(Informal) Campus Visit

Go to a UK university to present my job market paper at their Labour Workshop. Iwan, the host, told me to come by midday, although the workshop would start at 1 pm. I wondered why. It turns out that there is a faculty lunch from midday every Thursday at the department of economics, and Iwan wanted me to join this. I was introduced to several faculty members. It's difficult for me to catch names when being introduced. I shouldn't be lazy about this. A job market guide says, "Try to remember who you met."

Then it's 1 pm. In front of about 20 people (I'm not sure how many of them are faculty members and how many are PhD students), I present my paper. During the introduction, the floor is quiet. But once I get into the body of the talk, questions erupt. Two parts of my presentation turn out to solicit lots of questions: the measurement of democracy and the analysis of pathways. Iwan suggests (after the seminar) deleting the measurement of democracy part. That's what Oriana also suggested. I should talk to Tim on this. For pathways, I learn that I should make it clear at the beginning of the talk that which pathway is unlikely, which is likely, and which cannot be tested. It seems I gave an impression that the only pathway is sanitation. No, that's not what I wanted to say.

When Iwan tells me that I have one minute left, I don't understand that correctly as my mobile tells me I have five minutes---my mobile clock is wrong. So I fail to jump to the conclusion, ending up having no time for the conclusion slide.

After the seminar, one faculty member comes to me, giving some comments. If the number of people wanting to talk after the seminar is an indicator for success, this is not very good.

After leaving the seminar room, Iwan takes me to the office of one of his colleagues. He gives me some comments on my work. I should have asked about his research as some job market guides suggest. I remember this when he is taking me back to Iwan's office. Too late.

Iwan gives me quite a few comments, not only the research itself but also some tips for the presentation style. I ask him, "How do you evaluate my talk today?" He says I should have deferred questions if I will cover them later. Answering all questions on the spot distorts the structure of the talk, leaving the audience into confusion.

We talk until about 3:15 pm. As Iwan needs to teach from 4 pm, we say goodbye.

I don't know if today's talk is an informal job talk as Oriana suggested. Some faculty members including Iwan asked me where I'm looking for a job. I answered anywhere in the world. I added I'm going to apply to their department (which is true anyway). But Iwan told me that his department won't go to the AEA meeting this January (like LSE) because interviewed candidates often refuse to come over to England. This suggests that what they want to know about me is whether I have intention to remain in England.

It was a valuable experience. It's kind of a practice campus-visit. (Maybe it wasn't a practice, though.) I learn loads of things about what's going to happen early next year.

I directly go home, instead of going to LSE. I should relax a bit this evening. From tomorrow, I need to revise the paper, prepare the presentation for the mock job talk a week on Monday, and start sending application packets.

Preparation for Tomorrow's talk

Winter suddenly arrives in London today.

Start preparing tomorrow's presentation for what could be an informal job talk. But my brain doesn't really work clearly...

Check if there are some faculty members at the university I'm visiting tomorrow whose work is related to my job market paper (following the advice in some job market guides). Find there are many! Two labor economists work on child health. Two development economists work on Africa. Two public economists work on how voting affects policy choice. Download these papers (all recent working papers) just in case. Maybe I can browse them on the way to the university tomorrow.

Ask Erlend to read the concluding paragraphs that I wrote last night to see if he likes it. He gives me useful feedbacks.

My brain finally starts working properly after 3 pm. I feel stupid. If I work properly from the beginning of the day, I don't need to go home late with an empty stomach and go to bed after midnight, ending up sleeping less than 8 hours.

Self-depreciating...

Watch Christian Lacroix's catwalk show at V&A with Sonia during lunchtime. A good break from all the hell.

