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this is a somewhat specific question aimed especially at people who have experienced in serving in tenure-track search committees that use Mathjobs.Org.

Many of the job descriptions say something in the lines of "Review of applications will start on 1 November" (or any other date) or "For full consideration please apply before November 1", etc.

The question is: I am waiting for a couple of papers to be accepted (already have reviews, but no official acceptance since the editorial process sometimes takes longer). I know that applications can be updated in Mathjobs. Do the committees print all the Mathjobs application on November 1, or they look at them online? I'm asking because if I update it, say, on November 15 (suppose a paper is accepted by then), then maybe the won't even look at the updated version and only at the old one. On the other hand, if I don't apply now and wait until Nov 15, maybe it will also be ignored since it will be too late.

Do you have any particular recommendations?

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  • If you already "have reviews" then you're further along than "submitted" even though "not accepted". Be sure to indicate that in your application. Oct 24, 2016 at 19:08
  • But how would you word this? It can happen, and it does happens from time to time, that even with positive reviews, the managing editor decides to reject the paper. It can happen even after several months.
    – dbluesk
    Oct 24, 2016 at 20:37
  • Wording would depend on the actual reviews. Perhaps you could quote them (pretty sure that doesn't violate the process). You might say they're favorable and you await the editor's opinion.Are there requests for changes? If not then it strikes me as a little odd that the editor didn't decide when s/he sent the reviews to you. Oct 24, 2016 at 21:30
  • If you haven't done so already, put your paper on the arxiv. This is good evidence that you consider this work "finished," even if it is not yet fully refereed. People do also occasionally skim the papers of good candidates, after all!
    – AJK
    Oct 25, 2016 at 0:55
  • 1
    Perhaps say "submitted to journal X: in revision". Oct 25, 2016 at 1:01

2 Answers 2

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I have not seen anyone print any files from MathJobs.org, but only look at them on-line, so certainly any updates will be seen.

Also, even when deadlines are relatively early, it's not the case that the relevant committee or other people are so eager to start looking at files. It's just that when people do start looking, they'd want files to be as complete as possible, rather than there being a reason to have to do another pass, or two, through the whole "pile".

Seeing that papers are "submitted (to X?)" is worth something, though obviously "not as good as" "accepted", status-points-wise.

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    In our last search the human resources office allowed us to use mathjobs.org but required us to print out copies of all of the applications for their files. Oct 24, 2016 at 13:53
  • @BrianBorchers, ... amazing, in a kinda bad way. Oct 24, 2016 at 15:02
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It's relatively easy to download a set of applications from mathjobs.org as a huge .pdf file. In our last search, the committee members looked at the applications in that way rather than looking at them online. Thus in our first round of evaluations we would have missed any updates that were submitted after the deadline. For candidates that made it to the phone interview stage, we did keep track of updates to the application, but in most cases the applicant sent us an email saying "... Also, my paper XXXX was just accepted for publication in YYYY..."

Thus I wouldn't count on any update to your mathjobs application that comes after the deadline being seen by the search committee. If you do update the appliction, you should probably send an email to the search committee chair.

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