Post by once more on Dec 7, 2010 1:44:21 GMT -5
What follows is truly a rant. It is just something I needed to get off my chest. Comment if you want, share if you like. If you are part of a search committee...just some food for thought.
I understand that most departments do not hire often and so may not have a real good handle on how to properly conduct interviews or plan out the schedule and logistics of a candidate's visit, but what is totally shocking is the thoughtless and inconsiderate manner in which some departments conclude their searches.
Candidates and departments know that the department has the chips stacked their favor, and while the job market is a courtship process to some degree, the candidate is relatively powerless in this game. This powerlessness is epitomized by the fact that departments always know where things stand with respect to their searches while candidates check their email incessantly and flock to these rumor boards hourly, hoping, praying, and yearning for good news, dreading bad news, but compelled always by anxiety to check back since the waiting and the not knowing are too much to bear.
In the early stages, I would argue that departments rightfully have no obligation to provide candidates with information about the status of their search, and this rant is not about that...what it is about is the later stages of the process. Once a candidate has been extended an on-campus interview, one would think that a department would respect the fact that the candidate would be awaiting word about an offer and would most likely be anxious about the outcome of the search. Yet, at this stage where some relationship has formed, some (many?) departments continue to disregard candidates as if they were nameless, faceless applications lying on a desk. They feel no sense of obligation to the candidate and clearly do not respect the candidate's position.
I am continually appalled by the lack of forethought, understanding, or common courtesy that some departments display at this final stage in the process. I know far too many stories of people, including myself, who have interviewed in-person with departments who never received ANY word about the outcome of the search, or only found out the department hired some else by checking the department's homepage or the university's HR website. What kind of people are these who cannot do the decent thing and let someone, whom they have spent time and money on to bring in for a visit, know what has been decided? In a perfect world this would matter little. In a perfect world job candidates would have multiple offers and plenty of options, but in these days this is not the case, and that is why the way a department conducts its search matters.
Many of those who have had these experiences that I have talked to (and please share yours if you have one) frame them by stating that if that is how a department goes about its business they are glad they didn't end up there. I think there's merit to that. I also think that ex-post rationalizations help people cope with disappointments. Furthermore, I can't help but think...why does it have to be like this? Candidates put years of hard work into earning a degree to get these jobs. We are fully invested in the outcome of this process, we bend over backward agonizing over cover letters, run ourselves into the ground practicing job talks, and fret over every perceived misstep following the interview. We want nothing more than to be your colleague, to be a professor...and yet some departments conduct themselves like a guy at the bar scheming for our number just to see if he can get it, while we are the girl wondering if he'll ever call.
I'm not saying the process has to be flowers and kisses and fluffy soft things, but we are sociologists after all...we're is the common courtesy? If we wanted to be treated like this we would've gotten MBA's not PhD's.
Right now it is still early in the market and many offers await the lucky and deserving. So let this serve as a warning to some of you who have interviewed, who are now waiting for word....it may never come... and that is sad, sad thing.
I understand that most departments do not hire often and so may not have a real good handle on how to properly conduct interviews or plan out the schedule and logistics of a candidate's visit, but what is totally shocking is the thoughtless and inconsiderate manner in which some departments conclude their searches.
Candidates and departments know that the department has the chips stacked their favor, and while the job market is a courtship process to some degree, the candidate is relatively powerless in this game. This powerlessness is epitomized by the fact that departments always know where things stand with respect to their searches while candidates check their email incessantly and flock to these rumor boards hourly, hoping, praying, and yearning for good news, dreading bad news, but compelled always by anxiety to check back since the waiting and the not knowing are too much to bear.
In the early stages, I would argue that departments rightfully have no obligation to provide candidates with information about the status of their search, and this rant is not about that...what it is about is the later stages of the process. Once a candidate has been extended an on-campus interview, one would think that a department would respect the fact that the candidate would be awaiting word about an offer and would most likely be anxious about the outcome of the search. Yet, at this stage where some relationship has formed, some (many?) departments continue to disregard candidates as if they were nameless, faceless applications lying on a desk. They feel no sense of obligation to the candidate and clearly do not respect the candidate's position.
I am continually appalled by the lack of forethought, understanding, or common courtesy that some departments display at this final stage in the process. I know far too many stories of people, including myself, who have interviewed in-person with departments who never received ANY word about the outcome of the search, or only found out the department hired some else by checking the department's homepage or the university's HR website. What kind of people are these who cannot do the decent thing and let someone, whom they have spent time and money on to bring in for a visit, know what has been decided? In a perfect world this would matter little. In a perfect world job candidates would have multiple offers and plenty of options, but in these days this is not the case, and that is why the way a department conducts its search matters.
Many of those who have had these experiences that I have talked to (and please share yours if you have one) frame them by stating that if that is how a department goes about its business they are glad they didn't end up there. I think there's merit to that. I also think that ex-post rationalizations help people cope with disappointments. Furthermore, I can't help but think...why does it have to be like this? Candidates put years of hard work into earning a degree to get these jobs. We are fully invested in the outcome of this process, we bend over backward agonizing over cover letters, run ourselves into the ground practicing job talks, and fret over every perceived misstep following the interview. We want nothing more than to be your colleague, to be a professor...and yet some departments conduct themselves like a guy at the bar scheming for our number just to see if he can get it, while we are the girl wondering if he'll ever call.
I'm not saying the process has to be flowers and kisses and fluffy soft things, but we are sociologists after all...we're is the common courtesy? If we wanted to be treated like this we would've gotten MBA's not PhD's.
Right now it is still early in the market and many offers await the lucky and deserving. So let this serve as a warning to some of you who have interviewed, who are now waiting for word....it may never come... and that is sad, sad thing.