Back in Sticerd, talk to Robin. He read my paper and his main comment concerns the style of my presentation. He says my research result is convincing. But the way I write the current version of the paper is "self-depreciating". We are talking about the job market in the United States, a country that loves aggressiveness and assertiveness, a country that embraces the culture of self-promotion. So he guides me through how to write the conclusion and the introduction. For example, I include a few limitations in the concluding section. But Robin tells me to delete them. He also suggests restructuring the organization of the paper, making it flow naturally. He also tells me to use 12pt font size (I was using 10pt) to get the paper legible and to discipline yourself in terms of the length of the paper. As I need to submit applications by the beginning of next week, he tells me to revise the paper by the end of this week, and then he will read it through quickly.

Then Oriana asks me to come to her office. She says my invited seminar talk at a university in UK the day after tomorrow (see 22 October) can be an informal job talk. UK universities are late to place job opening ads. By the time they do it, the American job market is cleared with few good job candidates left. Consequently, they sometimes invite job market candidates at this time of the year and see the quality of their job market paper etc. "So don't be too relaxed about this seminar. Be prepared." That's what Oriana tells me. (She tells me this because she read a short note I attached to explain my CV for her to write reference letters. It seems to be always a good idea to tell your referees everything that's happening to you.) Oriana also gives me one piece of advice. If someone raises a question to which you don't know an immediate answer, always say, "It's a good question," and tell what you can do in terms of estimation if you come up with it immediately, or otherwise say, "We can discuss it later as I don't know an answer to it right now."

Start rewriting the introduction and the conclusion of the paper in response to Robin's comments. I learn that the conclusion consists of (1) the summary of findings in which each sentence deals with one finding; (2) implications of such findings (bridging the gap between the findings and the reader's interest) written in an assertive way; (3) re-stress the innovation of the paper in a different way than the introduction does; (4) stress the importance of the methodology taken in the paper for future research.

For the introduction, Robin says that the first paragraph should include the specific research question the paper deals with. Also the very first sentence should raise a broad question that interests every economist - in my case underdevelopment in Africa.

While revising the paper, I also refer to comments written on the earlier draft of my paper by Oriana and Dave. I learn some subtle usage of English phrases:

1. "seem to be" and "appear to be" are different, with the latter more assertive.

2. "life" is an uncountable noun and "someone's life" is a countable noun.

Robust to foreign aid

Work on Stata to do a couple of suggested regressions. Find that foreign aid to health sectors does not change after democratization in Africa, which supports my claim. After going home and cooking dinner, feel sick. Still tired from the trip to Belgium.

Back in London

Back in London by the first Eurostar train in the morning. After washing my clothes, go to Sticerd. But my brain doesn't work much...

On the Job Market

Now I'm officially on the job market* this academic year (see this).

*If you want to know what the academic job market for economics PhD students is like, have a look at Cawley (2004) and House, Weir, and Fafchamps (2002).

This means I'm going to be (and I have already been) ridiculously busy in the next several months, perhaps until next March.

Therefore, I won't be able to update this blog until I get a job or until I decide to challenge again next year.

Having said that, I have kept, and I will keep, writing down what happens to me everyday, because, to the best of my knowledge, none of economics PhD job market candidates in the past have made public their personal experience of academic job hunting in detail, which I believe creates inefficiency every year in terms of the time allocation decision faced by job market candidates. But I don't make it public at this moment as it takes time to edit my writing and as I don't know what can be public and what cannot until the whole process is over.

Anyway, if you visit this blog from time to time, please stop doing it at least until next March. I won't update this blog. Until then, wish me luck.

Sightseeing in Brussels

A day off to explore Brussels.

4th Development Economics PhD Seminar at Namur

Attend the 4th Development Economics PhD Seminar at University of Namur. Am a bit nervous because this is the first time to present my job market paper in front of people and because I didn't practice it at all. During a coffee break after the keynote speech, I go out of the seminar building and practice my presentation by talking to myself. After the break and another student's presentation, it is my turn.

What I worry a lot is whether I can finish my talk within the time limit. The allocated time length is 25 minutes (plus 10 minutes for my discussant and 10 minutes for questions from the floor). But I'm surprised that I manage to finish it without rushing. I'm also surprised that I manage to handle all the questions. Most questions and comments are those someone else already raised before. But it's useful to learn what questions are likely to be asked over and over again.

