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I applied for postdocs this past year but didn't get any offers. Unfortunately it's not possible for me to get any feedback on what went wrong. One of my letter writers said that I am not doing anything "wrong," but the competition for any academic position is "extremely brutal." He also said that academia isn't really a meritocracy and that there's a lot of randomness in the hiring process. He also said that there's an element of "social engineering" in academic hiring that's intensified in the past five years and that I shouldn't take it as a sign of my mathematical ability.

I think he was trying to make me feel better but I still feel like a loser. I wish I knew what was different about the candidates who did get hired. What made them different from the candidates who did not get hired?

Is that the end of my academic career? What should I do in the meantime before trying again? How many times can I try?

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    Does there necessarily have to be a "meantime"? Here in the UK, there's not a strict annual cycle for postdoc recruitment, there are positions being advertised all year round.
    – user128581
    Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 20:07
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    Don't give up. I also struggled to get a postdoctorate position (tough competition and a difficult economic period) for almost one year at the end of my PhD, and got two offers when I was about to give up.
    – Taladris
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 2:20
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    The academic job market is always a crapshoot, there's really no benefit or truth to blaming diversity initiatives for a lack of success however obliquely.
    – user137975
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 3:00
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    To add on to @DanielHatton's comment, in the US there isn't a strict cycle either. If any, there's a weak alignment to the academic year, and we still are 3 months from summer, and 6 months from the beginning of the school year, plenty of time to find a position that would become available on these dates.
    – user71659
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 3:15
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    The statement that postdocs are available all year round is quite field-dependent. In my corner of physics it's pretty rare to see many positions advertised between April and September (in any country).
    – astronat supports the strike
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 8:11

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The truth is that there are more applicants than positions. Not everyone can get a postdoc position, even though they all want to. That doesn't mean that you can't, but the statistics just aren't on your side. Not everyone can date Claudia Schiffer. Not even everyone with the good looks of Matt Damon.

So there is probably a point to be made about having a Plan B. In the short run, you'll have to look for a job to keep paying the bills before the next application cycle comes around. Then try again, and maybe this time you have better luck. In any case, it is probably worth your while to think about what careers you could be happy in, that are fulfilling, and sufficient rewarding. Lots of people end up in jobs that they consider fulfilling even though that may not have been their plan A.

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  • What do you think is different about the applicants who get the offers?
    – cgb5436
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 1:36
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    Could be anything. Maybe their thesis topic was more precisely aligned with topic the person reviewing the application was interested in. Maybe the reviewer just had a nice meal before reviewing that application, and was thus in a good mood. Maybe ....
    – Maarten Buis
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 7:22
  • Look at it from the point of view of the person hiring: You get a big pile of applications. Some can easily be discarded. But that still leaves a somewhat less big pile of applications who all have their pros and cons. It is rare that just one clearly stands out. Most of the time there are a number of applications that are all suitable without clear ranking. However, you can still choose only one. That is why there is so much randomness in academic hiring.
    – Maarten Buis
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 7:33
  • @MaartenBuis 'you can still choose only one' or you can choose zero. I'd say at least a third, probably rather more, of the advertised postdoc jobs I applied for over the years were never filled.
    – user128581
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 8:34
  • All of the above, or they already hired someone in your specific field a year ago and want to go with a different area this time. Or they hadn't, but the university reduced the department's budget and they can't hire this year. Or there was a superstar from Harvard available in your specific area. Or your application really wasn't that good. Or your application was good but your thesis wasn't. We really can't know, and in truth you really can't know either.
    – Wolfgang Bangerth
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 15:49

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