4th Year Workshop

Understanding the job market

Ian McCarthy, Emory University

Economics PhD Professionalism Workshop

The Job Market

The academic job market can be intimidating and somewhat confusing. These slides are intended to provide a basic overview and timeline of what to expect as you prepare for and enter the job market next year. See this guide for more detail.

Are you ready?

Two questions to ask before you really prepare for the job market:

  1. Will you have a finished (and sufficiently strong) JMP completed by the Fall?
  2. Will you be in a position to defend in the following Spring?

Getting an actual job requires a lot of informal networking from advisers…make sure you and your adviser are on the same page!

Pre-market

  • From now until August
  • Prepare your materials (papers, short-videos or visual abstracts, CV, syllabus)
  • Complete your website
  • Prepare committee members and letter writers
  • Identify job preferences

Pre-market

On the academic market

  • Submit applications in Fall
  • Application review in November(ish)
  • Interview requests soon after
  • Short interviews at AEAs or virtual
  • Fly outs in early Spring

On the academic market

  • You are always interviewing
  • Be careful at all conferences, not just AEAs

On the non-academic market

  • More fluid
  • Interviews around the same time for large consulting firms
  • Looking for different things (more about this in 5th year workshop)

Preparing yourself

Some things to keep in mind…

  • The job market is stressful, especially the academic market
  • It is a two-sided matching problem…you need to assess fit as well
  • Be kind and patient with others and with yourself
  • There exists (for worse) a trickle down component of the academic market
  • You will leave the PhD with a job (0.9% unemployment rate among doctoral programs)
  • You can be happy in any job you choose