The academic job market is gruesome, according to the New York Times.
but this year the new crop of Ph.D. candidates is finding the prospects
worse than ever. Public universities are bracing for severe cuts as
state legislatures grapple with yawning deficits. At the same time,
even the wealthiest private colleges have seen their endowments sink
and donations slacken since the financial crisis. So a chill has set in
at many higher education institutions, where partial or full-fledge
hiring freezes have been imposed. [Can you say mixed metaphors?]
Well, I could have told you that. There were no jobs in my field in Northern NJ or NYC this year. Thomas Benton adds,
“It’s hard to tell young people that universities recognize that
their idealism and energy — and lack of information — are an
exploitable resource,” he wrote in a recent column. “If you cannot find
a tenure-track position, your university will no longer court you; it
will pretend you do not exist and will act as if your unemployability
is entirely your fault.”
I would have thought that the public and community colleges would be hiring, since their admissions seem to be up. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
On the other hand, it's gruesome out there for everyone. I'm not sure what occupations are hiring right now.
UPDATE: More commentary at Duck of Minerva.
Apt. 11d 
“On the other hand, it’s gruesome out there for everyone. I’m not sure what occupations are hiring right now.”
There seem to be a lot of scam artists out there taking advantage of people’s hope for an Obama bailout. Mortgage modification scams are big right now, as is legitimate work modifying loans. There’s also legitimate work available cleaning out and tidying up foreclosed houses for resale on behalf of lenders.
I hear that “Jobs for Philosophers” had 23 jobs this spring, and several of those were for positions in Africa.
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Career counselling. 🙂
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A friend who lost his mech eng job is interviewing quite a bit. I’m bummed because they might move, taking my daughter’s best friend with them. 😦
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“I would have thought that the public and community colleges would be hiring, since their admissions seem to be up. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
Why would you expect that? Community colleges are academic institutions, as such, getting approval to fill an existing line is at least a year-long process (it is at my institution), it takes 2 or more years to get approval to create a new tenure-track position. Meanwhile, community colleges are even more strapped than other institutions. Due to low tuition and decreasing state aid, each additional students puts community colleges increasingly in the red (I hope I got that analogy right!).
I’m getting increasingly irked at the attitude re: community colleges, that somehow these institutions are both beneath “the professoriate” and yet supposed to save the academy. A tenure-track job at a community college can be a fantastic gig, IF you can land it, which is even harder than at a 4-year because there are few t-t positions at community colleges (I’d be curious to see the stats, %age of classes taught by adjuncts at community colleges vs. 4-years, keeping in mind that the comprehensives may not have as many adjuncts b/c they rely on TA/RA labor). Furthermore, community colleges don’t have the budget to launch the type of job search that 4-years and comprehensives routinely conduct. A campus visit that puts you up at a hotel, drives you around and feeds you for a few days? Think again! Sending someone (let alone more than one person) to a national convention to conduct preliminary interviews? Not in the budget.
No, don’t expect an increase in t-t positions at community colleges, but if you’re adjuncting, there *might* be more sections of the basics: comp, history 101, developmental math.
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This is not encouraging me to open my dissertation cabinet.
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Collection agencies need callers, apparently.
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I am trying to think what will be good for my kids. There are sort of two questions here: what works in the Current Unpleasantness, and what will work in the Altered Future Which Follows? Will there be an AFWF? Friedman was full of how swell it all can be in his column, we are all going to come to virtue and play Scrabble by candle-light, and wear our cotton clothes until they are used up. Maybe, and in an AFWF it won’t be a good career move to try for a fashion job? But appliance repair will be good? Bus driver, good, leasing airplanes to Hollywood stars not so good? Friedman himself lives about as well as Al Gore, I’ve read, but do as I say, not as I do.
And then there’s the Current Unpleasantness: find work for a bank taking care of foreclosed properties? Set up a business helping older people age in place in their homes?
It does look like the academic model which has been working for many years will change drastically.
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I dunno, one of the persistent thoughts here (and elsewhere, of course, but there are only so many places that I can comment and remain moderately gainfully employed) has been that the academic model has not been working very well.
One of the structural reasons is that there’s no incentive to shut down a PhD program. So people keep coming into a market where there’s not nearly as much demand as supply. Of course that’s not merely a known issue, but a widely known issue. Still, I don’t see any factor that would cause institutions to stop awarding PhD’s.
I wonder, though, about people with PhD’s in non-academic job markets. Is a PhD, say in a humanities or social science field, still perceived as a one-way ticket to academia?
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“Is a PhD, say in a humanities or social science field, still perceived as a one-way ticket to academia?” It doesn’t have to be. Steve has a PhD in history and now he’s in finance. He had to start at the bottom as a temp administrative assistant, but he moved through the ranks really quickly. It was partially because he worked hard and was smart and did have all sorts of skills that did translate into his present position. He also thinks that his supervisors appreciated his degree and that it helped open doors for him. While the work itself isn’t what Steve had planned to do, he was a lot happier when he got out of academia. He doesn’t have to put up with the unprofessional bullshit and the backstabbing that happens here.
I still don’t understand why the community colleges aren’t hiring more. If there are more students, don’t they need more faculty to teach the classes? Or are they just relying more on adjuncts and packing the classrooms of the existing faculty?
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Well, I’m a person in the corporate world who was involved in hiring back when hiring was occurring. What I saw relative to non-specialty PhDs is that a PhD in music, for example, would put you on the same footing as someone who had been in the Peace Corps, or a new college grad. All three would be considered roughly equivalent in terms of direct skills. If you have the luxury of choosing between three well-qualified candidates in this way, then most employers will go with skills + Interesting Background. In this situation the PhD often fares quite well. Maybe it’s the PhD experience or maybe it’s just being older, but in my experience PhDs have better general life skills. (No pitching a fit when the soy milk runs out, for example.) They are easier to manage, which is a big deal to a hiring supervisor.
