I’ll start the new year of blogging off with a complaint: job committees need to get off their asses and let applicants know where they stand in the process. The AHA is this weekend, and I have yet to hear from any of the jobs for which I applied. I assume, of course, that I didn’t get interviews, but I’ve heard from experienced applicants that job committees will sometimes wait until the last minute to let you know that they want to talk to you. Not Cool, Job Committees. Such short notice doesn’t give us time to prepare: we have suits to take to the cleaners, mock interviews to schedule, anxiety to build up. Oh, and then there’s that whole 3,163 mile trip between where I live and the frigid ice-hole where the conference and interviews is taking place. I have my ticket in hand, but there ain’t no way I’m making that intercontinental journey unless I have an interview scheduled. And I would change that flight to warmer climes right now, except that I’m waiting for a definitive “NO!” I appreciate your sensitivity, Job Committees, but I can take it. Just tell me to piss off, and I’ll head down ol’ Mexico way.
I think their mistake is not recognizing your obvious brilliance, not failing to tell you they didn’t recognize it. All this means is that they’re embarrassed by how dense they are in relation to your application, and that if another position opens up, they hope to do better in the future.
Warm fuzzies all over the place–thanks, Jeremy.
Have you checked the Academic Jobs wiki for History? http://academicjobs.wikia.com/wiki/History_2010-2011
I discovered the one for the (incredibly tough) German jobs market and have found it quite useful as a way of keeping up with the various searches.
I have indeed trolled around the wiki. Oddly enough, not all of the jobs I applied for are listed. Or maybe I’m just not finding them? In any case, it’s not so much that I don’t know — I’m pretty sure that I didn’t get an interview, considering that the conference starts today — it’s that the committees didn’t find the time to officially say “Thanks, but no thanks.”
I hope you’ve been having better luck than I am, Cathie. Viel glück!