Insights from a survey-based analysis of the academic job market

Abstract

Many postdoctoral fellows in the STEM fields enter the academic job market with little knowledge of the process and expectations, and without any means to assess their qualifications relative to the general applicant pool. Demystifying this process is critical, as there is little information publicly available. In this work, we provide insight into the process of academic job searches by gathering data to establish background metrics for typical faculty job applicants, and further correlate these metrics with job search outcomes. We analyzed 317 responses to an anonymous survey for faculty job applicants from the May 2018 -May 2019 market cycle. Responses were about evenly split by gender, largely North American-centric and life science focused, and highly successful with 58% of applicants receiving at least one offer. Traditional metrics (funding, publications, etc.) of a positive research track record above a certain threshold of qualifications were unable to completely differentiate applicants that did and did not receive a job offer. Our findings suggest that there is no single clear path to a faculty job offer and that perhaps criteria not captured by our survey may also influence landing a faculty position above a certain threshold of qualification. Furthermore, our survey did capture applicants' perception of the faculty job application process as unnecessarily stressful, time-consuming, and largely lacking in feedback, irrespective of a successful outcome. We hope that this study will provide an avenue for better data-driven decision making by the applicants and search committees, better evidence-based mentorship practices by principal investigators, and improved hiring practices by institutions.

Postdoctoral research training and the attainment of faculty careers in social science and STEM fields in the United States

“…The rise in the number of social science postdocs, as in other fields, can be attributed to factors such as shifts in funding mechanisms for academic research (Britt, 2012; Foley, 2013); the increasingly adverse job market conditions for tenure-track faculty positions (American Association of University Professors, 2018; Cantwell and Taylor, 2015; Fernandes et al , 2019; Kezar and Sam, 2010; Neumann and Tan, 2011; Stephan and Ma, 2005); and growing enrollment in graduate degree programs (Arbeit and Kang, 2017; Einaudi et al , 2013). The proportion of PhDs who take postdoc positions also tends to vary due to economic conditions.…”

Gender bias in academia: A lifetime problem that needs solutions

“…Despite remarkable progress made over the last three decades to mitigate gender bias (Eagly, 2018), equity is still far from being reached in academia. Multiple studies have systematically documented bias in every aspect of academia (Fernandes et al, 2020), including journal article and innovation citations (Dworkin et al, 2020b;Hofstra et al, 2020), publication rates (West et al, 2013), patent applications (Jensen et al, 2018), hiring decisions (Nielsen, 2016), research grant applications (Burns et al, 2019), evaluations of conference abstracts (Knobloch-Westerwick et al, 2013), symposia speaker invitations (Schroeder et al, 2013), postdoctoral employment (Sheltzer and Smith, 2014), prestigious science awards (Lunnemann et al, 2019), and tenure decisions (Weisshaar, 2017). These forms of bias are intertwined and evolve and accumulate along the career path (see Figure 1).…”

Effects of Inferred Gender on Patterns of Co‐Authorship in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Publications

“…Whether the gender of these gate-keepers affects the gender ratio of other authors on a paper is unknown, but perhaps vital to understand gender imbalances in academia. For example, a recent survey found that STEM postdoctoral fellows entering the academic job market had an average of 13 publications, six of them first-authored (Fernandes et al 2019). Therefore, publications on which a researcher is a collaborator, but not the research lead, may represent more than half of that early career researcher's publications.…”