Methods Job Rumors
posted by American and Comparative Politics Job Blog at 6/15/2008 10:09:00 AM
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Sunday, June 15, 2008
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314 Comments:
So, what was the UNC job rumor?
someone wrote that UNC has three names (all male) that are going to interview for the methods position.
Skyler Cranmer is one of them
A. Sperling
Has NYU invited interviewees yet?
Justin Esarey (Florida State) has an interview at UNC, Chapel Hill.
Looks like a great year to be a candidate for a methods job.
It is always a great year to be a good candidate for a methods job.
Well, of course for Pr(job market success = 1), there's the methods intercept shift, and this year the error term will be positive. Based on these rumors it's a *really* great year to be on the methods market.
You won't mind if I don't hold my breath on that until I have a few campus interviews lined up.
I seem to remember more activity by this point last year, though. Am I wrong in saying that?
How would we know what you seem to remember?
"I seem to remember more activity by this point last year, though. Am I wrong in saying that?"
It's hard to have a lot of activity in a search before the closing date for applications.
I think most deadlines this year were a little later (= more sane). I think anything earlier than October 1 is a bit ridiculous for candidates trying to get up-to-date letters, etc.
How many advanced assistants will be in the market? How many economists will suddently discover that what they really want is to get a job in PS?
Nervous ABD.
42 and 15. Does that help?
No std error provided?
Please.
Remember, kids, margins of error don't actually exist for population parameters.
"Remember, kids, margins of error don't actually exist for population parameters."
True, but they ostensibly do for the process(s) used by the RAs who enter the underlying data.
"Remember, kids, margins of error don't actually exist for population parameters."
"True, but they ostensibly do for the process(s) used by the RAs who enter the underlying data."
-----------------
So what?
45 and 12 provided by the dude(tte) above are estimates of population parameters (based on who knows what info). Hence they do require an uncertainty estimate attached.
RE: Remember, kids, margins of error don't actually exist for population parameters.
And, by the same logic, is that why standard errors are undefined when we are analyzing state data and we include data from all 50 states? Because the 50 states define the "population" of interest? That is profoundly confused....
Population approaches are a lame fig leaf for people whose data don't provide compelling evidence for scientific hypotheses.
Dear hot methods students: please go work for Andrew Gelman for a year or two so lowly me can get a methods job.
Thanks in advance! :)
The answer above was an answer to the number for this year, and not an estimate of some true population parameter. That's like asking me how many kids I have. No need for standard errors there.
Or is there?
I'd imagine that question largely depends on gender.
...and history of substance abuse.
an estimate of # of kids IS an estimate of (perhaps non)standard errors.
Michigan has just posted a Quantitative Methods position in their web site.
Michgan's listing updated again today - shows an 'open field' methods job along with the quant one. Hiring spree after the state budget passed!
Texas A&M has contacted Esarey for an interview.
what markets is esarey on: just methods or also ir?
Methods, policy, American
Spirling was offered the methods job at UNC 24 hours after interviewing. He's the hot shot.
UNC won't get Spirling - not even if they offered him the job within 10 minutes of giving the talk.
The question there is who'll be second, and whether s/he is over the bar.
And whether other places can get an offer in before the decision deadline.
Nah, he is likely well aware he will get several other offers.
I heard anonymous is a lock for the Harvard job.
Funny. I heard so too.
Sweet!
So long suckers, you can all fight over the UNC job, I'll be enjoying my eight year post-doc in Cambridge.
8 year? You are clearly not familiar with how things work here in Cambridge. Poser.
Wait, Ryan Moore, Skyler Cranmer, and David Nickerson are all interviewing at WashU. Does this mean they have a junior methods position?
I don't know. But it does mean Notre Dame sucks for methods folks.
Impeccable logic.
They have Bumba Mukherjee and Nickerson. They seem on the weak side, given the size of their department - but it could be worse.
Sperling is interviewing at Northwestern.
Any additional names at NWU?
Anonymous said...
Any additional names at NWU?
10/18/2007 8:14 AM
My guess is pick two from: Esarey, Cranmer, Moore, Nickerson, Hopkins,
Meredith, Snowberg Jeong.
