Job market statistics

Here are my final job market statistics:

• 6 dozen applications
  
  
  
  • 44 faculty: mostly tenure-track, some research-track, a couple temporary teaching fellowships
    
  • 7 real jobs: 3 government, 4 research institutes
    
  • 18 postdocs: 5 prestigious and competitive, 13 regular.
    
  
  
• 13 short interview offers.
  
  
  
  • 4 conference (2 different conferences)
    
  • 7 phone: 3 formal (with committee scheduled way in advance), 3 informal (impromptu with 1-2 people), 1 formal declined.
    
  • 1 informal visit.
    
  • 1 email interview (seriously!) (declined)
    
  
  
• 8 visit offers
  
  
  
  • 5 paid visit offers: 4 completed, 1 cancelled.
    
  • 2 unpaid visits costing >$150
    
  • 1 unpaid visit costing <$10.
    
  
  
• 2 offers: 1 postdoc, 1 research-track faculty. Waiting to hear from tenure-track job.
  

Sources of jobs by outcome:

• Offers: both were from informal chance meetings, but neither through connections.
  
  
  
  • Postdoc offer: saw faculty posting outside my field, emailed to ask if should apply, guy said I should apply and mentioned an unadvertised 1 year postdoc, declined me for faculty and brought me for postdoc interview.
    
  • Research-track: walked up to all desirable schools at field's annual conference asking if they were hiring. The guy at this school's booth who I happened to approach turned out to be the chair, and he said to send my CV. I drove there for two short, informal visits. They gave me an offer after the postdoc's offer.
    
  
  
• Paid interviews (where employer paid travel costs): 1 asked to apply, 1 at conference, 2 online.
  
  
  
  • 3 year postdoc: asked to apply for, also saw postings in 2 places. (When considering the VAP, called 5 people in the area. One of them kept in touch, invited me to visit his campus, and mentioned that the following year I should apply for the postdoc, and then mentioned again that I should apply for the postdoc.)
    
  • tenure-track faculty: saw posting at above conference. Search chair contacted me right after he got my application to say that he knew my advisor and that they were inviting me. 4 months passed before I actually got the invitation to visit.
    
  • 2 tenure-track faculty: saw postings online.
    
  
  
• Unpaid interviews costing >$150: both postdocs, both online. One guy was friends with my advisor, and assured me that I would likely get an offer, but I didn't because the other postdocs didn't think I was interested in the area.
  
• 13 short interviews
  
  
  
  • 4 conference interviews from registering for conferences' job services.
    
  • 4 formal interviews from internet postings
    
  • email interview from internet posting
    
  • 4 informal interviews all due to personal contacts: 2 from connections and 2 just because I reached out to them randomly.
    
  
  

Conclusion: networking works, even if it's just randomly walking up to someone and asking if they are hiring. Having a good pedigree and good publications certainly helps with the random approaches, I'm sure.