Today I found myself a little shocked at an ad for a tenure-track faculty position - the job starts in August 2013 and the application deadline was August 15th, 2012. The job application deadlines seem to keep getting earlier and earlier. This is, of course, no accident. It is a strategy that some departments employ to try to obtain the best job candidates - the top-tier candidates who would likely get multiple job offers from good schools. The idea is to speed up your hiring timeline so that you can make offers to top candidates before they have offers from other schools, or even before those schools have started interviewing. Particularly in the craptastic job market we're in now, the idea is to tempt someone to accept a position rather than risk getting no other offers from better places. Thus, the university increases their odds of obtaining a top candidate that they otherwise would have lost to a better school if they'd delayed making an offer.
In reading some of the academic job search forums, there seem to be a number of people who have some degree of "buyer's remorse" or who feel like they were forced to take a less-than-ideal job because declining a decent position in an uncertain market was too risky (people gotta eat!). So I guess my thought is, does this strategy of capturing the best people early actually work in the long term? Or does this hiring practice just lead to poorer retention of faculty?
If these good candidates do get other interview or job offers after they've accepted a position, are they likely to feel some regret for having accepted a less-than-ideal position just because of an uncertain job market? If you feel like you've been manipulated into taking a job or have regrets about "what might have been", how likely are you to feel satisfied with your job? I can imagine that someone who starts out their job less-than-thrilled about where they ended up is much more likely to keep looking for other positions. Are these people more likely to treat their positions as "starter jobs" and plan to move on to a new job in a few years than people who were hired later in the season and knew all their options before deciding?
In reading some of the academic job search forums, there seem to be a number of people who have some degree of "buyer's remorse" or who feel like they were forced to take a less-than-ideal job because declining a decent position in an uncertain market was too risky (people gotta eat!). So I guess my thought is, does this strategy of capturing the best people early actually work in the long term? Or does this hiring practice just lead to poorer retention of faculty?
If these good candidates do get other interview or job offers after they've accepted a position, are they likely to feel some regret for having accepted a less-than-ideal position just because of an uncertain job market? If you feel like you've been manipulated into taking a job or have regrets about "what might have been", how likely are you to feel satisfied with your job? I can imagine that someone who starts out their job less-than-thrilled about where they ended up is much more likely to keep looking for other positions. Are these people more likely to treat their positions as "starter jobs" and plan to move on to a new job in a few years than people who were hired later in the season and knew all their options before deciding?
Thoughts?
Side note: I hate the thought of trying to round up reference letters for an August application deadline - it would be hell trying to get profs to send in letters while they're on holiday. Too early people, too early.
