The application process for chemistry faculty positions can last several (grueling) months. The timeline below is my 2012 job search and serves as the first installment of my “Get a Job, Ken!” blog post series.

Job postings: The postings for inorganic/energy/materials assistant professor positions at top 100, R1 institutions (in the United States) began appearing in July 2012 and continued until about November. Postings for professor positions at undergraduate-focused institutions continued well beyond into Spring 2013.

Application deadlines: The distribution of deadlines for the 38 positions I applied to are shown in the bar graph below. The first deadline was on September 10th. The last was on December 1st. The most popular due date by far was October 15th.

Interviews: I’ve heard of people receiving phone calls offering interviews as early as two weeks after the application deadline. Other people recounted receiving calls as late as February/March after search committees failed to find a viable candidate during their first round of interviews.

Rejection letters/emails: Some universities send rejection emails/letters after selecting candidates to interview (as early as November) while others send emails after making an offer to their top candidate. Some universities don’t send anything at all (10-20% of the schools I applied to).

Decisions, second visits and negotiations: Job offers are usually proffered between December and March. Second visits—a department’s chance to entice their top candidate to accept the offer—are scheduled soon after. Negotiations about start-up funds, lab space, teaching assignments and so on occur during the month following the offer and will continue until the final contract is signed (or rejected).

Graduate student recruiting weekend: If newly hired professors receive and accept an offer in time, they can potentially attend their new institution’s graduate student recruiting weekend. This event provides a chance for new professors to meet and start recruiting students to help establish their research group.

Start date: The most common start dates I saw listed on the job postings were July 1st or August 1st, but the actual start date is negotiable (to some degree).

As a real-life example, here is the start-to-finish timeline for the search process that ultimately ended in my assistant professor position at FSU: