My experience on the academic job market
Update on 2/29/20: I am excited to be joining the University of South Carolina Department of Statistics as an Assistant Professor in August!
I figured it would be a good idea to write a post about what I learned from my experience on the tenure-track academic job market. This post pertains mainly to jobs at major research universities in the United States in the fields of Statistics and Biostatistics, but some of this could nevertheless generalize to other fields. Also, of course, this is just a sample size of n=1. In what follows, I describe the overall job application process, my application materials, and the interviews.
Update on 2/29/20: After I had accepted the position at University of South Carolina in February, I also received several more e-mails from various schools asking if I was still available/interested. So if you haven’t heard back by January, do not panic! Some schools may decide to do a second round of interviews in late February or March, and if you were ranked right below the threshold for the first-round campus interviews, you could still be contacted for an on-campus interview in late February or March. There are over 4000 institutions of higher learning in the U.S., but only around 400 of them grant doctoral degrees (research universities). Of these doctoral-granting schools, 259 of them are classified as “R1” (very high research activity) or “R2” (high research activity). So that means 90+ percent of colleges do not award PhDs, and the vast majority of academics teach at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs), regional comprehensive schools (which may award Masters degrees), or community colleges. At the R1 research universities, the teaching load will typically be 2-1 (two courses one semester, one course the other), sometimes 2-2 or even 1-1 at very elite universities. The primary criterion for tenure at R1s is research (i.e. publications, grants) and supervision of PhD students. Most R1’s will reduce the teaching load for Assistant Professors to one course a semester for their first few years in order to allow them to focus on their research. At PUIs and regional comprehensives, a typical teaching load is 3-3 or 4-4 (at a select few prestigious colleges, it is 2-2), and at these institutions, the primary criterion for tenure is teaching and service to the college. These schools also require some research to get tenure (with the elite colleges requiring more), but typically, the publishing requirements will not be as intensive as those at R1s, because they want you to focus most of your time on your teaching. I decided to focus my job search on research universities. Due to the fact that there are relatively few jobs at research universities and not all of them will be hiring in your field every year, I cast a wide net to improve my chances of landing some interviews. That meant that I applied all over the country and was not particularly picky about geographic region or location. From what I am told, the most important things required to get interviews at R1s in my field are a strong publication record and strong letters of recommendation. For teaching-focused schools, your teaching experience (e.g. having taught a course as instructor of record) is vital to success in the job market and some publications are also helpful as evidence of scholarly output. At the time that I sent out my job applications, I had six papers, five of which were first-author papers and at least one which was forthcoming in a top journal in my field. One of my PhD classmates who went on the job market the year before me also had the same number of papers as me when he applied, including one in a top journal. He also managed to land a tenure-track job at a research university. So in order to be a competitive enough candidate for tenure-track jobs in Statistics at an R1 or R2 research university, I would say that this is a good benchmark. Of course, there are job candidates who had even more papers than I did, including multiple ones in top journals, and I assume that they landed interviews at multiple top schools. There is a fair bit of luck involved in getting an interview because most programs receive many more applications from qualified applicants than they can offer interview spots to. It is not completely dumb luck (so applicants with no publications, PhDs in a completely unrelated area, etc. will be eliminated in the initial review of applications). But since most programs will only invite 3-5 job candidates for campus interviews for every open position advertised, making it to the campus interview often involves things beyond your control. For example, if the only professor in the department who teaches/researches probability theory is about to retire, then the search committee may prioritize applications from probabilitists. If the department is looking to grow its faculty specifically in one area (e.g. I saw a job ad that stated that the department would give special consideration to applicants with research focused on environmental and spatial statistics), then you may be out of luck if your research is unrelated to that. Some programs may have these kinds of preferences but not explicitly state so in their job ads. For example, I applied to a math department at one school which had statistics under its umbrella, but I later heard from a colleague there that the search committee decided that they would focus on hiring an applied mathematician rather than people in other specialties. So I was out of luck there. Finally, if a department has recently hired a bunch of people with a very similar research focus as your own subfield, they may opt to pass on your application because they want to diversify the department’s expertise. These are all things beyond your control. This is partly why I recommend applying widely to maximize your chances.
My cover letters briefly outlined my education/experience and my research accomplishments. Each cover letter also included a paragraph or two customized specifically for each department I applied to, including: why I was excited about that department in particular, which professors in that department I could potentially collaborate with and/or whose research was highly complementary to my own, which courses I would be prepared to teach if hired and what special topics courses I could offer, and what (if any) departmental or university initiatives I would like to be involved with if hired.
My research statement was three pages long, excluding references. The first two pages described my general research interests and summarized my past papers and present research projects. The last page of my research statement expounded upon my future research plans and topics that I planned to pursue in the future. In general, I tried to keep things at a somewhat high level so that non-subject matter experts on the search committees could grasp the overarching theme of my research agenda. My teaching statement was two pages long and focused mainly on my past teaching experience as an instructor of record and my teaching philosophies. I did not customize my CV, research statement, or teaching statement for most schools that I applied to. Unlike the cover letters, I sent the same documents to most schools.
My letters of recommendation were from my PhD advisor, my postdoc mentors, and one was from a prominent professor in my field who was both familiar with my work and a research collaborator. To help them write the strongest letters possible, I sent them my CV, my research statement, and my teaching statement.
I figured it would be a good idea to write a post about what I learned from my experience on the tenure-track academic job market. This post pertains mainly to jobs at major research universities in the United States in the fields of Statistics and Biostatistics, but some of this could nevertheless generalize to other fields. Also, of course, this is just a sample size of n=1. In what follows, I describe the overall job application process, my application materials, and the interviews.
Deciding Where to Apply
In the fall of 2019, I applied to 53 tenure-track positions, all at research universities in the United States. I applied to positions in Statistics, Biostatistics, and Mathematics departments. For all of my efforts, I received 8 phone screening interviews, 3 of which turned into campus invitations. I also received 2 campus invitations without a phone interview, bringing my total up to 5 campus interviews. Most application deadlines were in early November through early December, and I heard back from most schools before Christmas (one I heard back from in early January).Update on 2/29/20: After I had accepted the position at University of South Carolina in February, I also received several more e-mails from various schools asking if I was still available/interested. So if you haven’t heard back by January, do not panic! Some schools may decide to do a second round of interviews in late February or March, and if you were ranked right below the threshold for the first-round campus interviews, you could still be contacted for an on-campus interview in late February or March. There are over 4000 institutions of higher learning in the U.S., but only around 400 of them grant doctoral degrees (research universities). Of these doctoral-granting schools, 259 of them are classified as “R1” (very high research activity) or “R2” (high research activity). So that means 90+ percent of colleges do not award PhDs, and the vast majority of academics teach at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs), regional comprehensive schools (which may award Masters degrees), or community colleges. At the R1 research universities, the teaching load will typically be 2-1 (two courses one semester, one course the other), sometimes 2-2 or even 1-1 at very elite universities. The primary criterion for tenure at R1s is research (i.e. publications, grants) and supervision of PhD students. Most R1’s will reduce the teaching load for Assistant Professors to one course a semester for their first few years in order to allow them to focus on their research. At PUIs and regional comprehensives, a typical teaching load is 3-3 or 4-4 (at a select few prestigious colleges, it is 2-2), and at these institutions, the primary criterion for tenure is teaching and service to the college. These schools also require some research to get tenure (with the elite colleges requiring more), but typically, the publishing requirements will not be as intensive as those at R1s, because they want you to focus most of your time on your teaching. I decided to focus my job search on research universities. Due to the fact that there are relatively few jobs at research universities and not all of them will be hiring in your field every year, I cast a wide net to improve my chances of landing some interviews. That meant that I applied all over the country and was not particularly picky about geographic region or location. From what I am told, the most important things required to get interviews at R1s in my field are a strong publication record and strong letters of recommendation. For teaching-focused schools, your teaching experience (e.g. having taught a course as instructor of record) is vital to success in the job market and some publications are also helpful as evidence of scholarly output. At the time that I sent out my job applications, I had six papers, five of which were first-author papers and at least one which was forthcoming in a top journal in my field. One of my PhD classmates who went on the job market the year before me also had the same number of papers as me when he applied, including one in a top journal. He also managed to land a tenure-track job at a research university. So in order to be a competitive enough candidate for tenure-track jobs in Statistics at an R1 or R2 research university, I would say that this is a good benchmark. Of course, there are job candidates who had even more papers than I did, including multiple ones in top journals, and I assume that they landed interviews at multiple top schools. There is a fair bit of luck involved in getting an interview because most programs receive many more applications from qualified applicants than they can offer interview spots to. It is not completely dumb luck (so applicants with no publications, PhDs in a completely unrelated area, etc. will be eliminated in the initial review of applications). But since most programs will only invite 3-5 job candidates for campus interviews for every open position advertised, making it to the campus interview often involves things beyond your control. For example, if the only professor in the department who teaches/researches probability theory is about to retire, then the search committee may prioritize applications from probabilitists. If the department is looking to grow its faculty specifically in one area (e.g. I saw a job ad that stated that the department would give special consideration to applicants with research focused on environmental and spatial statistics), then you may be out of luck if your research is unrelated to that. Some programs may have these kinds of preferences but not explicitly state so in their job ads. For example, I applied to a math department at one school which had statistics under its umbrella, but I later heard from a colleague there that the search committee decided that they would focus on hiring an applied mathematician rather than people in other specialties. So I was out of luck there. Finally, if a department has recently hired a bunch of people with a very similar research focus as your own subfield, they may opt to pass on your application because they want to diversify the department’s expertise. These are all things beyond your control. This is partly why I recommend applying widely to maximize your chances.
Application Materials
In spite of the randomness, there are also a few things you can do to get past the initial screening filters. Apart from applying widely to maximize your chances of getting an interview, you can also put together the strongest possible application materials you can. These materials typically include a cover letter, a CV, recommendation letters, a research statement, and a teaching statement. Some people I talked with insisted that the research and teaching statements didn’t really matter all that much in comparison to the CV and recommendation letters, but I am not sure this generalizes to all schools. At two schools I applied to, they did not even ask for recommendation letters until after they had invited me for a phone interview, and one school told me my research statement was a primary reason they chose me as a semi-finalist. So it behooves you to make your entire application packet as strong as possible.Skype/Zoom Interviews
As mentioned earlier, I had 8 Skype/Zoom interviews. The phone interviews were usually conducted with 10-20 semi-finalists, from which 3-5 would be selected to interview at campus. The most common questions I was asked were:- “Why did you apply to our program?”
- “If you were to explain your research to a non-expert, what would you say?”
- “Could you describe your research plans for the next five years?”
- “Are there any research collaborations you could foresee if you came to our school?”
- “Could you describe your past teaching experience?”
- “What course(s) would you like to teach?”