Of interest to faculty candidates

This very interesting website, Chemistry Placement Data, which shows the tenure-track placement rates for the PhD graduation classes of 2008-2010. The percentages are about what you would expect, and the success rates of the universities are about there as well.

This website has been around for a while, but the authors have now encouraged sharing the data, especially since Dr. Gaule and his team have a new paper out, titled "Biased Beliefs and Entry into Scientific Careers". It's quite interesting:

We investigate whether excessively optimistic beliefs may play a role in the persistent demand for doctoral and post-doctoral training in science. We elicit the beliefs and career preferences of doctoral students through a novel survey and randomize the provision of structured information on the true state of the academic market and information through role models on non-academic careers. One year later, both treatments lead students to update their beliefs about the academic market and impact career preferences. However, we do not find an effect on actual career outcomes 2 years post-intervention.

I will have more to say about this paper later, but I think it's worth reading and thinking about, even as I suspect readers of this blog will agree with the broad conclusions of the article. 

Ask CJ: How to get a job at non-English speaking universities?

From the inbox, a very good question (slightly redacted and edited for clarity): 

...Faculty openings in Canada are few and far in-between so [I] have been exploring the possibility of Europe, but [am] not sure about the whole foreign language thing? [I] know of a couple examples of English-speaking people working at non-English institutions but were wondering if you have any experience or advice? For example is there a way to know an institution would be open to hiring someone that is not fluent in the institution's operating language? 

Sorry for the lack of specific questions. We really aren’t sure where to start... any insight would be appreciated.

I'm not sure if I have anything helpful to add, other than that I have notice that many European professorship advertisements will have some kind of statement about language requirements.

Readers, what has been your experience? I honestly don't know of very many American or Canadian ex-pats who are teaching in Europe on the tenure-track, but I haven't tracked it too much. (There's always Nazarbayev University!) 

PUI professor job hopping

From the 2017-2018 open thread, an interesting exchange. From Anonymous (January 6, 2018 at 2:44 PM):

Any current assistant professors out there applying for PUI positions? I'm wondering how much mobility really exists in those positions. Does teaching a couple years (as an asst. prof, not an adjunct) help you move to a better school?

And the informed response from another Anonymous (January 7, 2018 at 8:38 AM):

I teach at a PUI and moved from another PUI when I was an assistant professor. There is definitely mobility in these cases. If you wish to "move up" the PUI school ladder, some of it will depend on what you have accomplished at your current position. Most likely, the schools that you are applying to will want to see that you have established yourself as an effective teacher and scholar and that you are contributing to the shared governance of your current institution in a positive manner. 

I would suspect that if you have at least one letter from someone in your department speaking positively about your teaching and research (with students) and a letter from outside your department discussing how well you work in committees that you will be good. Many search committees like faculty applications from other assistant professors because they have teaching experience and have mentored undergraduates in the research lab as well.

This would be another question that I wish that we had a better data around: how many professors move each year between schools? Which schools are more prone to movement (PUI or PhD-granting?) Do assistant professors move before or after tenure? More questions to be solved by the future staffers of the Chemjobber Institute of Advanced Scientific Workforce Studies... 

The 2017-2018 new prof open thread

From the inbox, a request for an open thread on new PI startups, etc. I hereby announce this open thread. Enjoy.

From 2016, I wanted to note this request on Twitter from Julia Kalow on good literature to read in preparation for running a new laboratory that generated a lot of good responses, including this small list of "new assistant prof lit":

• "Advice for a Young Investigator" (Santiago Ramón y Cajal)
• "Making the Right Moves" (HHMI)
• "At the Helm" (Kathy Barker)
• "Teach Better, Save Time, and Have More Fun: A Guide to Teaching and Mentoring in Science" (Penny J. Beuning, Dave Z. Besson, Scott A. Snyder, Ingrid DeVries Salgado)

From 2013, a good thread at ChemBark from 2013 talking about new laboratory setup, deals and pitfalls.

A C&EN survey by Lisa Jarvis, talking about startup package size. Also, the private C&EN Facebook group about for new chemistry professors. Also, the 2016 open thread here about this subject.

Best wishes to all new assistant professors and Godspeed.

How many applicants there are for entry-level TT positions?

