What is a history of good placement?

[hibiscus]

How do I judge whether a program has good placement rates?

Sometimes they only seem to list like 6 students, did that mean there were many other similar who didn't make it? 

Should I being looking to see I they went to prestigious unis?

thanks all.

[CulturalCriminal]

Hopefully someone can provide you  a better way of doing this, but there is a time consuming way to get at this. For those programs I know little about but seem to have a good fit, I have at times resorted to looking at the dissertations within the last 10 years in a program. Then, I google where those folks are (especially the people whose committee was led by a potential POI). While it is unrealistic to expect consistent placement in great places, it is a red-flag to me if I only find a handful of folks on faculty pages with the majority of them working as adjuncts or part-time lecturers and only one or two as (at the very least) a visiting professor in a region my partner and I wouldn't feel very safe in.

If you do the same thing with programs that are well-regarded and fit well, there does admittedly seem to be just a few more you might find on faculty pages, but most of those folks are slotted as professors (some TT) at places that are seemingly safer. Those folks that are lecturers are rarely adjuncts and seem to all be in desirable city centers (hard to prove, but my initial guess is that they are only looking for prof gigs in specific cities). Sidebar: This actually connects to (and warrants) why I've posted elsewhere on my distrust of the NRC rankings, as I've done this exercise with NRC well-ranked programs I wasn't familiar with that had a good fit only to find that placement within the last ten years was abysmal.

Edited February 25, 2018 by CulturalCriminal

[TakeruK]

Not in your field, but perhaps applicable across many fields.

When considering graduate programs and where their graduates end up afterwards, I look for programs whose students "regularly" go onto the career path(s) that I am interested in. I don't think percentages/rates are very useful because:

- They are often incomplete unless the alumni and department are especially good at keeping each other up to date
- Because of small numbers, they often have to lump all academic positions into one category for percentages, or all TT positions no matter where they are
- These stats are based on combining a diverse set of people/interests/talents/abilities/experience into the same pool and it's hard to figure out things like who wanted a TT job but didn't get one and who left the field because they wanted to etc.
- Since they are an "averaged" rate across all graduates, it's not clear whether they will even apply to your specific case. Or to put it another way, even if you had no missing students, knowing that it's 40% academic, 40% non-academic and 20% not didn't finishing doesn't mean that you have a 40% chance of getting an academic job, for example. Probabilities and stats are only really useful when it's something measured over and over again but you are just one career outcome.

So, instead, I think it's more important to just see that whatever path(s) you want post-PhD is actually possible for graduates of this program. This tells you a couple of things. First, that the program's degree is valued by the employers of the career path you want. Second, since students have gone through the path recently, it might mean that there are resources to help you get to these career paths. You don't know how you compare to an "average" graduate from the program (this abstract concept doesn't exist in reality anyways) so it doesn't really matter if only 1 or 2 graduates get TT positions at top tier schools or if it's 4-5 graduates because if you are not as good as those 4-5 graduates then you are just as likely to get zero TT job offers as if you went to the school with only 1-2 graduates placing at top tier schools.

[hibiscus]

16 hours ago, CulturalCriminal said:

Hopefully someone can provide you  a better way of doing this, but there is a time consuming way to get at this. For those programs I know little about but seem to have a good fit, I have at times resorted to looking at the dissertations within the last 10 years in a program. Then, I google where those folks are (especially the people whose committee was led by a potential POI). While it is unrealistic to expect consistent placement in great places, it is a red-flag to me if I only find a handful of folks on faculty pages with the majority of them working as adjuncts or part-time lecturers and only one or two as (at the very least) a visiting professor in a region my partner and I wouldn't feel very safe in.

