Job Tracking - Week 16

Okay, I know I said in last week's post that there wasn't going to be a posting this week, but there was a lot of activity before I left town. So this is another pre-recorded post with the latest details added in.

More rejections. But, more importantly, two on-campus interviews scheduled. One of them required me to purchase the ticket out, a rough request around the holidays, but fortunately I stumbled into a good deal. So now I've got a few things to do over the break aside from write a conference paper, put together my syllabi and cope with the family. But it'd be poor form to complain at this point.

Here are the numbers for this week:

Total # of academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified: 23/25
Total # of non-academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified 0/0
COST OF THE SEARCH
Total spent in U.S. dollars on applications: $192.90
Average cost in U.S. dollars per applications: $14.95
Total spent in U.S. dollars on travel, etc: $150.99
Total amount in U.S. dollars reimbursed: $0
WHERE THE CALL CAME FROM:
The Chronicle of Higher Ed: 9
HigherEdJobs.com: 0
Other online service (listserv, etc): 14
Friend/Colleague: 2
Personal Research: 1
THE JOB IS IN THE DETAILS
Total number of paper submissions: 19
Total number of e-submissions: 4
Total weight in pounds of application packets: 22.13
Total number of recommendation letters requested: 48
Total number of requests for references: 5
Total number of "proof of teaching excellence" packs : 9
Total number of requests for Teaching Philosophy :11
Total number of research packs: 13
Total number of transcripts requested: 3
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
Total number of acknowledgments of receipt: 20
Total number of confirmed reference contacts: 0
Total number of phone interviews: 2
Total number of conference interviews: 0
Total number of on-campus interviews: 2
Total number of offers: 0
Total number of rejection letters: 6
Total number of canceled or unhired positions: 1

And that said, I don't expect another update on jobs until a week or two after the New Year. Hope you're all surviving the holidays!

Job Tracking - Week 15

A quiet week here, not surprisingly. One more rejection, one more acknowledgment. This will also be the last job tracking post til after the New Year, as I'll be away and won't be able to track anything sent by mail (or much by phone). I don't imagine most schools will be contacting anyone though.

More significantly, one of the positions I had in the queue I was getting set to apply for announced earlier this week that the position was canceled due to budget problems. So it's finally happened for me.

Here, as always, are the links to last week's numbers. And here are the numbers for this week.

Total # of academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified: 22/25
Total # of non-academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified 0/0
COST OF THE SEARCH
Total spent in U.S. dollars on applications: $191.90
Average cost in U.S. dollars per applications: $8.72
Total spent in U.S. dollars on travel, etc: $0
Total amount in U.S. dollars reimbursed: $0
WHERE THE CALL CAME FROM:
The Chronicle of Higher Ed: 9
HigherEdJobs.com: 0
Other online service (listserv, etc): 14
Friend/Colleague: 2
Personal Research: 1
THE JOB IS IN THE DETAILS
Total number of paper submissions: 19
Total number of e-submissions: 3
Total weight in pounds of application packets: 22.13
Total number of recommendation letters requested: 45
Total number of requests for references: 5
Total number of "proof of teaching excellence" packs : 9
Total number of requests for Teaching Philosophy :10
Total number of research packs: 13
Total number of transcripts requested: 2
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
Total number of acknowledgments of receipt: 18
Total number of confirmed reference contacts: 0
Total number of phone interviews: 2
Total number of conference interviews: 0
Total number of on-campus interviews: 0
Total number of offers: 0
Total number of rejection letters: 4
Total number of canceled or unhired positions: 1

I'll likely blog a bit between now and the return of job tracking posts, but just in case I forget, happy holidays to all of you.

Job Tracking - Week 14

I'm envious of all of you who are done with your finals and your grading. Oh so envious. Envious enough that I want to call you a choice word or two. But I won't. I'm fairly certain that earlier this term I knew grading would come back to bite me when I bit off an overload and kept assignments as they were set up before that overload. I've been fairly smart here at the end, having come up with a pretty well-defined rubric for the final project that will make commenting easier - and on this assignment I've got to because it leads into Senior Projects.

But I'm still envious.

Job-wise, things have been quiet. No new interviews set up, and one more rejection. We're at the part of the job process that is the worst for me - the part where there is possibility but not so much that it is safe to invest too much into thinking about things. I've largely handled things differently this year. Both phone interviews were with places that I know some folks, but this year I've decided no one outside of the blog and one or two friends will know anything about the interview process. This is because:

1. I hate explaining to people over and over again things like how I don't know when I'll hear, and I don't know if I'll move there, etc.
2. The more you talk about something, the more you invest in it, and I don't want to go through the wave of depression that follows the unsuccessful job search for me.

