notified via snail mail Feb 25, 2008 that position is filled.

• It shouldn't hurt, and it might help in ways you don't expect. For instance, submitting an updated CV with a couple more pubs that had gotten to the in-press stage, got me a starting pay bump from the U. that's hiring me. It also might draw some eyes to your CV for a second look.
• I did this when I had applications out and I think it was worth while. It does force them to pick up your folder again as well as check for what the change was. Plus, it shows that you have papers being accepted, which never hurts. I also added a clause like "if my application is still relevant, here is an update", which prompted two places to let me know that I was still being considered and one to let me know that they were about to call me about a campus visit.

• You might want to call and ask the chair the reason that the position is going to be readvertised, as in what it was about the current crop of folks (including you) that interviewed that they didn't like enough to offer the position to them (and I would guess you should ask specifically what it was about you that they didn't like, because, hey, they know you're available). Was it an administrative decision due to funding or something like that? Might save some heartache down the line if you ask the hard quesitons, but if you take the temp job, it might also give you a chance to impress upon them how great you are so they can't avoid hiring you next year.

• I dunno about that. I have accepted an offer but still check to see what's happened with my outstanding applications. Maybe it's because my motivation for my current position is shot.
• Since everything is self-reported, all the questions are somewhat biased, often by the order they were put in (f'rinstance, see the spousal question- it came on late and appears rather undersubscribed). However, I will keep updating, despite being more-or-less 'done' with the process myself, because I benefited quite a bit from others' postings, and something I find out might help somebody else. Seems to me any data, even biased data, can be helpful in the face of a daunting market for sellers like us.
• the whole point of this page is to offer information that benefits the whole community, not just ones own cause, so that fewer people are in the dark about a really (inexcusably? unavoidably?) murky process. The page doesn't completely clear up the murk, but it gives an idea of the morphospace of the market and people within it and is a heck of a lot better than knowing nothing. Its an imperfect, but valuable, tool.

• For sustainability science? Two weeks ago, I heard they've decided and were about to make offers, but I haven't heard anything since
• There was an article this week in Nature (4/9) that Billie Turner, who was a senior prof at Clark U in geography, has joined ASU for sustainability. Don't know if that was a result of that job search specifically or head-hunting.
• Is that the son of the botanist of the same name?
• Not sure, but likely. I recall hearing him say once that his father was in the national academy. He does land use/land cover from more of a social science perspective.

• It's not your imagination, rather, it's the normal seasonality of the t-t job market. From now until next August or so you'll see mostly shortterm teaching jobs with the rare off-cycle tenure-track job listing, when you see anything.
• Yeah, I'm aware of the cycle, but this seems unusually stagnant. Usually, you see a lot of small poor schools advertising now to replace faculty who moved to better slots. Not really seing the wave pattern like in the last few years. Usually, it dies in April, it seemed to die in Feb, maybe even late jan.

• Sorry mate, you're a finalist on "The Bachelor" at this point. You know they are going on other dates and you just have to hope that the other contestants have "crazy eyes" or extremist parents. You just have to hope that they like you the best and hand you the rose in the end.
• You sit on your hands, but by all means send a note to everyone you met thanking them for their time and consideration. Tailor the notes for each person. They may not be allowed to write back, so don't take it personally if they don't.

• They interviewed seven people, and I believe they made offers to two people in late March. The department should be advertising/hiring for more positions in the next few years to compensate for recent retirements and losses.

• Interviews for the Molecular Evolution position are underway.

• Listed here [1]. They are 10 month positions..
• I did not apply for them but saw recent ads for at least 3 different positions at Stony Brook.
• It is hard to mix up years when deadline is February 29.

• The top two people who interviewed were offered but turned them down, and now it looks as though they are bringing more people to campus for interviews. This may be why no one received a rejection letter so they had back up options.
• They interviewed at least two more recently, and at least one of them rejected.

• According to the edits, I think it was deleted on Revision as of 15:03, 24 February 2008 by 68.41.165.230. Weird thing is that a few other universities were removed Texas Christian University (Animal Physiologist) and LSU (Systems physiology) and I don't think these have reappeared on this page either.
• Sorry, the page timed out when being updated. Have posted the info now.
• Was this an animal physiologist position or entomologist? The earlier post was for an entomologist.

