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September 30, 2005
Want my job?
The University of Alberta is inviting applications for the Killam postdocs again. There is a lot of advice for philosophy job-seekers in the blogosphere, but I haven't seen much that stresses the worth of postdoctoral fellowships and I suspect that a lot of job-seekers don't place much importance on them in their search. But if you want to do research in philosophy, it makes sense to apply. One's success as a researching philosopher depends upon how much time one has for research. Teaching and service in a tenure track job can consume a lot of time - all your time, if you let them - so that in seven or eight years time you can find yourself not having done any major new work since your dissertation. If you don't get the job of your dreams, a 2 year postdoc might be a much better bet than a position with a high-teaching load somewhere you plan to leave anyway, and - and this surely the clincher - if you DO get the job of your dreams, they may well let you take the postdoc as well.
Postdocs are good.
Posted by logican at September 30, 2005 03:10 PM
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Comments
Hi Gill, how are you doing? I was wondering if you could give us some insight as to how competitive these postdocs are, and how institutions that have them tend to choose people for them. Obviously, looking for junior colleagues would be much different than looking for someone to spend a year doing research. Do they interview? Should we have different letters for them? Are they generally open, or specialized? etc. etc...
Posted by: Barry at October 5, 2005 06:55 PM
Ah, Barry - the original Princeton blogger. Much do I miss hearing about your generals preparation and the exploits of Coady. It's good to hear from you.
Well, I don't really know how competitive postdocs are. I don't think departments usually interview for them, but I did have one postdoc interview when I was looking for a job in 2003-4. It was my best interview of the APA. The average interview was, frankly, in a stuffy hotel room with two bearded guys who sat on the bed (because you can hardly ask the candidate to sit on the bed, and there is only one chair). One is offered a drink of water from the plastic cup in the bathroom. By contrast my postdoc interview involved a short bus-ride to a different - and much more glamourous - hotel and I was ushered into an airy suite with a beautiful conference table and interviewed by three women from the University of Western Ontario. I was relaxed and it was actually fun. But I think that, in general, departments don't interview for postdocs.
It's worth pointing out that a number of postdocs in the US actually come with teaching duties - so it isn't always clear that search committees are looking for something different from what they look for in a junior colleague. But I suspect that for postdoc candidates who are not being interviewed, any research proposal which they ask for becomes especially important.
Posted by: Gillian Russell at October 6, 2005 03:23 PM