I have also seen that, while PhDs are expected to start in entry-level jobs, they tend to move up much, much more quickly than those who surround them (provided they enjoy the work and stay motivated). Laura, I think your husband may fit into this category.
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“I still don’t understand why the community colleges aren’t hiring more. If there are more students, don’t they need more faculty to teach the classes? Or are they just relying more on adjuncts and packing the classrooms of the existing faculty?”
I think Wendy answered that. Very little of the CC funding comes from the students themselves, so they’re largely supported by the states (although the occasional foreign student can be a goldmine for a CC). Meanwhile, the states are in awful trouble financially. I think the CCs may be part of the way out of the Current Unpleasantness (since they teach a lot of vocational classes and can requalify people relatively quickly), so I would hate to see the states move in on them first. Also, I think it would be good if the CCs reclaim certain vocational areas that have drifted over to the universities for no good reason.
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The CC’s budgets get cut at the same time their enrollment goes up. So, they don’t have any money to hire either.
Read more here,
Confessions of a Community College Dean
in particular the post entitled, “The Tuition/Aid Tango”
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Colleges across the country are asking professors to take on larger course loads or face salary cuts – therefore, less adjuncts.
It is all over. My husband thinks that anyone entering law school during the next three years is on drugs unless he/she is a trust fund baby or he is a legal golden boy that will cause the professors to give out As down the line. He got hired during the recession in the 90’s, at a top 10, and had tons of job offers – but he was in the top 10%. Even then, though, the bottom 1/3 were not hired and it is 10X worse now. Back then, the largest number of attorneys that were let go at a major firm that did not implode was 19. Go to Above the Law and read the damage this time – the streets are filled with blood which is so against law firm culture that it is shocking. Last month, he watched them fire all the first years without blinking an eye. Minorities, another traditionally safe group in the mostly white rarified world of the Wall Street attorney, were sacrificed at the altar. Never in his career had he seen that happen before. He had a brilliant, black gay attorney get through three major firms (leaving at 4:00 in the afternoon when everyone was billing 2400 hours a year in those brutal days) and no one said boo. It wasn’t worth the risk of a lawsuit. Anything goes right now.
And that 160K is set in stone for now. So, how does that translate? Just like when he was hired, only the real will talent survive. Let’s put this in 1990’s terms. when he went to Debevoise & Plimpton (known as a white shoe law firm) in with him came a class of 57 attorneys ready to make their mark on the world. Most of them had been recruited from harvard, Princeton, U of M, and Yale…he recalls no other attorney being in less than a top 10. One’s legal degree never went on the wall because it was just bad taste. The herd will be culled quickly. By the 3rd year, 4 remained. My husband watched Supreme Court clerks fall along with those who wrote for Law Review – somewhere law becomes another business profession and ceases to be exciting legal muses. the firings were kind, people had a year to clear out and they were paid a decreasing salary while they looked. Who knew who would be a future governor r President – best to do it with stealth. Some, left on their own as he eventually did but many were shown the door. Those that are incapable of pushing the law to their limits, and finding a practical solution for their client’s problems, tended to fade away as they were shoved into less and less important work. Many happily. The 90’s hiring freezes to a dearth of lawyers that led up to the 2400 hour billing years and the 160K salaries and the ridiculous tuitions at second rate law schools who whose students finally had a shot at an AmLaw 100 firm. The schools fooled themselves, and their students, that they could compete with the top 14. Now, they will all be holding degrees not worth the debt accumulated for them. The survivors will enjoy the slow years to a point (my husband appreciated the training and mentoring he got in those lazy days), but the corporate sweatshop awaits when business picks up and there are too few trained attorneys to do the work. Those were the years of husband missing births, a cancelled honeymoon, several canceled vacations, and children who barely saw their father.
If you want to be a lawyer, you can join the party at any time. Do something interesting for the next few years and then go to law school. He has seen first year attorneys as old as 40, and no one bats an eye.
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Susan,
Most lawyers to not work in “white shoe” Wall Street law firms. Most of us are in smaller firms, making good-but-not-great livings, and not working anywhere near 2400 hours per year. My firm has actually hired 5 good lawyers in the page month — some of whom had been laid off by bigger firms.
If you are not specializing in real estate or structured finance, the legal market looks about the same as it did a year or two ago. Where before our firm was often out-bid for top talent, now we are getting a choice of well-qualified lawyers who are suddenly finding big-city practice not to their liking.
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Faculty at a certain community college not far from LauraLand got an e-mail from the college president at the start of the semester, saying essentially that class limits were out the window and that they needed to open up their rosters to as many students as wanted to enter—no regard for seating limits (ie, number of easels in a painting studio) or the natural carrying capacity of a class (ie, how much writing help a professor can give each student in a composition section). This is probably not a singular example; I’d expect it’s happening at ccs across the country.
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Wow, Suze. That sucks royally. Hey, I just blogged about you.
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We just had a meeting today and the dean commented that the estimate is that the budget for our institution for next year needs to be cut by more than 2 million. Tuition will go up a small amount, but we’ve had freezes for the last few years so that doesn’t even begin to cover the difference, moreover, on a campus with fewer than 2,000 students, although a bump in enrollment might seem impressive in terms of percentage, in absolute numbers it isn’t nearly enough to compensate for lost state support.
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