Here's how the job market works for economics and finance Ph.D.s. First, you spend several years putting together enough research to make a dissertation. One of those papers you work on will become the all-important job market paper, which is basically what is going to determine the job that you get. It's the paper you present to the profession as your best work, and then everyone gets to judge it and you, sometimes mercilessly.
Once you've got a job market paper, it's time to send out applications! That happened in the middle of November. I sent out just over 60 job applications to universities and government institutions all over the country, and a couple in London as well. It's kind of ridiculous to send out that many, but you're never quite sure where you're going to end up so it's best to cast a wide net. It took me basically a full week just filling out the same information in every form over and over again. Ugh.
And then, I ate lots of turkey and pie at Thanksgiving. And there was much rejoicing.
During the first week of December, my phone started ringing as schools contacted me to schedule first-round interviews. Every time my pocket started to buzz, I'd just about jump out of my chair as I reached for my phone, not knowing who it might be on the other end. It was super exciting. A lot of this part of the process relies on your adviser, who is hopefully calling all of his or her friends and telling them that they should interview you. So, I have to give a huge shout out to my adviser (who isn't reading this) for being a huge supporter of me during this whole process. Now, one odd thing about the academic job market is that all first-round interviews take place at this giant conference called the AEA meetings (American Economic Association). So, as schools called I'd whip out my schedule for those three days and plan out my schedule. By the end, I'd scheduled 23 interviews during the 3-day conference.
During that same first week of December, I was invited to fly out to BYU for a job interview. (BYU works on a slightly different schedule because to make hires they have to get approval from Salt Lake.) So, Jenn and I and the boys took a quick trip out there, and Jenn and I even got to be interviewed by a general authority (Elder Haleck), which was pretty cool as well. We really enjoyed the whole visit with the guys at BYU, actually.
When we returned from Utah, it was time to practice for first-round interviews. Academic first-round interviews are all nearly exactly the same. They start out by saying, "So, tell us about your research," and then you tell them about your research for the next half hour, while they interject questions about your research in the middle. And that's it. They don't ask about your teaching, because they're hiring a researcher, who happens to teach a bit on the side. So, I scripted out my whole spiel of what I wanted to say during these half hour interviews, practiced it literally dozens and dozens of times, and did several mock interviews with Harvard professors. I even met for an hour and a half with a professional presentation coach that HBS had hired to help the job candidates to practice both my job talk and these shorter interviews.
And then it was go time. Just after New Years I packed my bags and headed off to sunny San Diego for the AEA meetings. A few hours after I landed, it was already time for my first interviews, so I put on my tie and put on my game face and headed out. For those of you who aren't familiar with my game face, this is what it looked like on that day:
Pretty impressive, eh? Anyway, for three days straight, I essentially went from one hotel room to the next repeating the exact same thing 23 different times, trying to act excited and friendly and fresh each time. The first 5 interviews were nerve-wracking, the next 10 were good, and the last 8 were a real grind. Each evening in San Diego I'd go take a walk by myself and breathe a huge sigh of relief, and then each morning I'd wake up and groan as I realized I had to do it all again. But, I took pleasure in the simple things, like watching myriads of other job market candidates lining up in front of hotel rooms every half hour. We looked like a bunch of secret service agents in our dark suits, pacing nervously around. Anyway, after 23 interviews, my game face wasn't quite so impressive:
But, at least I got to go to San Diego in January. I'd recommend it to anyone:
Before I had even returned to Boston, calls were starting to come in from various universities inviting me for second-round fly-outs to visit their department. This was again a super exciting time, as I was on pins and needles waiting for my phone to ring all day long. Luckily, and despite my game face, I got a really great set of fly-outs: University of Chicago, Ohio State, Dartmouth, NYU, Columbia, the NY Fed, Yale, Duke, London Business School, Northwestern, Berkeley, and USC.
I was super excited and blessed to have such a great list of places. The only downside was that I had to actually fly out to each of them, and a spend a full, grueling day at each place. All of these campus visits are basically exactly the same. I'd fly in the evening before and make my way to a relatively nice hotel, paid for by the university. I'd iron my shirt for the morning, call Jenn, and then hit the sack. Usually, I'd toss and turn much of the night, not because the bed was uncomfortable, but because I'd be just nervous enough about my interviews the next day that I couldn't get a great night's rest. When my alarm would go off in the morning, I'd roll out of bed, order room service for breakfast (I loved this part of having my trips paid for!), and then suit up. After arriving at the finance department, I'd meet with 11-12 people for half-hour long interviews throughout the day, and say basically the spiel to each one of them, telling them about my research, and sometimes asking about their work as well. Somewhere in the middle of the day I'd present my job market paper in an hour-and-a-half long seminar, during which everyone would try to poke holes in it, and I would attempt to deflect the criticisms. Then, around 6pm, they would take me out to a fancy dinner where I would hope that I could at least pronounce something on the menu. Then, go back to the hotel, call Jenn and talk incoherently to her (sorry, Jenn!) about my day, and collapse. The next morning it would be off to the airport again for the next visit. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. For 5 weeks.
