Thanks to everyone who shared or wrote me about my post on job talks. One of my inspirations was Paul Bloom (of Small Potatoes fame), so it was a treat to see that he liked it. The post also ended up on Daily Nous, where there’s been a bunch of commentary—including one grim, highly upvoted comment from a poster going by the name “Stop letting grad students waste their lives.” Dr. Stop says no one should read career advice, because getting a job is 99% just a matter of having a fancy pedigree. I have some thoughts on this.
- My sympathy to Dr. Stop. It sucks being on the academic job market, and everybody hates being rejected by prospective employers.
- That said, if you’ve already left academia, why are you reading advice for PhD students?
- Also, the main advice here is catastrophically wrong. Your job talk doesn’t just matter 1%. It can easily sink an otherwise strong candidacy. This happens many times every year.
- Corollary: beware highly confident job talk advice from people who have neither given a job talk nor been on a hiring committee.
- Advisor quality matters, of course, but that’s no reason to ignore career advice. Great advisors are great in part because they give you career advice. That’s one of the main reasons why I posted my job talk advice in the first place—to level the playing field for students who didn’t hit the advisor jackpot. (See also Charles Torres on advisors as promoters.)
- The best point in here is that the reputation of your PhD program matters a lot—and not always for legitimate reasons. Even students with a strong CV and strong letters might struggle to get interviews if they’re coming from a program out of the “top 20.”
- Corollary: hiring committees owe it to the field not to overrate pedigree.
- Of course, I agree with the advice not to make yourself miserable. That’s why I said as much in my post. Read to the end before commenting!
- A lot of what you do in PhD programs is meant to get you a job—and kind of worthless otherwise....