Hi all. So, I'll be on the job market in about a year's time, and I'm starting to prepare job application materials and do a little planning. I notice that in my conversations with more advanced peers (especially people currently or recently on the job market), they always seem to have a good sense of whether the market for our discipline (history) is "much stronger than last year" or "really bad" or whatever.
How does one even get a sense of these things beyond hearing just hearing other people's impressions? All I ever hear is the doom and gloom about the humanities job market. I can look on the job listings from the Chronicle, my main academic association, etc, but do people actually count up postings from each year and compare? Are there any websites where I can find this kind of data?
Ultimately I guess it doesn't matter that much - I'm going to be applying for these jobs anyway. But it just makes me feel a bit under-professionalized to feel that I can't speak confidently about how the job market in my field is doing, how it's changing, etc. All I know is that it's bad, and it's difficult to get a good job.
Thanks!