Finding a job

Four years into your doctoral program and the fabled meat market for young economists is about to become a reality for you. For years it seemed to you a nebulous constellation in a far away galaxy that somehow attracts graduates and would be employers, mixes them up, and spews out new assistant professors. As you get closer you begin to understand that murky process by which you are about, if you are lucky - a point to which I will return frequently in the future - shake hands with your future colleagues and realize "the" dream.

This first post is somewhat of a teaser. It won't go into many details, explore the specifics, technical and human, of the job search process. I will only outline the general process, introduce the main characters, give you a sense of the plot line. Over the coming weeks and months, as I, myself, sail closer to that momentous event of the "Grand Meeting" in early January of each year, I will fill in the gaps and try to color as bright as possible this story.

The actors: you, the candidate; them, the employers; the Grand Meeting, that first interview in a hotel room somewhere in the US.

The time line: preceding summer, spend all you time writing, writing and writing that paper representative of your abilities to conduct research; the fall, ask for letters of recommendation, write countless cover letters, and apply, apply, apply; December, spent hooked to your phone and your e-mail account, waiting for invitations to interview; first weekend in January, the Grand Meeting.

As things start to crank up, discussion forums pop up, collective anxiety is on the rise, and I will will try to comment as regularly as I can.