A number of you may have noted that your posts requesting information on a specific job offer have not appeared on the IR Rumor Mill. The IR Rumor Mill team has had extensive discussions concerning what our policy should be on reporting job offers.
Our current policy is not to disclose offers unless that information comes directly from the candidate in question. Job offers involve sensitive information exchanged between schools and prospective employees. A candidate often negotiates with a school over the terms of the contract. Other schools may have reasons to adjust their searches in light of a job offer. These and other reasons strike us as sufficient warrants for treading carefully in this area.
Once a candidate accepts an offer and we can confirm his or her "off the market" status, we will post that information.
We have to admit to the existence of some internal disagreement over this policy. Therefore, we thought it would be useful to throw the question open to the community for input. Please let us know what you think, and why.
12 comments:
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I think I agree with the policy, though what is the reason to disagree? This may be one case where satisfying the idle curiosity of the community is detrimental to a candidate.
I think that the reporting of offers is important for many of the same reasons that reporting interviews is. This allows candidates to "check off" schools from their list. I had an interview last year and it was through this blog that I learned that they had hired someone else. The SC did not notify me for many months but learning from the blog that they had hired someone allowed me to "cross off" that institution. I can understand having some delicacy with respect to the candidates and their position, but noting the fact of the offer (even without stating the recipient's name) serves a valuable function.
11:29am. We're definitely not censoring comments to the effect that "an offer has been made," e.g., the Cornell rumor (which believe is likely to be correct). But we are trying to avoid having information about *which* candidate the offer has been made to appear on the blog until after the offer has been accepted. Does this seems like a reasonable compromise?
I believe your compromise is quite reasonable. That way, if the offer is refused, there is still some wiggle room for the candidate. It also allows people to cross the school of the list. If the offer is rejected, it would be easy enough to note that as well.
I think that compromise is perfect.
That compromise sounds good from the candidate's perspective. The only issue I could see would be those instances in which a single candidate is single handedly tying up multiple offers. Say, for example, a candidate has two offers and is being considered for a third. If I were a search committee member, I may benefit from knowing that the candidate has two other offers. Also, the other candidates for that third job may stand to benefit. ...then again, the person losing out is the candidate that may have been on the cusp of a third offer. Not sure if that is fair, but is there a greater good to be sought here? A single candidate can kill more than one spot for those offers that s/he turns down, as some schools won't be able to dip back into their pool.
If you have an offer, generally you inform all of the schools you are interested in. So providing candidate names on the Rumor Mill will not lead to the distribution of useful information to departments -- they will have that information anyways.
But this objection seems to be based on the assumption that all offers are comparable in some way. Say a candidate is tying up a bunch of possible offers - but he/she is married, has kids, whatever...has to choose between the best job for his/her particular circumstances. We have no way of knowing that job #3, in your scenario, might not be the best offer for this idiosyncratic candidate (and the offer that will then get that person off the market). If School #3 reads about the first two offers, they might pass the candidate by, which could be to the collective detriment of all.
I think the policy protects schools and candidates and thus, by extension, all of us.
I agree with the policy compromise that has been reached. In response to the poster concerned about the policy from the point of view of a search committee - my understanding is that the purpose of the blog is to assist candidates - not to help search committees cross people off their lists because they have offers elsewhere. I think the candidates concerns should be paramount. It would be a shame if search committees relied on an anonymous blog to eliminate worthwhile candidates. If a person gets multiple offers, more power to him/her. The rumor mill is not supposed to distribute job offers in an equitable fashion, and it's potentially dangerous to candidates if the rumor mill starts having an independent effect on offers.
Moreover, there is no purpose served by connecting a particular person to an offer. Schools can usually dip back in their applicant pool if they don't get their top choice, and another poster has pointed out that most candidates keep schools informed about offers.
Many thanks to the administrators for conscientious work. I have some concerns about the impact of the current policy. There are huge power asymmetries between job seekers and major (usually academic) institutions. They are few and we are many, they have better information, they are more risk invariant and less time sensitive, etc. Anyway, what would be _really_ useful is to start sharing details about the offers that are being made -- as they are made. I don't care _who_ you are. I just want to know what somebody is being offered, so I can use this to get better compensation from my prospective employer. Since the market is imperfect, averages are much less helpful than anonymized examples. Remember that institutions already share this information, certainly across disciplines (within institutions) and often across institutions formally (big 10) or informally (conversations among department heads). Censoring ourselves as labor is a big mistake.
Example:
"I have an offer from a big 10 institution at the AbD level for $67,500 with a 1 and 1 first year teaching load. I got one summer ninth and a semester off after three years. I have one other equivalent offer."
One question I have is about negotiating strategies. Who has ideas about how to get the "other offer" to pony up for more, rather than just matching? etc.
Why not just say to them, "I have an offer from institution Q for X amount of dollars- are you willing to give me a better offer?" What's wrong with being honest about what you want?
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