If you do the same thing with programs that are well-regarded and fit well, there does admittedly seem to be just a few more you might find on faculty pages, but most of those folks are slotted as professors (some TT) at places that are seemingly safer. Those folks that are lecturers are rarely adjuncts and seem to all be in desirable city centers (hard to prove, but my initial guess is that they are only looking for prof gigs in specific cities). Sidebar: This actually connects to (and warrants) why I've posted elsewhere on my distrust of the NRC rankings, as I've done this exercise with NRC well-ranked programs I wasn't familiar with that had a good fit only to find that placement within the last ten years was abysmal.

 

16 hours ago, TakeruK said:

Not in your field, but perhaps applicable across many fields.

When considering graduate programs and where their graduates end up afterwards, I look for programs whose students "regularly" go onto the career path(s) that I am interested in. I don't think percentages/rates are very useful because:

- They are often incomplete unless the alumni and department are especially good at keeping each other up to date
- Because of small numbers, they often have to lump all academic positions into one category for percentages, or all TT positions no matter where they are
- These stats are based on combining a diverse set of people/interests/talents/abilities/experience into the same pool and it's hard to figure out things like who wanted a TT job but didn't get one and who left the field because they wanted to etc.
- Since they are an "averaged" rate across all graduates, it's not clear whether they will even apply to your specific case. Or to put it another way, even if you had no missing students, knowing that it's 40% academic, 40% non-academic and 20% not didn't finishing doesn't mean that you have a 40% chance of getting an academic job, for example. Probabilities and stats are only really useful when it's something measured over and over again but you are just one career outcome.

So, instead, I think it's more important to just see that whatever path(s) you want post-PhD is actually possible for graduates of this program. This tells you a couple of things. First, that the program's degree is valued by the employers of the career path you want. Second, since students have gone through the path recently, it might mean that there are resources to help you get to these career paths. You don't know how you compare to an "average" graduate from the program (this abstract concept doesn't exist in reality anyways) so it doesn't really matter if only 1 or 2 graduates get TT positions at top tier schools or if it's 4-5 graduates because if you are not as good as those 4-5 graduates then you are just as likely to get zero TT job offers as if you went to the school with only 1-2 graduates placing at top tier schools.

Thank you both so much Forbes these informative replies. They sound like great methodologies to use which I wouldn't have thought of myself. I really appreciate your help.

 

I am an international student and don't entirely understands the difference between adjunct/tenure track/visiting professor. Could you clarify?

[CulturalCriminal]

 

These definitions can vary, but these are the basics:

Adjunct- part time with no real security as to if or how many classes you’ll teach semester to semester 

lecturer- can be full time, but not paid as well as folks slotted as professors and only has year to year job security 

senior lecturer- full time, paid better than a lecturer but less than those slotted as professors. Have increased job security, but generally not akin to tenure.

Visiting Prof- full time position hired for 1-3 years. Decent pay, but not on the tenure track

tenure track- full time professor that is eligible for consideration to get tenure. Generally given five years of job security to successfully acquire tenure.

Tenured professor- has successfully gotten tenure, meaning they’re relatively secure in being able to teach at an institution for their life. Depending on the University/college, they also may have access to a retirement package after so many years.

 

Essentially, getting a tenure track position is considered an ideal placement, whereas adjuncting is not given you only need a Masters and often have to piece together multiple jobs from different places to survive.

[M(allthevowels)H]

2 hours ago, CulturalCriminal said:

 

These definitions can vary, but these are the basics:

Adjunct- part time with no real security as to if or how many classes you’ll teach semester to semester 

lecturer- can be full time, but not paid as well as folks slotted as professors and only has year to year job security 

senior lecturer- full time, paid better than a lecturer but less than those slotted as professors. Have increased job security, but generally not akin to tenure.

Visiting Prof- full time position hired for 1-3 years. Decent pay, but not on the tenure track

tenure track- full time professor that is eligible for consideration to get tenure. Generally given five years of job security to successfully acquire tenure.

Tenured professor- has successfully gotten tenure, meaning they’re relatively secure in being able to teach at an institution for their life. Depending on the University/college, they also may have access to a retirement package after so many years.