• After interviews are over, it could be one day to 3 weeks depending on how much the upper administration has to do with the decision.
• 2-3 weeks
• incense and goat sacrifices
• It depends on where you were in the interview schedule (obviously, if you were first you will have to wait longer), but 2 or 3 weeks after the final interview is probably a decent amount of time for a committee decision to get approved. Any more than a month and it might be worth contacting the chair to inquire about the status.
• One of things I always do when I'm on the interview is ask for a rough time-line of when they plan to make a decision. This has the added bonus that committee members will often divulge info related to how many interviewees there are and where you are in that line.
• This is brilliant! I tried this on my last interview and, among 2-3 faculty, got the whole story ... # candidates, rough schedule, when decision was expected. Still waiting to hear, but at least I know when to expect the call. Thanks!
• One note of caution, however, that I've learned from people who have used this 'technique': always add a week or two to the date they tell you to expect to hear something, as it almost always takes them longer to make a decision and get it cleared by the higher-ups.
• Is it ever appropriate at this stage to contact them and ask what the status is? Or should I just tough it out and wait in silence?
• Of course it's o.k. for you to contact them. In fact, if the search committee is having a difficult time making a decision, sending them an e-mail asking about the status of the search and reminding them how much you would love to work with them may be enough to get you the job over someone else. Good Luck!
• Well, while I was wavering over whether to call, they called me to offer me the position!

• I heard that they actually wanted a cell/molecular/biochemist rather than the genomics/evolution position that they advertised for (some of the molecular faculty were on sabbatical when the ad was written). Those who came to interview turned out to be not what they wanted (Rather, they were what they advertised for. Funny, that.) So when their offer to the most molecular of the four candidates was declined, they cancelled the search outright. As one of those four candidates, I would like to have heard that news directly from the search committee (still no word from them after an early November interview!) rather than through the grapevine.
• Wow. What a mess. I'm sorry that you got caught up in it. Yeah, it would have been nice if the search committee had had the consideration to tell you themselves. Thanks for sharing what you heard.

• They said they were trying to narrow a short list by the end of last week (2/15), but I haven't heard anything else. No reason to believe they have an inside candidate, just a late search...
• I received a rejection letter ~mid April indicating that they filled the position.

-- I got a letter saying the field had been narrowed to 3...

• I applied too; haven't heard anything back yet.
• Just received a letter (2/22) saying the 'search is closed' - not sure if that means canceled or someone actually got hired.
• I got the same letter - pretty terse it is.

• Amazed, yes - and appalled... but maybe the original posters of these jobs burned out and have not come back here to update? And those of us still hanging out happen to not have been the applicants for those particular jobs? Does seem like an awful lot, though. Weird.
• After reading your post I checked to see how many of the jobs I'd applied for were still in the no news category: Six with the earliest deadline being 12/15. I'm sure its a mix of things... posters have not kept track, those who made cuts or got offers are not using this wiki, etc. After not getting an offer following an interview, I emailed all those who had deadlines at least two months earlier to see where my applications stood. Some were done and had yet to send out rejections, others were in the interview stage while only one did not respond. One resulted in a query as to whether I was still interested as they wanted to contact my refereneces (pure coincidence but good for the ego). In the end, it allowed me to do some wiki housekeeping and to stop wondering what was going on with mostly long dead applications. If they've had plenty of time, a polite email asking for the status of a search is perfectly acceptable.

• I haven't seen any numbers, and I'd actually be surprised if there are any out there, but I have yet to meet someone that wanted a faculty position that didn't eventually get one.
• I don't know of any stats on this. Once you're out of academia, you're difficult to track for these purposes. Based on the numbers available here, the average position gets 120 applicants (not including the Burke position, which is anomalously large), while the average applicant applies for about 13 jobs (rough estimate from SurveyMonkey). That would suggest to me that there are a lot of people who are not getting faculty jobs. Whether they move on to something better, of course, is an open question.
• Hi, it's the original poster again. It's interesting that we have two opposite views. My own leanings are towards the former, simply because we all send in many applications for a few years, but of course, using the second person's numbers, we'd all need to apply for 12 jobs a year for a decade to make it likely that we'd all succeed. Anyone else have any thoughts?
• Most of the folks I know that left the field did so soon after graduating. This was generally due to the person not securing a postdoc. If a person manages to find a halfway decent postdoc position, they will more than likely land a faculty position in my experience.
• My personal opinion? Your CV gets you and interview and random luck gets you a job. Once you are to the interview stage the idea of objectivity goes out the window and everything becomes a subjective free-for-all with many people looking at how you might work with or compete with them for resources and students. As long as you are getting interviews, the odds are you will eventually get hired. Unless you have a tatoo of swatstika (sp?) or something platered across your face!
• Always look at the variance along with the average. I've known people who spent 5 or more years looking for a t-t position, with dozens of applications every year, and other people who were hired for t-t positions immediately after finishing their programs (i.e. no postdoc). Personally, I spent ~3 years primarily as an adjunct lecturer (along with an unpaid postdoc at a second university), applied for ~25 jobs this year, interviewed at a few and luckily was offered a position at one. Keep trying- it will happen.

