Well, almost. I still have one packet to mail out. I tried to submit it via e-mail, but was told that electronic submissions were not being accepted. Still, the packet is made up, addressed, and stamped. So you can stick a fork in me.
Of course, now the hard part is here: the waiting. Even if departments start looking at the packets before Thanksgiving (and not all of them do), it seems like the earliest I could expect a call or e-mail to schedule an interview in Atlanta would be around the second week in December. That means I have almost a month to wait and hope and worry. That doesn't seem like a lot of fun.
As for the application process, I didn't like physically mailing out packets, mainly because I felt I was sending them into the void. There's no response of "Hey, thanks, we got your packet." I may have to call a few places next week and ask if they received it, just to be on the safe side. The e-mail applications were my favorite. Not only were they the easiest (although econjobmarket.org was pretty easy too), but they often e-mailed back and said thanks for applying, we got your stuff. Very nice.
I still have a bit of (minor) work I would like to do on my paper before my interviews and any flyouts. Also, I need to work on my job paper talk. I had a sort of pre-interview with the Federal Reserve Board last week and I found myself jumping around too much in explaining my work. I'll have to write something down and practice a bit so it's a little more understandable.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Applications, Application, Applications
So, I'm also done with my applications. I'm applying to more than 100 jobs, including a lot of liberal arts colleges, a lot of universities, and a bunch of government agencies (including most of the Fed banks). I'm also applying to a handful of research institutes that focus on interesting areas.
I first sent out the 34 applications that required hard copies. A lot of the liberal arts colleges wanted hard copy applications which generally included a letter, cv, teaching evaluations, and my job market paper. Some also wanted a teaching statement, research statement, and graduate transcript. I printed everything out at home (so my printer needs a new toner cartridge) and sent them out priority or first class. All together, it only cost about $40 (plus the toner cartridge).
Then I filled out the web site applications. The ones that were on econjobmarket.org (started by our own John Rust) were fairly easy, although there wasn't always a place to put a cover letter. Maybe they didn't want letters. The applications that had their own web form to fill out was a bigger pain. They all seemed to have bought the same software package which had four to five separate pages to fill out and had mostly (but not completely) the same questions.
Finally, I'm sending out the applications that just want an e-mail with attachments. These are fairly easy, and I only have about 10 left. The one thing I keep trying (mostly successfully) not to screw up is the cover letter. So far I haven't (to my knowledge) sent a cover letter to one school with another school's name in it, but I may have said I was including something that the last school wanted and this school didn't. Hopefully, they won't notice.
With over 100 applications, and a fairly wide net, I'm hoping to get at least 10-15 interviews in January. We'll see if I can keep my fingers crossed until then.
I first sent out the 34 applications that required hard copies. A lot of the liberal arts colleges wanted hard copy applications which generally included a letter, cv, teaching evaluations, and my job market paper. Some also wanted a teaching statement, research statement, and graduate transcript. I printed everything out at home (so my printer needs a new toner cartridge) and sent them out priority or first class. All together, it only cost about $40 (plus the toner cartridge).
Then I filled out the web site applications. The ones that were on econjobmarket.org (started by our own John Rust) were fairly easy, although there wasn't always a place to put a cover letter. Maybe they didn't want letters. The applications that had their own web form to fill out was a bigger pain. They all seemed to have bought the same software package which had four to five separate pages to fill out and had mostly (but not completely) the same questions.
Finally, I'm sending out the applications that just want an e-mail with attachments. These are fairly easy, and I only have about 10 left. The one thing I keep trying (mostly successfully) not to screw up is the cover letter. So far I haven't (to my knowledge) sent a cover letter to one school with another school's name in it, but I may have said I was including something that the last school wanted and this school didn't. Hopefully, they won't notice.
With over 100 applications, and a fairly wide net, I'm hoping to get at least 10-15 interviews in January. We'll see if I can keep my fingers crossed until then.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Say JOE, Whatcha Know?
So, the October JOE (Job Openings for Economists) has been out for almost two weeks. The total is 432, down from 500+ last year. Still, a lot of those from last year's October listing were pulled in November and December, so it's hard to compare apples to apples. There are 190 full-time U.S. academic listings. Some are for more senior positions, but some of the junior listings are for two positions.
Looking through it, I've found plenty of jobs I'd love to have. I think there are about 75 I'll apply to and I'd be (fairly) happy at all of them. I've looked at the econ departments of a number of liberal acts colleges to see who they've hired recently. It's surprising how many of them have assistant professors from Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, even MIT and Harvard. My chances at those schools may be fairly low, but it still seems worth applying, especially if they want a good teacher.
