Edited on May 4, 2025
I went on the academic job market for the first time in the 2024 - 2025 season. Sign posting for future readers whose memory might grow fuzzy about the peculiarity of this season: we have seen many unprecedented changes in higher education, science, freedom of thoughts, speech and expressions, and the overall social orders in the United States. For PhD students like myself who were going on the market for the first time, the series of events bring increased uncertainty and anxiety, not to mention how they have structurally shaken what we understood as the expectations and lifestyles of the academia.
Within the larger context, some specifics about myself as you continue to read this case study. First, I situate myself in an interdisciplinary field of multimedia art practice informed by science and technology studies and critical theory. Second, I am not a US citizen but I do not require Visa sponsorship due to my freshly granted EB1 green card. Third, I began my PhD one quarter off the regular timeline, which means that if all goes well I will graduate one quarter off the regular job cycle (most positions require new hires to start on July 1st, August 1st, September 1st or as soon as possible). Fourth, I do not consider myself a super technically oriented person -- I am mediocre as a production person at best. Fifth, when I started applying in the season (September 2024) I was not even a PhD Candidate, or ABD. I applied to positions that required PhD in hands anyways, calling myself "an advanced PhD student expecting to be ABD in February". When I passed my general exam in February 2025, I emailed to notify schools I was still waiting to hear from that I had indeed advanced to candidacy. There was no way for me to know how my status had qualified / disqualified me from these positions. What I can say is that having a PhD in hand or not disqualified me MORE for postdoctoral positions than tenure track faculty positions.
My job market experience at a glance
Between July 2024 and March 2025, I applied to a total of 28 academic jobs. Out of them 2 were Postdoctoral positions, 2 were full time instructor positions at community colleges, 1 was a full time renewable assistant instructional professor position, and the rest (23) were all regular tenure track assistant professor positions. I have collected 6 additional positions in my job database but due to various considerations I did not apply to them. So, in my job database there were about 34 jobs in total, and that roughly represented about 70% of the suitable jobs I considered would fit my background. Positions that I came across but decided not to include in my "job bank" generally met one of the following flags that I wanted to stay away from for the sake of keeping my artistic and academic career sustainable:
• Geographically located in the middle of nowhere, or in a state with harsh abortion laws
• Listed salary was below living wage (this is not unusual for non STEM academic jobs in the year of 2025)
• Has a teaching load of or more than 3-3 (I had seen 4-4, 4-3, etc)
• Listed salary was below living wage (this is not unusual for non STEM academic jobs in the year of 2025)
• Has a teaching load of or more than 3-3 (I had seen 4-4, 4-3, etc)
Deadline wise, review for these position began in: August (1), September (1), October (3), November (5), December (9), January (5), February (3), March (1).
Out of these 28 applications:
• 1 position was cancelled due to hiring freeze in response to federal funding cut.
• 6 positions gave me second round interviews.
• 1 of the 6 second round interviews resulted in an offer (instructional position, no campus visit).
• 5 of the 6 second round interviews resulted in campus interviews.
• 2 of the 5 campus interviews resulted in verbal offers.
• 1 of the 3 offers (2 tenure track, 1 instructional) I accepted.
• 6 positions gave me second round interviews.
• 1 of the 6 second round interviews resulted in an offer (instructional position, no campus visit).
• 5 of the 6 second round interviews resulted in campus interviews.
• 2 of the 5 campus interviews resulted in verbal offers.
• 1 of the 3 offers (2 tenure track, 1 instructional) I accepted.
Timelines
Many will say that the job market is a huge waiting game -- I fully agree and wanted to state that no matter how well you think you have prepared yourself for a long wait, triple the amount of anxiety you think you will experience. It's okay to experience anxiety. When this happens, I personally found the wiki superbly helpful. The wiki is a crowd-sourced site where people who are on the job market share information about where they are in the process anonymously. If you are wondering about if a position you have applied to has moved on to a second round or not, chances are someone on the wiki will have posted about it.
Here, I am documenting my 2024 - 2025 timeline in the hope that this information might help someone in a similar field form realistic expectations.
I made the decision to go on the job market in June 2024. I set up daily alert at HigherEd Jobs at The Chronicle of Higher Education.
In July and August, I began drafting and revising my application essays, including the cover letter, teaching statement, research statement, diversity statement, portfolio, writing sample, sample syllabi, sample student work. I also began thinking of people who I want to be my letter writers and began reaching out to them. At the time, I still did not know if pursuing an academic career was the option for me, so I reached out to former colleagues in strategy, creative agency and advertisement for coffee chats.
From September to November, I submitted many applications. In this process, I also received feedback from friends and mentors on my application material and went through 4 - 5 versions of revisions. I began receiving rejection letters as early as October.