• I'm guessing you made the short list. I had a missing part of the application and they told me I had until the end of Friday to get it in, so they are still deciding who to invite. Good luck.
• I also applied to for the Case Western position. Rejection letters/emails have been sent out, I did not get one, and they are apparently doing phone interviews now. I have not heard anything from them. Anyone know what is going on?
• I too have not received a rejection letter, nor an invitation for a phone interview or anything else. I don't know if they missed people or are holding people in reserve.
• Ditto above. Its pretty late in the game for scheduling interviews, let alone doing phone interviews. I'm hanging in there realizing that many folks are either receiving offers or will by the end of the month, so I'd guess "reserve" is likely where we are. But I know of at least one search where after not inviting someone to campus after giving them a phone interview (and telling the candidate such), they went back and did invite them because the people they had invited had offers in hand and therefore declined the on campus interview. That's embarrassing and doesn't reflect well on the department, let alone encourage the candidate that the department is excited about them.

• Received a rejection email on Friday 02/22/08.

• They interviewed 4 candidates back in December. I haven't heard if anyone has accepted yet (no announcement so far). They had >160 candidates.

• They invited candidates for interviews on 02/08

• I have a friend that delayed originally for a year, and then another quarter, and the school waited without issues... We also had a young faculty member delay here for a year to finish up a prestigious postdoc, and that seemed to be okay, so it never hurts to ask.. These delays were both at larger universities though.
• Two of my friends had other post docs lined up and then received an offer. They both delayed their appointment with no problems at all. My sense is that larger research schools have no issue at all with this, smaller schools are a bit more concerned with covering your teaching load.
• I was working at a non-TT last year at a institution where two of the newest hires asked for 1 to 2 semesters delay until they finished a postdoc/other research. While both requests were granted, it did create a reasonable amount of disgruntlement. The department needed the teaching loads covered, and were frustrated to have to wait another year to have that covered. So tread carefully - I do think delaying appointments can put you two steps back when you start and are trying to build relationships in the dept. Let alone pave the way for tenure... people have long memories, unfortunately.
• I am trying to delay appointment for a semester to start a postdoc and accept funding, start a project, and dataset that will allow me to "hit the ground running" (and bring some money with me for a student/research) once I arrive. If I have to start in July, the funding and postdoc will have to be declined as it will make it impossible for me to get the necessary field work started. Unfortunately, the school I'm negotiating with is reluctant as they've been burned by candidates delaying, then not coming at all. Still negotiating, I hope something can be worked out. Any thoughts?

• I would say business casual all-the-way for ecology jobs, and be comfortable (it's what I've done). I think as long as you're well put together with a new collared shirt and pants and nobody on the search committee would think twice. What I've heard is to aim just higher than what most of the faculty would normally wear on a regular day.
• Personally, I have never seen a candidate wear anything less than a suit, nor have I on an interview. I guess its personal preference, but would you rather come across as not taking the interview seriously? There are plenty of older faculty on the SCs that might be offended by wrinkled pants and a collared shirt.
• The last comment sounds a bit pretentious. Be comfortable and look your best, but go with your gut. If you think a suit will help you get the job, wear the suit. I don't think you need a suit to look good and no committee will base their final decision on your clothes (unless you're a complete slob). Isn't the dress code for most ecologists a plaid shirt and jeans? Perhaps biochemists dress up a bit more.
• I think it depends on the type of institution. A small liberal arts college - definitely a suit... it may be the only time you dress up but they will not appreciate "field specific dress codes". A position that will make you part of an ecology and evolution program at an RO1, that's different.
• Although comment #2 may sound "pretentious" he/she is completely right. I've served on 2 search committees at my grad institution and both times there were older faculty members who were insulted when a candidate didn't wear a suit to the interview. Although that was obviously not what made the final decision, it did come up again and again. For one candidate it ended up not mattering because he was over-qualified and was a lot better than any of the other candidates. For the other search, however, it seemed to really matter to a few faculty members that the candidate had not dressed-up and the candidate's name sort of dropped from conversation from then on - the other candidates were more than qualified for the position and had all worn suits. And this wasn't a small liberal arts college, but a big name R1. When I get an interview, I'm wearing a suit (at least on the day I give my talk - all the faculty members seemed to agree that not wearing a suit the second day was fine, but they wanted to see someone present a polished front on the day of the talk). Why risk it?
• I did not mean to pretentious above, but I would argue that NOT dressing up is far more pretentious. It suggests an air of "I'm good enough not to care what you think", which I'm pretty sure is close to defining pretentious. I am just stating what I have seen in several searches. In the end, no one will be offended by someone dressing up, but you take a risk dressing down. If you are comfortable taking a (even slight) risk when jobs are so competitive, that's your call.
• The "Job Quest in Ecology and Evolution" packet put together by a slew of big names in ecology states "Formal suits are overkill and may be perceived as weird" (this may be the source to which the original poster is referring), but I think the key word in this statement is "formal". The authors go on to state that a tie is recommended, with a blue and white shirt, and a simple navy jacket. Personally, I think that the navy blazer with khaki pants, white or blue shirt, and tie is perfect interview attire. Most importantly, if you feel overdressed you can take off the jacket or tie. I think the more difficult question is what should the ladies wear: dress, pant suit, slacks and blouse, other?
• I agree with the above post: my sense is that modal outfit for an ecology position at an R1 institution is a nice sport jacket and a tie for seminar day. The second day, you can do the same or dress down a bit. Institutions differ in their norms, so you may want to find out from someone you know in the dept. in advance.
• What would you advise a female candidate to wear for an interview?
• Wow, a lot of the below discussion could have been clarified by the advice offered in the job packet referred to above! Thanks a lot for posting that. Here is a link. :)

