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Reflections on an Extended Job Market Run: Fit Isn't One-Way & You Don't Owe Anyone You

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently had the somewhat startling realization that this is the first time in 4.5 years that I'm not applying for jobs. Today's post will highlight reflections that I think may be more relevant for early career faculty who may be considering re-entering the academic job market. As a bit of background, I entered my first tenure-track faculty position already somewhat skeptical of whether this thing called "fit" would be working out for me. My partner and I agreed to give it a shot and only reconsider if the fit was too poor to justify. It turned out that for multiple reasons the fit was a major problem that we didn't think we could afford to ignore. It's important to know that while tenure-track jobs are indeed scarce and you most likely know someone who'd kill for a tenure-track position like yours, you should not feel compelled to stay at a job where you are expected to throw your happiness into the trash.

During the first year on the job, you'll be busy with many things and it may be difficult to simultaneously be thinking about the prospect of moving elsewhere. You'll most likely be in the middle of transitioning your entire life to a new location in addition to cutting your teeth as junior faculty, which means balancing teaching, service, and research as a full-time job possibly for the first time. It also means planning five years ahead so as to ensure you don't have an unnecessarily stressful tenure process (as if it could be stress-free!). You'll be certainly be learning about institutional politics as well as the politics of your field. You'll be being weaned off of your adviser, too, if your adviser was supportive during your graduate study. While juggling all of this, it can be tempting to put a possible job search on the back-burner; If you find yourself with a poor institutional fit, though, this can backfire. Instead, you'll want to be evaluating your workplace from the start, partially because you in no way could have gotten the full picture on your interview and thus will have to investigate the situation quietly as an observer. Here's the scoop on how I navigated the process of ensuring a fit and taking steps accordingly when I realized it wasn't a great fit:

1. Know Whether Your Goals Line Up Poorly with Resources Offered to Faculty

Some of the best advice (I think) I received was to draft my annual goals and run them by my department chair. This set of goals will be the "baseline" you can look back to when you're trying to figure out whether you truly love your job or you're just trying to survive. Are your goals appropriate to your current skill level? Do your goals correspond to deepening your skill in the three key areas of faculty life (research, teaching, and service)? How does your chair feel about your goals? Does your chair offer to provide support, or does your chair try to nudge you a different direction? If you and your chair disagree, what do you invaluable trusted outside mentors have to say about the matter? In my view, this goals versus supports question starts to show itself as early as the job interview and negotiation of the contract. As a job market noob in my final year of grad school, I wasn't as privy to what red flags to look for, yet as someone with extremely limited experience and not as competitive as lots of other candidates, I still believe my first faculty position was a good choice, yet a risky one. For example, I now realize it was probably a giant red flag that I was given no room to negotiate my start-up for the position. As a noob, I thought this was simply because I didn't "deserve it yet because I'm too weak of a candidate"; as a more seasoned job hunter and faculty member, I realize that a start-up package is actually the university's investment in ensuring you achieve tenure. Whatever is in that start-up package is what they believe is necessary for you to make tenure successfully and thus communicates something about what they expect you to look like as a scholar at tenure time. A dearth of research support in the way of course releases, teaching assistants, research funding of some sort, and key software communicates "we don't REALLY care about your research goals, it's on you to figure that one out" or in worse cases "we don't actually care about whether you get tenure here, so we're not going to invest in you". The "we're broke" line only goes so far before it reveals itself to be the usual administrator logic of bloating the upper admin while eviscerating the faculty resources for students. What are peers at institutions with a similar Carnegie classification getting in the way of salary and start-ups? Ask around.

Other red flags will be less individualized and more about the departmental, college, and university climate. As an interviewee, you won't know whether people actually are cool to get along with unless things are so bad that they can't hide it while you're on campus. As new faculty, entering a department or university in transition can be a helluva gamble and you can get crushed by the problems if you aren't knowledgeable enough to protect yourself. In the beginning, listen, don't throw all of your own cards onto the table. Do people seem to give a shit how you feel or what you think? Do people celebrate each other's accomplishments with more than just a forced grin and hidden bitterness? Do people recognize your expertise and seek you as a colleague and potential collaborator? Do you ever hear anything positive being said about the school or the students? If you're a person of color, do they skate around connecting you with other people of color (or monitor your interactions with other POC suspiciously)? If you're an LGBTQ person, do people act like its something you should hide? If you're from the working class, do they speak disparagingly about people like YOUR people (newsflash: this is rampant at virtually every institution in my experience)? Beware these red flags. If everyone else hates it there and everyone thinks the students are just horrible people (projecting much, negative-ass?!), you do NOT want to be the junior faculty member tasked with mediating a "family intervention", so to speak. You will most likely lose if you try to play mediator because, surprise, you're junior faculty, you don't have tenure, and you certainly cannot control which colleagues end up on your tenure-review committee.

