Employment Cycles in Academia

Academia recruits people through lengthy and bureaucratic procedures. The bottom line for anyone who wants to find a university position is that you just can't be hired at any time.

For example, if you are looking for an adjunct position, you won't be hired in-between semesters (for obvious reasons). Therefore, if you don't find a position before a semester starts, you will have to wait for another 4-6 months. Moreover, department chairs usually don't know whether they will need someone from outside to teach a class until 1-2 weeks before a semester starts. So at least some people end up teaching classes or find out that they will be unemployed on a short notice.

If you are looking for a full-time, tenure-track position - there's usually a one year recruitment cycle associated with these positions. So if you hope to start working full time in let's say August 2010, you will have to apply in Summer 2009. Applicants may have through a series of interviews, campus visits, etc. throughout the entire year. Anything can happen during that year. For example, some schools will just suspend their candidate search due to funding for the new position not being approved. If you are not successful in landing a job (and given the oversupply of PhDs this seems to be the case for most candidates), you have to wait another year if you hope to land a full-time job. Even right now there are people who are "looking for work" since 1990s.

What a great field to be in!