Strategic synergies

The synergies that happen around job decision time can be useful, but delicate. Having an offer (postdoc at the top school in my field) and interviewing for a tenure-track job (at an "up and coming" school that has attracted some very good people) are both very useful statuses to have. Irrespective of what or where they are.

1. The faculty job asked me what my status was, so I said I have an offer that I'm interested in, but I can wait for a bit. They get nervous, thinking that it's a faculty offer that I have, and they seem to be clearly trying to accelerate their job search process to get all the candidates interviewed by whenever they think I need an answer by. Which makes sense all around for them.

2. The postdoc offer had been describing the exact parameters of the job, and they sounded like the usual grad student stuff. They said they'd like to hear from me by mid-April, and I said that I'm interviewing in early April with a tenure-track job, but I think I ought to get an answer by mid-April. The tenor of the conversation immediately changed. I'm eligible for a real job! They said that if I'm serious they can see about helping me write a grant to create a faculty position for myself. Given the caliber of the school and the people helping me, I'm sure we could come up with something good, and it is not a bad bet to take, though it leaves me in the hell of soft money.

3. I spoke with another postdoc who seems very interested, and they asked if I was applying only to other postdocs, faculty jobs, research associates, or a mixture. I said a mixture. They said that the salary was very competitive, and allows supplementation to be competitive with faculty jobs.


In general I wonder if it could be a good strategy to apply for tenure-track jobs at lower-ranked institutions on purpose in order to be treated better by postdocs in the negotiation. Often people apply for postdocs at the top-ranked places hoping that once they finish the postdoc, they'll be able to get a faculty job somewhere in the top tier or two. If they applied for tenure-track faculty at third or fourth-tier institutions, would they do better in the job negotiations?

In academia, we pretend that we don't care about money, but once again money is not a bad proxy for respect. As soon as it's apparent that one does not have to be making the typical postdoc salary, but is choosing to do so for professional development purposes, it seems like there's so much more respect.