verno80

My statement that most 20C US historians will not land jobs is based on two data sets, both of which independently corroborate the point: 1) my familiarity with the placement of several top departments in the last few years, 2) reverse estimates based on the number of jobs posted. There are a handful of 20C jobs this year, for instance; and yet most decently sized programs are producing at least one 20C americanist a year, if not several more. And then there is the substantial backlog of postdocs, lecturers, and unemployed academics to contend with. Unless the market changes dramatically, we can say with relative certainty that most recent 20C americanists from elite programs are not going to get tt-jobs within the next few eyars. (Anecdotally, a number of professors in their 60s have also told me that this is the worst year they have ever seen.) Complicating generalization, of course, is that the job market segments according to prestige level of program and hiring institution; non-elite programs may have better placement rates. Be careful looking at AHA studies: They tend a) not to break out subfields within US history, b ) be many years old (one of the most cited, for instance, averages data from the completely different era of 1998-2009.) The question about other periods is more difficult to answer. My sense is that the job market for colonial historians, especially, but also 19C historians, has been generally better, though still not great. In addition, the subfields of African American and Gender history tend to be the healthiest. Within 20C, US & the world has been somewhat healthy, though it too is pathetic this year. p.s. one department whose placement record I do not know is Columbia. It just so happens they haven’t updated their placements on their websites since the relatively halcyon 2012. Anyone know if they’ve placed any 20C Americanists lately?

Statistical knowledge is key, and the knowledge for 20C US is this: until the market changes dramatically, an individual 20C UC historian is highly unlikely to ever land a tt-job, even if they persist in research and applying well beyond their PhD. That is what applicants and PhD students need to know: there just aren't the jobs, period. It is not, in 20C, a mere "uphill battle." Yes adjudicting gives you more shots at the market, but you only have a limited window of marketability; you are competing with those few who landed cushy, resource-rich postdocs; and again, and most importantly there aren't jobs. What to do with that information is entirely up to each of us. I don't pretend to have the answer.

I am not pretending to making people's decisions for them over whether they should start graduate school or not. (There are also other questions data like this could impact like how long one wants to commit to a PhD program, whether one wants to develop "employable" skills on the side, etc.) MvlChicago is right that the job market can change in seven years. (In 20C US, it has only gotten worse since 2008; there's long been talk that the market would recover, but this year is the nadir--let's hope!) In my experience, however, many students and even many advisors are unaware of just how few jobs there are. It is not merely, in 20C U.S., an "uphill battle" to get a tt job, and no where near 50% of people who have graduated in recent years in 20C U.S. history will ever get one. For many of us, for instance, there are perhaps 3 jobs we can apply for so far this year, each of which will receive several hundred applications. The backlog of people who have graduated but do not have jobs also means that ABDs are rarely hired at R1s. Certainly almost all if not all of last years R1 jobs went to people who were out several years. Last year's MIT job, for instance, went to someone who got there PhD in 2011. So time to job (for the fortunate few) is increasingly time to degree + several years out; and the number of people applying is not just ABDs and people 1 year out but several years of people blessed with cushy postdocs or (more likely in 20C) eeking out a living adjuncting.

Those applying for US history, and especially 20C US, might be interested to look at the current academic job market. The Academic Job Wiki lists most of them : http://academicjobs.wikia.com/wiki/North_American_History_2015-16 The 20C market has been very bad since 2008. This year it is abysmal.