Will we ever get jobs?

[manierata]

Hello out there--

So, as I embark into this undiscovered country known as the PhD in Art History, I'm becoming overwhelmed by the feeling that, after spending the better part of a decade wasting away the hours in a library, becoming an expert on something that no one in the rest of the world will ever care about, I will emerge, an unemployable butterfly from the cocoon of academia.  

 

Am I the only one feeling this way?

Is there hope?

If not, and we know it already, why are we still doing this?

Am I wrong to believe that someone has to get a tenure-track job, so it might as well be me (or you, or the person next to you)?

What can we do to increase our chances of getting a job one day?

 

Someone say something encouraging!  In the immortal words of Sheryl Crowe, "Lie to me, I promise I'll believe."

[Seeking]

Although there is a lot of competition in the field of Italian Renaissance, Chicago has a good track record in sending its Grad students into academic jobs.

 

You have a fair chance of getting a job, either in a university or in a museum. 

[manierata]

Yeah, I wonder though if this is part of the fallacy.  "I'm going to a good school, so I'll get a job."  or  "I spoke at these conferences, so I'll get a job."  or "I got published in this place, so I'll get a job."  or "I got this award, so I'll get a job."  Not all these people are getting jobs!  

 

I wonder what actually is the best way to ensure that you're marketable for the handful of jobs that will be open on the entire planet the year that you earn your phd.  Thoughts?

[Swagato]

You're headed to Chicago, good friend. It's one of the leading programs in the history of art in the country. It's as good of a hedge you can make for future employment within academia. My own journey toward the PhD has been similar. I made a bargain with myself that I'd only pursue the tenure-track dream IFF I could land a spot in one of the top programs for my field (history of art and film and visual studies). That happened, so now I'm set in this trajectory.

 

For me, what matters most is training at a program that is among the most prominent for my areas of specialization. Equally, the program must have prominent faculty with a respectable history of excellent post-PhD placements, and there has to be a very strong research fit. I'm lucky enough that I can say "yes" to all of these qualifiers as far as Yale's program and departments go. 

 

I also think that departmental and institutional resources matter greatly. Does the institution allow access to impressive research facilities? Does it have any unique facilities that set it apart from peers? Does the department offer any unique assets to graduate work in a certain discipline? If your institution publishes some of the top journals in your field, obviously that is a very good thing.

 

Finally, I think all of the above factors, taken together with the implicit quality of the students that would be your peer group, as well as the various doors that may open for you (conferences, publications, research grants, awards, travel fellowships, and the like)...all contribute toward building a compelling CV.

 

It's difficult to achieve a "golden" matrix that can optimize all these factors (and some more that I've no doubt missed). But what we can do is to try and maximize each criterion. In any market, that's the best you can do. 

[oh_la_la]

I'm glad to see that this question is being addressed on this forum because no one should assume that they will have a job on the other end: it is the new normal to finish your PhD in art history and wait several years before landing a job (I was able to finally land a tt-job a few years after I finished and I could not be happier).  But I have several friends from top-tier (ivy and R1: the issue is widespread) institutions who have not found jobs.  It's common and it sucks.  There simply are not enough awesome jobs to go around.  Here are my two-cents from having been on the academic job market for 2+ years.  This advice is directed toward those who wish to pursue a TT-job at respectable R-1 institutions and represents my own perspective as an applicant and now as asst. prof who sat on a hiring committee this year: 

 

1. The quality AND dynamism of your dissertation.  This is by far the most important factor in earning you a job at a top tier institution.  If your dissertation is on a random artist that only people in your field care about, you are making your life harder.  There are several caveats to this: if you're going to work on random, meaning non-canonical artists (and for what it's worth I work on artists who nobody has heard of), then you have got to put your artists/image makers within a frame that resonates for readers outside of your field and that has "big picture" implications.  If you can figure out how to write this kind of a dissertation, you will be able to win external fellowships, since the committees who evaluate applications are often interdisciplinary: Fulbright, ACLS, AAUW for example.  It goes without saying that you need an awesome adviser to write this kind of dissertation; that is why I have consistently advocated on this forum that you should attend a phd program where you will receive individual and careful attention when you are writing: I'm sorry to say this, but at some ivies, this does happen. Proceed with caution; talk to the grad students when you're shopping around.  See if your potential advisor actually reads chapter drafts, comments on them extensively and returns them to you in a timely manner: you would be surprised how rare this is.       

