The Academic Job Market

[Godstopper]

... or lack thereof, should be the title.

Is anyone else in a similar predicament?

I finished my PhD in Jan., and have a one year fellowship at my own institution (this looks good on the c.v, but it is not salaried like the equivalent roles elsewhere ....) and have been applying for suitable jobs.

The number of jobs that I've actually had any business applying for over the entire year? THREE.

Yes. THREE.

I was straightforwardly rejected for one, received good feedback for another (your specialism isn't quite what we want, but please re-apply when we re-advertise something else), and an interview for another.

At my interview for a part-time Teaching Fellow was: someone who has written a book on x, someone coming off a three year post-doc, and someone with several years lecturing experience. These are people that, to me, should be good candidates for lectureships. I got good feedback on my interview, but ultimately, someone was a specialist in x (whereas I am y) and could teach it to a higher level.

That's fine. What's worrying is that this seems to be representative of the situation for humanities PhD's in the U.K. Meanwhile, universities continue to take on PhD students and, frankly, tell lies about their job prospects: not intentionally, but the situation is painted to be a lot better than it is.

Then, if you fail to get one of the three jobs in your area for which about 100 people applied, some regard you as a failure. It was my first ever experience of the academic interview process, and I understand where I can improve for the next time - but the whole worry is that the likelihood of a "next time" seems slim!

So now it is time to keep my head down for the next year and work on pubs (I have one paper out there under review, a second to be sent after presenting at an International Conf in Sept, aim for 3rd by Dec, another over the Spring ....). And by the way, we now have to have more pubs than established lecturers to be even considered for an interview. That's pretty crazy.

Meanwhile, we have ancient Professor's on fractional overpaid contracts who deign to enter the dept. for two hours a week and do no teaching or other duties, and block the way for people like me trying to get started. But then, in these times, I'm not even sure their positions would be replaced.

It is awful, demoralizing, and I would caution anyone thinking about a PhD in my topic NOT to do it if entering academia is your aim.

This is more of a rant. Can anyone empathise ?!

Well, I'll out myself: my field is philosophy.

It's very rare to have specific philosophy post-docs (and even then, the chances of one being within your specialism is low); rather, we end up applying for e.g. the JRF's (that's been a racket this year with the philosophy JRF being someone who failed their PhD but was conveniently at Oxford), the BA postdocs, and the Leverhulme. Few universities offer the latter two, and then it's a two-stage selection process (I went for the Warwick one this year and ended up being one of 30-ish).

Teaching is more common, but again, actual fellowships are rare. They often go to internal candidates and are not advertised externally. The PhD's I know typically bounce around between small teaching jobs for a few years before securing a longer term post-doc, typically between 1-3 years. You now need pubs for a post-doc too, whereas that was once the very opportunity to gain them.

And those getting the post-docs tend to have been funded through their PhD or had a straightforward path relative to others. Working part-time through it has had the unexpected effect of now rendering me ineligible for certain fellowships ("candidates must have completed their phd within three years" I saw the other day ...), and yet, I'd say that's an achievement. Being disabled is another barrier, and being from a working class background is another (the number of wealthy, white, male, Oxbridge educated academics in my discipline is unreal). But things aren't going to change if people like me drop out.

I've been keeping an eye on non-academic jobs. I think I could be happy in an analyst type role (high-level logical thinking), and possibly working for a non-profit organisation. But those aren't options I have to seriously consider ... yet!

If they write "candidates must have completed their phd within three years", they should not mean three calendar years but three years of work i.e. equivalent to six calendar years if you work part-time. I think it would discriminatory against part-time workers, those who had taken maternity or illness leave, to insist on three years. RCUK certainly shouldn't be discriminating in this way. I would check what they mean and if they are discriminating I would suggest filing formal complaints with head of funding body/university etc pointing out that such advertisements completely contradicts the principle of Athena SWAN.

(BTW it's a bit ludicrous to insist on a 3 year PhD anyhow when PhDs are longer in most other countries and indeed in STEM fields in the UK. Spending only 3 years on a PhD doesn't automatically make you better.)

Yes! I am bemused by those who say with great pride "My PhD only took me two and a half years". I always think "Why didn't you take the rest of the time to improve it or expand your research and conclusions?"

