Job after PhD?

[Webster]

I am wondering how difficult it will be to land a job with a PhD from a sociology program such as University Wisconsin-Milwaukee. It is not a well known program because they just started their PhD program this fall. If I am seeking a teaching job at a university will they be sifting for top 20 programs on a resume such as Berkeley, Wisconsin, Chicago, UNC, etc? What are univerisites looking for besides the program in which one obtained their PhD? Any insight is appreciated.Thank you all.

[Amogh]

I am wondering how difficult it will be to land a job with a PhD from a sociology program such as University Wisconsin-Milwaukee. It is not a well known program because they just started their PhD program this fall. If I am seeking a teaching job at a university will they be sifting for top 20 programs on a resume such as Berkeley, Wisconsin, Chicago, UNC, etc? What are univerisites looking for besides the program in which one obtained their PhD? Any insight is appreciated.Thank you all.

If they just started their PhD program, i advise you to be wary unless they have superstars there as professors. That said it's not really the prestige(thought that helps too) that lands you a job but the quality of your work, your publications, invited talks, conference presentations, your personality that count. So try to avoid UW-M if their program is brand new unless you feel you are ready for a crazy uphill struggle. of course with a new place comes a lot of freedom too and probably very enthusiastic teachers too but just be careful with what you are getting into.

[jacib]

If they just started their PhD program, i advise you to be wary unless they have superstars there as professors. That said it's not really the prestige(thought that helps too) that lands you a job but the quality of your work, your publications, invited talks, conference presentations, your personality that count. So try to avoid UW-M if their program is brand new unless you feel you are ready for a crazy uphill struggle. of course with a new place comes a lot of freedom too and probably very enthusiastic teachers too but just be careful with what you are getting into.

A general rule of thumb is that, in terms of rankings, people tend to find jobs at schools of an equal or lower level of prestige to their graduate school, and it is rare (not unheard of but rare) to get a tenure track job at a department classed in higher group of schools, though there are exceptions (Yale, for example, is not ranked among the very very top sociology departments, but I think they have decent placements). You need to be doing some pretty rad work though to "move up", or be willing to work in a non-tenure track capacity. Tenure-track job openings frequently get dozens (often in excess of a hundred) applications, I believe. There is apparently a huge range of people applying for jobs.

People at the top jobs come from a very limited number of schools (someone ); I get the impression that sociology is ironically does more sorting by prestigious-scoring degree granting institution than some other fields (less than others too of course; I hear anthro has some very very highly regarded departments and people from those schools are much better placed than schools ranked even slightly lower, but that's all second hand knowledge, I've never looked into it). I get the impression that sociology has less upward mobility and less downward mobility than most fields though (bracketing people who were geographically limited in where they could search). My best advice is to look at the kind of school you see yourself working at. Where did those people get their degrees from? I'd disagree that one should be wary of new programs inherently; Rice for example will probably have pretty decent job placement out of the gate, I bet.