The job market(s) for professional psychologists: history and current issues

Various parts of the psychology job market resolved problems of thickness, congestion and incentives by adopting centralized clearinghouses. For other parts of the job market, those issues persist. Here's a recent article, and some snippets from it regarding this history.

Recruitment and selection in health service psychology postdoctoral training: A review of the history and current issues. 
Bodin, Doug; Schmidt, Joel P.; Lemle, Russell B.; Roper, Brad L.; Goldberg, Robert W.; Hill, Kimberly R.; Perry-Parrish, Carisa; Williams, Sharon E.; Kuemmel, Angela; Siegel, Wayne.
Training and Education in Professional Psychology © 2017 American Psychological Association

2018, Vol. 12, No. 2, 74 – 81

"Pursuing a career in health service psychology involves navigating three broad stages of training: graduate school, doctoral internship, and postdoctoral training. Each stage involves distinct procedures for recruitment and selection. The purpose of this article is to review the history of and current issues involved in the recruitment and selection process for postdoctoral training in health service psychology. In this review, we will discuss the specialty of clinical neuropsychology separately as that specialty has a formal computerized match and therefore faces subsequent challenges that are distinct from, but in some ways mirror, the  faced broadly by health service psychology postdoctoral training programs.
...
"The current computerized matching psychology internship selection process began in 1998–1999, 10 years after an earlier trial, rejection, and reintroduction (Keilin, 2000). Prior to the introduction of computerized matching, the internship selection process relied on the “uniform notification day” (UND) system for more than 25 years. This process of internship offers and acceptances shortened from an initial offer and acceptance period of 9 days to 4 hours (Keilin, 1998). In 1988–1989, there was a trial period to evaluate the effectiveness of a computer-based algorithm match process. Although the outcomes showed a significant improvement over the UND, there was a lack of full participation by internship sites that appeared to have a detrimental impact on the outcomes observed (Keilin, 1998). Recurrent discussion within the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) reflected gradually shifting approval, from a vote of 55% to 45% to retain the UND in 1990, to 77% approval to move to a computer-based match system by May 1998 for immediate implementation for the 1998–1999 recruitment year.
...
"There were wide-spread reports of both applicants and programs accepting less preferred choices due to the fear of not securing or filling a position within the UND window. APPIC responded by clarifying the rules with a prohibition against sites soliciting rank information (Constantine & Keilin, 1996). APPIC voted to proceed with a computer-based match process in 1998 using a match algorithm similar to the National Residency Match Program (Roth & Peranson, 1999). The computer-match system transcends difficulties on both sides by providing an equitable solution designed to provide the best possible match for all parties involved (Keilin, 1998). This solution reduces the pressure associated with short decision-making times and has the benefit of reducing the gridlock associated with UND (Roth & Xing, 1997).
...
"The computerized match has been used every year since, and it is now widely considered the optimal process for doctoral internship selection.