All departments have some level of dysfunction, but for the love of all things good, PLEASE don't martyr yourself for an institution that cannot and will not be loyal to you. As a general rule, failure to support your skill-level appropriate and growth-oriented research goals is an unforgiveable sin because at best it will make you unmarketable for other faculty positions and at worst is an intentional attempt to make you unable to get a job anywhere else (i.e. reducing the "demand" for your skill set). Think in terms of Carnegie classification because, whether you like it or not, it says a whole lot about your job portability. Upward mobility is very difficult to achieve, while downward is much less difficult; in academe, upward mobility hinges on publications in places those already "upward" actually read and grants that already "upward" people have actually heard of (EVEN IF WE ALREADY KNOW NONE OF THIS REFLECTS ON YOUR SELF-WORTH). If you experience bad fit, your ticket out for a lateral move or an upward move (i.e. more research intensive or more desirable to people who are highly research productive) will be publications and grants; don't let your first position rob you of that ticket pre-tenure, EVEN IF you are 100% sure you want to be somewhere teaching intensive. Just like every other industry, you have to look like the position you WANT to be in, not just the one you're in. This is extra difficult because your department is evaluating you, as well, and you don't want to be the jerk who does a garbage job where you are, as if you're "too good" for where you are (this is huge if you go somewhere in transition).

Finally, there's the one of the most pressing aspects of fit for people of color and first-generation peeps: personal life fit. Can you see a life for yourself in this place more than 5 years down the road? Is your partner happy if you have a partner? If your partner is unhappy, can it be corrected without leaving the institution? These are important considerations, but also not without their own complications. If your partner isn't an academic (often the case for people who are underrepresented in the first place), your job is probably the more annoying one to navigate, so this must be weighed in when deciding whether you can afford to jump ship. In my case, personal fit was a nail in the coffin: yes, many first jobs for those of us wanting something tenure-track are in the literal actual middle of freaking nowhere or somewhere otherwise geographically undesirable, so in some ways it can be unavoidable and you have to weigh things accordingly. In my case, the problem was so egregious that my non-professor partner and I decided to try the the academic job market again until Year 3 and then jump to the non-profit/governmental research sector so we could live somewhere that didn't feel like a literal actual plantation with theocratic anti-LGBTQ and red-baiting, science-denying literature posted around it (and I mean that whole-heartedly as someone who knows racism is absolutely everywhere and has dealt with racism of the conservative and liberal varieties). It was bad enough that my partner felt they would have to give up their career dreams because of the regional culture and we both were unwilling to proceed with having kids in the area; this was the final straw for us. And for those who are curious, no, it wasn't my students who made it unbearable...they and my afterschool program kiddos were actually my source of purpose while in such a badly fitting place. It's bad enough being a foreigner in academe because you didn't grow up both yuppie and white, but it's unbearable to be an alien off the clock. If you grew up working class, you're in for serious struggle to find a "home" feel once you relocate. I already experienced that as an undergrad at an elite SLAC/PWI; I'm not interested in more of the same. To sum up this mammoth section of this blog entry: 1) you don't owe your employer loyalty, damnit, 2) you need to know whether it's a fit for YOU, and 3) be willing to leave academe if absolutely necessary.