A lot of the great early career books from previous generations were written over 6-8 years, which backs up what dancing is saying about this not being a new phenomenon. What is new, however, is the context, particularly the degree of financial pressure that is exerted by the whole notion of student loans as personal debt (even though they aren't really), and the housing crisis, with the insane rise in the price of houses but also in rent in many areas of the country, combined with the prohibitive costs of childcare. I do think that these things pile more pressure on most young people than was felt by previous generations. Add to that the increasing managerialism of HE, the metricization of everything, and pressure to publish early - too early in some cases - and it's quite a toxic mix. For a researcher of any age, it's incredibly difficult these days to say 'I'm working on a really long, involved piece and it will take 10 years'. Yet that's how many, many great books of the past were produced. I do think we are seeing falling standards in some disciplines as a result.

So much time is also being taken up by the need to bring in research income, and so many projects are frankly shit, box-ticking exercises that contribute virtually nothing at great cost in terms of time and money. (Not saying all projects are like this by any means, especially not in the sciences, but it is a big problem in the social sciences.)

Godstopper - I am really shocked that the JRF went to someone who had failed their PhD. Totally with you on the middle class bias of many a&h departments. At university, I can remember a lecturer saying to me 'Ah, I forget, you won't understand this, you went to a comprehensive school'. (It was ancient Greek, and I did understand it because I took lessons at university). My friend who teaches in the stressed English department I mentioned upthread thinks that comprehensive school kids are so far behind when they arrive at university 'they can never catch up'. At departmental meetings at a well-known London institution, academics strongly resisted the idea of slightly lower admissions for working class student on the grounds that the university would be 'encouraging any old riffraff'. I've also heard comments on 'chavs' etc. So much prejudice!

I worry for the future of philosophy departments in the current climate. At DH's institution, they have seriously under-recruited this year, by nearly 50%.

I am not in the humanities so perhaps irrelevant but, despite all the issues mentioned above, things are not worse in my field than they were 15-20 years ago for ECRs.

One of the biggest issues when I was a PhD student was that the PhD stipend was really inadequate in many cities - the stipend was around 400 pounds per month and my rent was at least 300! It was very common to be heavily in debt after finishing your PhD or to have to take an evening job/teach a lot to pay the bills.

And when I graduated there were even fewer postdocs around in the UK - it wasn't until the mid 2000s that things really picked up, following Gordon Brown's investments into science. We still had student loans to worry about - they were smaller but still looming over our heads. And childcare - well, even 15 years ago, for a woman to have a child as an ECR was the final kiss of death to an academic career. At least now it is becoming much more normal for female academics to have children.

Another big issue when I was a student was that UK funding was too poor to allow you to attend big meetings abroad, which are crucial for networking and for picking up what is new and "hot". Nowadays the wide availability of material on the internet helps a lot, as does Skyping, and one can often watch whole conferences online.

It certainly helps that REF is pretty much irrelevant for my field - anyone who gets a postdoc/lecturer job is almost certainly able to produce enough high quality research for REF without much stress.

And while now we indeed have larger loads of admin than academics used to have at least career progression seems to be getting fairer and easier - until 15 years most of my department would stay at lecturer/reader level for their entire careers whereas now you can become a professor even in your 30s or 40s.

So overall I think it's swings and roundabouts compared to 15-20 years ago. Academia is absurdly hard compared to other fields though and arguably not worth it. I'm not sure I would choose to stay in academia if I could make my choices again.

'Failed' might be too strong, but the philosophy one went to someone with a Revise and Resubmit, which as you know, is tantamount to a fail even though it is officially a pass. That irked me because we like to think it is a level playing field, and I put some effort into my application. Though I know such things are a long-shot, it's not helped when you discover these sorts of goings on.

I am shocked that remarks about "comprehensives" and "chavs" would be made in the open! I've never [i]heard[/i] anything explicit, but one only has to look at the predominant social make-up of the discipline. Our institution also takes a large number from private schools (its numbers are not too out of line with Oxbridge). Though I think it is largely true that someone with slightly lower grades may [i]initially[/i] do worse, I also think that, on the whole, most will do well once they understand better what is expected at university level (which they may not have been as well-prepared for).

We recruited for one temporary position this year. Most years ... nothing. Departments in my area tend to be shrinking rather than expanding.

Out of interest: would Revise and Resubmit always be tantamount to a fail in humanities?

In STEM it wouldn't have this meaning at all. Eg. for a subject like pure mathematics - questions from an examiner may simply have suggested a significant improvement or shortening to a proof, it wouldn't necessarily mean that the applicant wasn't very strong.