But that doesn't actually mean I don't invest. Both phone interviews went great, and I liked both schools and the faculty I talked with. But I REALLY liked one of the schools and the faculty. So much so that I've been trying to figure out the academic equivalent of having my best friend pass the department a note at lunch asking them to check yes or no whether they like me or not. If they say yes, I'll go to the dance but be too embarrassed to actually say anything to them until the last dance. If they say no, I'll go goth - so goth, film studies faculty would shun me if we ever crossed paths.

I hate the waiting.

This is the part that I need help with in the job process. I'm okay with the rejections now; there's a point where you numb to it because you've learned the numbers are largely against you. It's the near-misses that are fatal to me. And there's a lot of road left for those near-misses to happen all over again. These were just phone interviews, after all, so even if I make this cut, there's one more that has to happen.

One good thing that has come out of this process is an idea for a possible course that I proposed with one of the schools that will also work for an upcoming conference and for a recent call for papers I saw from a journal. It'd be nice to come out of this with a little evidence of research since I feel like I get so little done. In any case, enough of my angst (for this week anyway). There's grading yet to do. For anyone still making the comparisons, here's the link to last week's numbers. And here's, then, are this week's grand totals.

Total # of academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified: 22/25
Total # of non-academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified 0/0
COST OF THE SEARCH
Total spent in U.S. dollars on applications: $191.90
Average cost in U.S. dollars per applications: $8.72
Total spent in U.S. dollars on travel, etc: $0
Total amount in U.S. dollars reimbursed: $0
WHERE THE CALL CAME FROM:
The Chronicle of Higher Ed: 9
HigherEdJobs.com: 0
Other online service (listserv, etc): 14
Friend/Colleague: 2
Personal Research: 1
THE JOB IS IN THE DETAILS
Total number of paper submissions: 19
Total number of e-submissions: 3
Total weight in pounds of application packets: 22.13
Total number of recommendation letters requested: 45
Total number of requests for references: 5
Total number of "proof of teaching excellence" packs : 9
Total number of requests for Teaching Philosophy :10
Total number of research packs: 13
Total number of transcripts requested: 2
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
Total number of acknowledgments of receipt: 17
Total number of confirmed reference contacts: 0
Total number of phone interviews: 2
Total number of conference interviews: 0
Total number of on-campus interviews: 0
Total number of offers: 0
Total number of rejection letters: 3
Total number of canceled or unhired positions: 0

Interestingly, I still have no word of any canceled positions, but I expect - as is the case at my current school - that some of those decisions are being held off until after the New Year and actual budgets are come out.

If you're still grading, stay strong. If you're done, be quiet about it. Seriously.

Job Tracking - Week 13

Let's see....the week's been quiet, at least for the week before finals. There isn't a lot of movement in terms of applications since last week. But a second phone interview, which is good. I'm plotting a post shortly about phone interviews - hopefully I'll have that out sometime tomorrow afternoon.

The bigger news is that I just got some movement on the book manuscript; both of my editors have acknowledged they are well into the thick of it and that they like what they've seen so far. They didn't say a lot, honestly, but I appreciated that they checked in and let me know how things are going and gave me a time frame for when I'd hear from them next. In a week where I've had to (sadly) resurrect my knowledge of customer service from days in the corporate world to try and explain to administration that something they need to consider when they talk about transparency is actually letting the thing being made transparent look in on an actual process.

So, on the off chance my editors (or any editors) are reading this blog: thanks for keeping in touch. It's appreciated, as it's made tackling my first book a little less daunting.

Here's this week's numbers.

Total # of academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified: 20/25
Total # of non-academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified 0/0
COST OF THE SEARCH
Total spent in U.S. dollars on applications: $169.97
Average cost in U.S. dollars per applications: $8.50
Total spent in U.S. dollars on travel, etc: $0
Total amount in U.S. dollars reimbursed: $0
WHERE THE CALL CAME FROM:
The Chronicle of Higher Ed: 9
HigherEdJobs.com: 0
Other online service (listserv, etc): 14
Friend/Colleague: 2
Personal Research: 1
THE JOB IS IN THE DETAILS
Total number of paper submissions: 17
Total number of e-submissions: 3
Total weight in pounds of application packets: 20.96
Total number of recommendation letters requested: 39
Total number of requests for references: 5
Total number of "proof of teaching excellence" packs : 8
Total number of requests for Teaching Philosophy :8
Total number of research packs: 12
Total number of transcripts requested: 2
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
Total number of acknowledgments of receipt: 17
Total number of confirmed reference contacts: 0
Total number of phone interviews: 2
Total number of conference interviews: 0
Total number of on-campus interviews: 0
Total number of offers: 0
Total number of rejection letters: 2
Total number of canceled or unhired positions: 0

So that's things here. I'm sure I'll have more to say now that finals week has started to settle things down.