Friday, January 29, 2010

Part one: Age

So I haven't written about the current job search because, well, I've gotten a very defeated feeling about the whole thing. I've applied for post-doc positions, as this is my third (and thus final) year here, and I have applied for faculty positions. For the latter, well, there's still a lot of time. But for the former, there's a problem.

Probably 90% of the post-doc positions I have applied for I could not get. The reason for this is my age. Not the number of years I've been alive, but the number of years since I got my PhD. Many institutions (as well as the official rule of the Dept. of Energy, where much of the funding comes from for us) have a policy against hiring someone who is more than five years out of getting his/her PhD. This of course immediately rules me out. As for the other 10%, well, that's just a crap shoot (and hoping that many people take the jobs I can't get to leave these open).

Honestly, the worst part is my interest in teaching. Obviously I want a faculty position due to its (more) permanent nature, but I also just want to teach. So getting a post-doc position is basically in case I don't get a faculty job (which is rather likely), but I would immediately pull out of it if I did. Basically, I'm frustrated because I have always taken getting post-doc offers for granted (my first time around I got three offers, plus two potential offers, and the second time around I got one potential offer and two offers, so I've always been able to choose).

So that's frustration number one right now.

by Topher at 8:59 AM |