"The recruitment and selection process at the postdoctoral level remains in an evolutionary stage at the present time. Coordination of the psychology postdoctoral selection market is complicated by the fact that it is actually made up of multiple submarkets. Psychology interns may consider several options for their next professional experience, including an entry-level job, a research fellowship, a general clinical psychology fellowship, or a postdoctoral fellowship in a specialty practice area (e.g., neuropsychology, health psychology, clinical child psychology, or forensic psychology). Several of these submarkets have different timelines. For example, entry-level jobs and research fellowships are dependent on idiosyncratic funding streams and employment needs and, as such, may not realistically be expected to adhere to a coordinated timeline. 
...
"In 2003, there was renewed effort to establish more systemization to protect applicants from being forced into making decisions about early offers that did not reflect their true preferences. 
...
"As part of a 2009 APPIC biennial conference presentation, Lemle proposed a modified selection process with an additional feature intended to make participation more attractive to programs. The additional feature would allow applicants who received an early offer from a nonparticipating site to contact a preferred program to pledge they would accept a “reciprocal offer” should one be extended. A UND with reciprocal offer option (UNDr) assured programs that their top applicants who also wished to come to their site would not be lost to competing offers.
...
" Beginning in Fall, 2016, the APPIC postdoctoral workgroup took strides to address several proximal recommendations borne in the summit. First, the workgroup further refined the Postdoctoral Selection Guidelines (PSG) for positions starting in 2017–2018 as a step toward developing a clear and transparent system that would allow applicants sufficient time to consider offers (applicants were allowed 24 hr to consider offers) and allow programs the time needed to interview applicants. A primary aim of the PSG is to decrease the significant stress on both applicants and training directors. The PSG address multiple stages of the selection process impacting trainees including reasonable interview notification timing, consideration of remote interview formats, postponing offers until the UND, and proper use of the reciprocal offer option (UNDr).
...
"The APPIC postdoctoral workgroup also followed the summit recommendation to spearhead the development of a centralized listing of postdoctoral positions, the Universal Psychology Postdoctoral Directory (UPPD), that is free for both APPIC and non-APPIC member programs. 
...
"Clinical neuropsychology has a distinct history that is informative when considering the issues discussed in this article. Most notably, there is currently a formal computerized match for postdoctoral selection in clinical neuropsychology (Belanger et al., 2013; Bodin, Roper, O’Toole, & Haines, 2016). Prior to 1994, there was no organized process for recruitment and selection in clinical neuropsychology. 
...
"In 2001, APPCN partnered with NMS to conduct a computerized match for postdoctoral selection in clinical neuropsychology that has continued to the present day. The APPCN match employs the same algorithm used for the psychology internship match, but dissimilarities across the two recruiting environments have contributed to differences in the success of the two systems over the years. Since its inception, the internship match has enjoyed virtually universal participation by programs. Importantly, the APPCN match was introduced without a clear understanding of the total universe of positions being offered by neuropsychology postdoctoral programs, and those outside of APPCN were not a part of an organized group interested in centralized recruitment. Years later, Belanger et al. (2013) estimated that roughly two thirds of available positions were offered in the APPCN match. Withdrawal rates for applicants initially registering for the APPCN match have ranged from 26% to 37% over the past 10 years and have been stable from 34 and 36% for the last five years. Although some applicants withdraw for personal reasons, the most common reason has been to accept offers from independent programs prior to the rank-order list (ROL) deadline for the APPCN match.

Some adult supervision of the law clerk hiring process

Kagan Says She'll 'Take Into Account' Whether Judges Follow New Clerk Hiring Plan

"U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan recently threw her support behind the new law clerk hiring plan by saying she will “take into account” in her own hiring whether judges and law schools comply with the new process
...

"Kagan’s message for her own chambers is likely to be heard coast to coast. In her nearly eight years on the high court, Kagan has hired clerks largely from the D.C. Circuit but also from the Fourth, Sixth and Ninth circuits and from judges across the ideological spectrum.

A former Harvard Law School dean and professor, Kagan is in a position to understand the effect on students of the former hiring process in which first-year students faced pressure to make clerkship commitments and law professors make recommendations “on less and less information,” Morrison said."

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see my earlier post

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Another New Federal Law Clerk Hiring (Pilot) Plan

HT: Kim Krawiec

College admissions and (versus) antitrust law, in the Atlantic. Legal status of a medical style match?

The Atlantic has an article on college admissions, saying it could be made to work better if only (and only if) colleges were exempted from antitrust law.

The Best Ways to Fix College Admissions Are Probably Illegal:
Cooperation among selective schools would make students’ lives easier. It would also likely run afoul of federal antitrust law.
by JEFFREY SELINGO

The article provides an interesting summary of ideas being floated to reform college admissions: e.g. a medical residency style match, or a lottery, or a coordinated reduction in merit scholarships. (Those don't all address the same issues, of course.)

Regarding antitrust, I'm no lawyer, and the DOJ has clearly shown an anti-trust interest in some aspects of college admissions, particularly including early decision admissions, but the article doesn't offer deep insight into which aspects of college admissions, or college admissions reform, might or might not be defensible without legislative relief.

Regarding a college admissions process that might resemble the medical match, the article says
"Those who follow admissions closely tend to think that such a system would ease the pressures on students, parents, and schools. But, alas, antitrust law prohibits it—it would produce a level of cooperation that the federal government would likely find unacceptable. (The medical-residency match program is legal because Congress granted it an antitrust exemption about 15 years ago.)"