2. Yes, You Can Do a Job Search while Employed (But not on work hours unless you're really trying to be a jerk and enjoy ruining everyone else's life)

I didn't realize it until recently that apparently many academics believe you can't search for another job while employed. Lucky for us, yes you can! The catch is you must not alienate everyone and their brother in the process, especially since it can take multiple years to nab something when you re-enter the job market as faculty (it becomes harder once you have had a third-year review at your first institution, too, since it may appear you are avoiding a rejection for tenure). In my case, not alienating everyone meant not going to work announcing how I was "definitely out of here!" and not shirking my duties at my current place of employment (even if I rightly believed I was underpaid). Think about your colleagues, even if you're not best buddies with them: how would it feel to be at work and have some new person coming in talking about how crappy everything is? How would it feel to have some new person who hasn't even been there very long coming to talk about how they think EVERYONE ELSE is dysfunctional? It's just not a good look. It's not collegial, it's not empathetic (in the case that your colleague also wants out), and it's certainly not good for departmental morale. If you're in your first three years on the tenure track, your colleagues assume you're looking at other positions, anyway. You really, really do not need to announce it unless you just want to come off as a jerk. Further, especially if you're in a right-to-work state or have no faculty union, this is a particularly dangerous move since you could face retaliation if your record isn't stellar. Put out a handful of applications in your first year on the job, even if you're not 100% sure you want out; you can always ramp up your search the following year if you become certain you won't fit at your current institution. Keep your relationships collegial inside and outside of your institution. Don't air everybody's dirty laundry haphazardly because you absolutely will look like a horrible future colleague, even if they truly are a shitty person (who else will you try to drag at your new institution, right?). Find a trusted ally inside the department/institution who can serve as an internal reference if need be. Note: you don't necessarily need an internal reference as a pre-tenure faculty member. Do your job search work at HOME, not in the office of your employer, not using computers provided by your employer. Talk about your job search only with trusted mentors who can help you find positions and people OUTSIDE of your institution who seriously need to know (because word can, indeed, get around since academia is small).

3. Be Prepared for the Work of Interviewing

In my experience, the hardest part of searching while employed was interview season. In general, academic job interviews occur smack in the middle of your work week and you cannot avoid missing class to go on interviews. For this reason, you need to prepare in advance for the prospect of needing to miss multiple days during the term. Don't needlessly cancel for pointless reasons earlier in the term because you may need those days later on. Consider whether interview season overlaps with conference season for you and carefully figure out how to avoid lost time with your students. This can be done through video-recorded lectures to be viewed at home, alternative assignments, built-in "work from home/catch-up" days for students, guest lecturers, and non-traditional classes involving attending events. If you don't shortchange your students and respect them as people, they are less likely to complain to your chair; if you don't upset your students, your chair's job is easier. Find spaces where you can conduct phone or Skype interviews when they come up, preferably OFF-campus and definitely not in your own office. On-campus interviews are particularly exhausting because they are multi-day marathons. You may need another buffer day upon return, so assume you still need possible cancel days.

4. Don't Fall for the Guilt Trip: Keep Your Cards Close to Your Chest

As I mentioned earlier, you do not owe your employer anything but what you're contracted to do; if they want more from you, they'll have to reciprocate, and from what I've seen, academe is notoriously bad at reciprocating with faculty who aren't superstars yet. Following from this, one of the biggest questions is when to actually open your mouth and say something about the fact that you're interviewing elsewhere. From what I've gathered from others and my own experience, it can vary from department to department depending on your relationship with the department. If there's a culture of retaliation and lack of investment in faculty (or if it's questionable whether your department gives a shit about retaining you), I would recommend keeping your mouth shut until you have accepted an offer and have a contract in hand AND signed (especially if you're not in a unionized institution or are in a right-to-work state). Otherwise, you could wind up with no new contract at your current place and no new job to move on to...a.k.a. unemployed. If you don't have a poker face yet, you better get yourself one because you're gonna need it and you'll be thankful you had it (in my case, I apparently have RBF so no one seems to know how I feel any time, so I just took the ball and ran with it). If you're in a more secure position where there's literally no way they could fail to renew your contract and they genuinely would fight to keep you (odds are this is false if it's honestly a bad fit), then don't speak up until you're sure you have an on-campus interview. Another caveat: if you ONLY are leaving because of pay, you MIGHT benefit from telling your chair when you've got an on-campus interview because they may be able to negotiate a raise to retain you as faculty. This is still risky, though, because if the offer falls through, it could become a problem if your chair decides to retaliate by withdrawing resources. Just know that negotiations move at light speed, so if you aren't serious about leaving, your chair may not actually be able to gin up a raise for you in sufficient time and you could end up FORCED to leave.

This concludes my reflections on the job market. What are your thoughts?

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