Bloomsbury Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Hi folks Quick question for those who are close to enter the job market... I got the impression, from those who were on the job market this year, that it's becoming tougher and tougher to land a good tenure track job for management PhD. Top US universities PhD begin to apply to top level european business schools, including those that offer only moderately attractive salaries... This is a new situation for European PhD students. More generally, it seems that most of the people considered in the top 50 business schools already have alpha publications in the pipe. What do you think? Subsidiary question: do you think it's doable for European PhD to apply to second and lower tier universities in the US? Or they just won't consider non US PhD? Thanks in advance for your input! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsaylors Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Hi folks Quick question for those who are close to enter the job market... I got the impression, from those who were on the job market this year, that it's becoming tougher and tougher to land a good tenure track job for management PhD. Top US universities PhD begin to apply to top level european business schools, including those that offer only moderately attractive salaries... This is a new situation for European PhD students. More generally, it seems that most of the people considered in the top 50 business schools already have alpha publications in the pipe. What do you think? Subsidiary question: do you think it's doable for European PhD to apply to second and lower tier universities in the US? Or they just won't consider non US PhD? Thanks in advance for your input! So, if you are willing to teach 3/3 or 4/4 and can knock out a B- us pub every other year you can get tenure, without trouble, and make 100ish k/y. A lower teaching load, a PhD program or higher pay will all require better publication. The problem for people from europe is two fold. First, according to dr Alrich, " many in Europe, God bless'm, think that June and July are months that you take off"(they tend to be lazy). Second European journals are highly disrespected (in general) as is the rigor and empirical prowess of the typical european PhD program(they tend to publish poorly/half heartedly) . I'm not saying this is right, but it is the bias you will have to deal with. That said a stable research stream of US B pubs WILL land you tenure in a 3/3 position in the US, even if you have a PhD in donkey maintenance from the #3 school in Elbonia. But Oxford, LBS, INSEAD and Cambridge come to mind as schools with names that are respectable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indus Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 @Bloomsbury - I am not on job market. Heck, I haven't even started my PhD yet. But following is the feedback from job market candidates and Professors I interacted with during my visit to several T25 US schools: 1- Job market is definitely tighter, but everyone did get a decent placement (within T100). 2- Publications are very important, ideally A journal. An R&R will also do, especially if your dissertation is solid, can make good presentations and have some working papers in pipeline. In the end, some pub is better than no pub. 3- A prior MBA / Work Experience / Some teaching experience during PhD (not too much though) might be helpful. Publications in American A journals have a distinct quantitative focus and statistics is considered a proxy for "rigour". Lets leave aside the merits of that bias as of now. As far as I know, HEC prepares well in quantitative methods, so that shouldn't be a big problem for you. Also, HEC is very well known in academic circles in the US, so you shouldn't have too much of a problem placing in T100. If you want to target top 50, you might consider a 2 year postdoc at one of the T10 schools and publish during that period. All the best PS: I am assuming you are at HEC! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomsbury Posted April 5, 2011 Author Share Posted April 5, 2011 Thanks a lot for your feedbacks ! @rsaylors - A "B" journal in the US is also a B journal in Europe (although I'm curious to know what you consider a B- minus journal in management... or even European journals. To me European journals are Org Studies or JMS, and they are B pub). LBS and INSEAD are leaders in Europe, but I won't say that Cambridge has a strong PhD program or even a strong research profile. @ Indus - The postdoc solution doesn't seem to be always the best one. I saw some candidates struggling to get a job after a post doc because they only managed to publish a limited number of A publications (let's say one A pub 2 years after graduation), so they were sending a low signal on the job market. In the end, they had a weaker profile than before the post doc. I know that HEC may begin to be known in the US, but maybe in top universities, where anyway they won't recruit from HEC. I'm more concerned about second tier or lower tier schools, where we may actually have a chance. Subsidiary question : do you think that lower tier schools may offer positions with less than a 3/3 teaching load? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indus Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 @Bloomsbury - Agreed. Postdoc will definitely not cover for the lack of publications. But if you do publish, it can be a great signal. Also, you will become part of existing faculty networks in the US. By the way, I know of people being placed in T100 in the US from NUS. With some long term planning and appropriate networking you should be able to break-in. Also most PhDs from tier 1 join tier 2 schools. Most of them would know HEC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomsbury Posted April 5, 2011 Author Share Posted April 5, 2011 Thanks for your input. Where did your friend from NUS go?? Which program are you joining finally? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indus Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 Thanks for your input. Where did your friend from NUS go?? Which program are you joining finally? You are welcome! I don't know him personally. But a faculty CV I stumbled across while researching various schools during application period. As far as I remember, it was it was one of the NY/NJ state schools. Unfortunately I haven't been able to decide yet. Stuck between a highly productive well known school and a lesser known, but closer to my interests, program. Best Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frayed Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 ajai singh gaur at rutgers, perhaps? you can see the placement record of nus business phd grads at Job Placement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomsbury Posted April 7, 2011 Author Share Posted April 7, 2011 Ajai S. Gaur: Ajai S. Gaur Frayed, what do you think about non US schools placing students in second tier universities? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraderJoe Posted April 7, 2011 Share Posted April 7, 2011 Hey, there is free flow of faculty between US schools and European schools. I had an offer from HEC-Paris but did not take it up. One of my classmates is teaching at INSEAD. If you are willing to teach in a US school with 3/3 teaching load, for sure you will get an offer. If you want to get a position in a top-tier research school, you will need some A-tier journal publications. You should be aware though, that once you start at a low-ranked school with 3/3 load, you should have have any realistic hopes that you will generate publications in the top-tier journals and then move into a top-tier research school. It will not happen. You will be buried in teaching and committee responsibilities which will prevent you from spending sufficient time to generate the research publications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frayed Posted April 7, 2011 Share Posted April 7, 2011 traderjoe has probably answered your question better than i will be ever be able to. especially since i am more familiar with the finance side of things... note that i am not familiar much with the management area or the european finance phds other than the top few, but i will offer what i know. if nus can, why not? of course, there is the basic caveat (as always) that the candidate must be of a certain quality level, and that your command of the english language is decent. i don't think schools will immediately decline an interview strictly based on where you did your phd without looking at the entire package to see if there is something there. that would be foolish, especially since you might be a cheap hire, a diamond in the rough. budgets will always be used somewhere, especially since any department will need people to pick up the teaching slack to give course loads off for good researchers. if you have an a level publication before entering the job market, i don't think you have to worry, unless there are 3 other co-authors, and other discounting factors... in any case, i think the postdoc option is perhaps the best viable option you might have in order to have a chance to boost your profile after graduating. even though other people may have failed, that is just the cost of doing business - i'm afraid there are no guaranteed solutions. you might also try to do an exchange during your phd dissertation stage. i have a friend whose co-author graduated from hec paris in 2006 and did an exchange at nyu, which (according to the hec paris grad in question) helped him get placed at chinese uni of hk, and now cambridge. though to me the logic of how a visiting scholar position when doing your phd can enhance your cv for better placement is rather tortured... as for research output in a 3/3 load school - read what traderjoe says and remember it by heart. that was the situation my advisor fell into as he graduated just as the gulf war started, which resulted in a squeeze of work permits / visas for foreigners. as such, my advisor was placed in a 3/3 school, and had to claw his way back up to a top 100 school with a lot of effort and pain by publishing several papers in top journals. his advice to me was to never ever even get into that stage - go postdoc or visiting if you have to, if you can afford to. otherwise, go for an industry or government job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stagename Posted April 7, 2011 Share Posted April 7, 2011 Not close to enter, but the job market is always a major topic of discussion with other students here. I believe the job market has been pretty tight since 2008 due to restricted financing in Unis. At least that's what's being talked about in my uni. That being said, 2 and a half things to get offers: 1: Have publications when you're graduating. In marketing, according to docsig, graduates had 4.52 conf. proceedings, 0.41 "A" publication past 1st review, and 0.56 "B or lower" publication past 1st review. 2: A clear research direction as exemplifies through your thesis, aka who are you going to be as a researcher. A close-to-graduation student with 3 or 4 A-to-B publications told me that his lack of direction with his thesis was a major hindrance to get a good position. The half: A research orientation/school of thought that is in demand. E.G. I'm doing qual work, and I expect that I'll have more difficulty finding a job than modelers... Regarding your subquestion, I believe it is doable as long as you published some stuff in good journals. Also, as I said in other posts, I know that in some European unis you are not required to do courseworks and there is no comps (or the requirements are pretty low). I heard this send a rather bad signal as how well you might understand your field generally, so that might be an issue. I hope that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsaylors Posted April 7, 2011 Share Posted April 7, 2011 the logic of how a visiting scholar position when doing your phd can enhance your cv for better placement is rather tortured could you go into more detail? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frayed Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 no idea. what i meant is that when i think about it, the only common logical link i can think of is that you have a stint at a more prestigious university on your cv, and perhaps that makes you look better to some adcoms, and that to me is tortured logic. if you have had such a stint and had no good work it would be all for naught, no? i personally think that that guy overestimates the effect of that nyu stint and underestimates his work since then, though he did get yermack (a really top corp governance researcher at nyu) as a character reference for his cv and a thesis advisor - which is admittedly excellent. for completeness, the guy has only published one paper in an a level journal, and has four other working papers which are under review, one under management science. no real evidence of any research stemming from the nyu stint. but conversely, if you had such a stint and then did some good work... then ta dah. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomsbury Posted April 8, 2011 Author Share Posted April 8, 2011 Wow thanks a lot guys! I'm indeed going to a top US school for a 1 year visiting period. I'm not sure it drastically improves my profile, except if I manage to co-write an article with my sponsor. @TraderJoe: for sure there is a flow between the US and European schools, but I got the impression it's a one way flow ;) I agree with you that it's almost impossible to publish with a 3/3 teaching load. But maybe I can target schools with a little lighter load. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomsbury Posted April 10, 2011 Author Share Posted April 10, 2011 as for research output in a 3/3 load school - read what traderjoe says and remember it by heart. that was the situation my advisor fell into as he graduated just as the gulf war started, which resulted in a squeeze of work permits / visas for foreigners. as such, my advisor was placed in a 3/3 school, and had to claw his way back up to a top 100 school with a lot of effort and pain by publishing several papers in top journals. his advice to me was to never ever even get into that stage - go postdoc or visiting if you have to, if you can afford to. otherwise, go for an industry or government job. Just one quick question: you mention visiting as well as postdoc. To me visiting (= non-tenure) assistant professor is a teaching job... Am I wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frayed Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 usually, from what i know. but that doesn't mean you cannot try to leverage on your new connections with the people at that university, and try to do some research too, right? look at the possibilities from the shades of gray... of course, that also depends on how much teaching you have to do - but it is still an option nonetheless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsaylors Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 usually, from what i know. but that doesn't mean you cannot try to leverage on your new connections with the people at that university, and try to do some research too, right? look at the possibilities from the shades of gray... of course, that also depends on how much teaching you have to do - but it is still an option nonetheless. Also, I would imagine, "former visiting professor at Harvard" would bolster the quality of many CVs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stagename Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 We might be an exception but visiting professors here do not teach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomsbury Posted April 11, 2011 Author Share Posted April 11, 2011 I make a difference between visiting professors who already have a senior position elsewhere, and a young graduate taking a visiting assistant professor job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomsbury Posted December 30, 2011 Author Share Posted December 30, 2011 I'd like to get back to my favorite topic :) (I'm actually surprised to see that the forum is so focused on phd application and not so much on getting a job when you graduate ! :miserable:) anybody on the job market this year? how is it looking? from what I heard it's pretty tough. Just saw one of my friend (phd in a second tier institution in Europe, stream of B pubs) getting a 2/2 in a pretty decent institution, so I guess it's doable... On my side, I'm currently visiting an ivy league univ and working with a top prof there (and hopefully putting him as my committee chair), hope it will improve my profile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloomsbury Posted March 26, 2012 Author Share Posted March 26, 2012 Just saw marketing people were discussing the job market, so I try to put that topic back in the forefront... My impression from the job market this year: the institution I currently visit had two strategy/OT candidates. They both did reasonably well, although their success doesn't seem necessarily correlated with their track record in terms of publications. Has anybody else some job market to share?? Please share your thoughts. I should go on the job market this fall or the next one. I'm still hesitant. I'm also considering the postdoc option: I believe the brand name of my home institution is a bit too weak to make it in a US school :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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