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I am a fifth year Ph.D. student in Mathematics applying for full-time teaching professor and lecturer positions or teaching (non-research) postdocs in the US this year. I will also apply to full-time instructor positions in community colleges or even part-time positions if needed but I am not interested in positions that involve research. I read this post, this post, and this post which are related to job applications but they are focused on research-based positions.

I believe non-research positions are less desired by most PhD graduates, but there are also non-PhD student/post docs applying and there might be fewer positions in total (it is hard for me to know because I've heard that non-research positions are generally posted later than research ones).

I am asking because I want to know whether I should apply to more than 20 positions for lecturers and teaching professors to get at least 1 offer and how many community colleges I should apply to as a backup. I know that the conditions depend a lot on the individual (in my case I have an interactive math teaching website, 5 semesters of instructor of record, 4 semesters of teaching assistant, 2 published papers, and 2 submitted for publication), but I'm hoping to get an estimate on the order of magnitude of the number of applications to know how much time I will need to spend on cover letters.

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    My own experience is limited to research institutions (for mathematics in the US), so take this with a grain of salt for your situation, but I advise PhD students to apply to every job they would consider accepting if offered. Twenty sounds low to me. But FWIW your profile sounds very strong for applying for teaching positions.
    – Mark Meckes
    Commented Nov 7 at 3:15
  • @MarkMeckes This is an estimate, but I think there are about 40-60 jobs I would be happy to work at. If I applied to 40 positions and spent an average of 6 hours on each cover letter, that would be 240 hours in about 40 days, which I believe is not feasible. Would you recommend spending less than 6 hours on average on the cover letters to apply to more positions? I realize that it was a major mistake for me to wait until November to start my cover letters.
    – Andrew Murdza
    Commented Nov 7 at 19:33
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    40-60 sounds like the right ballpark to me. Again, my experience is mostly with research and not teaching-only positions, but I have been on a hiring committee for a teaching-only position. I honestly can't imagine how you would spend anywhere near 6 hours on even a single cover letter. I have rarely seen a cover letter over two pages long (most are between 1/2 and 1 page), and most of them have only minimal content that's tailored to one specific position.
    – Mark Meckes
    Commented Nov 7 at 19:47
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    I didn't manage to find those comments but I would assume they are from very different fields than mathematics. In some fields the norm is for the cover letter to include a lot more information than others. Also, I wonder if it's clear that they meant they spend the best part of a day on each individual cover letter, as opposed to spending a day writing their basic cover letter which was then relatively quickly personalized to each position they applied to?
    – Mark Meckes
    Commented Nov 8 at 2:49
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    You should find that even if you are tailoring each cover letter very carefully, it shouldn't take 6 hours each time. For the first couple, yes, it is likely to take the better part of a day. After that, you'll find that you can recycle most of the material for different positions -- there will be a limited range of key things that they are looking for, so it will be a matter of working out what that is for each one, then copy-pasting the relevant section or version of your cover letter. So for 60 applications, think 40-60 hours total, which is a reasonable amount of time to spend on this.
    – Significance
    Commented Nov 10 at 22:59

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The academic job market in mathematics is extremely difficult for job seekers. Getting hundreds of applications for a full-time position (not just the most desirable tenure track positions) is reportedly common.

In such a market it is in your interest to apply for as many jobs as possible, excluding jobs you'd be unwilling to accept. Even so, there would be no guarantee that you'd be offered a position.

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I graduated into a similarly (or worse) academic marketplace in math. It took me over two years to find a minimally acceptable position with hundreds of applications. The problem then was that there had been a hiring surge in prior years and an end to government interest in funding research. Luckily, I had a temporary position to carry me through. Tough times then, and now.

But you should apply to every suitable position and keep doing so until you find something. And make sure that your application materials, especially letters of recommendation are good.

If you need a multi-year search, don't lose track of contacts with colleagues and professors who might support you.

You might also start to investigate other career paths that require math knowledge and ask yourself whether you would be happy with that. I looked at actuarial work for a bit. I'm not sure that is still an option, however.

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