Who is Meredith?
Spirling will be interviewing at Harvard.
I don't think Mukherjee and Nickerson are all that weak, frankly.
Certainly "They seem on the weak side, given the size of their department" refers to methods overall at ND, not to either of the people mentioned, each of whom has an enviable record at an early age.
Malhotra interviewing at Northwestern.
holger kern is interviewing at Northwestern
David Nickerson is interviewing at Northwestern.
What about Comparative interviews at Northwestern?
WashU: Moore in tomorrow, Cranmer in next Wednesday.
I heard that Princeton is scheduling interviews. Can anyone provide more information(whom, when....)?
I heard Spriling is coming to Princeton, but don't know if it is for the methods job (does he do formal?).
any news on emory?
Reply to: 10/24/2007 8:08 AM
Why? Did Princeton want a formal this year? I thought it's a methods job.
Nuffield College Oxford Prize Research Fellowships still open for all flavors of Pol Sci, incl methods/formal. Speriling studied there before Rochester and maybe he wants to check it out
Previous poster is clueless, on so many grounds.
The one person I know who had that Postdoc was quite unhappy over there. Apparently the salary is really low, and the cost of living was way higher than the person in question anticipated - as was the stuffiness of the place.
I have no idea if this perception is peculiar to that one person or endemic.
Still, Oxford seems a terrible place for a methods person from what I know.
So does WashU have a methods position or is it just that all the folks going through there (Moore, Cranmer, Malhotra, Desposato, Duch,...) have to be pretty teched-up? Inquiring minds want to know.
Wash U's positions are straight up substance this year. You are simply detecting the tastes of the department.
Who's the winner of the Betsy Sinclair award for most interviews by a teched-up ABD? Johns? Spirling? Malhotra?
True, close race among those three.
How many departments are interviewing women this year for methods positions? I know there are some women who are credible methodology candidates out there this year.
Someone asked in another blog whether Honaker was in the market. Is he? He'd be a great catch (yes, I am aware he'd probably need to get his tenture clock restarted).
The Wiki shows Iowa under "Interviewing" for the Methods job. Is it true? Does anyone know who made it into their finalists list?
The formal theory job at Iowa is not yet interviewing, but it should be soon. Sorry, no names yet.
Are there any pure formal theorists on the market right now?
What does that mean? Lacking all substantive focus?
Are there any in the discipline?
Formal people who are not methods people. And yes, there are people like that.
There are some formal theorists in the discipline who have done no empirical work, but that set is exceedingly small.
Given that's true I don't get why lots of jobs advertise for "formal/methods." The formal part doesn't seem to enlarge the set of candidates.
They could say "peanut butter/jelly" if everyone knew what that meant.
>> Given that's true I don't get why lots of jobs advertise for "formal/methods." The formal part doesn't seem to enlarge the set of candidates.
Some departments mainly care about theory, some mainly care about empirical and stats. So "formal/methods", "methods", and "formal" all have distinct meanings.
"Some departments mainly care about theory, some mainly care about empirical and stats. So "formal/methods", "methods", and "formal" all have distinct meanings."
Wow -- simultaneously obvious AND completely missing the previous poster's point.
Congrats!
2:45 p.m. here. I guess I'm still too stupid to figure out the previous poster's point, then. Oh well.
11/02/2007 11:36 AM's point:
{People who qualify for a "formal" job} \cap {People who actually exist} \subseteq {People who qualify for "methods" job}
Or, put another way:
Scholars who do "formal" are `poodles,' and those who do "methods" are `dogs.'
Thus, the poster is saying that a "formal/methods" job listing does not enlarge the pool RELATIVE TO the same description listed as a "methods" position.
In other words, what junior formal theory scholar can't teach (or more appropriately, wouldn't teach) a methods course in 80-90% of the PhD programs?
