Late acknowledgement letters?

[considering other options]

So did anyone else just receive an acknowledgment letter from Georgetown (dated 1/6)? It seems very strange to receive this letter, saying that my resume has been forwarded to the search committee, when the Wiki indicates that they have already contacted the finalists for fly-outs for both positions. What gives? Are they just trying to build data numbers?

[anonymous and single]

At least you received one; I haven't. Maybe the department administrator was running behind schedule. Who knows. For what it's worth, most of the schools to which I applied didn't give any such notification, whatsoever.

If you were instead looking for a rejection letter, keep in mind that department's have little, if any, reason to burn their bridges before they've officially made the hire. Sometimes candidates who are flown-out fizzle, accept an offer from another department, etc., and so the department goes down the list to candidates who weren't invited for fly-outs, or maybe didn't even get an APA interview with that department. I don't think that's likely, but I've heard of it happening on occasion.

[docs]

If you were instead looking for a rejection letter, keep in mind that department's have little, if any, reason to burn their bridges before they've officially made the hire. Sometimes candidates who are flown-out fizzle, accept an offer from another department, etc., and so the department goes down the list to candidates who weren't invited for fly-outs, or maybe didn't even get an APA interview with that department. I don't think that's likely, but I've heard of it happening on occasion.

This is, sadly, correct: at least, SCs cannot write off anyone they interviewed before seeing the [typically few] people they invite to campus. It puts SCs in the awkward position of either a) sending everyone else a 'We don't think so, but we're not sure' note or b) letting things ride while they deal with the crazy business of getting administrators lined up, schedules arranged, and so forth, for their few permitted 'on-sites.' I'm afraid 'b' is the default - especially for smaller departments.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if philosophers [at all 'levels'] could get together and come up with a sane, workable, cost-effective, humane way of doing this?
It has not always been quite such a dreadful process [for all], but as there does not seem to be an improvement in the market in the very near future, perhaps we could put some of our enviable brain-power to work on a problem that concerns all of us in this discipline?

[considering other options]

Thanks for the replies--they make perfect sense, except for one detail: I did not interview with them at the APA. So while I'd expect *any* department to keep their options open with regard to those they deemed worthy of being on the "short-list" or "long short-list" (whatever that means), it still seems strange for someone who was on neither to receive an acknowledgment letter well after the fact rather than a straight PFO.

I'm not complaining, just curious. I expect it was more a matter of administrator lag than anything else.

[Filosofer]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if philosophers [at all 'levels'] could get together and come up with a sane, workable, cost-effective, humane way of doing this?
It has not always been quite such a dreadful process [for all], but as there does not seem to be an improvement in the market in the very near future, perhaps we could put some of our enviable brain-power to work on a problem that concerns all of us in this discipline?

I've been daydreaming about maybe, just maybe, actually getting a job as a philosophy professor this year. I've also been daydreaming about being on a search committee. If I get hired somewhere, and if I'm ever on a committee, here's what I'm a-gonna do. Each applicant will receive an e-mail confirmation when their application is received. That confirmation will include a list of realistic dates when they can expect to hear from us, e.g. "12/15: decisions about APA interviews will be made; 1/7: decisions about fly-outs will be made; 2/28: hiring decision will be made." I will then promise the applicants that anyone who is still in the running will receive an e-mail from me on those dates. The e-mail may be pretty mundane: it may simply be informing them that our dates were too optimistic and that we need another week to deliberate. But applicants will hear from us, and each time they hear from us they will know (a) whether they are still in the running and (b) if they are in the running, when they can expect to hear from us again.

This doesn't seem so hard. Why doesn't anyone appear to actually do it?!?

[docs]

"Filosofer":

Trouble is, you may have as many as 300 applications coming in, not all parts of each file arriving together, some administrator keeping you on the hook about their decision dates, and little or no secretarial help. And, don't forget: you cannot send out one massive email to all those who apply at each stage that you describe - they have to be sent out one by one. The last is a matter of confidentiality and respect, but also practicality: if one address is wrong the whole thing stalls out! Meanwhile, you are teaching and doing all your 'regular work.'

Now, this does not mean that we on SCs could not be better about keeping folks notified of what is happening. I know we could have done better this year, if only there had been a few more of us sharing the load. I do think that being able to do more entirely on-line would help.