After the whole seminar is over, we attend the seminar dinner at a cool restaurant nearby. There I enjoy an academic talk with Gani, a former visitor to Sticerd and now assistant professor at Namur. Two Asians talking about economics in Belgium.

Then I have an opportunity to talk to Jean Marie. He keeps saying he likes my paper. That's the most encouraging thing to hear as I admire some of the works he has done. He says, "We - faculty members at Namur - were critical of your work because we wanted you to work more on this." I will. I certainly will.

Off to Belgium

Prepare presentation slides for the PhD seminar at University of Namur tomorrow. Finish it just before leaving for Belgium. Directly from the LSE, hop on to the Eurostar to Brussels. Change there to a train to Namur. Stay at the place of three Namur students.

IMF Interview

IMF preliminary interview at the Westbury hotel in London's West End at 9:30 am.

Interviewers are the chief recruitment officer from human resources department and a senior economist (who turns out to be a former member of STICERD).

The recruitment officer first explains briefly what the Economist Programme is like. Then she asks me if I can finish my PhD next year. She says it will be very hard to do the IMF work and the PhD thesis at the same time. She suggests to apply next year if I don't think I can.

The senior economist asks me about my AEA Papers & Proceedings paper written with Tim. He asks if that paper is related to my job market paper, and which paper I'm going to present at Namur.

The recruitment officer also asks me if I apply for the World Bank's Young Professionals programme.

Then she asks me to describe my research.

I first explain the research question and its importance (academically rather than practically). While I'm explaining my methodology, the senior economist asks, "What's the definition of democracy?" So I explain it. Then he asks, "Is Cameroon democratic?" I say no. I'm lucky as Cameroon is one of the sample countries. But I may be asked about other African countries outside my sample. I'd better prepare for such questions.

After explaining my main results, the interview moves on to the next section in which they test my knowledge of macroeconomics. The questions they ask are

1. Regarding the monetary union, what characteristics do member countries of the union need to share? How does the union affect the labour force? Does the monetary union play a role of risk diversification in terms of macroeconomic fluctuations?

2. Regarding Japanese deflation, why is deflation problematic? How did Japan get out of it? (I was asked this question presumably because I'm from Japan.)

3. Regarding China's increasing foreign reserves, who bears the cost of it?



I DON'T KNOW.



I can't talk almost anything. I have absolutely no interest in macroeconomics of rich countries. An overnight review of chapters on open economies in Mankiw's macroeconomics textbook does not help at all.

They seem to be disappointed by my interview performance. The recruitment officer says, "When I saw your CV, I thought you were more suitable for the World Bank."

The interviewers end up advising how to get a job from the World Bank. The facts that (1) I'm a Japanese citizen---international organizations all look for Japanese citizens as we are underpresented in the international organizations compared to the money the japanese government contributes to them---(2) I'm getting a PhD from LSE, and (3) my research is interesting, all go in favour of me. If I have a working experience in a developing country, it will be perfect because the Bank is looking for those with working experience in poor countries. The senior economist suggests working with, say, the ministry of education in an African country next year and then applying to the Bank.

I don't know how to respond to this. Maybe I should ask why then they wanted to interview me? But I don't know such a question is acceptable in this kind of situation...

Leave the hotel and take a stroll of Saville Row, nearby the hotel, for the first time in four years of my life in London. Ozwald Boateng, whose catwalk show I watched at V&A, looks the coolest in the show window.

------

Arrive at Sticerd and start making presentation slides for this Friday. I end up 22 slides for 45 minute presentation. It seems I should forget about a couple of main results and focus on one main result to convince the audience that this main result shows the effect of democracy, not something else. That will be closer to the real job talk. Covering all the main results in a superficial way does not provide a good practice for the coming job talks.

