EconSpark - Recent questions in Job Market - Employer Questions

Economics Internships/Research for a incoming High School Senior

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 05:36:53 +0000

Hi everyone! I’m an incoming high school senior with a strong interest in economics, finance, and research, and I’m currently looking for internships, research opportunities, or mentorship programs for this upcoming year/summer. I have written a research paper under the guidance of Dr. Andrew Foley of NYU Stern in Narrative Economics, but I am looking to deepen my involvement.

To Recruiting committees: when are you going to start inviting candidates for interviews? [JMkt 2020/21]

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 01:40:36 +0000

Post-doc policies in a market with few AP positions?

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 18:39:17 +0000

In the recent past, it was not uncommon for PhDs who got an offer as Assistant Professor somewhere to also get interesting post-doc positions offers from other institutions. When possible, they would take both positions, do the post doc and postpone the beginning of the assistant professor position for a year or two. In a steady state, this does not matter much for the stock of offers at any point in time; I don't know the actual figures of these situations (e.g. some prestige post-doc positions are actually meant only for PhDs that have an AP position so are not concerned by this trade off). Now, given the extremely difficult circumstances and the drop in the number of available positions on the market this year, one might be willing to keep the number of "double-takes" as low as possible. This would come at a cost for the PhDs who are susceptible to get this kind of opportunity and for the Universities recruiting post-docs who will have a reduced choice, but would overall increase the odds for new PhDs to get a job (post doc or AP) this year. So I guess my question is: is this worth thinking about?

Lag in job market or reduction?

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 15:15:43 +0000

My university has been slow to approve tenure-track faculty lines, but it looks like we are getting approval. I'm looking at the low numbers on JOE so far and am wondering if they reflect a similar lag in approval or an actual reduction. Any thoughts?

Now that AEA 2021 is online, can we permanently decided now to stop having interviews in hotel rooms?!

Sat, 25 Jul 2020 21:54:30 +0000

The ASSA 2021 Annual Meeting is now being held virtually. It will be super interesting to see how the job market works out, but presumably it will work and all first round interviews will be online. Which will prove that we don't need to have interviews in hotel rooms! (Hotel suites are indeed hotel rooms. They give off more of a honeymoon vibe than a normal room in fact.) You may not be as confident that the job market will work well this year all online, and given hiring freezes it won't be a pretty one. But many other fields have all their first round interviews online and it works perfectly fine for them, so I don't see any valid arguments why it wouldn't work for econ.

What are the visitor market prospects in 2020?

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 21:04:59 +0000

Anyone else about to search for visitors for the 2020-21 academic year? Any insights into the prospects? Any comments on the clearing of the regular (tenure-track and full-time professional) market?

How much room for negotiation does your department have?

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 03:06:52 +0000

Does your department have much flexibility in negotiating offers? Salary, start-up funds, special office, reduced teaching, other technology, etc.

Should the AEA offer guidelines on the timing of job offers?

Sun, 27 Jan 2019 06:16:09 +0000

There has been recent discussion (Twitter: https://twitter.com/fscoamodio/status/1088858596413267969?s=11) about the timing of job offers. In particular, there are questions about exploding offers and coordination issues with European and Chinese markets. Offering departments presumably would like to be unconstrained. (Although they might agree that other departments should be constrained when offering jobs to their students.) Candidates benefit from some coordination. I suggest here some minimalist guidelines.

Cross-university guidelines for hiring are not unusual in academia. Here are two examples:

American Association of Universities: (with regard to faculty moving between institutions)

"We believe that a responsible approach for both the institutions and the faculty members would be to consider offers made or pending on May 1, or thereafter, to be effective normally only after the intervention of an academic year"

American Historical Association:
"The candidate must then have a reasonable amount of time, from the receipt of the offer in its written form... before he or she must make a binding decision. ... this period should last a minimum of two weeks from receipt of the formal offer....If university procedures make it impossible to provide a letter of intent, the candidate may be given a deadline for a decision. In such cases, however, the candidate cannot be considered to be morally bound by his or her agreement until a written document is issued and received, and has a clear right to withdraw his or her acceptance."