But the relevant law exempting the medical match from being a per se violation of the antitrust laws is section 207 added in conference to the Pension Funding Equity Act of 2004 Public Law 108-218.  The legislative language is preceded by a Congressional Finding, which states in part:
Congressional finding:
"(E) Antitrust lawsuits challenging the matching process, regardless of their merit or lack thereof, have the potential to undermine this highly efficient, pro-competitive, and long-standing process. "

The Congressional finding also praises the medical match for solving the unravelling of medical appointments to very early dates.

So, particularly if early admissions turns out to have anti-trust difficulties, to my non-lawyerly eyes the Congressional language suggests that Congress and the courts might continue to find that medical style matches are not violations of antitrust laws, even in new applications like college admissions (and of course school choice, which may include private charter schools as well as municipal schools).
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I ran this by my favorite law professor Kim Krawiec, who confirms that I'm no lawyer and writes
"Hi Al — with the caveat that I’m not an antitrust specialist, I think that your conclusion could be right, but I wouldn’t rely too much on section 207 as evidence. My read of section 207 is that it’s application is quite clearly limited to medical residency matches. So I don’t think the language there would have any particular sway with courts weighing the legality of matches in other settings. Nonetheless, restraints on trade are not always illegal under antitrust law, even without an explicit exemption. Specifically, courts may consider procompetitive and (rarely) social welfare justifications in favor of restraints on trade. The hurdle is pretty high, especially for social welfare arguments, but they’re more likely to be entertained in educational settings than elsewhere, I think. A case on point is U.S. v. Brown https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/5/658/626013/

"The case may be an outlier in some ways, since it involves diversity in admissions, but I find this language instructive:

 It may be that institutions of higher education "require that a particular practice, which could properly be viewed as a violation of the Sherman Act in another context, be treated differently." Goldfarb v. Virginia, 421 U.S. 773, 788 n. 17, 95 S. Ct. 2004, 2013 n. 17, 44 L. Ed. 2d 572 (1975). 

It is most desirable that schools achieve equality of educational access and opportunity in order that more people enjoy the benefits of a worthy higher education. There is no doubt, too, that enhancing the quality of our educational system redounds to the general good. To the extent that higher education endeavors to foster vitality of the mind, to promote free exchange between bodies of thought and truths, and better communication among a broad spectrum of individuals, as well as prepares individuals for the intellectual demands of responsible citizenship, it is a common good that should be extended to as wide a range of individuals from as broad a range of socio-economic backgrounds as possible. It is with this in mind that the Overlap Agreement should be submitted to the rule of reason scrutiny under the Sherman Act.

"So, the fact that Congress once concluded that the benefits of matching outweighed any antitrust concerns bodes well, I think, in the sense that it is always easier to convince Congress to extend a successful practice to a new area than to convince them to adopt an entirely new method that has no track record. But, I don’t think that a court would be comfortable extending the 108-218 exemption to other settings w/o congressional approval.  "

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HT: Muriel Niederle

Does binding early admissions violate antitrust laws?

The DOJ seems to be looking into early decision in college admissions. Inside Higher Ed has the story, which makes it sound as if the investigation is focused on whether colleges (still) announce their early-decision admissions to their competitors, who then refrain from admitting those students.

Justice Department Investigates Early-Decision Admissions

"The Justice Department has started an investigation into whether some colleges' early-decision admissions programs violate federal antitrust laws through agreements among institutions or through the sharing of information about accepted applicants.
...
"The Justice Department letter does not detail what agreement or practices are being investigated. But the letter gives some indication, by outlining the documents that colleges are being required to maintain. These are:

"Agreements, both formal and informal, to exchange or otherwise disclose the identities of accepted students with persons at other colleges or universities.
Communications with persons at other colleges or universities relating to the transmission of identities of accepted students, including the justifications for such transmission.
Internal documents relating to the transmission of identities of accepted students to or from persons at other colleges or universities.
Communications in which identities of accepted students are sent to or received from persons at other colleges or universities.
Communications with persons at any other college or university relating to any student accepted at the college or university.
Records of actions taken or decisions made based in whole or part on information received from another college or university about the identities of accepted students.
Admissions records of any individual identified in any transmission as accepted by another college or university, including applications from, internal analyses of, and communications with the applicant."

