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APA Committee on Career OpportunitiesSpecial Report 1998Last spring, with the help of the National Office, for which we are most grateful, our committee sent out questionnaires to hiring departments and job candidates who worked through the APA placement services. Attached is a summary of the results. From 835 mailings to job candidates we got responses from 469. From 350 mailings to hiring departments we got responses from approximately 140 departments relating to 177 positions. Of these 13 were not eventually approved by administrations, so the survey is about the 164 positions that were approved. Obviously, some schools reported on more than one position. In both cases the response rate was a bit better than it seems, since some surveys were returned too late to be included in the tabulating. The distinction between actual responses and averages per position or candidate is clearly marked in the following report. Due to the timing of the mailings in the late spring, these results almost surely under represent activity at Pacific and Central Division meetings. Different things will strike different readers. I call your attention to the items that jumped out at me. On the Job Candidates survey I was struck by the high number with an AOS or AOC in ethics. If you combine ethical theory, applied ethics, and social/political (which usually involves normative questions), it can hardly be said that philosophers are preoccupied with esoteric issues of no interest or importance to a wider public. The corresponding numbers on the Hiring Departments survey support this observation. What struck me on the latter survey was question 7, where departments are finding that only 41% of the applications they receive actually fit the position they have announced. It seems that desperate candidates are wasting a lot of time, theirs and that of others. Each survey concluded with a question about how the APA could further assist in the hiring and job-seeking process. The extensive responses to these questions are being forwarded to the current Career Opportunities Committee via its Chair, Peter Hare, for determination whether any recommendations should be forthcoming. Merold Westphal
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