Thursday, December 15, 2011
Abandon All Hope
At what point would you say job applicants should abandon hope for an APA interview? I suppose there still are departments screwed up enough to try scheduling interviews next week (and note that Tuesday is the beginning of Hanukkah), but my sense is that after tomorrow applicants should take any department that has not contacted them to be not interested.
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No way: we won't be calling until early next week. Our term only just ended and 2 out of the 3 committee members serve on important university-wide committees that demand as much reading as job files and a time crunch since our university literally shuts down to save money over the holiday season. We are only just assembling our final list. Would you believe we had 3 applications JUST conisting of letters of recommendation. I'd never seen this before. What goes on there so that happens?
What about checking here http://phylo.info/jobs/wiki instead resorting to speculation? It's far from 100% reliable but it's still far better better than listening to the advice of a self-proclaimed "old cranky jerk" ;-) Happy holidays, Spiros, we all know you are actually Santa!
12:15
One simple explanation: school sent letters of recommendation; applicant sent application; application lost in the mail. my advice: contact candidate.
I'm suprised that the cranky jerk supposedly "Anti-religious" appears concerned for those applicants celebrating religious holidays.
One problem here is that many departments do not specify in their job ads whether or not they will be interviewing at the APA. If such a department has not contacted an applicant by (say) the end of next week, it could be due to lack of interest in the applicant, or it could be because the department plans on doing a Skype or phone interview in January. If the latter, the department can afford to wait a bit longer before contacting interviewees, and thus an applicant might yet hear good news. Unless one knows that a particular department will be interviewing at the APA, one can't infer much from a department's silence, especially if the wiki has nothing to say about that job.
The wiki from previous years indicates that departments schedule interviews all the way until the 23rd, with plenty of action taking place on the 20th, 21st, and 22nd. I had several tell me in their confirmation form letter that they'd be contacting candidates around the 20th. I suspect that there are still a LOT of schools who have yet to contact candidates.
Note: the only action Spiros is recommending here is a change of attitude. Perhaps this is the first step on the spiritual path towards cranky jerkdom. Spiros, you truly are smokin'.
@12:34 -- really? one can be anti-religious w/o being against religious people. or one can be anti-religious without rejecting the thought that hiring institutions ought to respect the fact that applicants may have religious obligations.
PA is correct. I was speaking only about when to give up hope. Maybe some applicants will be pleasantly surprised with a last-minute call-up. But it's probably best for applicants at this point to begin the psychological process of resigning themselves to the looming disappointment.
"At what point would you say job applicants should abandon hope for an APA interview?"
Almost immediately after submitting an application, in most cases.
Probably best not even to apply in the first place
In the recent past, I've had eight APA interviews, and only 2, maybe 3, of those were scheduled before the 17th. So, I'd wait until the 20th before turning out the lights.
As things stand this year, I have a couple of interviews scheduled but am still waiting to hear back from (or about) virtually half of the jobs to which I applied.
Anon 12:15 -
My letters were sent directly from my department. I mailed the rest of my dossier from home. I'm really interested in the position.
- Me
as of today of the 230 jobs listed on the wiki, over 100 seem to be still completely up for grabs.
WV: ductori
About half the jobs I applied to have not scheduled interviews, as far as I know. Until the wiki says otherwise, I'll hold out hope for them, especially since some of them are probably not doing APA interviews anyway.
Last year all 5 of my interview notifications came between the 18th and 22nd.
I think Spiros is pretty much right given this year's holiday calendar. Tomorrow is the last day for a decent department to set a date.
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