The GEEZ team interviewed nine former GEEZ presenters who were on the 2020-21 job market. They generously shared advice and thoughts on the job market for current GEEZ PhD students. You can learn more about their background at the bottom of the blog post.
This blog post is the third and last of a series of three blog posts. You can read the first blog post here on advice for the job market, and the second post on how to sell your JMP to a general audience here. Everyone’s experiences are different but we hope the blog series helps you get ready for this new step in your career!
We end our blog series on the job market with words of encouragement for grad students who are on the job market (or will be soon on the job market).
Enjoy your reading and ...
Don't give up, reach out if you need help, and remember: you belong and got this!
This process can be very mentally distressing, and you may doubt yourself many times throughout the whole thing. That’s alright. Be kind to yourself. You will receive so many NOs in life that it’s alright if you don’t get interviewed in all applications. You only need one yes. That’s all. Make sure you make time for yourself and do things you enjoy. Don’t spend all your time stressing about jobs. – Lina
Be yourself and trust yourself! Do not change your JMP or job talk just because someone said they do not like it. However, do change it when something (i.e., theory and methods) goes wrong. – Rui
One general word of encouragement is that for the most part the interviews and flyouts are actually generally pleasant experiences for most people. To get to that stage, there are people who want to hire you in the room. And the rest of the people are curious to learn about you and your work. It’s a rare opportunity to get to talk to lots of smart people about topics you’re interested in and an expert on. The job market is extremely stressful (waiting, uncertainty, lack of control, etc) but the parts where you get to interact with your colleagues won’t be as bad as you may have imagined. – Christina
For candidates this year, you guys are lucky. The market is bouncing back to normal level, after last year's catastrophe. So, be confident, be brave, get relaxed! – Zibin
Economics of education is a field that is obtaining more and more attention. There are a lot of capable economists working in this field. The advantage of this field is that you can find a job in academics, research institutions in general, government agencies, and consulting. Do your best in showing your ability as a researcher and you will end up in a good place. – Silvia
The JM is tough, but whatever the outcome, it's just a battle. Others may not know what you are fighting for. Win your own war. – Xiaoyue
I have heard someone say: "The education field is dead. All the big questions were answered in the 2000s." I think that this is not true. In the US, for example, reading and numeracy skills have been stagnating for many decades now and policymakers (but also academics) are still arguing about the root causes. I think that there is a ton of exciting work to be done, both in academia and in the policy space. This year will also be a good year on the job market, so I'm sure people will have good outcomes. Don't forget that there is so much randomness, though, and that the process is undermined by all kinds of information asymmetries, so don't let your job market outcome be associated in any way with your sense of self-worth. Also, it's probably more important to find some relaxing activity to do on the JM. Take care of your mental health. We don't talk about this enough (or we do in very abstract terms), but the market can be very brutal on your mental health. Working like crazy for the last year and then having to simply wait for people to get back to you without having much to do is psychologically akin to coming back from a war situation and not knowing what to do with yourself. So make sure you engage in a lot of relaxing activities and that you are able to "disconnect" mentally once in a while. – Andrei
People like to act like the econ job market is this uniquely intense and scary thing. But it's just a job search, and we apply to jobs and have job interviews like everyone else. It helped me to keep that in mind, in the same way I had tried to treat grad school (for the most part) like any other job. – Stephanie
The best part of this sub-field is the strong network of scholars across fields and disciplines. Don't be afraid to branch out of the traditional economics groups and conferences and meet people in policy and education schools as well as policymakers and practitioners. They can provide different perspectives on your research, connect it to policy and practice, and provide a support network for you. It might lead to new career opportunities as well. Conferences like APPAM and AEFP, networking opportunities like the Thomas Fordham Institute's Emerging Education Policy Scholars, as well as people doing similar work in other departments at your own institutions are great places to start building a network of scholars studying similar topics as you across disciplines. – Danielle
More about our interviewees:
Dr. Rui Wang received his PhD at American University and is now an Assistant Professor at Shanghai University of Economics and Finance.
Dr. Lina Anaya Beltran received her PhD at the University of Arkansas and is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Bradford.
Dr. Andrei Munteanu received his PhD at McGill University and is now a postdoctoral researcher at USC and UWM. He will join the Université de Québec à Montréal in 2022.
Dr. Zibin Huang received his PhD from the University of Rochester and is an Assistant Professor at the College of Business, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
Dr. Christina Brown was our first GEEZ presenter back on April 21st 2020. Christina received her PhD at UC Berkeley and is now a postdoc at the Becker Friedman Institute. She will join the University of Chicago as an Assistant Professor in 2023.
Dr. Danielle Sandersone Edwards received her Ph.D. in Education Policy from Michigan State University. She is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.
Dr. Silvia Griselda received her PhD at the University of Melbourne and is now Post-Doc researcher at AXA Research Lab on Gender Equality at Bocconi University.
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