 

Essentially, getting a tenure track position is considered an ideal placement, whereas adjuncting is not given you only need a Masters and often have to piece together multiple jobs from different places to survive.

@hibiscus what @CulturalCriminal said, but with the obligatory adjuncting suuuuuuuuuuuucks. I'm also not sure at what tier medical benefits become part of the package. I think Senior Lecturer at some places?

[TakeruK]

Just to add to CulturalCriminal's response above:

You can divide faculty positions in North America first into three types: permanent/indefinite, term/contract, and "visiting". As the names imply, the first type are like many other real world jobs: you are hired to work with the University and your employment continues until either party decides to end it. The second type are people hired for a specific contracts and their employment ends when that work is completed, but they might be renewed for another contract. The third type I put in quotation marks because it seems like different fields use that word to mean different things, which I'll explain below.

1) Permanent/indefinite positions can then be further divided into two types: "tenure-track" and others. "Tenure" is a type of job security that is almost unique to academia/universities and the point is to protect researchers from being dismissed due to researching controversial** topics etc. (i.e. provides academic freedom). (**by this, I mean things like publishing papers showing that Drug X is harmful without worrying about the company producing Drug X from threatening the school with their money, or by publishing a result finding the school you work for at fault for something without worrying about losing your job because of it).

Most schools use the following ranks for tenure-track positions:

New tenure-track hires are usually hired as an "assistant professor". You normally need a PhD for this position. They don't do any assisting, it's just the name of the rank. After 5 to 7 years, they undergo a tenure review. Each school has a different tenure evaluation but it's usually an in-depth process that spans several months. If the faculty member is successful, they are granted tenure and promoted to the next rank. Many schools have midterm reviews for new hires after 3 or 4 years to address any problems that come up. If a faculty member is unsuccessful in the tenure review, they are usually either dismissed or they might get another chance after X years. But generally tenure review is intense---it's make it or break it. Some schools have very low successful tenure rates (for my field, MIT and Harvard have tenure rates at or below 50% and I have heard of school in other fields with tenure rates as low as 20% to 30%). 

At many schools, once you have tenure, you are promoted to associate professor. (However, some schools, like my PhD school don't have this rank and you skip to the next one). Getting this promotion usually means tenure, a pay raise, and more service responsibilities on department and University committees. At some schools, you must have this rank in order to chair a student's dissertation committee or a committee may have to have some minimum number of tenured professors. This is the point where people start being considered "mid-career" instead of "early-career". For schools that have this rank, I think professors spend between 5-10 years here.

The last rank of the tenure-track is professor (or "full professor"). This is a promotion that isn't necessarily automatic if there is an associate professor rank. Faculty have to earn this promotion and this usually happens closer to the end of their career. I am sure there are some differences between this and associate professor but since my PhD school didn't have associate professor, I didn't really get to see what the differences are. I think it's just mostly more prestige and expectation of leadership within department and university committees. Some full professorships are named, e.g. a school may have a position called "The Gordon Moore Professor of Computer Science". Usually this means the named person or entity has donated money to the school to help fund the professorship position, or there are a few of these positions around and it's how the department/school recognizes a few select full professor for distinguished service.

Overall, the tenure-track positions are researchers and their duties is a combination of research, teaching and service.

For non-tenure track permanent positions, there is:

Lecturers/Instructors: These are people hired specifically to teach courses rather than hired to do research, supervise students or serve on committees. Depending on the school, they may be able to use some of their time to do some research or they might do it on their own time but it's not their hired function. As CulturalCriminal said above, this can also be a term/contract/year-to-year position instead of a permanent one but many schools do hire permanent lecturers/instructors. They might be paid a salary or on a per-course basis. To indicate seniority, there may be titles/ranks such as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer.

Researchers/Research Professor: Similar to the above category, but these are people hired specifically to only do (independent) research for the school. They might also end up teaching a course or two if the school posts a job search for a specific course and they are successful in winning that competition. Researchers are either paid a salary from the school or they fund their own salaries from winning grants. To indicate seniority, the Research Professor may have ranks that mirror the tenure-track ranks (but they are not tenure track), i.e. "Assistant Research Prof", "Associate Research Prof", etc.

