Wanted to be faculty, then served on hiring committee

I think a lot of undergrads (and maybe even grad students) have an overly rosy picture of the meat grinder that becoming TT faculty is. No matter how much you show the tiny numbers, the low likelihood of success and the high amount of stress, too many people think they can beat the odds and of course few of them do.

 

Read through the article and could only think that it has many parallels to the private sector as well. As much as they detested their hiring committee experiences, didn't really see anything that would have been out of place in a non-educational sector for a high-quality position. Whenever one hyper-specializes and isn't open to other doors of opportunity, they'll face a mountain of challenges and the nuances of organizational dynamics and human factors.

 

This is the reality of academic jobs. You also have to deal with international applicants. If a person applies with a degree from Harvard or MIT, this applicant has priority most of the time over local applicants. Once you get the job, you are still expected to establish a research profile with funding and graduate students. You might not be able to get tenure so there is still a risk. Some of the University staff like counsellors and administrators make up to 100K with only a masters and not so rigorous hiring, these are also very stable positions as they are unionized (at least in Canada). To be quite honest, it is more cost effective and better for your health to aim for a staff university position that might pay less but less competitive hiring. Some people also become professional adjuncts and make a decent living.

 

To makes any money as an adjunct you would have to work multiple positions at the few universities that pay fairly and have benefits. For most, adjuncting is part time grocery money and it is a dead end career wise. Works best for those who have a "day job."