The above isn't ALWAYS true. I know a formal modeler that (will admit privately, at least, they) couldn't regress their way out of a box.
apart from pathological cases of formal people who cannot run a regression: there are relatively few cutting-edge formal theorists that do cutting edge work on *methodology*
"apart from pathological cases of formal people who cannot run a regression: there are relatively few cutting-edge formal theorists that do cutting edge work on *methodology*"
Very true, but very few departments who advertise in either/both are looking for (much less expecting to get) the 1-2 ABDs in any given year who do cutting edge analytical/methods work.
I was talking about teaching how to do a regression. Any formal theorist who believes that he or she doesn't understand the basics of regression, limited dependent variables, etc., is better described as "failing to understand" that he or she DOES understand the basics.
At their heart, both formal and methods are based on logical deduction and internal consistency. Of course, applying either to the real world generally requires more than those two alone, but this is separate from the hiring decisions for junior positions, in my experience.
As evidence of this, consider how many "pure" scholars of either stripe you count among the rarefied air of "senior" faculty. Most analytical scholars extend their work into one or more of the substantive subfields.
Whatever that's all worth, I don't know, but I do know that I speak from perceived experience.
Departments with good formal programs also have good methods (statistical) training. The reverse is not necessarily true. So an ABD focusing on formal will still have learned some quantitative methods. Many quantitatively competent ABDs on the market will not have any formal skills, however.
Presumably some departments are looking to tech up, and would be happy to get someone who does both formal and quant - so they run a broad ad and see what happens.
According to the wiki Wolford (Emory ABD) is interviewing at Iowa. Does anyone know who else is interviewing at Iowa?
Kyle Mattes (Cal Tech) is interviewing at Iowa.
Interesting. Thanks, 7:57am.
What's going on at UNC? Did Spirling take the offer?
Spirling turned down the offer at UNC.
skyler cranmer got an offer from UNC
Anonymous said...
skyler cranmer got an offer from UNC
11/09/2007 6:29 AM
And apparently one forthcoming from WashU.
Now there is some job market gossip! What is intended by the "apparently?" Is there a source for this info that I am missing?
Yes, a number of methods positions are now in play. UNC, WashU, Davis, and others are sending out offers. Harvard had interviews. Is that enough info?
UNC found all three candidates above the bar, but ranked them. Decided to go after Spirling, if that failed to go after Cranmer, if that failed...
ALERT
BDM is on the cover of (and is the cover story in) the Nov/Dec issue of the magazine "Good." The title of the article is "The New Nostradamus."
"Good" is available at all fine bookstores and Whole Foods.
Anonymous said...
UNC found all three candidates above the bar, but ranked them. Decided to go after Spirling, if that failed to go after Cranmer, if that failed...
11/12/2007 3:21 AM
This is not true on the endgame. Source: firsthand info.
This is not true on the endgame. Source: firsthand info.
11/12/2007 6:29 AM
So what IS true regarding "the endgame?"
To make offers and then withdraw them?
wiki is reporting Esarey got the offer from Emory.
11/12/2007 6:29 AM
So what IS true regarding "the endgame?"
11/12/2007 7:07 AM
Moron.
Well, what IS true regarding the endgame.
Was the Diermeier offer at the GSB a holdover from last year?
Diermeier pretty much has a standing offer at the GSB.
Okay. So I guess that was different from the current GSB search.
Yes definitely.
Any news on the comparative methods position at MIT?
Cranmer to UNC.
Offer or acceptance?
The latter.
Does this mean Washu makes another offer?
Does anyone have any backstory on Jas's offer at NYU? Is he seriously considering leaving Cal already?
Already? Tenure at a great department in a world class city would be hard to turn down. Maybe he can force Berkeley's hand. He can definitely extract a raise.
At the very least, Jas should look like he is interested.
He's already tenured at Berkeley, isn't he?
Yes, he arrived at Berkeley tenured.
I think the backstory is that NYU continues to make offers to the best people out there in the areas it covers, and Jas is rational enough to listen to any good place that approaches him.
In other words, not much backstory.
Okay Jas...haha...stop conversing with yourself on the blog.
No, I'm pretty sure that 11/17/2007 10:32 AM is Sandy Gordon.
