Update on job search

Here's the scorecard.

Applications: 7 faculty, 16 postdocs, 1 government, 1 research institute, 2 industry.

Interviews: 1 faculty, 10 postdocs (declined 1), 1 industry.

Offers: 1 postdoc (salary x), current job (salary 1.6x).

Almost offers: 1 postdoc.

Pending (very recent interview or notice of being on a "short list"): 1 faculty, 2 postdocs.


Elaboration:

My almost offer: "Our committee met and we are prepared to offer you a fellowship but I want to hold off on officially doing that until I am satisfied that you have 'met with' a few more people and satisfied yourself (and me) that you will have the people here to work with. I am very impressed with you, and believe you will add to our program immensely. I want to make sure we will add to you - that is our true purpose.... Please let me know if this is ok with you. I hope we will be able to have you here, but do want to make sure you will be happy here before we consummate our relationship."

Of course this came a week before I was spending an entire week away: 4 days of interviews + 2 days of travel. So I haven't made more than tentative contacts until now, and almost don't want to bother with them because they've been fairly difficult. These are the people who wouldn't pay anything for my visit (which was paid for by another postdoc nearby), said at my interview that they didn't take me seriously until they met me, finally agreed to pay $100 flight change fee because they were late in answering my email telling them of the other visit, and then suggested perhaps I should come back at my own expense to meet with people who might actually be good mentors. They've realized how ridiculous it is to ask someone to pay for their own visit for a job they have not yet been offered, and are settled on my calling potential mentors. It's a ridiculous demand to make of someone in early April. It would have been a reasonable request after my mid-February visit. Now it's very hard to fit in, and not likely to lead to good decisions to just have a phone call.



This morning, I'd been set on accepting my one actual offer, but now I am thinking about the pros and cons, relative to my current job.

My one solid offer has some real advantages:
1. It is from the top school in my area, so has a mystique around it, and theoretically helps future jobs.
2. They brought me in to give a talk, and took me very seriously: they hosted a lunch in the department chair's office with several senior faculty, and everyone seemed happy to meet me. And it was interesting conversation, rather than an interview.
3. They seem very flexible: the mentor is in a satellite campus, but he says I can take an office in the main campus too, and also work with others. I'm not expected to work on any given set of projects.
4. It sounds like they'll let me join a range of research projects. I have to look into this more.
5. They like my work, and they don't want me to change it to fit any set of research agendas that they have.
6. Fantastic seminars, everyone passes through there, lots going on.
7. The main campus is centralized, so a 1 hour seminar takes 1 hour; you don't have to add 30-60 minutes of travel time to get to another campus.
8. They claim they'll work with me to apply for a faculty-transition grant so I could become soft-money faculty there. It's a nice thought, even if meaningless given how difficult the grants are to get.


On the other hand:
1. Research area is somewhat narrow and poorly-funded, so might limit future possibilities unless I'm very strategic.
2. Mentor is less available than even my current mentor: busy, but very nice. This is the guy who, very apologetically, made an appointment a week or two in advance to talk about the position, and started the call by saying I had 10 minutes. I might be able to work with people other than him.
3. No one likes living there. Many young people, especially singles, take on a 60-90 minute commute each way to avoid it. Others spend every weekend in a neighboring city.
4. I have no friends there, not even a toehold of friends-of-friends*. I have a hard time imagining moving to a city where I didn't know anyone at all, and I wonder if I could be happy and productive that way. I know foreign students do it. And I've done it in foreign countries. And I even did it for a summer internship 2 years ago. I guess it's the combination of living in a depressing dangerous city with no friends, taking on an inherently socially-isolating job.
5. After traveling every other week, I feel like I missed out on my current city, and I hate to leave it just as I no longer hate it and have some people whom I'm friendly with.
6. My current job is bringing in a new researcher whom I'd worked with remotely and really like.
7. Money isn't supposed to be a factor, but getting a 30% pay cut is demoralizing.
8. There's this nebulous satellite campus where I'll have to spend some time.


The resources and seminars are a big deal for me. My current campus is decentralized, with the one weekly seminar is 1.5 miles from my office, and only 30% of the seminars are relevant to my work, so I've not been frequently. My PhD was interdisciplinary, so some seminars were 3 miles away and I often just didn't go to those, only the ones on the nearby campus. It sounds hokey, but it's nice to be able to participate in an "academic community."

On the other hand, given the social situation there, the seminars will be a lifeline for me, and I may not have other ways of meeting people. I hate to become the socially isolated postdoc whose major source of friendship is seminars and tagging along with the grad students.

I have friends in a neighboring city, 60-90 minutes away, and I can spend weekends there, but if I wanted to do that on a regular basis, I'd need to find some legitimate way of doing that like finding a half-time roommate, and that's pretty draining on a postdoc salary.

It does work well enough, though. In spite of the horrible city, I really liked my visit to the campus, and felt it was a relief compared to my current one.

I do think that I should look into the sort-of offer some more, and find people to work with, but so far I haven't seen anything terribly interesting in their research; one project they're doing seems inferior and less well-funded to a similar one we're doing, even though they're by reputation a much better school. They also have a compact campus. It's a good, safe city where I already have friends, though it's expensive relative to salary, and they treat their postdocs like grad students, such as 5 people to a windowless office.

So much to do, and I have to give the offer an answer by the end of this week, preferably earlier.


* My one social start there is funny in a mortifying way. I emailed a PhD in an allied field, who I'd been on a date with a couple years ago, and asked if he knew anyone that I could ask about the city and its social environment. He called and gave me the name of a single guy he hadn't spoke with for years, and a number that he'd pulled off google for the private high school where the guy taught. I asked if he had an email address because I was wary of cold-calling some random high school, but he reassured me. I was sitting in an airport and a bit spacey, and without thinking too much about it, I called and asked to leave a message for the guy. The receptionist goes away for 10 seconds and then a male voice answers. She had pulled the guy out of class. He was pissed. I apologized profusely, explained what had happened and that I had asked only to leave a message, and asked for another number and a good time to call. He asked for my name and number instead and of course I don't expect a call back.