There are also a number of Canadian schools hiring. I don't know much about the relative rankings of these schools so it's hard to gauge to whom I should apply and what my chances will be. Still, there are another 10-15 schools I think I'll apply to there. There are also 25-30 non-academic jobs I'd like working at and to which I'll apply, mainly in the federal governmnet. Putting it all together, that's a lot of cover letters to write. I guess you can't say "...I'd love working at [insert school]...I think I'd be a great fit at [school]'s department of [economics/business/public policy]...[city,state] is where I've always dreamed of living!" Probably wouldn't look too good.
Looking through it, I've found plenty of jobs I'd love to have. I think there are about 75 I'll apply to and I'd be (fairly) happy at all of them. I've looked at the econ departments of a number of liberal acts colleges to see who they've hired recently. It's surprising how many of them have assistant professors from Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, even MIT and Harvard. My chances at those schools may be fairly low, but it still seems worth applying, especially if they want a good teacher.
There are also a number of Canadian schools hiring. I don't know much about the relative rankings of these schools so it's hard to gauge to whom I should apply and what my chances will be. Still, there are another 10-15 schools I think I'll apply to there. There are also 25-30 non-academic jobs I'd like working at and to which I'll apply, mainly in the federal governmnet. Putting it all together, that's a lot of cover letters to write. I guess you can't say "...I'd love working at [insert school]...I think I'd be a great fit at [school]'s department of [economics/business/public policy]...[city,state] is where I've always dreamed of living!" Probably wouldn't look too good.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Bryn Mawr Update
So I went to check out Bryn Mawr's web site in order to see what it said about open positions in the econ department after bemoaning the fact that the listing in the September JOE required at least 2 years of post-PhD experience. It turns out that the school lists an advanced assistant professor position (the one listed in the JOE) and an entry-level position (or maybe two). I don't encourage anybody else to apply to these attractive positions.
And it's no wonder. The department seems to consist of the chair, one other full professor, one associate professor, a visiting assistant professor, and a lecturer. Only five people! Maybe that's standard for a school of Bryn Mawr's size (it has 1,300 undergraduates). And I know that students can take classes at Haverford, but it still strikes me as a fairly small department.
Of course, that's one of the issues. If one is looking for a job at a liberal arts college it is encouraging to think of all the schools in all the states across the country. But if each school only has five faculty members then most will not be hiring in any given year. In that case, whether or not the first job you get out of graduate school is a good fit is a matter of a certain amount of luck. Perhaps even more so when you're looking for your first job in the middle of a recession.
And it's no wonder. The department seems to consist of the chair, one other full professor, one associate professor, a visiting assistant professor, and a lecturer. Only five people! Maybe that's standard for a school of Bryn Mawr's size (it has 1,300 undergraduates). And I know that students can take classes at Haverford, but it still strikes me as a fairly small department.
Of course, that's one of the issues. If one is looking for a job at a liberal arts college it is encouraging to think of all the schools in all the states across the country. But if each school only has five faculty members then most will not be hiring in any given year. In that case, whether or not the first job you get out of graduate school is a good fit is a matter of a certain amount of luck. Perhaps even more so when you're looking for your first job in the middle of a recession.
September JOE
As we come to the end of September, I'm looking (anxiously) forward to the October JOE (that's Job Openings for Economists for those who don't know). The October JOE is the main source of job listings for newly-minted Econ PhDs and there is a certain amount of uncertainty as to how many openings there will be. Last year there were over 500 positions listed. Unfortunately, as the size of the current economic crisis became evident, many of these jobs were pulled and the job market tightened significantly. But before we see the larger and more important October JOE I thought I'd take a minute to look at the September issue.
Last year's September JOE had 182 listings of which 88 were full-time tenure or tenure-track academic positions in the U.S. and 59 were full-time non-academic. This year there are only 113 listings, a 38% decrease. Only 46 of these are full-time tenure or tenure-track U.S. academic jobs. That's down 47% from last year! That's um, not good. Non-academic full-time jobs were down to 29, slightly more than 50%.
There are a number of Canadian academic jobs (I love Canada!), but they all end with a disclaimer that Canadian citizens will be given preference. And one of the U.S. academic positions listed gave me pause. Bryn Mawr posted a listing for an assistant professor which looked great. After all, my grandmother, aunt, and cousin are all graduates. But BMC says that "applicants should have a minimum of two years post-Ph.D. teaching and/or research experience." Um, ok. I guess that puts me out since I expect to get my PhD in the Spring.