Needless to say, it was exhausting. Here's a picture I snapped of myself when I was at JFK for the third time in four days:
But, I got good at getting through security, and it was cool to see all of these different places in such a short time. Here's a few pictures from my phone:
Chicago, IL (University of Chicago)
Hanover, NH (Dartmouth)
New Haven, CT (Yale)
Durham, NC (Duke) - out of my hotel window
Big Ben and parliament in London, UK (London Business School)
Happened across this road in London
Westminster Abbey in London
Evanston, IL (Northwestern)
Jenn wouldn't let me post one other photo, which was a framed picture hanging in my hotel room in Berkeley, CA. She deemed it too inappropriate for the audience that reads our blog. Any guesses what it was of? Yep, two free-love streakers (a man and a woman) who are joyously flinging their clothes off. Seriously, Berkeley? Is that still what you're most proud of, 40 years later?
Anyway, I traveled by bus, plane, train, and taxi (no boats, unfortunately) over 24,000 miles on these treks. Amid all of that travel, I had only one serious delay, when Winter Storm Nemo hit Boston. I happened to be in London, hoping to land in Boston at 12:45pm on a Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, the storm was scheduled to hit at 12:00pm on Friday. My flight was completely cancelled, leaving me stranded in London while Jenn was stranded with three boys at home while 36 inches of snow fell in 12 hours. I definitely got the better end of the deal there. I took advantage of the time by going to the Sherlock Holmes museum at 221b Baker Street, wandering around random neighborhoods trying to figure out if we really could live in London (we could, quite happily, but it would be crazy expensive!), and then in the late afternoon I went to St. Paul's Cathedral:
I happened to get there close to closing time and didn't have tons of time to tour the place, but luckily they have Evensong every night which is open to the public, so I stuck around. I'm so glad that I did! I got to sit in the quire seats, the ones that look like this:
while a choir of men and boys sang for 45 minutes. It was a little bit of peace and calm in the middle of a very stressful time, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Absolutely amazing.
After that beautiful experience, however, things went downhill. I was scheduled to fly out the next day around 10am to get back to Boston, a full day late. I figured I'd go to the airport and hang around and try to get on standby for an earlier flight. I got to the airport around 10pm, and was informed that the airport closes at midnight and so I couldn't go in through security. Who knew that some airports actually close? Well, I hadn't booked a hotel for that night, so I ended up hanging out at a 24-hour cafe just outside of security with about 40 other weary travelers who were also waiting for the airport to re-open. I'm still mad at the Hilton at Heathrow who wanted to charge me 205 pounds ($300!) for a room at 2am when I would leave the next morning by 6am. I tried to reason with them that if they didn't give me the room it would just go empty and they would get nothing, but no dice. Idiots. So, I trudged back to a little patch of tiled floor by the cafe and went to sleep. The next day I wasn't able to get on any standby flights and so boarded my regularly scheduled flight, which had been delayed a few hours waiting for the Boston Logan airport to open after the storm. Finally we took off. Then, about an hour before landing, the pilot came on and told us that Logan still wasn't open, and so we were being diverted to Detroit. Ugh. That night I ended up in a grungy Best Western (paid for by Delta, at least), and I didn't get back to Jenn until Sunday afternoon, two full days late. My reward was getting to turn around the next morning and leave again.
Still, it wasn't all bad. I actually enjoyed meeting a huge chunk of the profession and getting to know a lot of people. Of course, meeting with over 130 socially awkward academics I was bound to have some funny experiences. One guy spent the full 30 minutes asking me about the Church's stance on gay marriage and what the Church teaches about food storage. Another guy asked me a question about my paper, I responded, and then he sat there thinking about my answer for at least a full 2 minutes, in complete silence. It was so awkward, but I didn't dare interrupt his train of thought. Another guy talked to me for about 20 minutes about how much he hated [the city we were in] and how it would be a terrible place for a guy with kids like me. Academia is filled with odd people. Mostly good, nice people, but decidedly odd.
And, I had a lot of really nice meals. I tried cow tongue, foie gras, osso buco, and a bunch of other things that I'd never heard of or at least never would have eaten otherwise, and most of it was spectacular. Definitely the fanciest place I went to was in London, where they must have laid down at least $1,200 for a dinner for 5 of us. The wine alone cost $350 (and I didn't even have any)! The funny part about that meal was that one of the people in our party found a hair in her dessert. One of guys in our group was a bit of a foodie (and maybe a bit tipsy) and he loudly called the waiter over demanding to know what he was going to do to fix the problem. The poor waiter started to say he would bring another one when this guy cuts him off and says, "I suggest you should be a bit more creative in thinking how you'll make it up to us." The waiter apologized profusely and said he'd talk to the manager. They ended up giving us all a tour of the kitchen (it was just like Ratatouille!), removing the service charge for our table, and giving the lady her whole meal completely free. That was one expensive hair for them!
And now, I've come out of the other end of the job market alive, well, and better for the experience. I'm much more comfortable in my own skin now, knowing that I can survive brutal seminars just fine, and that most everyone is actually pretty nice and wanting to help. And, I got four spectacular job offers as well: BYU (Marriott School of Business), London Business School, Dartmouth (Tuck Business School), and Northwestern (Kellogg School of Management). We agonized over the decision for a long time, but in the end I'm joining Kellogg, and I couldn't be more thrilled.
Now all I have to do is defend this dissertation and walk across the stage...nearly there!
