There is no doubt that tenure track positions in the sciences, or tenure-track adjacent positions like permanent lecturers, are very competitive. Most jobs that you apply for will have dozens or more applicants, and most of those applicants are qualified (i.e., they have a PhD in the correct field and possess the requisite expertise). Almost everyone will need to apply for more than one job. But how many do you need to apply for to get a job? That question is highly contingent and unanswerable. But to maximize the chances that you get a job, you should apply to a lot of jobs.
I think you should apply for as many positions as you can while still doing a good job with the applications. In my case, I have a diverse background that spans physiology, phylogenetics, population genetics, genomics, and transcriptomics. Given this background, I could apply for jobs ranging from geneticist to physiologist. I also knew that I wanted a job with a substantial research component, but you can have that across a wide variety of institutions. So I applied for jobs at small liberal arts colleges and big public and private research institutions. I also applied very widely in the US, as well as for some foreign positions (in Australia and the UK). Ultimately, I ended up applying for a little over 100 positions in a very strong year for jobs. I don’t think most scientists will end up applying for that many jobs, but I do think there are several things that folks on the job market tend to do that limit their applications.
As a bit of an aside, I think one reason folks tend to limit the number of applications is to avoid rejection. This can be to avoid being rejected for a position, as well as to avoid rejecting an undesired job offer. Of course, the more positions that you apply for, the more times you will be rejected. But I don’t think that trying to avoid rejection is a good strategy for career advancement. Another reason that people don’t apply is that it takes a non-zero amount of time to apply, and it can feel like a waste if you don’t know if you would be competitive for the job or if you want the job. However, it does not normally take that long, and in any case, the payoff (years of a stable income of thousands of dollars per year) is much greater than the minutes (or hours) that it might take to apply. Rather than trying to deduce whether you will get the job (you probably won’t for any individual job), you should just apply if there is a chance that you might be competitive and that you might take the job.
The first way that people tend to limit their applications is to only apply for very specific positions or very broad positions. As an example, a candidate who is a physiological ecologist might only apply for general ecology positions or specifically physiological ecology positions. But it is likely that the candidate would also be competitive for anatomy and physiology positions, or comparative physiology positions, or even allied fields like behavioral ecology. Applying is usually free, so if you have even a chance of being competitive go ahead and throw in an application. For really specifically worded job ads, this could be driven by who happens to be loudest on a committee, and even though the ad says that someone studying insects is preferred, the department might be happy with a spider biologist. And the title of the position that you get does not really limit your science. I consider myself an evolutionary biologist (who uses physiology and transcriptomics and other tools), but I was hired as a comparative physiologist. No-one has ever told me what kind of research to do, and I have continued to only study topics that interest me, and that has often veered outside of the lines of comparative physiology.
Another way that candidates limit the number of applications is to be overly focused on a particular type of institution. This normally presents as an “R1 or bust” kind of strategy, where you only apply to top ranked research institutions. However, this strategy only works if you are a superstar in your field, and the vast majority of us are not that. Keep in mind that the prestigious research institutions receive hundreds of applications for every position that they have, so the odds are stacked against you if you only apply to a few of the most desirable jobs every cycle. One fundamental paradox of training in the sciences is that the vast majority of PhD programs and postdoctoral positions are in high-research activity institutions, but most faculty positions are in institutions with greater focus on teaching. Most PhD and postdoc mentors only have experience at research-intensive institutions, so there may be bad advice and misinformation about the desirability of more teaching focused institutions. Comparing and contrasting institution types is the topic of another post, but suffice it to say that jobs at teaching-focused and research-focused institutions are more similar than they are different in my experience. I think that even if your ultimate goal is a job at a research-intensive school, it is worth applying a bit outside of those boundaries. There are lots of universities without PhD programs that have faculty with impressive research programs, and they are often very happy with their positions.
One final way that prospective faculty tend to limit the number of applications is though geography. There are definitely good reasons to do so, from access to social networks and being close to family, to staying in states that recognize your humanity and rights. And perhaps someone like me who is a bit itinerant is not the best person to make this argument. But I do think that you never really know if you would like an area if you have not lived there. So much of what it means to live in the southeastern US (where I have lived for the past two decades), for example, is not adequately conveyed by traditional and social media. If you truly can’t leave the city in which you currently live (or would like to live), then you will need to accept the fact that you probably won’t get the exact kind of job that you want. And if you really want a tenure-track position and you are not a rockstar, then you will want to apply more broadly, although it is fine to have preferences.
When should you not apply for a job? Well, I think you should not apply if you know that you would not take the job. For example, maybe there is a position at a religious institution that requires a statement of faith. If you are not of that faith, then I would not apply for the job- even if you got the job, it is unlikely to be a good culture match, and of course lying to your employer about your faith is not a good idea. As another example, while you might be open minded about the relative proportion of research versus teaching, you might know that you want to have a research program, and this may not be a possibility at most community colleges (with some exceptions, of course), and so you might avoid applying for community college positions. I don’t think I applied to any community college positions for the above reason. In other words, I don’t think that you have to apply for everything. I do think that you should make decisions based upon good information, rather than a general feeling about regions or job types or institution types.