Till December, I still have not received any interview requests and began to feel like a total failure. At this time, a friend of mine who was teaching at a university reached out to me asking me to help her practice for an upcoming zoom interview. I acted as her practicing partner and gained some useful insights on what a zoom interview would be like. That month, I also went to a teaching statement workshop at the University of Washington offered by Diana Ruiz and received affirmation from her and my peers. Still, I was feeling depression and fatigue and almost stopped applying to schools. However, I convinced myself to continue as most of my material was ready and only needed minor adjustments. I treated applications as chores.
January, I began to focus on preparing for my doctoral general exam and looked away from thinking about academic jobs for a while. I did not think I was going anywhere, and my friend in Computer Science had received offers already. Towards the end of January, I received my first zoom interview invitation. In the order of zoom interview invitation, below are my timelines:
School 1
review began 12/20 | zoom 2/7 | notified 2/21 | campus 4/7-8
notification of offer made to top candidate 4/19
review began 12/20 | zoom 2/7 | notified 2/21 | campus 4/7-8
notification of offer made to top candidate 4/19
School 2
review began 12/15 | zoom 2/13 | notified 3/9 | campus 3/31-4/1 | offer 4/5 | I said no 4/12
review began 12/15 | zoom 2/13 | notified 3/9 | campus 3/31-4/1 | offer 4/5 | I said no 4/12
School 3
review began 1/13 | zoom 2/26 | notified 3/5 | campus 3/19 | spring break | oral offer 4/10
negotiation 4/19 | official letter 4/28
review began 1/13 | zoom 2/26 | notified 3/5 | campus 3/19 | spring break | oral offer 4/10
negotiation 4/19 | official letter 4/28
School 4
review began 1/2 | zoom 3/5 | notified 3/14 | campus visit 3/28
notification of hiring someone else 4/17
review began 1/2 | zoom 3/5 | notified 3/14 | campus visit 3/28
notification of hiring someone else 4/17
School 5
review began 1/3 | zoom 3/3 | notified 3/14 | campus visit 4/16
review began 1/3 | zoom 3/3 | notified 3/14 | campus visit 4/16
School 6
review began 2/10 | zoom 4/2 | oral offer 4/7 | official offer letter 4/25 I said no 4/28
review began 2/10 | zoom 4/2 | oral offer 4/7 | official offer letter 4/25 I said no 4/28
Helpful Resources for Preparing your Application Material
I worked on my application material mostly on my own. Revisions were made from the harsh feedback of actual rejection letters. However, I was fortunate enough to receive occasional feedback from a few mentors. Notably, Professor Jasmine Mahmoud helped me tremendously with the rhythm of my cover letter. Professor Diana Ruiz workshopped my teaching statement. Jasmine and Professor Erin McElroy also reviewed my research statements. Professor Daniela Rosner helped me refine my various writing samples.
Below are links that I found critically helpful for my field when I put together my application material:
Reflective Teaching Statement by University of California Irvine
Below are blog posts and literature that were generally helpful or more for emotional support:
In addition to the typical HigherEdJobs and The Chronicle of Higher Education, I frequently checked the job boards below and have came across positions that were interdisciplinary or atypical. For example, most of the positions I applied to were in digital media, digital arts, media arts, fine arts. However, from these alternative job boards and some mailing lists I subscribe to I have found and applied to jobs in English, Communication Design, Environmental Studies, and so on. Some of these I went all the way to campus visits.
Zoom Interviews
Zoom interviews are usually 20 - 30 minutes, with rare exceptions asking for 45 - 60 minutes in my field. Some schools would send a detailed list of questions in advance, while others prefer asking the questions on the spot. Zoom interviews are standardized interviews, which means that the search committee will ask the same set of questions to each interviewee. Usually there will be 5 - 13 questions including follow-ups. In my experience, the questions can be categorized into several buckets:
Research - what you do, what have you done, what do you plan on doing in the future, specific projects, contribution to the field, fit for the program
Teaching - what is your teaching philosophy and how do they look like in practice, what can you teach (theory and technical courses), specific outlines of courses you'd be prepared to teach
Diversity - your experience with diversity, inclusion and belonging initiatives, how do you work with students from diverse backgrounds, your understanding of the topic
Service and Capacity - schools want to know that you can balance teaching, research and service without burning out. You need to let them know that you have the capacity to balance these elements and remain productive and not be burnt out easily.
Questions to ask them - always prepare a few questions to ask them that show you have unique understanding of the position / school / students / environment / future of the field.