http://www.indiana.edu/~halllab/GradRes/Anurags_Job_Advice.pdf

• That link is exactly what made me ask. I think it is helpful for men but not so much for women. To me, a jacket and a tie is essentially a suit. But, what should a woman wear if not a suit?
• A sports jacket and tie (or no tie given that we're ecologist) is very different than a suit. Lawyers wear suits; not ecologists. I have never seen an ecologist interview in a suit, but my experience is at R1 institutions.
• For women. You need to look put together. Black dress pants or skirt always looks nice and you can wear a turtle neck sweater or a collared shirt--one on each day while keeping the same pants/skirt. A suit jacket, I admit feels weird, but for the seminar day it is what works.
• Yeesh, as long as you don't show up in top hat, tails, with a cane and spats on your shoes... does it really matter whether its a suit or a sport coat?? Who knew ecologists were such fashionistas... "I can't believe she wore THOSE shorts with THOSE boots in the field!" ;)
• I didn't wear a suit and still got a job offer! Glad some of these "pretentious" "fashionistas" weren't on the search committee or I would have been screwed! ;)
• I hope there weren't many "fashionistas" at my last search, as the second leg of my flight there was cancelled and I ended up arriving on campus less than an hour before my seminar! Gave my talk in clothes I'd been wearing for 36 hours and with serious bed-head! My advice: don't ever fly through O'Hare airport in the winter.

• A job offer was made in late December and is still pending as far as I know.

• I did not apply but am local and know the seminar schedule: they invited 3 applicants but 1 had already accepted a job elsewhere. They interviewed 2. You may be on the short list and that is why you haven't heard anything yet. Can't tell you if they have made an offer, sorry..

• Many search committees no longer have the common decency to tell you that they rejected you. The best source of info is this site. Failing that, I would say that you've waited long enough and it would be ok to contact the search committee now.
• I agree that its fine to ask politely after a few weeks. Who knows, it might get someone to take another glance at your c.v. I also have no problem indirectly letting places know that letting candidates know when the search is ended is routine and expected. Yes, they get hundreds of apps, but it takes us hours to put together each package and we can't dump the task on a secretary/work study student. I'm politely passive aggressive 'Oh, I would have thought that since your search ended weeks ago I would have gotten a letter by now...." I'm sure it goes in the delete bin, but it makes me feel slightly better.

• Interviews are currently being conducted for the Quantitative Ecologist position. The candidate whose seminar I attended was an assistant professor with 24+ publications.

• I applied, have heard nothing
• I did not apply, but am local to the area and actually attended some of the seminars, so I know that short-lists have been made and candidates have already been interviewed.
• Thanks, bad news is better than no news.

• I applied, have heard nothing
• I just got a rejection letter this morning (2008/02/08). Hope you had better luck!

• There was a short list made, but as of last week, they still had not decided who was getting interviews.
• Was the short list notified?
• Yes, I was notified, and had to get letters from my references.
• They are interviewing 3 candidates in Feb/March.