And in defence of JRFs (at least at the "other" place): there are a huge number of applications, particularly when the field is open, and these are looked at very carefully indeed. There used to be bias to internal candidates but this bias has dissipated at least in STEM, particularly since many of the judging panel were themselves educated outside the UK. However there may well be only two fellowships for 500 applications when at least the top 50 applicants all deserve fellowships... again this is a sign of the few postdocs being offered by RCUK at the moment.

Where I am, we have:

-fail

• major revisions (12 months)
• major revisions (6 months)
• minor revisions (1-2 months)
• pass

To get an outright fail you'd have to be beyond terrible. I can't even imagine how poor the work would be. The standard of pass is not very high, really. I read a thesis from an architecture student recently that I would have failed, but it passed with minors.

Major corrections/12 months is often considered to be a sign of a poor show. However, I think that's a wee bit silly. For a start, the examination process is a bit random, and you do get people who just don't get on with a thesis, or who are difficult - and this is not the candidate's fault always. (One of the best students in my year got majors this way, while weaker students got minors). Also, for many who need to revise while working, a 12 month revision process is actually more sensible than a 6 month one.

It would be better if there were some way of denoting the quality of a thesis other than the time needed to revise it!

For us it goes:

• Pass with no corrections
• Minor corrections
• Major corrections
• Revise and Resubmit
• Downgrade to MPhil/No award

Minors tend to be for things like typos (if they are numerous) and clarifications of minor points (e.g. add a paragraph to explain x). Majors are things like rewrite an entire chapter, or if you have missed a pretty major argument crucial to your thesis. Then R & R is quite a significant re-write: it's given when you have massively misunderstood most of the topic/failed to get to grips with the key arguments/is just plain wrong. I only know one person who got this - most get minors.

Majors is regarded as a bit disappointing, and in practice, an R & R will scupper your chances of being competitive post-doc wise, at least until you have a few pubs to your name and can put it behind you.

I don't regard myself as being competitive for things like the JRF's. I had a less than straightforward path through the PhD, even though the end result was great. For now, it's all about getting some pubs.

You will get there godstopper. Just get that writing done and some papers out!

I'm not a philosopher myself, but I know a lot. What I'd say is think laterally, about how philosophy might be applied wider than just in philosophy departments or in one strand of the discipline- so for example, I know quite a few philosophers working in medical humanities, for example, there's Havi Carel doing phenomenological work at Bristol, but she's a great example in terms of having taken her traditional philosophical background, found a niche (teaching drs and getting funding to do this) and run with it. There's a lot more funding in medicine than in 'straight' philosophy- and she gets mainstream funding such as Wellcome.

I think it's about thinking- who could I team up with, not just in philosophy, but who would find my philosophical take useful- and then building up a network with them.

academic cheerleading squad dressed in mortarboards and gowns goes "RA RA RA GODSTOPPER!" and tosses books, not batons, into the air

Adds the high kicks I still have it

Thanks! :)

I know of Havi Carel, she's quite a force! And that's good advice: I suppose I have seen philosophy as being a bit niche, but I can branch out. My area has overlap with psychology and cognitive science, so there might be scope for collaboration further down the line.

Actually, although it's well meant, speaking as someone 3ish years post doctorate but w/out permanent job, I don't find the 'You'll get there in the end' form of encouragement all that helpful. Not everyone does get there in the end, and not everyone is prepared to make the considerable personal and financial sacrifices required to attain the holy grail of a permanent lectureship. Realistically looking at the number of jobs vs number of people with arts phds, not everyone will get there. Although cheerleading is always nice , of course.

If your work chimes with psychology/cognitive science, you should definitely find link-ups with people in those areas, they are often wanting to put together interdisciplinary panels/projects where coming with a different discipline is an advantage.

anthro if you are an anthropologist, then it is hard to find straight anthropology lectureships, I agree, they are very few and far between. I do think though if you work in a good post-doc you can bounce into other sectors- charity, consultancy, public health. I have a student who has flipped between market-research type jobs and academic ones.

What I find difficult though in giving advice, is that I haven't always predicted well who will go on to be successful- on paper, I probably wouldn't have looked great compared with 200 others at certain time points, but my opportunity came and I ran with it- although there were lots of short-term contracts on the way and I had to switch discipline. If you don't try at all, then of course there is no chance of becoming an academic.

But there is a randomness and luck element, even in being in the right place at the right time, and it's difficult to advise what to do in the face of that.

