The econ job market is starting again. Just a minor advice thread, specifically aimed at people in the academic market who are not superstar candidates. IMO too much of the advice is aimed at people who are heading towards a job at an R1.

I was planning to do something more extensive, like, doing research and talking to people, but I didn't. So this is based on my experience doing well at, and graduating from the low end of the top 50, getting a job I like at a non-PhD regional U, and doing several searches there.

1. Try to figure out what being a prof actually is outside of an R1, and what sorts of institutions are out there BEFORE the search. You've probably spent your life in top Us and may not even know. Reach out & talk to profs there.

When my advisor asked me what kind of department I wanted to end up I realized that I had no idea what that even looked like. Like, I know I'm not getting a job at Berkeley. Or even UW. But what does not-UW look like? No clue.

2. At an R1, the expectations of a professor are pretty homogeneous, unless you consider "# of expected top 5s" to be variety. Outside, the variation is way wider. Expect to do a lot more work researching expectations at the places you apply to.

How teaching-focused are they? Where are the faculty publishing? How much publication is expected for tenure? What is the teaching load like? Are you expected to interact with student groups? Work with a center?

Good questions to ask (or research on your own): Is there support for grant-writing, or perhaps internal funding? Is research expected to involve students? Do I get RAs? Do you have grad students? How much freedom do I get in choosing my courses?

Another good tip here is to get more letters than you need. Have some (advisor) for everyone, some for higher-up apps (hotshot comm member?), some for more teaching-focused jobs (TA advisor or dept chair), maybe more variety for diff departments (econ, bus, policy...)

3. Nearly any place you go, relative to an R1, is going to be more focused on (1) teaching, and (2) undergraduate teaching, specifically. Don't make the mistake of acting like that's a burden on you, or something we all want to brush off to focus on research.

If you go into an interview not having thought about how you might teach a class, or if you say you don't like teaching, or if when asked about teaching all you can talk about is how you'd teach PhD students (or wildly overestimate UGs' abilities), that's bad.

Big positives: learn something about the student body before going for an interview. Ask about the students. This applies in lots of areas but especially here - show *interest*. Lots of places will have part of your flyout be with students.

4. Don't be dismissive or treat your job prospects as second-best. Econ culture is very matter-of-fact hierarchical and in ways that can be pretty dismissive of what people at my level do. It can slip out even if you don't intend it.

If you think the job is beneath you, save everyone some time and don't apply. It's not a good fit - you don't want the job, and our incentives aren't such that it's worth hiring a hotshot researcher who views us (and, eventually, themselves) as failures.

It's not usually that bad, but can come out unintentionally. Talking about second-tier publications as though they're worthless, referring to the standard department tier system as a fact of life, etc. [guess what, even if you're right it's not a great interview strategy]

5. Remember that the risks of hiring are different at this level. We worry a lot about burning a job offer on someone who is going to turn us down. So if you do want a job, make absolutely sure that the dept knows it. Prove it, too. Ask: what's the costly signal here?

6. Think a lot about location. One bonus of being a little further down on the totem pole is it's a thicker market, so you get a little more chance to enforce location preferences. So do that. [bonus: strong location preferences can be a signal for #5]

When I was on the market we bought a big paper map, hung it up on the wall, and crossed out everywhere we didn't want to live with a sharpie. I still had hundreds of jobs to apply to.

Not to mention, you're not going to be in grad school any more. You're probably going to want a life. So live somewhere you want to live.

Anyway those are all my this-level-specific tips. There's plenty of other general advice you can get elsewhere (write a good JMP intro, be nice to people, etc. etc.)

That's all for now. Enjoy the job market, it's pretty awesome to spend a few months flying around the country talking to dozens of people who, like, actually read your paper and want to get to know you.