Here’s some helpful professional academia advice I received that I’ll pass on to y’all.

Jobs are competitive, you won’t get most of the ones you apply for.

Our worlds are small, you probably know the person who got the job.

Don’t hate them. Don’t publicly trash them.

This has a few benefits.

1) I personally don’t have enough time or energy to hate that many people.

2) Someone who does similar work as you is a possible future collaborator on cool work

3) It’s often good to have a reputation as a nice person and not a bitter jerk.

At a typical conference these days, I’m likely to encounter dozens of people who received jobs that I applied for and didn’t get.

I can’t imagine hating them all, or ignoring them, or trashing them. Many are good friends. Others did nothing wrong.

Or, put another way, don’t hate the player, hate the game.

(In cases where the person did something actually bad, which does not include getting a job you wanted but didn’t get, this advice is not relevant).

Similarly, publicly trashing an employer that did not hire you is not a great way to make a different employer want to hire you.

(Today’s rant brought to you by a friend who got a job, and then learned a mutual acquaintance of ours who wanted that job but didn’t get it is trashing them)