If anyone was wondering how the academic job market is looking nowadays, this is a recent job post for a part time contract faculty member. You know a lot of family and friends from church mean well when they tell you to be more optimistic and assure you that there are certainly professor jobs out there. If you had access to the church marquee sign in the circle driveway to say that they just do not exist!
Acknowledging that fact in person, on social media, and, if you could, on the church marquee sign, does not make you pessimistic or mean you have given up. Acknowledging the current academia job market just lets you start planning how to deal with reality as it currently stands.

You are to the point where you have about 99% decided to take a year off from full time academia next year, which means that you are not planning to apply for any, which right now means one, academic job currently posted for the upcoming school year. Instead, you have some ideas about how to better serve 21st-century music students in their theory and aural skills education that you plan to continue exploring. With some extra work you are hoping to develop your skills into something pragmatic that, with some help from other like-minded scholars, could do some real good for this current world we now live in.

This decisions, of course, probably means that you will need to find a temporary, different job than the one you have poured every part of yourself into preparing for over the last 10 years of post-secondary education. This is a disheartening option that seems pretty on par for the way your life has gone the last few days.. It also means spending more time with your parents back home than you previously thought you would get if you had to hop around from job to job for several years. Fortunately, living with your mom is something that both of you are looking forward to so that is a silver lining.

For now, you will avoid posting your the desperation over your stunted career path on the church marquee sign and, instead, start conversations with the many people in the pews of your childhood who might have other ideas about jobs you can pursue back home.

The Job Market Is Increasingly Difficult for Many New Graduates

From digital signs for schools advertising the need for more substitute teachers instead of the dates and times for athletic competitions that are now postponed to the scrolling marquee signs for new, limited hours at many retail stores, there are plenty of signs that indicate the desperation of the current job market. Even the church marquee signs are an indication that things are far from normal. With announcements of outdoor services where the weather allows and the websites for online services, these signs are trying for different ways to try to share the good news.

There is a good deal of marketing research that indicates that the value of an on site sign is the same as 24 full page newspaper ads each year. And in a time when so many businesses are competing for both workers and customers it should come as no surprise that every one of these signs is being put into service. And in a time when so many businesses are having to change their platforms, it is at least encouraging to know that studies indicate that adding or changing a sign directly improve sales revenue. Replacing a store front wall sign with a larger sign, in fact, can increase revenue by 7.7%.

Whether you are a future doctoral grad looking at diminished prospects for jobs right now or you are someone whose place of business has closed because of the pandemic, it is likely that you are looking for some kind of sign that will provide hope. Watching the jobs posted on the internet is certainly a viable option, but it is also important to know that there are also many times when your community may provide the best options. Are you ready to take a different approach to finds work these days of economic struggle?