A data-based guide to the North American ecology faculty job market

Every year for three years (2016 to 2018), I tried to identify every single person hired as a tenure track prof in ecology or an allied field (e.g., fish & wildlife) in N. America. I identified a total of 566 hires. I used public sources to compile various data on the new hires and the institutions that hired them (e.g., number of publications, teaching experience, hiring institution Carnegie class). I also compiled data provided by anonymous ecology faculty job seekers on ecoevojobs.net (e.g., number of positions applied for, number of publications, numbers of interviews and offers). And I polled readers of the Dynamic Ecology blog to get information about applicant and search committee behavior (e.g., regarding customization of applications to the hiring institution). These data address some widespread anxieties and misunderstandings about the ecology faculty job market, and also speak to gender diversity and equity in recent ecology faculty hiring. They complement, and in some cases improve on, other sources of information, such as anecdotal personal experiences.

At least 1/3 of ecology faculty job seekers obtain TT faculty positions; the true fraction 1 4 0 may be appreciably higher than that. Hampton and Labou (2017) reported data from the NSF eventually obtained TT faculty positions will be a bit higher than that, because some of those Further, some unknown fraction of Ph.D. recipients who did not obtain TT faculty Ph.D. recipients who want TT faculty positions and go on to obtain them is even higher than 1/3.

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This may seem surprisingly high, but it is consistent with other sources of information. As 1 5 3 discussed later in this paper, self-reported data from ecology faculty job seekers indicates that 1 5 4 >42% of them receive at least one TT job offer. Widely quoted data from other sources indicate that a much smaller fraction of biology Ph.D. recipients go on to TT faculty positions. But data for the field of biology as a whole are not 35% of TT ecology hires were at R1 universities (the most research-intensive Carnegie 1 8 2 category), 25% were at R2 or R3 universities, 24% were at M1-M3 universities ("master's" 1 8 3 universities lacking substantial Ph.D. programs), 16% were at bachelor's colleges (colleges 1 8 4 lacking substantial graduate programs), and one was at a tribal college. These data reflect universities tend to employ more faculty than other institutions. Number of applicants per position varies widely: median 100 applicants, middle 50% 61-1 9 2 175, range 12-1,000 (note that the position that received 1,000 applicants was a broad cluster 1 9 3 hire). Positions on the coasts (especially the Pacific Northwest), and at R1 universities, tend to 1 9 4 receive more applicants than others. Presumably at least in part for the same reasons why most 1 9 5 people live in coastal states, in the urban areas in which most R1 universities are located. Fisheries/wildlife/natural resources positions tend to receive fewer applicants than others, 1 9 7 perhaps because Ph.D. holders in those fields often go to work for government agencies, NGOs, 1 9 8 or environmental consultancies, leaving fewer to pursue academic careers.  The typical ecology faculty job seeker applies to 10.5 TT faculty positions annually 2 0 4 (median; mean=15.8), but there is wide and highly skewed variation. Many job seekers reported 2 0 5 only a few applications annually, but a minority reported many (middle 50% 4-21.8 applications 2 0 6 annually, range 1-100).

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Men and women ecology faculty job seekers reported submitting similar numbers of 2 0 8 applications annually (means of 17.1 for men, 16.8 for women). 81% of ecology faculty job seekers said or implied that they applied to faculty positions 2 1 4 at research universities (e.g., by saying that they applied to "everything" or "broadly"), with 55% 2 1 5 explicitly saying they'd applied to R1 universities. In contrast, less than half said or implied that 2 1 6 they applied for faculty positions at bachelor's colleges. These data are consistent with the fact (discussed elsewhere in this piece) that faculty institution. However, these data do not necessarily indicate a widespread preference among search committee members, on the Dynamic Ecology blog 2 3 0 50% of ecology faculty job seekers tailored their applications to the hiring institution. 32% tailored their application to the hiring institution only when it was a job they really wanted. 17% tailored their applications to the type of institution, but not to individual hiring institutions. Job seekers using all levels of customization reported receiving offers, with those doing less 2 3 4 customization reporting slightly more offers on average. I suspect that applicants who do less and offers. Applicants who do less customization may also be stronger applicants, and so not 2 3 7 need to do as much customization in order to get interviews and offers. institution was appreciably more common, and was more likely to be seen as "essential", among institutions have more reason to worry that applicants will not understand the job requirements or 2 4 4 the mission of the institution. to the institution's students and mission. The latter is an especially desired form of customization  Data for number of campus interviews tell a similar story as the data for phone/skype interviews, year. Red circles denote women, black squares denote men. Points are slightly jittered for 2 9 9 visibility. given year, and 12% reported receiving multiple offers, counting non-reports of offers as zeroes 3 0 3 ( Fig. 3). An appreciably higher percentage of women than men reported receiving at least one 3 0 4 offer in a given year, and reported receiving multiple offers. The association between number of 3 0 5 applications and number of offers is positive but extremely noisy. year. Red circles denote women, black squares denote men. Points are slightly jittered for visibility. Non-reports of offers were coded as zeroes. The results line up with the fact (discussed next) that recently hired TT ecology faculty No other easily-measurable variables predict the number of interviews or offers ecology The take-home lesson for faculty job seekers is that it is to your advantage to apply  professors of ecology were hired in N. America during that time, then the two-tailed 95% 3 3 7 confidence interval ranges from 55-59% women (normal approximation to the binomial  The gender balance of recently hired TT ecology faculty covaries with research 3 5 5 intensiveness of the hiring institution, although the effect size is modest. Over the three years Because these trends are not ecology-specific, the reasons for them seem unlikely to be ecology- specific.