My recommendation is that you should apply broadly, with an open mind. What that means for you will vary with your circumstances, but I think you should apply at least a bit out of your comfort zone. Over at Dynamic Ecology, they have a post on the most important factors underlying the number of jobs using a dataset from the ecology jobs spreadsheet, and they found that the number of applications is the strongest predictor. Apply as broadly as makes sense for you and your situation, and hopefully you will find a good match for you, even if it is outside of what you originally thought you might want.
I think you should apply for as many positions as you can while still doing a good job with the applications. In my case, I have a diverse background that spans physiology, phylogenetics, population genetics, genomics, and transcriptomics. Given this background, I could apply for jobs ranging from geneticist to physiologist. I also knew that I wanted a job with a substantial research component, but you can have that across a wide variety of institutions. So I applied for jobs at small liberal arts colleges and big public and private research institutions. I also applied very widely in the US, as well as for some foreign positions (in Australia and the UK). Ultimately, I ended up applying for a little over 100 positions in a very strong year for jobs. I don’t think most scientists will end up applying for that many jobs, but I do think there are several things that folks on the job market tend to do that limit their applications.
As a bit of an aside, I think one reason folks tend to limit the number of applications is to avoid rejection. This can be to avoid being rejected for a position, as well as to avoid rejecting an undesired job offer. Of course, the more positions that you apply for, the more times you will be rejected. But I don’t think that trying to avoid rejection is a good strategy for career advancement. Another reason that people don’t apply is that it takes a non-zero amount of time to apply, and it can feel like a waste if you don’t know if you would be competitive for the job or if you want the job. However, it does not normally take that long, and in any case, the payoff (years of a stable income of thousands of dollars per year) is much greater than the minutes (or hours) that it might take to apply. Rather than trying to deduce whether you will get the job (you probably won’t for any individual job), you should just apply if there is a chance that you might be competitive and that you might take the job.
The first way that people tend to limit their applications is to only apply for very specific positions or very broad positions. As an example, a candidate who is a physiological ecologist might only apply for general ecology positions or specifically physiological ecology positions. But it is likely that the candidate would also be competitive for anatomy and physiology positions, or comparative physiology positions, or even allied fields like behavioral ecology. Applying is usually free, so if you have even a chance of being competitive go ahead and throw in an application. For really specifically worded job ads, this could be driven by who happens to be loudest on a committee, and even though the ad says that someone studying insects is preferred, the department might be happy with a spider biologist. And the title of the position that you get does not really limit your science. I consider myself an evolutionary biologist (who uses physiology and transcriptomics and other tools), but I was hired as a comparative physiologist. No-one has ever told me what kind of research to do, and I have continued to only study topics that interest me, and that has often veered outside of the lines of comparative physiology.
Another way that candidates limit the number of applications is to be overly focused on a particular type of institution. This normally presents as an “R1 or bust” kind of strategy, where you only apply to top ranked research institutions. However, this strategy only works if you are a superstar in your field, and the vast majority of us are not that. Keep in mind that the prestigious research institutions receive hundreds of applications for every position that they have, so the odds are stacked against you if you only apply to a few of the most desirable jobs every cycle. One fundamental paradox of training in the sciences is that the vast majority of PhD programs and postdoctoral positions are in high-research activity institutions, but most faculty positions are in institutions with greater focus on teaching. Most PhD and postdoc mentors only have experience at research-intensive institutions, so there may be bad advice and misinformation about the desirability of more teaching focused institutions. Comparing and contrasting institution types is the topic of another post, but suffice it to say that jobs at teaching-focused and research-focused institutions are more similar than they are different in my experience. I think that even if your ultimate goal is a job at a research-intensive school, it is worth applying a bit outside of those boundaries. There are lots of universities without PhD programs that have faculty with impressive research programs, and they are often very happy with their positions.
One final way that prospective faculty tend to limit the number of applications is though geography. There are definitely good reasons to do so, from access to social networks and being close to family, to staying in states that recognize your humanity and rights. And perhaps someone like me who is a bit itinerant is not the best person to make this argument. But I do think that you never really know if you would like an area if you have not lived there. So much of what it means to live in the southeastern US (where I have lived for the past two decades), for example, is not adequately conveyed by traditional and social media. If you truly can’t leave the city in which you currently live (or would like to live), then you will need to accept the fact that you probably won’t get the exact kind of job that you want. And if you really want a tenure-track position and you are not a rockstar, then you will want to apply more broadly, although it is fine to have preferences.
When should you not apply for a job? Well, I think you should not apply if you know that you would not take the job. For example, maybe there is a position at a religious institution that requires a statement of faith. If you are not of that faith, then I would not apply for the job- even if you got the job, it is unlikely to be a good culture match, and of course lying to your employer about your faith is not a good idea. As another example, while you might be open minded about the relative proportion of research versus teaching, you might know that you want to have a research program, and this may not be a possibility at most community colleges (with some exceptions, of course), and so you might avoid applying for community college positions. I don’t think I applied to any community college positions for the above reason. In other words, I don’t think that you have to apply for everything. I do think that you should make decisions based upon good information, rather than a general feeling about regions or job types or institution types.
My recommendation is that you should apply broadly, with an open mind. What that means for you will vary with your circumstances, but I think you should apply at least a bit out of your comfort zone. Over at Dynamic Ecology, they have a post on the most important factors underlying the number of jobs using a dataset from the ecology jobs spreadsheet, and they found that the number of applications is the strongest predictor. Apply as broadly as makes sense for you and your situation, and hopefully you will find a good match for you, even if it is outside of what you originally thought you might want.
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