Early admissions to competitive colleges

The WSJ updates us on early admissions (they continue to be a big deal):
 The Decision That Hurts Your Chances of Getting Into Harvard
Dartmouth College expects early-decision admits to make up nearly half its first-year class in the fall

"The admission rate for early-round candidates, who typically learn their fates in December, is often two or three times that of regular applicants. Harvard last year admitted 14.5% of early-action applicants and about 3.3% of regular-decision applicants. At Yale, those rates were 17.1% and 5%, respectively. Many institutions fill 40% or more of their incoming classes with early applicants.

"Dartmouth College expects students admitted through its early-decision process to make up nearly half its first-year class next fall. The school received 2,270 early applications, compared with roughly 20,000 in the regular cycle. Early-decision applicants make up 53% of Northwestern University’s current freshman class, and just over half at Vanderbilt University."
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And here's the view from Harvard:
Record-Low 4.59 Percent of Applicants Accepted to Harvard Class of 2022

"The College notified 998 students of their acceptance in the regular decision cycle at around 7 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. These accepted students make up 2.43 percent of the total 36,119 regular decision applicants, plus the 4,882 students deferred in the early action process. The accepted regular decision students join 964 students who were offered admission through Harvard’s early action process in December."
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Update: the Stanford story...
University admission rate drops to 4.3 percent for Class of 2022
"Stanford announced on Friday the admission of 1,290 students to the Class of 2022. These students, joined by the 750 who were accepted under the restrictive early action program in December, make up a total of 2,040 total students admitted to the incoming class."

Another New Federal Law Clerk Hiring (Pilot) Plan

Future law clerks who are already in their second or third year of law school have already been hired, but here's a plan to defer the hiring of those who just entered law school this year.  It will have implications for hiring starting in 2019, and again in 2020, after which it will be reviewed. (This will be the seventh such attempt to halt unraveling in this market since 1983.) The attempt to ban exploding offers is new...

The DC Circuit publishes the following announcement:
Notice of Adoption of the New Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan
February 2018


"Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan

Starting with students who entered law school in 2017, the application and hiring process will not begin until after a law student’s second year.

For students who entered law school in 2017 (graduating class of 2020): Judges will not seek or accept formal or informal clerkship applications, seek or accept formal or informal recommendations, conduct formal or informal interviews, or make formal or informal offers before June 17, 2019.

For students who enter law school in 2018 (graduating class of 2021): Judges will not seek or accept formal or informal clerkship applications, seek or accept formal or informal recommendations, conduct formal or informal interviews, or make formal or informal offers before June 15, 2020.

A judge who makes a clerkship offer will keep it open for at least 48 hours, during which time the applicant will be free to interview with other judges.

This is a two-year pilot plan. Participating judges will reconsider their participation after June 2020. A copy of the plan will be posted on the OSCAR website at https://oscar.uscourts.gov/federal_law_clerk_hiring_pilot."
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And it is now indeed on the OSCAR site: Federal Law Clerk Hiring Pilot

[OSCAR--the Online System for Clerkship Application and Review-- is a web based platform for the law clerk job market.]

HT: Kim Krawiec

The private equity junior labor market continues to unravel

Eric Budish points me to the annual story, which seems to be published earlier each year, about the race for young talent in private equity:

Private Equity Prowls for Young Bankers Early in Frenetic Ritual
Job offers can ‘explode’ at midnight as buyout firms compete

"Junior analysts a few weeks on the job can now expect a flurry of emails from headhunters for some of the most prestigious private equity firms in the world. The jobs they’re being recruited for can pay more than $200,000 a year and won’t start until 2019. The battle to hire the best of them is fiercer, and more urgent, than ever.

"Buyout firms are tapping junior bankers earlier -- advancing the annual recruiting cycle, the industry’s biggest window of hiring, for the fifth consecutive year after an agreement to hold back fell apart.
...
"During the most recent cycle, formal interviews started in January...

