The Female Science Professor reviews an article from <Physics Today on getting a liberal arts college job. Unfortunately, the article itself seems to be subscriber-only. I have a subscription, but I haven’t read the article yet, and can’t tell you what it says, or whether the advice is good. The stuff that FSP says is all very sensible, though.
In a similar vein, Doug Natelson describes the search process from the faculty side. A few of the things he mentions are specific to large departments– smaller schools don’t generally have enough faculty to form sub-committees of the search committee– but the basic picture is similar to what we do here.
If you’d like an inside look at the process, here’s an old post describing my job search. It’s a “Classic Edition” post from before I started calling them that.
On a not-unrelated note, yesterday we passed 100 applications for the open tenure-track job in our department. We also have recommendation letters for another 30-odd people whose main applications haven’t arrived yet. The deadline is December 1, and it’s even money whether we’ll break 200 by the time we start reading folders.
December is going to suck…
Domestic output of degreed engineering and science meat puppets is at least 100% in excess of suitable employment. The American Chemical Society is wetnurse to a species that does not suckle its young. Physics theorists can go to Wall Street to string up the small investor. The remainders in both cases are faced with the unending displeasure of
“I’m sorry, all our fry cooks are PhDs.”
It’s like you have your very own Time Cube…