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Recently hired men and women TT ecology faculty were equally experienced on average. do with how well-qualified recent hires are.

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Recent TT ecology faculty hires are 57% women even though the applicant pool is a bit  My interpretation of these data is that these days in ecology, multiple excellent women reflects everything that shapes people's career choices and outcomes at the pre-faculty stages). days get trained about bias, diversity, and equity, and have to obey HR rules designed to ensure same order during interviews). And many search committees these days are keen for their 3 9 0 departments to become more diverse on various dimensions, including but by no means limited 3 9 1 to gender. Which is a good thing for them to want. After all, individual faculty don't exist in 3 9 2 isolation from one another. Departments, and the colleges and universities comprised of them, best able to teach and inspire the full range of students who come through their doors, and best people. So gender and other personal attributes are among the many things that search 3 9 7 committees consider when they get down to making difficult judgment calls about whom to hire 3 9 8 2 2 from among (typically) 3-5 well-qualified candidates, each of whom would be an asset to the 3 9 9 hiring department in their own unique way (i.e. there's often not a single "best" candidate on all 4 0 0 dimensions). The net outcome is that, at an aggregate statistical level, the proportion of women countries. My interpretation of these results is that there good undergraduate students 4 1 8 everywhere, some of whom go on to become academic ecologists. Contrary to what you may have heard, bachelor's colleges showed no strong tendency to Only 25% of recently hired TT ecology professors had papers in Science, Nature, or 4 5 1 PNAS at the time they were hired, and only 12% had first-authored papers in those journals.

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Even at the most research-intensive institutions, papers in those journals are far from essential to universities. This is incorrect, for any plausible operational definition of "famous". The Google of all applicants, are judged according to higher standards than more junior applicants, are more Another take-home message for faculty job seekers is that it's actually not common for 5 0 9 TT faculty to have previously served as visiting assistant professors or in some other exclusively 5 1 0 teaching-focused non-TT position. As a faculty job seeker, don't assume that you "have" to take their TT faculty to have substantial teaching experience (see below on their curriculum vitae, and I suspect that most or all of the others had it but didn't bother to 5 2 5 list it.

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Experience as an instructor of record is almost essential to be hired for a TT faculty one served as a co-instructor. The other designed and taught a course for high school students, an 5 3 0 unusual but substantial form of teaching experience. Experience as an instructor of record was 5 3 1 rarer but far from unheard of among recent R1 university hires: 12/29 had it.

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Guest lecturing is a common form of teaching experience among R1 hires; 16/29 listed experience as an instructor of record makes guest lecturing experience redundant. Guest lecturing and teaching assistant experience are the most common forms of teaching assistantships and/or guest lecturing.

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Based on these data, I would strongly advise faculty job seekers to obtain experience as should carefully consider whether serving as an instructor of record would take too much time 5 4 5 away from research, relative to the benefit to their pedagogical skills and job prospects.

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Attending pedagogical training workshops and short courses might be a less time-intensive way 5 4 7 to acquire some teaching skills and signal to future employers that you take teaching seriously. A common worry among faculty job seekers who comment on ecoevojobs.net is that they 5 5 2 will lose out to "inside" candidates whose current or past connections to the hiring department 5 5 3 will work in their favor, even if they are not the best candidates. Faculty job seekers who have 5 5 4 this worry may wish to consider that they're worrying about a very unlikely possibility. Very few 5 5 5 TT assistant professor positions in ecology and allied fields are filled by a candidate with any 5 5 6 current or previous connection to the hiring department: institution had ever co-authored a paper with someone in the hiring department (sample  These data indicate that faculty job seekers rarely obtain a TT faculty position by first 5 7 0 developing an educational or professional connection with the hiring department. This is 5 7 1 consistent with my own experience. My own experience is that it is extremely rare for TT faculty 5 7 2 positions to be intended for a specific "inside" candidate from the get-go. For other faculty a level playing field with the other applicants.