Hey, let's just chill on this issue (Jas). The truth is really, really obvious: accomplished/proven methodoligists can name their price/location since the market has huge demand and little established supply. So the message for talented grad students is to tech-up and chase the opportunities. There is no better market. Period. Signed, recent search chair.
yes, but current grad students should be sure to avoid the problem that so many have fallen into: don't forget to use your tech'ed up skills to answer a substantively interesting question. i have seen far too many methods job talks in recent years where hi-end methods grad students have some method and just go around searching for something, anything to apply it to. these candidates are almost as bad as candidates who have substantively interesting questions without the appropriate methodological skills.
so, the revised advice to current grad students: get tech'ed up and then use your skills in an interesting way.
If you can run with the tech crowd, then more power to you. But getting teched up just for the sake of competing in the highest end market is silly. The very best in ANY field will do well.
The second part of the comment is most relevant: BE INTERESTING.
Be interesting and do interesting work, regardless of your approach, and the market will treat you just fine.
Agreed, but get "tools" (formal, methods, or both) if you want to guarantee getting a look from top 20 programs.
Does anyone have info on the USC (S.Cal., not S.Carolina) Methods position?
I heard third hand they (USC) have a short (interview) list. I do not know if they contacted people yet.
On getting tools v/s being interesting:
One of these is objective and therefore under my control. The other is subjective and I cannot control.
Further, those who usually know some teched up article as "uninteresting" usually can't read the paper or missed the point. If the issue is so complicated/complex that it requires a "fancy" method then odds are it is interesting. Maybe not to everyone, but what paper is.
Actually I retract my last comment. It does not belong here. Please delete it blogmaster.
Regarding the earlier question:
>> Given that's true I don't get why lots of jobs advertise for "formal/methods." The formal part doesn't seem to enlarge the set of candidates.
My understanding is that a department posting a "methods" ad will want someone whose research focus (and job market paper) uses empirical methods. They would be unlikely to invite out someone whose main paper(s) are in formal theory. Saying "formal/methods" means the department is open to either approach. But that shouldn't stop any modeler from sending in an application.
>> If the issue is so complicated/complex that it requires a "fancy" method then odds are it is interesting.
Sorry, but I disagree with this, and suspect that most others would too.
-teched up senior person
"`If the issue is so complicated/complex that it requires a "fancy" method then odds are it is interesting.'
Sorry, but I disagree with this, and suspect that most others would too."
I too disagree with the presumed validity of this inference, but it would be AWESOME if someone could come up with a fancy method to figure out if it's true.
Metamethods, people -- metamethods.
The requisite metamethods would undoubtedly be mind-blowingly technically complex!
...and also shed light on the question of whether the sufficiency of technical complexity for a question's inherent interest is itself an inherently interesting question.
...a question, i might add, that i do find incredibly interesting, so long as the various time series/cross section and endogeneity problems are dealt with in a manner that is simultaneously opaque and elegant.
Matching!
Methamphetamines, people -- methamphetamines.
Wiki says Esarey accepted the methods job at Emory.
Who did USC interview for formal theory / methods?
No idea on Souther California. Anyone in the know?
all i know about usc is i got asked for more materials a couple of weeks ago. since i haven't heard anything since, i was figuring i didn't make the short list...
any rumors about the umich methods position listed on the wiki?
USC is going to schedule talks in January
re: USC, thanks for the info. But do you mean the talks will be scheduled for January or that they won't contact candidates to schedule talks until January?
USC is very hostile towards formal/quant, so I am quite curious as to the outcome of that search.
Is that the center director position?
nope, it is a quant/formal position. see second listing here:
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/politicalscience/employment_positions/index.html
News on Harvard's search?
News on Princeton and Harvard? Will those schools make first-round offers before the winter break?
Harvard offer is out.
Who's the lucky winner?
Word on the street is that Princeton is not hiring anyone...infighting between formal theorists and methodologists. Harvard is going to Spirling (rumor).
Cool piece of news. Who are the lead instigators?
Doea 12/10/2007 8:27 AM refer to the Princeton news?
