Lindsey KuperI just talked to a PhD student who had a scheduled faculty interview at a US R1 CS department two weeks from now, but not anymore: the position has been cancelled due to budget constraints. It's one thing to not be hiring this year -- but they actually opened a search, reviewed applications, invited folks for interviews, and *then* cancelled the position? A bunch of people's time just got wasted on both sides, to say nothing of the heartbreak of getting an interview and then having it cancelled.
(Not one of my own students. And I'm not gonna say what department it was, though I know some of you will know. I assume this was a decision that came down from above, and that they're just as unhappy about it as the candidate is.)
Great year to be on the job market, huh?
Loris D'Antoni@lindsey sadly this happens a lot more often than people think. I can think of at least 4 cases in the last 12 years in which this happened to people I personally know
John Regehr@lorisdanto @lindsey and it's good to not name and shame... this kind of thing is on administrators, not on our colleagues
@regehr @lorisdanto Absolutely, I feel awful for them
@lorisdanto Well, I guess I'm glad we categorically aren't hiring, then, because at least we aren't going to break anyone's heart like this.
@lindsey Here is an interesting thing though. Let's say it's September and your department has to make a decision. We can: 1) post a call and interview but we will only know for sure in February if we can actually hire anyone, 2) not post a call and then if we can hire miss the chance because we didn't.
What would you vote for? 1 can cause heartbreaks, 2 can cause fewer job opportunities for the cohort.
In 11 year as a faculty, I had to twice vote for exactly this
Andreas Nuyts@lorisdanto @lindsey 1) but transparently?
@anuytstt What would be the part to be transparent about? Calls usually don't promise that someone will be hired at all. Though this is different by countries usually.
In US is very common in some years for departments to interview many candidates and hire 0.
In US is very common in some years for departments to interview many candidates and hire 0.
@lorisdanto But perhaps rather because they don't find their dream candidate, than because the position disappears?
In this thread, there seems to be agreement that the latter happening by surprise is bad. So there could be transparency about the fact that there is uncertainty about the existence of the available position.
In this thread, there seems to be agreement that the latter happening by surprise is bad. So there could be transparency about the fact that there is uncertainty about the existence of the available position.
@anuytstt I think the comparison here seems to be more about US vs EU professorship calls. In EU calls are usually about filling a position (we have 2 openings in X), in the US they are not (every year we interview and hire the number we can hire). It is sad that in this case, the number went from non-zero to zero, but that is always a possibility sadly. In any case, I agree with you it sucks for the candidates, but one nice (or maybe not nice) thing about the US system is that every university is hiring at the same time, so they have probably also applied to all the other ones
@lorisdanto Well there is an inconsistency in this entire conversation.
Either the events described are uncommon/uncustomary (in the US?) and then it is advisable to be transparent about the possibility of such a course of events, or they are common/customary and then I don't know what this conversation is even about.
Either the events described are uncommon/uncustomary (in the US?) and then it is advisable to be transparent about the possibility of such a course of events, or they are common/customary and then I don't know what this conversation is even about.
chris martens@lorisdanto @lindsey wow really?? i feel very out of touch learning this, i’ve never heard of it happening
@chrisamaphone @lorisdanto yeah, I've never known it to happen in my nearly 8 years in this job
Petey P. Twelve@chrisamaphone @lorisdanto @lindsey it happened to me during my search ~11 years ago, although the school in question was a SLAC -- the fact that an R1 is doing this tells you something about the state of funding in higher ed.
@lindsey @chrisamaphone one specific place I know of didn't cancel interviews. They interviewed everyone anyway and then told people during the interview that there really wasn't a job anymore
@lorisdanto @chrisamaphone what in tarnation
@lindsey @chrisamaphone I think in that case it was the right thing to do, but I don't want to go into details over here