Facing facts: the harsh realities of the academic job hunt

By Jonathan Thon. There are many bottlenecks during an academic job hunt, but the fallout from your first year of interviews is by far the most trying. In my experience, it was between the initial interview and the tentative offer of employment that I saw the majority of my options fizzle. While there will be a lot of competition (typically hundreds of applications per tenure-track position and increasingly high expectations of the applicants), it should be noted that many universities unofficially screen desired candidates before posting academic job searches. More...