2) Term/contract positions. These are not permanent hires but instead when there is some specific work that the department needs, they might hire someone specifically for that status. The most common type is when the department needs to hire a bunch of teaching staff for a large course, perhaps a large survey undergraduate course. At my undergrad, there is an English writing course that every single Arts and Science student must take (3000+ students per year) and the English department certainly does not have enough professors on staff to teach all of us (we were taught in small groups of 30-40 students per class). So, they might hire instructors on a temporary basis to teach these classes. You might get a contract for an entire year or just one semester at a time to teach a specific class. If you do well and they still need your work next semester/year, they might ask you again. But as CulturalCriminal said, there is little job security. There are various names for these types of positions, including adjunct professor, visiting assistant professor (VAP), instructor and lecturer. Yes, there is some overlap in the names. I am not quite sure what the differences are (see above post, as it seems like it's a matter of qualification and job security). "Adjunct" and "visiting professor" have different meanings in my field.

3) "Visiting" positions. This category might only exist in some fields? I've heard many of my friends in other fields talk about adjunct positions and VAP positions but they seem very different from the positions with same or very similar names in my field. I call this category the "visiting position" because the people who are associated with a University in one of these "visiting" positions is generally mainly employed elsewhere.

In my field, a visiting professor is usually a professor at another University or institution. They are usually visiting the host school on their sabbatical from their home school (so this prof is likely someone who is tenured). Most schools don't pay their professors while they are on sabbatical, so a visiting professor may receive pay from the school they visit for the time of their visit in exchange for teaching some courses. If the visiting prof already has their own external funding, then the host school may just provide basic research needs such as a desk, office, library access, etc. Some schools in my field have special competitive programs where these outside profs can apply for a visiting prof position and that might come with a small salary, a place to live, and all of the above.

In my field, an adjunct or adjunct professor is someone who is actually employed outside of the school but has some relationship with the school for mutual benefit. For example, if a school is located near another institution (could be a non-school research center e.g. a NASA center or a national research lab, but it could also be just another school), the researchers/staff there may want to apply for grants normally only available to people at schools and they may want to supervise students. So, the school can grant adjunct status to these researchers---this puts them officially on staff in this specific way but usually does not come with any pay. But this means the researcher can officially be part of thesis committees and apply for grants through the University. It also gives the researcher access to University resources like libraries etc. The university benefits by having more people that can mentor and supervise their students. Also, the University collects overhead on grants that are funneled through them. Generally, it's a win-win.

Another definition of adjunct professor could be at the department level. There are many fields that overlap but might exist under different administrative systems. For example, Biology and Chemistry may be run very differently at some schools (different dept heads, different chain of command etc.). But professors in Biochemistry might be interested in interacting with students and other colleagues from both departments. But a joint-appointment might be difficult to obtain and the departments may not want to split such a position (also it might mean more service requirements for the person with the joint-appointment). So, a prof might be hired in Biology but then applies for and gets adjunct status in the Chemistry department so that he or she is also officially in the other system.

[TakeruK]

4 minutes ago, M(allthevowels)H said:

@hibiscus what @CulturalCriminal said, but with the obligatory adjuncting suuuuuuuuuuuucks. I'm also not sure at what tier medical benefits become part of the package. I think Senior Lecturer at some places?

Oh yeah, forgot to add the stuff about benefits. Usually the permanent/indefinite positions have benefits, including pension/retirement etc. For term/contract positions, it can really vary from school to school. Most schools will have some policy that benefits kick in if you are hired for X hours per week/semester/year. However, due to the course-by-course nature of many temporary instructor positions, schools can avoid paying out any benefits at all by hiring you for just under the minimum number. 

