Check out your competitors if you are entering the academic job market

Taken off the Chronicle:

Who's Hot? Who's Not?

From the issue dated September 22, 2006

Online rumor mills shine a light on faculty job searches but may also intensify the star system

By ROBIN WILSON

With 11 campus interviews and an offer from Yale University, Susan D. Hyde quickly emerged as the darling of last year's faculty job market in international relations.

Her good fortune was clear to anyone with an Internet connection, courtesy of a new blog that tracks jobs in her discipline. Through anonymous postings, the blog followed Ms. Hyde's nearly every move, from her interviews at the University of Virginia and George Washington University to her decision to accept the offer at Yale.

Too bad I can't find (yet) a rumor mill for my discipline.

-----------------------------------------------------------

ONLINE RUMOR MILLS IN ACADEME

IR RUMOR MILL
http://irrumormill.blogspot.com

Started January 2005. The international-relations blog lists fellowships and faculty job openings and offers discussion forums. On the forums this year, posters have asked whether some candidates got job offers because they were female, and whether candidates' political views influence departments' hiring decisions.

AMERICAN AND COMPARATIVE JOBS
http://americanandcomparativejobs.blogspot.com

Started May 2006. The politics blog will follow its first full job season this year — from advertisements in the fall to offers in the spring — with separate listings for American politics and comparative politics. Postings on the comparative section started in August this way:
Anonymous: "Good luck to everyone on the market. May the best scholars win."
Anonymous: "Are you joking? The market is seldom just about quality of research."

MIDDLE EAST HISTORY ACADEMIC POSITIONS (THE RUMOR MILL)
http://mideast-history-jobs.blogspot.com

Started July 2006. The blog, begun by a doctoral student in the field, offers job listings plus an overall 2007 job-discussion forum. "Please comment here," it says, "if you wish to discuss (or, most likely, complain about) the 2007 job market."

POLITICAL THEORY AND PUBLIC LAW JOB MARKET
http://politicaltheoryrumormill.blogspot.com

Started January 2006. The blog has separate listings for jobs in political philosophy, political theory, and public law. It also tracks moves by senior scholars in those fields.

ASTROPHYSICS JOBS RUMOR MILL
http://www.hp-h.com/b/astromill

Started in 1999. A sophisticated Web site, known as the "astromill," that offers a color-coded listing of jobs for postdoctoral fellows, assistant professors, full professors, and department heads. Job rumors are submitted by e-mail to an anonymous moderator at edwinhubble@hotmail.com (named after Edwin P. Hubble, the astronomer).

ASTROPHYSICS JOB RUMOUR MILL
http://cdm.berkeley.edu/doku.php?id=astrophysicsjobs

Started July 2006. Martin White, a physics professor at the U. of California at Berkeley, started this wiki to provide the same kind of information as the established astromill, but faster. Because the wiki — a communal Web site — can be edited by anyone with a computer, the information does not have to go through a single moderator. The site uses a single, easy-to-read table to follow openings for tenure-track jobs.

THEORETICAL PARTICLE PHYSICS JOB RUMOR MILL
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php

Started 1995. John Terning created the site with a colleague when he was a postdoctoral fellow in physics at Boston U. Now an associate professor at the U. of California at Davis, Mr. Terning still runs it. Above its easy-to-read listing of faculty job openings, the Web site includes this disclaimer: "The following information is based on rumors submitted by our correspondents from around the world. Since many physics departments will not verify this (in principle) public information, we cannot guarantee that any information is accurate. This information is provided as a public service, no warranty is expressed or implied. Your mileage may vary."