• If you and your spouse can afford to do this, it could be really great, especially if you have or plan to have kids. I'd (1) make sure that the tenure expectations are scaled relative to your FTE value (so you're not both expected to produce the same amount of work for 75% of the salary), and (2) ask for some time frame in which you will be converted to two full-time positions (assuming this is what you want). I've met two people in shared positions with their spouses, and both were extremely happy with the arrangement.
• If it's an improvement from your current situation and won't lead to a dead-end for either partner, it sounds pretty good. However, if this isn't an acceptable long-term solution, you need to make that known. Find out details on how you'll get converted to 2 positions: what's it contingent on? who decides? when will the decision be made? Come to a mutually agreed upon timeframe and let it be know that you'll have to go back on the market if things aren't working out. Tell the chair that you believe they are operating in good faith and this it the best they can do, but still, you need a concrete plan on how matters will get finalized. You might mention that it'd be easier to save all that hassle later by just providing 2 positions NOW :) Then, enjoy your 1.5 positions for the predetermined time, but be prepared to start applying for jobs again after that point if things don't work out as you hope.

• Did you get one rejection for the "Ecologist" position and one for the "Conservation Biologist" position (assuming you applied to both)? I haven't gotten mine yet...
• I received one rejection email, but I only applied for the "Ecologist" position. I was quite impressed by the impersonal computer generated rejection email.
• I got both rejections today, although the Conservation Biology one arrived much later.
• Old wiki said the funding for the ecology position was cut.
• I didn't get a rejection email. After filing the electronic application I could never get back into the system to see the status of the application. I called them and they looked it up and said my application was received, but apparently it wasn't. The multiple overlapping searches seemed screwy from the start.

• (1/31/08) Interesting. I know from an insider that I am heading into a campus interview where one of the 3 (not me) is the spouse of a current department member. My insider tells me that there has been some serious discussions, some of it heated, about how fair and impartial the search is. I've gathered that the majority involved have recused themseleves. However, I also have found out that my entire application package has been forwarded to all faculty and therefore, to the spouse! I don't know how I feel about it. I am still going to go to the interview, give it my best shot, and hope that those involved treat me fairly. But I'm not going to pretend that my chances are the same as the spouse's. It's a rigged game, but you have to play it anyway. My MS advisor pulled the rug out from underneath a shoe-in internal candidate. My advisor did good job on the interview; meanwhile the internal candidate refused to teach intro bio courses! Lesson learned: no matter what they ask you the answer is almost always 'yes' if you don't plan on following through.
• The situation is not necessarily rosy for the inside candidate. I've applied for a position in the same dept as my spouse, but I feel just as apprehensive and unsure as when I applied to other universities. I am not certain to even get an interview even though I'm qualified for the position. There are some faculty opposed in principle to a spousal hire and who are offended by the lack of 'free will' in the decision. Thus, my application may not be given the same fair evaluation from them as from an outside candidate. I would think that this may be true in other depts. So, even with a so-called inside candidate, you should go in and show just how good you are because you never know the dynamics within a dept. Also, no matter how it ends (with or without a job offer), there likely will be bad feelings within the dept.
• not fair, to be sure. But not unlike many other professions or "life" for that matter (my family has a saying "fair is where you take the pig"). And I'm sure that the faculty member whose spouse was hired did believe that the spouse was best for the position (or they surely wouldn't be married soon after - could you imagine that discussion? "Honey, I'm sorry I couldn't vote for you - I just thought that your publication record wasn't what it could be, maybe you should have spent less time taking care of our kids" - I realize they likely recused themselves...). Hang in there, it'll happen.
• This isn't a waste of your time! If you got an interview, you can be assured that you deserved to be interviewed and you definitely out-ranked other folks. Unfortunately, they had to go through a clearly pointless process of interviewing people. Imagine the amount of work that the committee chair had to do! This is one of those idiotic but necessary procedures that all schools must endure. Rejoice that you out-ranked many others and hopefully another school (or that one) will later have an opening that is 100% vacant! :)
• How is this not a waste of the interviewer's time??? I don't know about you, but I've got a lot better things to do than pore over a dept's web site, fly cross country, and spend two exhausting days answering the same questions over and over with different sets of people if there's no chance in hell I'll get the job. I've got two kids, a working spouse, classes to teach, and research to do ... it's a BIG DEAL to carve time out of my schedule for an interview, and if it's a just a bullshit show, well, I damned well want to know beforehand, because I sure as hell won't bother.
• If you were asked to give an invited presentation for a departmental seminar at another university, wouldn't you do it? Interviews where you stand no chance of getting a job are not a whole lot different.....
• I've done both ... they're different. And it's not like you know going into an insider-search what the score is, so you'll always be in "interview mode" rather than "seminar mode". Are you an advocate of insider searches?
• I don't have a problem with insider searches as long as the other candidates are given fair consideration. If the insider candidate is the best or best fit, then so be it. Unfortunately, there is no external review so search committees can do wha