Now this type of requirement is fairly common in other fields. People go do post-docs or get adjunct positions for a couple years after they get their degree and then look for a tenure-track position after they've published. But economics has not usually had this type of requirement, I assume because of the extra demand from government and private industry. In fact, Bryn Mawr listed in 2008 (also in September) and only required that applicants expect their PhD at the time of appointment.
If this represents a trend it could be a problem for those of us finishing up in 2010. It's possible, given the soft job market last year that supply is higher this year than normal. If so, schools who are actually hiring (like Bryn Mawr), may feel that they're in a stronger position and can demand more (like experience) than they would usually be able to.
The October JOE should be out in ten days or so. We'll see.
Last year's September JOE had 182 listings of which 88 were full-time tenure or tenure-track academic positions in the U.S. and 59 were full-time non-academic. This year there are only 113 listings, a 38% decrease. Only 46 of these are full-time tenure or tenure-track U.S. academic jobs. That's down 47% from last year! That's um, not good. Non-academic full-time jobs were down to 29, slightly more than 50%.
There are a number of Canadian academic jobs (I love Canada!), but they all end with a disclaimer that Canadian citizens will be given preference. And one of the U.S. academic positions listed gave me pause. Bryn Mawr posted a listing for an assistant professor which looked great. After all, my grandmother, aunt, and cousin are all graduates. But BMC says that "applicants should have a minimum of two years post-Ph.D. teaching and/or research experience." Um, ok. I guess that puts me out since I expect to get my PhD in the Spring.
Now this type of requirement is fairly common in other fields. People go do post-docs or get adjunct positions for a couple years after they get their degree and then look for a tenure-track position after they've published. But economics has not usually had this type of requirement, I assume because of the extra demand from government and private industry. In fact, Bryn Mawr listed in 2008 (also in September) and only required that applicants expect their PhD at the time of appointment.
If this represents a trend it could be a problem for those of us finishing up in 2010. It's possible, given the soft job market last year that supply is higher this year than normal. If so, schools who are actually hiring (like Bryn Mawr), may feel that they're in a stronger position and can demand more (like experience) than they would usually be able to.
The October JOE should be out in ten days or so. We'll see.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Job Market Season
So, if all goes according to plan, I will be on the job market for newly-minted econonomics PhDs this year. We had our first job market meeting at school in which they told us to get our CVs and web sites done. I'm still supposed to get my CV edited, but you can see it here. My web site is up here. I've also added a brief teaching statement and results from two student surveys of classes I've taught at Maryland. I need to add a research statement and then I should be done with the peripheral materials.
Of course, the main thing I need to finish is my job market paper. It's coming along pretty well, but I still have a fair amount of work to do. I'm presenting it at our brown-bag lunch seminar in a few weeks and then I'll have about a month to finalize it.
The good news is that I've found some empirical evidence to support the main idea of the paper which is that people have loss averse preferences when making their education investment decision. I've found evidence of a quadratic function where education is the dependent variable and (log) average family income is the main explanatory variable. This shows that those with lower (and higher) family income will get more education than those with family income in the middle of the distribution.
There are a number of things I still have to do. I'm still working on the simulation, especially to match median income at each education level. I also need to simulate a basic model in which agents are not loss averse and simply have mean-reverting earning ability. This would be the main alternative explanation to my model. Hopefully this model will be unable to explain some of the moments in the data that my model can explain.
Once I'm done with all this I'll be ready to send it out to all the jobs I apply to, Assuming that anybody's hiring.
Of course, the main thing I need to finish is my job market paper. It's coming along pretty well, but I still have a fair amount of work to do. I'm presenting it at our brown-bag lunch seminar in a few weeks and then I'll have about a month to finalize it.
The good news is that I've found some empirical evidence to support the main idea of the paper which is that people have loss averse preferences when making their education investment decision. I've found evidence of a quadratic function where education is the dependent variable and (log) average family income is the main explanatory variable. This shows that those with lower (and higher) family income will get more education than those with family income in the middle of the distribution.
There are a number of things I still have to do. I'm still working on the simulation, especially to match median income at each education level. I also need to simulate a basic model in which agents are not loss averse and simply have mean-reverting earning ability. This would be the main alternative explanation to my model. Hopefully this model will be unable to explain some of the moments in the data that my model can explain.
Once I'm done with all this I'll be ready to send it out to all the jobs I apply to, Assuming that anybody's hiring.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Draft of Bubbles Always Pop!
I've posted a draft of my brief paper on popping asset bubbles on my other web site. It can be found here. Comments are welcome.
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