I'm not an anthropologist sadly, since I think almost anything social-sciencey has much more potential for crossover with the non-academic world than literature, which I'm in. I agree that luck plays probably a bigger role than one would like to admit (I always think of Napoleon choosing his generals...). I also think, looking at recent hirings that I am aware of, that there is a very wide variation in the number of publications, amount of experience etc. that successful candidates have - leading me to think that a lot of it is either pretty contingent or, I have to say (as Godstopper suggests) to do with patronage.

Don't underestimate the transferability of your research skills anthro.

For a while, when I was fed up with academia, I worked in the NHS writing national guidance and policy for a whole area of care. PhD background in a very, very non-scientific area of humanities, and though I did do a biology degree for fun that's hardly 'expertise'. They were interested in writing/research/editing potential, and there were plenty of actual experts on hand to consult in each area & check that you weren't saying something crazy.

That's interesting shove, I hope you're right! That sounds like a really interesting job.

If I can do it, I can't see why you couldn't. Any workplace would be lucky to have someone as qualified as you are!

But I'm not arguing that you should give up. Yes, HE is in a bad way, and yes the jobs market isn't great, but there still are vacancies and someone's gotta get them. I agree that luck plays the most enormous role, and I have a horrible feeling that, in many places, being seen to 'fit' does as well (and this can be unconscious or conscious bias on the grounds of gender, class, race etc).

I do think attitude to risk and 'backing' play are significant too. The people I know who had tough routes in and stuck it out fall into two main types: those with lots of parental or spousal funding (I know someone who had a £500k house as an RA), and those living in smaller houses in poorer neighbourhoods who decided to take a financial hit (more possible in some areas of the country than others).

I suspect the situation has changed because I would guess (and I am just speculating wildly here!) that the relative wages of academics compared to the average has fallen considerably over the last 30-40 years, while we all know that the cost of housing in relation to wages has indubitably risen dramatically. I know several academics who got jobs in their mid 20s and are about to retire who have spent their whole working lives in the city I live in. In their first jobs on lecturer wages, and without other support, they were able to buy houses that are now worth £450-500k, something that is unthinkable for most of those entering the profession to do on their wage packet alone. They are all around 70, so this would have been a good while ago!!

Something like this seems to be true in Germany: www.ehs.org.uk/press/academic-salaries-a-century-of-declining-relative-pay-for-germany-s-top-professors

But there is a randomness and luck element, even in being in the right place at the right time, and it's difficult to advise what to do in the face of that

Yes. Like you Bountybarsyuk I feel that my career - though successful - has been always been by the skin of my teeth a bit. The only job which came easily was my most recent one where I was sort-of headhunted. But that was "easy" because of 20 years of grinding work & a lot of sacrifice. A lot. That's how it feels from the inside, although I think if you looked at it on paper, I look like a sure thing. But a CV constructs one's life narrative backwards, whereas we live it forwards.

Or else I have a deeply embedded case of imposter syndrome.

I suspect the situation has changed because I would guess (and I am just speculating wildly here!) that the relative wages of academics compared to the average has fallen considerably over the last 30-40 years, while we all know that the cost of housing in relation to wages has indubitably risen dramatically

Yes, I think this is a very big part of it. My first house was bought at 15% interest on my mortgage, was tiny, and had no bathroom to speak of. My lovely dad did a lot of the work to get hot water & an inside loo in the house. Then I always had a lodger.

I am not sure that academics have seen their salaries fall that much relative to others in public sector jobs or been hit by house prices particularly worse than others. A lot of people now in their late 60s/70s are living in 500k houses which were bought on one salary, and not even a "graduate" salary at that.

When I was an undergraduate a lecturer salary was around 20-25k, reader just over 30k (and few would progress beyond lecturer/reader). A nice 3 bed city centre terraced Victorian house was around 140k, with a house out of town being 80-100k. So even then it was hard to afford the city centre house on one salary (which would have been possible in the 70s and mabye 80s) but quite possible to do so on 1.5 salaries.

By the time I was a postdoc salaries hadn't changed much but houses had doubled in price. Right now the city centre houses are 500-600k and the out of town houses are 300-400k+. These prices are a problem for pretty much everyone who doesn't commute to London and get a mega salary, not just academics.

On the other hand there are universities in places where housing is still cheap and academic salaries are very good compared to typical local salaries. I'm always surprised that places like Durham don't use this more when recruiting.