I feel this is super sucky and pretty much unethical but it happens. If the minimum is 4 courses per semester and they need 30 classes taught, they can hire 10 people to teach 3 classes (and pay no benefits at all) instead of hiring 6 people to teach 5 courses (and pay full benefits to those 6). The other concerning trend is that as tenure-track professors retire or otherwise leave, they might replace them with these lower paying, temporary positions to cut costs. 

[CulturalCriminal]

3 hours ago, TakeruK said:

In my field, a visiting professor is usually a professor at another University or institution. They are usually visiting the host school on their sabbatical from their home school (so this prof is likely someone who is tenured). Most schools don't pay their professors while they are on sabbatical, so a visiting professor may receive pay from the school they visit for the time of their visit in exchange for teaching some courses. If the visiting prof already has their own external funding, then the host school may just provide basic research needs such as a desk, office, library access, etc. Some schools in my field have special competitive programs where these outside profs can apply for a visiting prof position and that might come with a small salary, a place to live, and all of the above.

So in the humanities, this is typical different. A visiting professor in humanities and the adjacent interdisciplinary fields tend to not be affiliated with another institution, instead being hired by the institution they are "visiting" to teach for 1-3 years. This is basically the closest to ideal position for folks who don't land a tenure-track professor position. If you look at the CVs of some mostly recent faculty at X university, you'll often see that their first and/or second position were as Visiting Professors (if they didn't do some sort of PostDoc). I've heard it is advisable to apply for both tenure-track and visiting professor positions during the first few years after you are ABD or have the PhD. If it seems things aren't moving around January, start applying to PostDoc positions, followed by full-time lecturer positions a little later. Adjunct positions are often filled at the very last minute (I know people that landed an adjunct position the day before the class started). 

I've never encounter research or adjunct professors in the Humanities, but YMMV.

[Stella_***]

On 2/25/2018 at 3:53 PM, TakeruK said:

Not in your field, but perhaps applicable across many fields.

When considering graduate programs and where their graduates end up afterwards, I look for programs whose students "regularly" go onto the career path(s) that I am interested in. I don't think percentages/rates are very useful because:

- They are often incomplete unless the alumni and department are especially good at keeping each other up to date
- Because of small numbers, they often have to lump all academic positions into one category for percentages, or all TT positions no matter where they are
- These stats are based on combining a diverse set of people/interests/talents/abilities/experience into the same pool and it's hard to figure out things like who wanted a TT job but didn't get one and who left the field because they wanted to etc.
- Since they are an "averaged" rate across all graduates, it's not clear whether they will even apply to your specific case. Or to put it another way, even if you had no missing students, knowing that it's 40% academic, 40% non-academic and 20% not didn't finishing doesn't mean that you have a 40% chance of getting an academic job, for example. Probabilities and stats are only really useful when it's something measured over and over again but you are just one career outcome.

So, instead, I think it's more important to just see that whatever path(s) you want post-PhD is actually possible for graduates of this program. This tells you a couple of things. First, that the program's degree is valued by the employers of the career path you want. Second, since students have gone through the path recently, it might mean that there are resources to help you get to these career paths. You don't know how you compare to an "average" graduate from the program (this abstract concept doesn't exist in reality anyways) so it doesn't really matter if only 1 or 2 graduates get TT positions at top tier schools or if it's 4-5 graduates because if you are not as good as those 4-5 graduates then you are just as likely to get zero TT job offers as if you went to the school with only 1-2 graduates placing at top tier schools.

This is really helpful! I got in a program where the director sent me their entire placement record since 1986, and I feel like it is just like you said - some people got good positions at liberal arts colleges/universities, but others end up in administrative positions/private high schools.

[rising_star]

On 2/26/2018 at 2:00 PM, CulturalCriminal said:

So in the humanities, this is typical different. A visiting professor in humanities and the adjacent interdisciplinary fields tend to not be affiliated with another institution, instead being hired by the institution they are "visiting" to teach for 1-3 years. This is basically the closest to ideal position for folks who don't land a tenure-track professor position.