Submit my CV and job market paper to the Royal Economic Society Second PhD Presentation Meeting. To do this, revise my job market paper slightly (just by correcting typos, editing figures, etc.). As one of requirements is an email from the supervisor confirming that I will be completing my PhD by October 2007 and does not hold at the moment a regular position in a department or equivalent institution in the UK or elsewhere, email Sue (my supervisor's secretary) about this.

Many things go on all at once as always

Revise my CV given that I now present my work at a UK university. This is the fifth time revision of my CV.

Receive email from Mark. He set up job market candidates' personal information webpages. Reply to him what part I want to make corrections.

Send address label Excel sheets to Leila and Sue. Also give Leila my CVs and a document that explains my CV for helping my referees to write references.

Have lunch with Cheyok. Ask her how to be calm when you are busy working on many things all at once. Her answer: Prioritize what to do.

Book a hotel room in Brussels on the coming Saturday night.

Receive email from Shoji-kun, a PhD student of economics in Tokyo. He gave me lots of detailed comments on my job market paper. Thanks a lot.

Work on Stata. Run some additional regressions. All of them turn out to be rather not supportive to my job market paper...

A confusing day

When I arrive at my desk in Sticerd, I can't start Windows on my PC.
Ask Joe, an IT staff, for help. He says my PC has got a hardware problem, which means I can't do anything (I don't bring my own laptop to Sticerd today).

So I change my schedule. While the PC is being fixed, I talk to Dave, a fellow PhD student at Sticerd, as he read my job market paper and wanted to give me some comments. He suggests to change the introduction. He has a point. I probably need to write two versions of the introduction and show them to my referrees to see which one is better. Dave also doesn't like the measurement of democracy part.

Attend Monday lunchtime PhD seminar. I keep thinking about what to do today without my PC working. Maybe taking a rest? I don't feel well today...

After the seminar, the PC gets fixed. So I change my schedule again.

While having lunch at Sticerd communal area, Leila comes to me, saying that she's happy with my plan on sending reference letters.

Start working on Stata to do a bunch of additional regressions suggested by Torsten, Oriana, Robin, etc...

I was scheduled to talk to a seminar speaker at today's LSE/UCL Development and Growth seminar, at 1530. Then I received email from Oriana, saying the speaker is arriving late. My slot is cancelled.

Then Dave and Erlend, whose meetings with the speaker are not cancelled as they are among the first to request for meetings, kindly suggested to me and Paolo, another job market candidate, giving their meeting slots. So I end up talking to the speaker as originally scheduled.

The speaker likes my paper. He especially seems to like the measurement of democracy part. Different people like different parts of my paper.

Talking about my job market paper will be crucial in the job market process as I will need to talk to a bunch of people about it at job interviews in Chicago and during campus visits. But it's a difficult task. Even if you organize what to talk and in what order, your listener will certainly interrupt you. Responding to that requires change in the order of what to talk. As a result, my explanation of the paper gets confusing. I need to make a contingency plan.

Back to my PC, working on Stata. Find rather unfavorable results to my main findings...

Time for the D&G seminar. The presented paper is about a randomized evaluation of interventions to improve health systems in Uganda. When the speaker presents the effect of interventions on vaccinations, I speak up. "How did you measure children's immunization status? Measles immunization shouldn't be given to babies aged less than 9 months."

After the seminar, Robin teases me as a child immunization specialist. :)

Go home as I don't feel well. Eat Japanese food. And go to bed early.

Now working on my job market paper again

Start preparing slides for the 4th Development Economics PhD Seminar at Namur this coming Friday.

Also organize job talk tips from various job market guides available on the web. Job market guides tend to be dis-organized in their structure, contrary to what they suggest doing for writing a job market paper and giving a job talk. :-) Unless I spend a bit of time organizing them, I won't be able to absorb the tips offered in a coherent way.

Receive email from Iwan, saying he wants to invite me to his school's labor seminar on 2 November. Oriana mentioned him about my work, after reading my paper last weekend. This is what Tim suggested to do - present my work with a different audience! I'll definitely take this opportunity.

