numerous distinct conversations to occur. Between it and the wiki, it worked great. I appreciate what was said about having to sort through so many conversations each time, but in practice it's not too bad. I just open new tabs for approximately 5 entries, pagedown to the bottom and read the last few. Since I read this 2-3 times a day, I stay up-to-date.

Tatonnement said...

Lets move all this talk about suggestions for the blog to the "Announcements and Suggestion Box"

You will find my reply there.

Anonymous said...

After a fly out, should I send thank you emails to just the dept/search chair, or to everyone I met with?

Anonymous said...

7:16: Depends on how big the department is. If it's a small department, it might not be a bad idea to send thank you notes to everyone. If it's a large department, send thank you notes to the search committee chair and any other faculty members you met who will have a say in the selection process.

One more thing - don't send the same thank you notes to everyone. Hope this helps.

Anonymous said...

I just started a wiki page to compile detailed offer and compensation information: http://www.bluwiki.com/go/Econjobmarket_offers

If there are columns to add or subtract, feel free to edit it.

Anonymous said...

Sending the same thank you email to everyone in the faculty/group is also OK.

Anonymous said...

Another alternative is to send a note to the chair/search committee, and ask them to please pass on your regards to the dept.

Our search committee generally forwards the notes to the rest of the dept.

Tatonnement said...

This discussion has moved to the new message board.

It is a better system and you can still post anonymously.

This link will take you to the correct thread:

ECON JOB RUMOR BOARD