The most helpful advice I received about zoom interviews are from Adam Diller who teaches at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh: "Zoom interview is like a speech!" This is echoed by an almost equally good piece of advice shared by Daniela Rosner at the University of Washington: "Do not try to answer the questions -- use the questions to communicate things you need the search committee to know." Both advice speak to the importance of understanding how you position yourself in relation to what the job description is asking for as well as how you position yourself as a disciplinary artist / scholar / practitioner and a potentially pleasant colleague who has administrative skills.
The most unhelpful advice I received about zoom interviews is "Do not over prepare! You need to be yourself. Just answer the questions and be natural." Perhaps this would work well for someone who has strong social skills and is very good at pitching. In my personal experience, I brainstormed potential questions with ChatGPT and then type out 2 - 3 letter size pages of scripts for each of my 6 zoom interviews. I then printed out the script and read them out loud at least twice a day in the week leading up to the interview. I purchased a 3-minute sand timer with which I will practice delivering each answer within 3 minutes. Then I would walk to school and back every day while repeating to myself all of my talking points in orders. Having a mock interview before your first zoom interview is highly recommended. After that, you will gradually get a hang of it.
Remember, the more time you spend on practicing for these zoom interview, the easier it will get when it gets to preparing for campus interviews and job talks. During campus interviews, you will need to do this again and again with different people. For an introvert like myself, learning to talk about my work requires muscle memory.
Campus Interviews
This Michael Mandiberg note is helpful to read. Aside from that, I wanted to say that it is absolutely normal to feel stressed about campus interviews. When I received the first few of my campus interview invitations, I had massive anxiety attacks that manifested in the forms of nightmares, diarrhea, shortness of breath, chest pain, and more. I purchased some stress gummies and quickly went through a 60-day supply bottle. These feelings are valid and there is no need to talk yourself out of them -- they will begin to go away once you feel a bit more grounded in your research and teaching. In other words, you will feel better when you begin to believe in your work and care less about how they will be judged.
Job talk - this requires practice, a lot of practice! Each school might have slightly different requirements of what they expect to see in your job talk. In my experience, I prepare roughly 40 - 45 minutes of contents, including 30 - 35 minutes of research, and 10 - 15 minute of teaching (which is heavily tied to my research and echoes my conceptual framework and theoretical references I mentioned in the research section). I would end with a summary that speaks to the job descriptions and your vision to building things there together with them as a good colleague. My job talk was entirely scripted and I always read my presenter notes as I needed to be precise and keep track time. Reading off script was not a problem for my job talks in the fields I gave these talks in. Other people may have different presentation expectations and styles. The shortest job talk I was asked to give was 30 minutes, and the longest job talk was 50 minutes to an hour. You can practice accelerating or slowing down your speed of speaking to meet these different requirements without having to change your content too much.
Many would advice for you to gather friends and colleagues and run mock job talks with them and receive feedback. In my case, I did not have the time and my mentors were very busy. Instead, I screen recorded the first version of my job talk and emailed several of my mentors and close friends, asking them to watch on their own. I received feedback from them separately and those feedback helped me improve the content and flow of my talk.
Teaching demo - not every school will ask you to do a teaching demo. For the ones that do, the most helpful advice I received was from the wonderful Sue Huang (Rutgers University) to treat these hour-long teaching demos as museum workshops. With that I would add that you should treat these as hour-long museum workshops that are family friendly -- suitable for both parents and kids. These should be digestible, engaging and standalone sessions without any prerequisite readings, technical skills or hardware / software equipment. Be nice to the students who are allowing you to demo with them and try to offer a fun experience. I will just leave it at that.
Personally, I think you will feel less nervous once you have these 2 pieces down and feel good about them. For the rest of the interviews, just remember that your interviewers are as well human beings just like you are -- be genuinely curious about their work and the prospects of joining them. I learned this when I went lobbying on the Capitol Hill, having to pitch the Menstrual Equity for All Act to an uncomfortable male staffer for Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
A quick note on what to wear - the most helpful note I received was from Xiaowei Wang's mentor via Xiaowei - "wear the nicest thing you will actually wear in your daily life." For individuals in the arts perhaps a suit and a tie would have been a bit strange.
Navigating Offers and Negotiations
I will just write a little bit about this as I think Karen Kelsky's The Professor is In has very good chapters on this and the offers you will be navigating between will be different. However, one thing I used to guide my decision making process is this: If a school is being nasty to you during the period of courtship (that is, between their verbal offer and your acceptance) - i.e. bullying you into accepting an offer, low balling you, ignoring you for weeks, withholding information or refuse to put things in writing - think carefully about how they would treat you when you actually get "married" with them. Watch out for early signs of red flags!
Another helpful piece of advice I received about making decisions about accepting which offers -- know that you can leave if something turns out to be not ideal, and that going on the market for a second time likely won't be as difficult as the first time, as long as you maintain productivity.