 

2. Professionalism: this has a lot to do with people skills and it's a huge factor in hiring decisions.  They don't want to hire a grad student, they're looking for a colleague.  Based on some of the nasty comments on some of these forums, I'm thinking that there are some folks who really need to work on this.  Grad school is a good place to do so.    

 

3. Teaching ability: how good of a teacher are you and can you teach across periods and media?  I had to market myself to teach a much broader area than I specialize in.  It's now normal for someone who studies 19th-c to be able to teach 18th-c through contemporary; likewise, if you are writing a dissertation on the 18th-c, you should be able to teach Baroque and Renaissance.  Get as much teaching experience as you can before going on the job market; try to teach your own classes too.  

 

4. You should not, I repeat, NOT rush to publish parts of your dissertation while still in grad school.  Publish one thing in a really good place, but do not try to go for every opportunity that you can find.  When you're on the job market as an asst. prof, committees do not expect that your C.V. be full of fancy publications: it's not a question of quantity, but of quality.  My advice: write exhibition reviews and book reviews; if you can, try to prepare one article as you are about to defend your dissertation.  When you're in grad school, you might not be ready to have you work out there quite yet, especially if it's going to be the basis of your book.  Go to conferences and meet other people in your field.  BE NICE TO THEM.  Cultivate relationships with junior and senior scholars in your field. Find mentors outside of your program.  Organize a big conference. 

 

good luck.  make sure not to assume that you are going to be hired immediately upon graduation.  In fact, you should actually assume that you will end up with nothing your first year on the market.  Also: many postdocs are far more competitive than tt-jobs.  To this end, if you can, try not to go into debt at all during grad school.  I had no debt upon graduating and this made my life MUCH easier.  Try to cultivate other skills that you can earn a living with while you wait to find your dream job.  

 

GOOD LUCK. 

Edited April 18, 2013 by oh_la_la

[anonymousbequest]

I would echo nearly everything that oh_la_la has said, from my slightly different perspective as someone who sits on fellowship committees (pre and post doc).  All of your CVs will look about the same if you are reasonably smart. CAA has lots of panels every year, so chances are you might have given a paper there or maybe at your field's major conference and a handful of grad student conferences.  There are a limited number of fellowships so I'm not overly impressed when I see a CASVA, Fullbright, ACLS, etc... I expect them.  I would be impressed by a publication in a major journal but don't care so much about book reviews (and neither will tenure committees). They are a lot of work for little reward.

 

The most important thing is the work.  Is it interesting, does it seem it necessary, will it make a difference, and is it presented in a way that makes the first two obvious?  Secondarily, letters of recommendation.  I do care who they are from to a certain extent, it's helpful if I know and respect the person's work, but not where they are from.  What I care about is how excited the recommender seems about their student's (or colleague's) work.  I've seen great letters of rec that complement proposals to such an extent that they seem almost like extensions of the applicant's own thinking.  That's a strong letter.  I've also seen letters from very prominent folks at august institutions that are either cursory or more about their own work than their student's/colleague's.  Those weaken the application overall.  Oh_la_la's advice about choosing your advisor wisely is CRITICAL.  Ideally when you start to go to conferences and meet senior people in your field, some will have already heard about you.  If you don't have such an advocate or your advisor is not active within the field, you are at a disadvantage.

 

I think I would also add that you should pick a minor field that gives you maximum teaching range.  You are a medievalist? Great, how about a minor in contemporary Chinese art? It's a little gamesmanship but in the best light speaks to your intellectual curiosity. 

