How to get a head start on the job market

Abstract

As I was settling into my seat on a recent flight, I noticed a large group of young professionals boarding the plane. They were carrying poster tubes, and I wondered which scientific conference they were coming from. It turns out that they were education researchers, and the person sitting across the aisle from me was a graduate student who had already begun his search for a tenure-track position. For the next two hours, we talked about the similarities and differences between the job market for education faculty and the job market for chemistry faculty. One obvious difference is that there are far fewer schools of education than departments of chemistry at major research universities. Also, postdoctoral positions are less common in education. Another distinct difference is that in education, students apply for tenure-track positions twice, with the first application taking place two years before they plan to graduate. They call