“There’s a dilemma among many graduate students who are done with their course work,” said Smoot. “You pass your general exams, and then you have to teach while you work on your dissertation.”

For graduate students, the daunting process of hunting for jobs usually begins in the fall of their final year at Harvard.

Most academic disciplines utilize centralized fora that list all of the openings in that field from departments and universities across the globe.

Applicants for each position are whittled down and a small minority of candidates receive invitations to interview with faculty. Eventually three or four candidates are brought to campus for on-site visits, during which they go through what McCavana described as an “intensive interview process.”

“People are literally on from 8 a.m. to when dinner is over—it’s all part of the interview,” McCavana said. “They want to see how you get along with the colleagues.”

Balskus, who interviews candidates applying to Harvard’s chemistry department, said the process is “very fair.”

“From my perspective, what you are asked to do is in many ways very reflective of the things you’ll do as an assistant professor,” Balskus said. “You’ll have to talk and explain your work, and you’ll have to interact.”

HARD TIMES FOR HUMANITIES

The number of job openings in humanities departments has declined as cash-strapped universities divert resources to the sciences.

“Universities are putting more money into sciences than humanities,” said English professor Amanda Claybaugh. “[Universities are] hiring in the sciences rather than the humanities.”

Furthermore, she said, universities are “under incredible financial constraints.” As a result, the hiring of tenure-track professors has slowed as schools appoint more and more adjunct professors—lower-paid professors not on the tenure track, whose primary duty is to teach students.

As a result, graduate students face even greater uncertainty while wrapping up their dissertations and beginning their hunt for a job.

And with fewer non-academic jobs available overall, those who graduate with Ph.Ds in the humanities face unsure employment prospects.

“Everyone feels concerned about whether they can get a job they want, and second, whether they can get a job at all,” said L. Julie Jiang, a postdoctoral fellow in the linguistics department.

Claybaugh said that she often cautions College students against attending graduate school.