The Astronomer’s Mating Call

Every winter is the time for an age-old mating ritual that takes place in the astronomy community: a special courtship dance where graduate students and postdocs parade round, flashing their colourful feathers, trying to appear smarter and savvier than their peers in the desperate quest for a new mecenas who will support their addiction to MacBooks and airmiles. It’s jobs season, when the friendships we’ve cherished for the past year become meaningless and it’s each astronomer to their own.

The Astrophysics Jobs Rumour Wiki plays a crucial role in this annual ritual. It’s like the carnet de bal of the jobseeking astronomer: how many dates have you had, and did you dance with the George Clooney of the astronomy jobs – the Hubble Fellowship? A casual source of amusement and lighthearted procrastination for much of the year, around mid-February when the season approaches its tense finale, the Rumour Wiki becomes an instrument of torture. Posting your own name to it, particularly in the coveted boldface, means that not only did you meet your Prince(ss), you went back to the castle together and lived happily ever after (for 2-3 years). Posting your name in boldface will also invite the spite of your peers, who will google your name with green-eyed envy. Or maybe that’s what you intended?

Which brings me to my point: what the hell is it for anyway? I can see three purposes, in order of value:

1. To let people know at what stage the hiring process is for jobs. Staff are always swamped with applications, reviews and interviews, and don’t have the time to contact applicants every step of the way. If you’ve applied, heard nothing, and the Wiki says “offer made”, then you know you didn’t get it and can cross it off your list. Forget your Prince, move on to the lesser royals.

2. To keep track of collaborators, friends (enemies?). As well as being nice to know where your old grad school buddies are now, it can be useful to know that that astronomer you’d really like to work with is moving to X. Particularly useful for this are the Faculty hire rumours, as it’s an indication of what postdoc jobs might come up in the next round.

3. Powerplay and vanity. Check out how successful I am!

In recent days the revisions section with accompanying comments has been more spirited than usual. A debate is ongoing about the need for a section with ‘Non-academic jobs’ – which was added, then removed, then added back, removed again – and so on. The kind folks at the Astrobetter blog have put a poll on their site to see whether people see value in this. One commenter mentions that listing non-academic jobs might help remove the stigma associated with “leaving astronomy”. It might also give astronomers an idea of what kinds of jobs they could also apply for if they’re having trouble in research. I kind of agree with that but I’m not sure the Wikis is the place for that – there must be a better forum (or one should be created).

On a side note, I think that the perception of “success” in science is generally very narrow and nowhere is this snobism played out more than on the Rumour Wiki. Many highly successful astronomers do stints in instrumentation, software development, or entirely outside of astronomy research; many of us are involved in education or outreach activities on the side. It would be great if more room was made for that in the definition of a successful research career.

Thoughts? Post a comment.

Image: US Fish & Wildlife Service, Northeast Region