The job search

Just reading "Barbie goes to math class", which mentions the academic job search. Yech! You know, I used to be a performer... but I wanted to get away from the competition and gut-wrenching of auditions. Lotaluck, eh? Silly me.

Last year I applied to 40+ faculty and post-doc opportunities. I hear it was quite a feat that I got three phone interviews, and even one campus visit, before I finished my diss. But I'm not so easily impressed. At the end of the day, I've got little to show for it. Most especially, I don't have a job.

So, this season has been moving along slowly. I've applied to about 30 or so jobs, almost entirely faculty posts. I'm spending a year as a post-doc right now. After moving back to California, where my wife has a good gig (in industry not academia), we're disinclined to move again (with two kids and three cats) for me to take another one- or two-year post some where. That's not to say I wouldn't consider commuting if I could be home about three days a week to be a family man. But the possible locations for a commutable post are rather small. So, we're back to the two-body problem, trying to find locations where we can both pursue careers. For now, I'm the trailing spouse. Ideally, the next stop will be good for both of us.

Meantime, I guess no news is good news. At least it means I'm not out of the running for any of them yet. Though, after a month (in some cases two months!) one suspects I would have heard if I were ON the short list. But some of the searches just closed, so I won't expect to know anything on those until the new year.