Email Leila about my plan on sending reference letters.

Receive email from Tim, saying he needs my CV when he writes references.

Day Off

Take a day off. Wake up at 1pm. Have a Japanese brunch (rice, miso-soup, baked salted salmon). Wash my clothes. Clean the kitchen a bit.

Go out to buy an international telephone card in Chinatown (I will use this quite often when I miss calls from schools abroad). A cornershop at 86-88 Shaftesbury Avenue (postcode: W1D 6NG) sells a Telco Global OK card which expires 365 days after the first use (usually 60-90 days for this kind of cards) with 45 percent discount. As a result, I can make any international call for less than 1p per minute.

Buy Time Out City Guides for Brussels (see 11 October) and Chicago (where job interviews will take place). I think I should enjoy academic trips.

Have an Ethiopian dinner with Kirsten, Yuri-san, etc.

Done with the sorting-out of "formal" application for the time being.

Bump into Tim at STICERD communal area. Ask him how serious I should be about the formal application. He says that it doesn't count for the US job market. What matters is when the recruiter solicits the submission of your application by contacting placement officers in each school. That's going to be late November. Your job market paper must be in good shape by that time. Some require formal application as a necessary condition. But, in general, US market is based on such informal network. For other countries, formal application may matter.

He doesn't think that applying for 100 schools, as often argued to be the best strategy, is sensible. Applying for 0 school is certainly not the best, either.

Give to Sue documents needed for my supervisor to write references (job market paper, transcripts, CV, and one-page letter which clarifies my CV, describes types of jobs to apply, and requests for including a statement on my English ability in letters).

Discuss Sue about how to arrange letters. She wants to send them all at once. But I won't be able to make all applications before the earliest deadline (according to some job market guide, recommendation letters must arrive slightly later than my own application). So ask her to send letters for the first group of schools, and to pass the rest to Leila. She's very supportive, saying, "I will do whatever you want. I'm a slave for you." This job market madness drives secretariats crazy as well.

Create three Excel spread sheets each of which includes addresses of schools to apply for sending letters of recommendation. Why three? Because my job market paper won't be fully ready before sending out aplication packets to meet the earliest deadlines. I decide to send the packets in three bunches so I can include the revised job market paper for schools with late deadlines.

Find out which school accepts letters via email. This makes a lot of difference. Given that it takes at most 5 days for airmail to arrive overseas from UK, the effective deadline changes a lot depending on whether schools accept letters via email or not.

Email my referees to tell them that the earliest "effective" deadline for sending reference letters as part of "formal" application is 6 November.

I think I've done with the arrangement of recommendation letters. I will make my own application early November, just before the first batch of reference letters will be dispatched on 6 November. Until then, I will focus on my job market paper.

Still busy...

Receive email from IMF. I will have a preliminary interview with them at a hotel on Bond Street in London on 25 October. Attached to email is the description of this preliminary interview. It seems that I need to brush up my macroeconomics knowledge, which may be impossible...

Also receive email from a staff member in the Department of Economics at LSE, saying I have £300 funds available for postage related to job applications.

Email LSE post room to ask how sending job application packets works. The Department will pay the postage if I use regular air mail.

Receive email from Sawada-sensei about his own experience of the PhD economics job market. He says scheduling fly-outs is very important because too many flights exhaust you and undermine your seminar presentation performance. As I'm applying to all over the world (from Hong Kong and Singapore to Spain, Ireland, Italy and Sweden, from Australia to Canada) this can be a major concern for me.

Irrelevant to me, but an email on a job opening from French university is forwarded to all job market candidates at LSE. It's all written in French. The French market is completely closed from non-French speakers. Then Emmanuel, a french guy among us, emails us, saying, "Just for your information, you can be on the French "job market" only if you defended your thesis before December 15th and that the University National Council has approved your application for being hired!"

