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.