about_to_give_up (guest) 26 Jan 2015 17:30
when should someone give up on the hope of landing a TT job?
for me, this is my first job search, but I have these strikes against me:
1. need to find a job in a relatively small geographic area with a lot of competition… my SO simply doesn't want to live anywhere else and I want to make SO happy
2. this year seemed relatively good for jobs in the area - basically applied to all 7 schools that were even a possible fit there - next year probably won't be any better and is likely to be worse given the number of openings this year
3. so far have had no hits on interviews (not even on the phone) - just have a couple of places that I haven't heard from yet - 2 outright rejections so far, the rest unofficial (i.e., on here)
4. on my fifth year of postdoc (have had 3 before)
i have a decent publication record and most are recent - hard time getting published in grad school but PDs made up for that some. I also got some teaching experience, but it was in grad school (i.e. less recent)
it's looking like I need to find another way to make a living.
when should i just give up the TT search?