Glad to see one school in Cambridge is moving.
c.c. banana: can you or any of your fruity friends tell us what's going down at MIT with their methods search?
What's going on in the MIT search? Most of the IR crowd is not empirical and had a methods line foisted upon them. They are pissed off and don't like the candidates. Hilarity ensues.
Just of our curiosity, can anyone recall examples of qualitative research or quantitative research whose findings were later shown to be erroneous based on replication?
I can think of a few quantitative examples (e.g., Shaw), but can't think of a qualitative example.
If the # of qual. studies whose findings are later found to be erroneous is really zero (and I'm not sure about that), it's probably due to one of two things:
1-Qualitative researchers never misinterpret their data; or
2-Quantitative research can more readily be replicated (and thus found to be wrong).
I'll put my money on 2.
Any thoughts? Why the dearth in qualitative research found to be erroneous (based on the same data, NOT on some new data--which both qual and quant can do)?
"Replication" in qualitative work doesn't look like replication in quantitative work. The challenger just gives a completely different account of the record at hand with a different social mechanism behind the phenomenon.
Anonymous said...
What's going on in the MIT search? Most of the IR crowd is not empirical and had a methods line foisted upon them. They are pissed off and don't like the candidates. Hilarity ensues.
12/10/2007 10:56 AM
----------
I'd love to hear more about this. How was it that there was a methods line foisted upon them? Rumor that I heard was that someone from Harvard Policy School was a strong candidate for the job. Is that true?
It's not political science, but Derek Freeman's critique of Margaret Mead's work in Samoa would be a highly visible example of replication (and refutation) in qualitative research.
Hey, there's another thread for this nonsense... go there please.
Boo!
Take the debate/discussion to the proper thread.
Dear 12/10/2007 10:56 AM,
Thanks for news from MIT.
Now, what's the story at umich (junior methods hire)?
And let me second (or third?) the calls to move the discussion of quant/qual replication elsewhere. It's an important discussion point, but people on this thread have pressing employment issues on their mind right now...
I heard that MIT just finished up. Don't know who is getting offers.
...and Spirling is apparently the recipient of the Harvard methods offer.
Old news.
I heard that MIT just finished up.
--------
Who did they interview?
Old news = news = history
Blah blah blah - post that smart ass shit in response to the question....2+2 still equals 4. old news? or simply fact.
you know the banana....
wordies.
Agreed: banana is a fiend when it comes to news.
Seriously though, what's the 411 at umich? I assume someone in the Ann Arbor crew reads this blog so just drop us a line.
And did NYU finish up their senior search (i.e. has Jas extracted the requisite terms) yet?
No junior methods hire at NYU this time around.
Senior hire still in the works (I believe).
Did Iowa fill their position in formal?
Iowa offer to Mattes?
Mattes accepted Iowa.
So is Spirling accepting Harvard's offer or what?
my guess (somewhat informed) is yes, re: spirling & harvard
Did Southern California hire? Their offer has been on the wiki for about a month now.
can anyone actually confirm the veracity of the USC offer? from what i recall, someone posted USC????? and then someone else removed the question marks. meanwhile, earlier (12/5) on this blog someone said that they wouldn't be interviewing until january ...
FWIW: A friend who interviewed at USC for the institutions job in November hadn't heard anything as of a week or so ago. Apparently the department was to meet in December. So, it might make sense that methods interviews would not occur until January.
USC interviewed two candidates in December and have a third candidate flying in mid January.
thanks for the info on usc... can't say i'm not disappointed, but at least i can cross it off my list.
Northwestern (soon?) back in the picture re Spirling (somewhat ill-informed)
Re: Spirling. Northwestern vs. Harvard's seven year post-doc is a close call. Northwestern is improving again after loosing a number of excellent associates a couple of years ago.
Harvard trumps NW for quantitative juniors. Come on.
No, Northwestern is a great place for quantitative work. This is well known.
Northwestern might be a great place for quantitative work in economics, but not in political science.
Ask Jeff Jenkins about how his work was received by colleagues.
Ask Wendy Tam Cho what she thought of the faculty and support for her work.
Watch how long Jamie Druckman sticks around.