Actually, there are "Visiting Professor" positions in the humanities. These are, as @TakeruK said, typically for faculty visiting another institution (typically as part of a sabbatical or research fellowship). The key difference here is the stage of one's career. There are also "Visiting Assistant Professor" positions in STEM fields (definitely in biology, chemistry, environmental science, and physics), which are for those in the early stage of their career. I realize that complicates rather than simplifies... I'd also push back against the idea that a VAP is the closest to ideal thing for those who don't land a TT job since there are certainly a number of highly exploitative VAPs out there (e.g., the legendary one from a few years ago that wanted applicants to teach a 5/5 for under $30K).

[TakeruK]

8 minutes ago, rising_star said:

There are also "Visiting Assistant Professor" positions in STEM fields (definitely in biology, chemistry, environmental science, and physics), which are for those in the early stage of their career.

Good to learn something new! I have not yet met someone in this position but I guess I just haven't met enough people yet!

[rising_star]

13 minutes ago, TakeruK said:

Good to learn something new! I have not yet met someone in this position but I guess I just haven't met enough people yet!

Admittedly, they're more common at SLACs than elsewhere but they definitely exist. See links below:

Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science: https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/0000414779-01
Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry: https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/0000414714-01
Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics: https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/0000414802-01

@CulturalCriminal, the term "Visiting Scholar" might be more common in the humanities (e.g., this position at University of Houston: https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/225511-33725)

[CulturalCriminal]

@rising_star I think I might have not been as clear as I could have. There are certainly visiting professors (and visiting assistant professors), it just seems that what we are calling "visiting" differs.

For V.A.P.s it seems every job posting is akin to this one: https://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=176671706&Title=Visiting Assistant Professor of English (Early American Literature)

V.P.s tend to seem much rarer, but this one seems pretty consistent: https://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=176658993&Title=Visiting Professor for English Literature

Neither one of these expect someone to be established faculty somewhere else, with the VAPs worded mostly for candidates that will come straight off of their PhD. Working as a VAP (if not also a Post-doc) seems to be increasingly the standard for recent successful tenure-track candidates. VPs--again, much rarer--are worded to encourage slightly more experienced candidates, but is still noticeably different than what seems to be the STEM version.

[TakeruK]

14 minutes ago, CulturalCriminal said:

Neither one of these expect someone to be established faculty somewhere else, with the VAPs worded mostly for candidates that will come straight off of their PhD. Working as a VAP (if not also a Post-doc) seems to be increasingly the standard for recent successful tenure-track candidates. VPs--again, much rarer--are worded to encourage slightly more experienced candidates, but is still noticeably different than what seems to be the STEM version.

Just wanted to point out that in many cases, the job ad posted could be written to require very little in order to encourage applications and/or not exclude someone that would be really great. However, especially in my field, it is very common for a job ad with requirements implying they are looking for someone currently applying for their first TT job to end up hiring a tenured full professor from somewhere else instead. Or, a job ad might list many subfields of interest but secretly want to hire in one specific subfield only. The advice we get in my field is to contact someone you know (or know through your network) from the department in order to figure out what they are really looking for.

From my understanding / experience on a hiring committee, this is because HR often requires the department to prove that the candidate they selected did indeed meet the job description (to protect themselves and the University from a lawsuit) and it is often time consuming to have to close a search and open a new one because they found someone they liked but didn't meet the job description. 

Note: I'm not really disagreeing with what you said---I don't know how the path to TT in your field works! I'm just pointing out that there could often be a disconnect between what the department actually wants and what they put in their job ad.

[rising_star]

12 hours ago, CulturalCriminal said:

Neither one of these expect someone to be established faculty somewhere else, with the VAPs worded mostly for candidates that will come straight off of their PhD. Working as a VAP (if not also a Post-doc) seems to be increasingly the standard for recent successful tenure-track candidates. VPs--again, much rarer--are worded to encourage slightly more experienced candidates, but is still noticeably different than what seems to be the STEM version.