Try to organize everything about reference letters. Email Sue and Leila - my referrees' assistants - on the arrangement of sending reference letters. The earliest deadline is 4 November. But this school's website also says "closing date for applications: 2006-11-24". I contacted the university staff, but they don't know for sure. But they say as long as I've made online application, reference letters can arrive later than the deadline. So I've decided to ignore 4 November when it comes to reference letters. Torsten and the Harvard job market guide say, "Relax about application".

So the earliest deadline is 13 November. Airmail takes within 5 days from UK to US (3 days on average). So I make 7th November as OUR deadline for sending references.

Busy...

Revise the introduction, the conclusion, and the abstract, by following commnets from my supervisor and Oriana.

As asked by Tim, I put the printed copy of the paper into his mail box in Sticerd.

Prepare the submission of the job market paper to the Moriguchi prize. This has nothing to do with the job market, though.

Email my supervisor with the revised version of the job market paper.

Bump into Robin at the Sticerd communal area. Ask him if he wants to see the list of schools to apply. His answer is yes. Email him with the Excel sheet of the list. He also says he hasn't read my revised job market paper. I ask him to download the latest version of the paper from my website. So I email him with the paper address as well.

Check application deadlines for all places to apply. Most schools (17 in total) set November 15 as their deadline, one school November 4 (which later turns out to be a typo), one school November 13, three November 17, one November 20, one November 22, three November 24, one November 25, one November 27, one November 28, one November 29, four November 30, fourteen December 1, five during December, three during January, eight does not specify, one says immediately, six says until positions are filled.

Email Mark about transcripts. Five schools require transcripts including one school that demands the submission of a transcript in the PDF format.

The "online application" madness certainly reduces the efficiency of organizing applications for job market candidates. When it comes to reference letters, two schools only accept letters that are uploaded on the webpage. At one school, the reference writer needs to know a candidate's "access code". The other school requires a referree to enter his/her "referee code" which is emailed when an applicant enters their email address online. Another school accepts letters only via email. I need to discuss my referees' assistants on how to deal with these.

Rewriting the Introduction

Email Sawada-sensei in Tokyo to ask about job openings in Japan. Very few Japanese universities advertise job openings on AEA's JOE. He emails me back within a few hours, giving me several useful pieces of information.

Joe, an IT support staff in Sticerd, replaces my school PC with a new one. Hopefuly, this speeds up Stata handling near 700,000 observations for my job market paper.

Rewrite the Introduction of my job market paper following advice from my supervisor and Oriana.

Start feeling slightly sick. So go home before 7pm.

73 places to apply.

Talk to Oriana, who read my job market paper. In addition to so many useful comments on the paper, she tells me why job market candidates need to apply for so many schools:

1. Use an offer from a school you're not interested in to solicit an offer (or a better offer) from another school which you're interested in.
2. Get to know more people who are interested in your research.

Add one more field to my secondary fields of research/teaching: applied microeconomics.

Send my CV to IMF.

Choose 73 places in total (including IMF and one post-doc position). I can't increase the number of schools any more.

Torsten stops by at my desk, saying, "Don't spend too much time on applications. It's wise to allocate time to research. A marginal cost of sending one more application is very low while checking whether a particular school is worth applying is costly."

My advice to job market candidates next year and onwards: Apply to every school in the world's top 100 as long as they have openings (except for top 25, for which you need approval from your supervisor). Plus, pick up other schools specializing in your field of research.

Which school to apply (still continues...)

Still decide which school to apply. But my nose starts running in an uncontrolled way, and I go home early.

I have managed to find 50 job openings so far. I need another 50...

The following is the list of economics department I rely on:
http://www.econphd.net/rank/nrtrade.htm. Why network ranking? The network ranking incorporates publications by coauthors of faculty members in each school. Economists often visit schools in which their co-authors are faculty members. A high rank thus implies that the quality of visitors (and seminars) is high. It's useful to identify schools strong in your field which are otherwise obscure in overall rankings.