I see there's some chatter on the Faculty Jobs List open thread about the number of applicants:

Seems like the list usually has about 500 openings
Schools seem to get 100-300 applications per opening
Postdocs seem to apply to 10-20 opening each
so estimate 10x more applicants than openings
the talent pool seems to have about 5000 people looking for a job

Here's my stab in the dark that I have been formulating in my head for a while:

Each year, about 2,500 people graduate with a Ph.D. in chemistry; in 2015, it was 2,675 according to the Survey of Earned Doctorates. Of those, 826 (30%) got a postdoc and 478 (18%) got jobs. (Of the 478 who got jobs, 70% went into industry and 22% went into academia.) The rest (936 people) were still looking for a position, either in industry or academia. I am going use 2015 as my model year - this is probably wrong.

Assumption 1: of those remaining as Ph.D./not-postdocs, 60% apply for industrial positions, 40% apply to academic positions.
Assumption 2: of postdocs remaining, 50% apply for academic positions.
Assumption 3: each year, 20% of remaining postdocs for each year are hired for academic positions
Assumption 4: postdocs drop out of the running after 4 years.
Assumption 5: we're not counting international Ph.D.s who have come to the US to do postdocs yet

So it quickly becomes a question of "how many postdocs are remaining on the market after X number of years?" And so through quick math, my guesstimate is 2430 applicants at any one time (number of graduate students applying + 2016 postdocs + 2015 postdocs + 2014 postdocs + 2013 postdocs.) After you add in more grad students and all the international postdocs, etc., I bet you wander into the 3000-3500 range, but that's just a guess.

Readers, what do you think? 

What's the best way to write a statement of faith?

If you'd like to find out about writing a statement of faith if you're thinking about applying for a faculty position at a religiously-affiliated school, feel free to read more. In this case, it's a Christian institution. If you aren't interested, I understand.

UPDATE: Anon731A makes a very good point: "Please don't assume that if a college has a religious affiliation, that a statement of faith is required."

UNH: "Experience must include 4 years of post-doctoral research experience in the field of Organic Chemistry"

When I am looking at faculty jobs postings, I am usually just entering the facts (department, geography, subfield.) It usually takes a lot to make me notice the fine details, especially when the boilerplate is mostly the same. This ad from UNH-Durham was a little different:

Summary of Position
Within the Department of Chemistry in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of New Hampshire, the candidate will teach undergraduate courses in organic chemistry as well as graduate courses, including organic synthesis, and to develop new courses. The faculty member will be responsible for maintaining a productive program of research and scholarship in the field of organic chemistry, and organic synthesis and its applications to problems in chemical biology (e.g. biological catalysis, structural biology, biomaterials or other related areas). Will also advise and mentor undergraduate and graduate level students. 

Acceptable Minimum Qualifications
Candidates must possess a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry. Experience must include 4 years of post-doctoral research experience in the field of Organic Chemistry (emphasis CJ's) and at least one academic year of post-secondary teaching experience pre or post Ph.D. Demonstrated research experience with publications in peer-reviewed journals is required. 

Documents Needed to Apply 

Required Documents
Resume/Vita

4 years?!?! Chemists aren't biologists!

Twitter chatter has strongly speculated this is an internal candidate; Andre astutely notes the resume/vita requirement seems a bit thin.

Can I make a suggestion to the broader world, or at least the chemistry community? When you have an internal candidate and you're 98%+ sure that you're hiring that guy, but the HR department still makes you post the ad, I would really suggest that the hiring contact's name be Don T. Bother. That would save a lot of time for everyone involved.  

Could the faculty of yesteryear compete today?

Via Twitter, an interesting comment from a graduate student: 

"A successful, well-known chemist admitted that they probably wouldn't have been hired tenure-track today."

That's not the first time I've heard senior professors express such a comment, so I threw it out there on Twitter:

To senior professors among chemTweeps:  

Did you hear your elders say "I wouldn't have been qualified today" back when you were younger?

I thought the most thoughtful answer came from friend-of-the-blog Chris Cramer:

you know, it's more subtle than it sounds. when a senior faculty member says that, it's not really a "gosh, kids are smarter nowadays"  

it's more recognition that the "frontiers" of the field have moved (as they must) so that OUR proposals from xx years ago would now be / routine and uncompetitive. In addition, the graphical and word processing tools have advanced enormously, so the quality of proposals /and presentations is dramatically changed relative to, say, 20 yrs ago.  