I actually think that Visiting Professor/Scholar positions are probably less rare than you think even in the humanities/social sciences. Their aim is to entice a top scholar to visit their institution for a semester/year and then hopefully lure them away from their current position. You probably don't hear about them much because of the stage you're at but they're definitely out there in all fields, not just in STEM.

Also, I'd push back on the "slightly more experienced" part of your statement. Many of the visiting scholar/professor positions (that is, those without "assistant" in the title) are very much looking for someone with years of experience. When they say that the title and rank depends on experience, they're explicitly saying that they are open to applicants of all career stages and willing to pay what it takes to get someone that's currently an associate or full professor elsewhere. 

This is so far away from the original thread, sorry. My recommendation to anyone and everyone applying to or currently in graduate school is to get in the habit of reading job ads regularly so you can identify trends and familiarize yourself with what's available, where the jobs are, and what materials they ask for in the application process. Anything else and you're doing yourself a great disservice. You can also then later follow up to see who got those positions (by checking the institutional/departmental website) and looking at their CV to get a sense of the qualifications needed. Obviously that won't tell you everything since much can happen on the phone, via Skype, and in-person but it will give you a sense of general expectations for those starting off in your field.

[CulturalCriminal]

I apologize for letting this slip so far away from the original purpose, instead drifting into semantics. I’ve only been keeping an eye on the job boards for the last few years, so I suppose I assumed the lack of Visiting Professor/Scholar positions (I’ve seen less than four in three years) with it being relatively rare. In earlier posts I’ve used visiting professor interchangeably with visiting assistant professor becuase of this rareity, but there is a clear difference and I defer to the folks with all the rank dots on this matter.

Getting back to original topic, I try to gauge how effectively a program can place people by seeing if grads are in tenure-track positions. As this is my end goal, this is what I focus on. A visiting assistant professor position would be the next ideal slot I’d look for. As mentioned earlier, these can be exploitative, but so can lecturer positions. Because I’m looking at only the past 10 years, I don’t see much else besides adjunct and lecturer positions from seeing where folks are landing. Essentially, I look at if relatively recent grads are landing in the types of positions I want or if they’re making progress to be a candidate similar to the candidates who have gotten TT offers in similar programs that are in my geographical area (especially my current uni, where I always try to attend the research review and guest lecture aspects of the final interview process).

Edited March 4, 2018 by CulturalCriminal

[rising_star]

On 3/4/2018 at 8:58 AM, CulturalCriminal said:

Because I’m looking at only the past 10 years, I don’t see much else besides adjunct and lecturer positions from seeing where folks are landing. Essentially, I look at if relatively recent grads are landing in the types of positions I want or if they’re making progress to be a candidate similar to the candidates who have gotten TT offers in similar programs that are in my geographical area (especially my current uni, where I always try to attend the research review and guest lecture aspects of the final interview process).

If you're looking at the last ten years, there ought to be some people who have gotten tenure and/or been promoted to Associate (these are separate things at some institutions). If not, then that's also a concern. When I look at my PhD institution's placement list, there are several people on there who finished in the last ten years and whose current job status is one with tenure. That's also where I plan for my own career to be in ten years (that is, not just getting/having a TT job but actually getting tenure in that job) so that would be important to me. Of course there are many factors in whether one gets tenure, but the professional development one receives in grad school is a big factor.

[MandarinOtter]

I want to plug this 2015 study in Science. Tenure-track hiring networks are highly hierarchical, *not* meritocratic as *so many* people in academia claim. Observed differences are so steep that they cannot be explained by "best schools attract the best students." The old one "It doesn't matter where you go, it matters who you work with" also seems to be untrue given this data. If you want an R1 tenure-track job, you need to go to a top 10 institution by placement - or even better, top 5 (its that steep). Fit and advisor still matter, but institution name is clearly king. 

 

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005