Let me offer a first attempt at suggesting a policy the AEA might adopt. Improvements/disagreements welcome of course.

1. Job offers should allow for a minimum two weeks following receipt of a formal, written offer to respond.
2. Job offers should remain open until at least January 31.
3. Acceptance of an offer that does not satisfy (1) and (2) is not considered ethically binding on the candidate.

Spousal hire: best practices

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 13:52:51 +0000

My department is conducting a search for a TT AP this year. One of our APs is already TT in the department. The spouse of that particular AP is an applicant for the position we have out. Our school does not have a formal policy regarding how to handle spousal hires. However, I wanted to add a question here regarding tips on how to handle any conflict of interest. Should/can the TT AP be part of the interviewing process when the spouse applicant is on campus for interviews? Can they interview other applicants? Or should they entirely recuse themselves from the process?

pick up candidate from airport or let them Uber/cab to hotel?

Sun, 06 Jan 2019 03:56:04 +0000

The practice of my department has been to pick up a job candidate from the airport when they arrive the evening before their campus visit and drop them off at their hotel. I find this awkward, but the idea has been that it is good to make a good impression on the candidate with a personalized pickup. What's the typical practice? Thoughts?

What do public policy schools look for when considering making senior hires from outside of academia?

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 01:03:07 +0000

Although most hires at public policy schools seem to occur through the traditional academic market, it seems that some schools will make senior offers to established scholars/practitioners from outside of academia (government, World Bank/IMF, the Feds, etc.) Is it only the publication record that counts, or how is practical experience valued/assessed?

Does your university pre-screen at regional conferences?

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:03:35 +0000

Does your university informally pre-screen job-market candidates at regional conferences such as the SEAs? This might involve identifying job candidates who are attending and/or presenting at the Southerns and making a point of meeting them at a session or observing the presentation. Helpful or not?

How many applications do you have so far?

Thu, 08 Nov 2018 19:03:40 +0000

How many applicants do you have so far for your job opening? I'd appreciate answers that include whether or not the job is in academia and if academic, type of school (top 20 research, liberal-arts, community college, etc.). Also a yes/no about whether the job ad has closed or not would be helpful.

At which tech firms do economists have substantial influence and enjoy good working conditions?

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 14:43:44 +0000

See "Hunting for a Hot Job in High Tech? Try 'Digitization Economist' https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/looking-for-a-hot-job-in-high-tech-try-digitization-economist for a story related to the recent paper by Susan Athey and Mike Luca

"Under chief economist Pat Bajari, Amazon has hired more than 150 PhD economists in five years.
...
"Some 50 tech companies “have been snapping up economists at a remarkable scale,” says Michael Luca,... and lots of the smaller companies are starting to hire handfuls of them.” The list includes Google, Microsoft, Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, and numerous smaller companies.

Tech companies are turning to sharp economic minds to provide their unique lens on business problems like advertising auctions and market design. The accelerating phenomenon has given rise to a new field within economics called the economics of digitization."

Recommendation - Good job market advice

Fri, 21 Sep 2018 10:16:54 +0000

To everyone on the market this year!

I recommend this blog and book: http://theprofessorisin.com/

I found the blog and the corresponding book extremely helpful last year when I was on the market. It isn't about the econ market per se, but it has some very good general insights on writing a cover letter, preparing for the interviews and understanding the demand side of the market that are missing from some of the econ focused guides.

I can't say anything about the paid advice she provides. For me, the free information and the book were enough.

Obviously, the evidence is anecdotal, but I had several offers and ended up at my Nr.1 institution, a higher ranked institution than where I was coming from.

Best advice: Don't act like a grad student! People are looking to hire colleagues who can pull some weight at the department, not students they need to babysit. Think about the utility function of the department you are applying for. What do they need and how can you provide that?

Good luck!