I have no doubt that there has been a general climb in the qualifications needed to become an assistant professor over the years. However, it's not clear to me that anyone has any statistical data (yet!) on this issue. Readers, what do you think? Are we experiencing qualification creep? Have you seen it? When will it end?  

The median chemistry professor startup package may be less than 1 million dollars

Just as a vague statistical rejoinder to Professor Mathews' comments, a note that not everyone who responded to C&EN's survey of assistant professors of 2015 received $2M+ packages.

Methodology: "In March, C&EN surveyed chemists in their first or second year as an assistant professor. Of the 192 academics we reached out to, 111 responded; 85 identified themselves as working at a research-intensive school, whereas 26 are at primarily undergraduate institutions." 

How is the assistant professor class of 2010-2012 doing?

A question inspired by an e-mail: 

Does anyone know how assistant professors going up for tenure are doing these days? Is it a "no grants, no tenure" sort of thing? Or is it more nuanced than that? (I expect it's more nuanced, but only slightly more.)

(UPDATE: To clarify, I'm asking more for R1 assistant professors, but I'd be interested in small colleges as well, especially my vague understanding that smaller schools are expecting external funding (or at least applications for external funding) of their newer faculty.) 

Actually, this gets to a favorite question of mine: do we have any idea about the percentage of assistant professors of chemistry who are promoted to associate professor each year? What is the best statistical data set for this? 

Readers, your thoughts?

UPDATE: Professor (and associate dean!) Chris Cramer weighs in for Team Nuance.  Also, I clarified above. 

Cramer's Corner: admissions/the application process for professorships

Friend of the blog Chris Cramer (professor at the University of Minnesota, computational/theoretical chemist, former director of graduate studies for the University of Minnesota's department of chemistry) has a number of great contributions to the chemblogotweetosphere. 

First, a series of tweets from Chris about how to think about applying to graduate school.

Second, a longer comment from him about the process in hiring a new professor. It's longer, so I'm putting it below the jump:

Open thread for new PIs and lab setup discussion

Over at ChemBark, the following request:

a new discussion thread for those of us who are trying to set up labs? It would be nice to discuss experiences with different vendors/products, strategies for stretching startup money, etc.

I hereby announce this open thread. Enjoy.

Also, I wanted to note this request on Twitter from Julia Kalow on good literature to read in preparation for running a new laboratory that generated a lot of good responses, including this small list of "new assistant prof lit":

• "Advice for a Young Investigator" (Santiago Ramón y Cajal)
• "Making the Right Moves" (HHMI)
• "At the Helm" (Kathy Barker)
• "Teach Better, Save Time, and Have More Fun: A Guide to Teaching and Mentoring in Science" (Penny J. Beuning, Dave Z. Besson, Scott A. Snyder, Ingrid DeVries Salgado)

Best wishes to all new assistant professors and Godspeed.

UPDATE: Here's Paul's thread from 2013 talking about new laboratory setup, deals and pitfalls. 

The inaugural winner of the Banholzer Award: Anon749am at ChemBark

In the midst of the long faculty jobs thread at ChemBark and the current sub-discussion about a postdoc thinking about turning down a faculty position and re-upping for their postdoc, a hiring manager for Ph.D.s at "the big 3" chemical company breaks in about extended postdocs and faculty candidates looking for industrial positions (emphasis mine): 

I work for one of the big 3 chemical companies and lead PhD recruiting for our division. We evaluate hundreds of applications from top 25 schools every year and interview dozens of outstanding PhD and postdoc candidates, many of whom have pedigrees and CV’s worthy of getting TT positions at top schools. The candidate pool is INSANELY deep right now, and excellent candidates really are a dime a dozen. 

@ March 8 10:34: I’d be very careful about “holding out” and adding years to a postdoc. It sounds like you’re determined to work in academia, but you should know that extended postdocs will hurt your chances of landing an industry job as well. I can’t even begin to tell you how many awesome candidates I have interviewed who have tried and failed to get TT jobs and are now trying to get into industry, only to find that the bar is just as high (or higher, if you look at soft skills). You obviously want to minimize regrets in your life, but you have a chance at 5 years of guaranteed job security. That’s more than I have now, and certainly more than most will ever have. I’d hate for you to regret passing up what could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

...and later on in the thread:

As I mentioned earlier, the talent pool is much deeper than most people really want to admit. The assumption that you’re making is that an extended postdoc confers broader knowledge, training, and experience? Does it, though? Most of the post-docs I look at are working in areas that could reasonably be considered extensions of their thesis fields, and those few who have stepped out of their comfort zone to get broad experience are generally able to demonstrate their talents within 3 years. Many of the post-docs in their 2nd or 3rd appointment are basically acting as the “synthesis expert” in a non-synthetic group. I’m not trying to disparage the post-doc experience whatsoever. Just recognize that post-doc is not always synonymous with terms like “more” or “better”. Sometimes post-doc is just a synonym for “holding pattern” or “cheap labor”. 

The Banholzer Award is awarded for "Truth-Telling about Chemical Employment" from chemical employers, no matter how uncomfortable, unpopular or annoying. Congratulations, Anon749am and thanks for the insight.

[CJ's editorial re-comment: postdoctoral positions are quite often the scientific equivalent of an inferior good, that is a position that one would not take, if one had a better option.]

Whither teaching postdocs?

Over the years, people have asked me about the various programs that bring in new Ph.D.s for "teaching" postdoctoral positions. I've had another such conversation recently, so I'm bringing the issue up again.

I'll be completely up front and say that I'm quite skeptical of them, but I don't have any strong data to back up my skepticism. Here are my qualms:

• Why is the institution hiring postdocs as opposed to full-time lecturers? Isn't this just a money play? 
• What kind of career development program is available to the selected postdocs outside of "here, teach these classes"? 
• If there's a research component, how much support does the PI offer the postdoc? No one likes dual mandates, and I can't imagine PIs are enthusiastic about postdocs that come with outside commitments. 
• What is the track record of the program? 

One of the oldest such programs is Boston University chemistry Postdoctoral Faculty Fellowship program. They note the track record of their alumni; it seems to me that most of those graduates have been hired as assistant professors, so there's that. But a real analysis of their value would ask this: 

• Do the BU PFF alumni get hired as PUI faculty at a higher rate than research postdocs? 
• Do the BU PFF alumni get promoted to tenure at a higher rate than other assistant professors? 
• Do they show better track records in teaching or gaining outside funding? 
• Does the BU program demonstrate "added value"?, i.e. do their alumni outcomes show that they have actually improved participants' chances of getting assistant professor positions? 

We don't actually have any of the background statistics, so I am not sure an analysis of BU's alumni would actually be demonstrative of anything.* 

Now for the other side: I mentioned my skepticism about these programs to a friend of mine who is a retired PUI chemistry professor; to my surprise, he was actually quite positive about such programs. He felt these programs actually offered some level of predictive power to hiring committees, i.e. they demonstrate to hiring committees that they can, at the very least, teach college students something about chemistry. He felt that traditional research postdoctoral fellows could not offer that same data point. He did agree more prestigious PUIs would probably still select research postdocs as assistant professors over teaching postdocs. So to counter my skepticism, I have one data point that was in favor of such programs. 

Readers, as you know, I'm not an academic, so I am undoubtedly wrong somewhere here. I invite you to correct me. 

*What percentage of newly-hired assistant professors in chemistry are actually promoted to tenure? I don't think anyone actually knows. 

Faculty candidates: have your package ready by September 1?

As part of the joint ChemBark/Chemjobber chemistry faculty openings, we're watching the deadline for applications, which are usually specified. Here is the breakdown based on the most recent update (today, September 1):

August: 6 (3%)
September 1-14: 9 (4.5%)
September 15-30: 36 (17.8%)
October 1-14: 52 (25.7%)
October 15-31: 49 (24.3%)
November 1-14: 10 (5.0%)
November 15-30: 7 (3.5%)
December 1-14: 2 (1.0%)
Not specified: 31 (15.3%)

We hope to be comprehensive, but at the moment, it is too soon to tell how successful we have been. That said, it is clear to me that the bulk of chemistry faculty positions that have an application deadline have one between September 15 and October 31.

This suggests to me that the wise candidate will probably have their package (applications, statements of teaching, letters from recommenders, buttscan, that sort of thing) complete or very-near-complete by September 1.