Job Market

Who is this for?

I have a love-hate relationship with advice columns - through the course of my life, they have provided life-altering perspectives but also triggered a myriad existential crises that I would rather go without ;). That being said, I think there is value in sharing individual experiences, if only with the caveat "what worked for me might not work for you". So here is a brief synthesis of my experiences through grad school, and some specific things I learnt through the process of tenure-track job applications/interviews in the era of COVID. Needless to say, this is all specific to Quant Marketing, but hopefully with some insights that are generalizable to adjacent fields.


A final disclaimer: I did not apply to positions in the US, although many of the schools I did apply to followed a similar template. For a more detailed take on AMA-style interviews on a typical year, this is a great resource: https://web.archive.org/web/20210410182518/http://www.decisionsciencenews.com/2019/07/17/2019-guide-to-the-american-marketing-association-ama-job-market-interviews-for-aspiring-professors/

Another comprehensive but more US-focused guide: https://www.ama.org/ama-transitions-guide-navigating-the-progression-from-doctoral-student-to-marketing-professor/

The Butterfly Effect

It will hardly come as a surprise when I say a candidate's success on the market is a function of their academic network. However, what might be less obvious is how (and how early) you start building this network. The short answer is: from the time you attend your first conference! I know this sounds crazy, and it's definitely something that happened for me quite by chance. I was the only quant marketing candidate in my cohort, so I didn't have a large group of people to hang out with at conferences. Eventually, I would drift towards other PhD students, who introduced me to their peers/friends. It's pretty amazing how fast your network can grow this way! Doctoral events/consortia are also great for this - tapping into a broader PhD cohort and getting some dedicated attention from faculty not in my department really helped me.

People are also more amenable to casual chatting when you're a clueless 2nd-3rd year rather than a job market candidate who very clearly has an "intent" to network, so you learn and grow considerably from these early contacts and interactions. By the time I was on the market, I could draw at least a two-hop connection with many recruiting schools' faculty, and this definitely helps attract initial attention to your application. In summary, don't just rely on your advisor to introduce you to their network! Sure, that's a bonus, but this is *your* PhD and *your* eventual job. You need to be proactive and figure out what works for you.

Cold emails: Yay or Nay?

I find a lot of job market candidates hesitating to reach out to faculty, both of schools that are actively recruiting and those that haven't advertised. For the former, it helps to signal genuine interest and announce your intention to send in an application. After you apply, send another follow-up saying that you look forward to the committee's consideration. I did this for every school I applied to, and got responses from 99% of them on both emails. Note however that your chances of getting a reply are much higher if you have some common ground - either shared research interests, or previous interactions (see above!).

For the latter, a positive outcome is obviously more probabilistic. That being said, showing persistent interest did end up working out well for me at a school that hadn't initially advertised, so no harm in trying. Disclaimer time again: all these emails do need to come from a place of genuine interest, so this might not be the best strategy if you're applying to >100 positions. I applied to around 30, so I was able to signal interest in credible ways.

The Importance of Being Earnest (Seriously)

The job market is often characterised as a complex signaling game with limited information and incentives for both parties to conceal what they "really" think (a job market candidate in Operations literally built a model to illustrate the limiting conditions for this - I'll post the link here if I find it!). While this may be true, it helps to take a step back and focus on what's important: YOUR PRIORITIES. You can spend all day second-guessing the committee's intentions or if you were strategic enough in how much information you revealed about yourself, but in my experience, clear communication goes a long way.

This includes everything from clarifying the format of an interview to conveying to a school if they are your top choice (i.e not playing hard to get), highlighting any personal circumstances that lead you to prefer a school, and keeping all parties in the loop if you receive competing offers. It's an open secret that recruiting schools communicate with each other frequently, so trying to conceal any of this stuff doesn't get you very far.

Online interviews: the new normal?

Let me start this by saying that I'm way more at ease online than I am IRL, so the digital medium worked amazingly well for my job talks. I invested a little bit on my set-up (bought a cheap ring-light, a webcam mount, and a laptop stand) - this is what it eventually looked like:

I would keep seminar participants opened up on the laptop screen and my slides on the monitor, using the mounted webcam as my primary video device. When I was answering questions though, I would switch to the laptop webcam to make the interaction feel more "real" (a lot of people found this cool!). It also helps to establish norms upfront, as with any talk. Do you want questions at the end? Will you be monitoring chat? These are all totally legit things to clarify and will never count against you.

There are a bunch of great guides about online lectures which you can check out if you want more on this sort of stuff, e.g: this set of videos from HBS .

Finally, PRACTICE! And not just with your advisors and dept, but with heterogeneous groups of people: ideally, some would know your field intimately, whereas others will come at it from a more "big picture" perspective. Again, the Butterfly Effect helped me find and utilize these groups and get fantastic feedback.

Parting (AND MOST IMPORTANT) words

  1. It's just a job. You are worth more than your application packet. You are a smart and worthy human being :)

  2. There is eventually no formula for success, although I attempted to lay one out. We don't give enough weight to chance events shaping outcomes - always remember the stochastic element, and going back to 1, don't take your success/failure on the market to be any kind of reflection of how much you know or what kind of researcher you are.

  3. Form support groups with people you trust, and WHINE. It's allowed, and totally healthy.

  4. Keep sight of what's important. Don't renege on food/sleep/leisure. Headspace worked remarkably well to calm me down.


Good luck!!!!!!!!