 

The last is important because... I'm guardedly optimistic that those who want them will eventually get jobs. BUT that TT job may be at a satellite campus of Middle of the State You Never Wanted to Live In Oh No Where's The Whole Foods University. And you may be the only art historian, and you may teach a 4-4, and you'll make $35,000, and the library might be terrible, and there is no research/travel funding, and your students may be as dumb as a box of rocks.  But you'll be living the dream.  This could happen to you regardless of the ranking of your program. There are just a few Ivies, public and private R1s, and top tier liberal arts colleges but lots of middling public and private schools everywhere.

 

I would say that all of Oh_la_la's advice and what I just wrote stands for those of you who want to be museum curators as well.  Do try to write a dissertation that could be adapted into an ambitious exhibition and catalogue though.

[oh_la_la]

@anonymousbequest: you are so right about "Oh No Where's The Whole Foods University." Not having a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe's was really hard to deal with at first.  More to point, it's soooooo important to be realistic about the very real possibility that you may end up taking a job in a place that you would never have considered living in.  I agree completely will all of your excellent advice!

[Seeking]

Although on an intellectual plane I agree with Oh_La_La and anonymousbequest - this is how it should be - but unfortunately, I have seen too much of the other kind of appointments happening.

 

I have seen people with interesting dissertations, major book publications with prestigious international publishers, interesting conference presentations being sidelined by absolutely unpublished, non-descript PhDs from the T-20 who eventually got the job - and didn't publish much even after getting the job.

 

I have seen it happening over and over again.

 

So, till I actually see a non-T-20 PhD with an interesting research in a larger picture etc getting the job over and above a non-descript, non-published T-20 PhD, I am not going to be convinced that this actually happens in the US (in the whole of the Western world perhaps).

 

Honestly, all those who sit on the hiring committees - if there is a choice between a non-published Ivy or Chicago non-descript PhD candidate and an interesting PhD from The Not so Famous University, with a book from a prestigious international publishing house, whom would you choose?

 

I have to see the latter getting hired over the former to believe it. 

 

I too would like to believe that the US academia gives really a fair deal to the candidates and recognizes the quality of their research more than where they came from, but it doesn't happen quite often.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Seeking

[oh_la_la]

@Seeking: I completely see where you're coming from, but if you take a look at who gets jobs on the jobs wiki, I think it's a more diverse picture than you present.  I also think that it's not surprising that the "top 20" programs score the most jobs, given that they all probably churn out the most PhDs. 

[manierata]

hey oh_la_la--what jobs wiki are you talking about?  Thanks!

[BuddingScholar]

I am assuming it is this one: http://academicjobs.wikia.com/wiki/Academic_Jobs_Wiki

[anonymousbequest]

I also think that the job market is more diverse than just saying that only PhDs from T-20s get all the jobs (and then don't publish, which is catty and smells like sour grapes to me). It has been traditionally true that graduates from 15-20 programs end up teaching in those same programs for reasons both good and bad.  And it's true, sham searches with pre-chosen candidates do still happen at some Ivies.

 

BUT there are also some pockets of regional strength in the mid-west and south, for example.  Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Emory, Penn State are all fine choices, but you might have less of a shot at that TT at Yale than if you were from Harvard (except maybe in African from Iowa) but you may go to Nevada Reno, Auburn, or Missouri Springfield.  It's all relative, and frankly if you had your heart set on that Yale job, it would have helped to have kicked ass in undergrad at an Ivy, top R1, or top tier LAC which feed into the T-20 grad programs, which meant that you would have needed to kick ass at a great high school that feeds into those undergraduate colleges, which meant that you most likely needed to be born into some kind or privilege or have had highly motivated parents, etc. etc.  Dig too deep and it gets a little ugly.

 

I hope that most of you admits are not navel-gazing about what may or may not happen 8 (or 10) years from now.  Cheers!