Sean Gailmard might have many kind things to say about his former colleagues, but he was a real loss for the department.
They have some good quantitatively oriented people (e.g., Chong, Druckman, Seawright, Sartori), but it is hardly "a great place for quantitative work."
Well put, 12:40.
And, 9:34, I didn't say that NW was necessarily a bad place for quantitative juniors (and I should have clarified -- in the polisci department, as opposed to MEDS). But Harvard has an excellent cohort of quants, both junior and senior. Or, glancing through the website, maybe I'm missing something... did King, Quinn, Robinson, Iversen, Alt, Frieden, Martin, Simmons, Shepsle, Bas, Patty, Penn, and Carpenter all leave this year?
Agreed -- Harvard much better than NW polisci for quant/formal. Not really a contest since Gailmard/Jenkins/Cho have departed.
Agreed -- Harvard much better than NW polisci for quant/formal. Not really a contest since Gailmard/Jenkins/Cho have departed.
What's amazing is that not too long ago the ranking clearly was the other way around.
Yes and no.
#1: Harvard has deep pockets and prestige so it can build quickly.
#2: Look at IR and comparative at Northwestern. That is a large voting bloc and hardly a quantitative group. The demise in quantitative at Northwestern was a long time coming.
Well, in the last 5 years the formal & quantitative people NWU has lost are David Austin-Smith, Michael Wallerstein, Michael Herron, Brandice Canes-Wrone, Jeff Jenkins, Wendy Cho, Ken Shotts, and Sean Gailmard. If that group were still together it would be one of the strongest in the country and better than what Harvard has.
From what I understand, comparative, IR, and theory at NWU have ganged up on American and methods.
NW has been a revolving door in virtually all fields except for American for literally decades, ever since the place went through some serious traumas (multiple spousal suicides) in the early 1980s. How this (or whether...maybe it is just on the tail of a distribution...pick a distribution...) managed to persist for a quarter century I leave to theorists of institutions, but massive departures from there are nothing new.
The quantitative strength remains in MEDS and the Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences program, which guarantee that there are plenty of very well trained honors students and M.A.-level graduate students to work with, as well as an intellectually-supportive environment in the university as a whole, if not the department. So the place will presumably recover at some point.
That said, it is nowhere remotely close to the quality of Harvard.
Northwestern offer out again (rumor)
I think Northwestern just attracts really strong junior faculty who end up getting offers at higher ranked institutions. If the place was really as opposed to quantitative work as some of the posters here make it out to be, then it wouldn't have hired "David Austin-Smith, Michael Wallerstein, Michael Herron, Brandice Canes-Wrone, Jeff Jenkins, Wendy Cho, Ken Shotts, and Sean Gailmard" (to quote 7:27) in the first place!
That is an overly optimistic, and uninformed, perspective.
Can confirm Northwestern rumor:
Malhotra declines ---> offer goes to Spirling
Where else does Spirling have offers? Harvard and...?
"I think Northwestern just attracts really strong junior faculty who end up getting offers at higher ranked institutions. If the place was really as opposed to quantitative work as some of the posters here make it out to be, then it wouldn't have hired "David Austin-Smith, Michael Wallerstein, Michael Herron, Brandice Canes-Wrone, Jeff Jenkins, Wendy Cho, Ken Shotts, and Sean Gailmard" (to quote 7:27) in the first place!"
Or, if the place was really NOT opposed to quantitative work, then the department would have retained at least one of the named scholars.
Don't be obtuse -- the department has some people who clearly exercise their god-given right to dislike quantitative work. I disagree with these people's tastes, but there is very little doubt that they hold them. Or, perhaps you could ask one or more of the people on the above list.
"Where else does Spirling have offers? Harvard and...?"
From reading the blog posts above, I'd guess Harvard and...
Northwestern.
Long ago, I believe UNC Chapel Hill was in the picture too, but no longer.
For Spirling to have made Harvard wait this long for an answer, he must have other options.
The word a few months ago was that Spirling rejected UNC.
Joshua Clinton (Princeton) is interviewing at Harris.
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