"That was the earliest recruiting start ever -- about two weeks sooner than the previous year, and a full three months sooner than in 2013, when the major private equity firms stopped cooperating on timing after some broke out to recruit early.
...
"The majority of the mega-funds fill up their spots within 96 hours...
...
"Going forward, there’s no telling how much sooner the recruitment schedule will creep. But one effect is becoming permanent, said Grauer: candidates don’t have much work experience to discuss in their interviews anymore.

“I’d like to think we’ve gotten to a point where it doesn’t get earlier,” Grauer said, adding that interviewees today don’t often know what they want professionally in the long term. “The days when they were able to talk about all their transactions are gone.”

Medical school seniors are applying to more and more residency positions

Here's an article on the application process that precedes the medical match:

Residency Placement Fever: Is It Time for a Reevaluation?

Gruppuso, Philip A. MD; Adashi, Eli Y. MD, MS

Academic Medicine, 92(7), July 2017, p 923–926

Abstract: The transition from undergraduate medical education to graduate medical education (GME) involves a process rooted in the final year of medical school. Students file applications through the Electronic Residency Application Service platform, interview with residency training (i.e., GME) programs from which they have received invitations, and generate a rank-ordered preference list. The National Resident Matching Program reconciles applicant and program rank lists with an eye towards matching students and GME programs. This process has effectively served generations of graduating medical students. However, the past several decades have seen an intensification of the residency placement process that is exemplified by an inexorable increase in the number of applications filed and number of interviews accepted and attended by each student. The authors contend that this trend has untoward effects on both applicants and departments that are home to GME programs....

"... in 2015, senior U.S. medical students applied, on average, to 73 of the 163 orthopedic surgery programs and 47 of the 105 neurological surgery programs (based on data extracted from the AAMC 8 and the NRMP 9,10). What is more surprising is that even less competitive disciplines may now be seeing an ever-growing flood of applications. This contention is supported in part by recent observations according to which GME programs in nearly all disciplines have seen a marked increase in their application traffic. For example, the percentage of pediatric GME programs to which graduating U.S. medical students have applied on average increased from 9.8% to 13.7% during the five-year interval from 2010 to 2015.10 For internal medicine GME programs, the corresponding figures are 4.9% to 6.0%.8–10 In making these decisions, students appear to be keeping their own counsel against the advice of medical school advisers and mentors advocating moderation.

...

"The increasing number of applications has another important consequence for GME programs. With an expanding burden of reviewing applications, the use of quantitative metrics as “screens,” the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 exam in particular, may assume an increasing role. This trend, one that is viewed by many as a serious problem,15 may further erode emphasis on students’ backgrounds and qualitative indicators of performance, including letters of recommendation and narrative performance evaluations. Should this occur, it could have a detrimental effect on the ability of GME programs to achieve diversity by reducing the selection of students from disadvantaged educational backgrounds who may be at risk for underperformance on standardized examinations.

Apart from the preceding considerations, the growing intensity of the residency placement process has been progressively eroding the residual educational value of the fourth and final year of medical school.16–19 This reality, in its own right, would appear to warrant a reevaluation of the extant residency placement construct. Such reassessment may prove all but inescapable before too long if and when the four-year medical school curriculum is ever replaced with a three-year counterpart.20,21 Under these circumstances, the current resident selection paradigm is likely to prove unworkable and in need of redesign.

Epilepsy and Neurophysiology fellowships are unravelled

Here is an article calling for a match. The opening paragraphs describe the current, unraveled recruiting process.

The Case for an Epilepsy and Clinical Neurophysiology Match  RSS  Download PDF

• Jorge Vidaurre MD
•  and Julia Campbell C-TAGME

Pediatric Neurology, 2017-07-01, Volume 72, Pages 5-6, Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc.

"Accredited epilepsy and clinical neurophysiology fellowships in the United States do not participate in a formal matching system to facilitate selection of trainees. For the 2015 to 2016 academic year, there were about 95 accredited clinical neurophysiology fellowship programs offering 313 positions and 43 epilepsy fellowship programs with 106 available positions. Each of these programs has their own unique recruitment process. The lack of a standardized process may be disadvantageous for both applicants and the training programs.

With our current approach, applicants may feel compelled to accept a fellowship offer before completing other program visits and with little time to consider their options. This situation occurs when a position is offered on the spot or soon after an interview. Unless the offer is quickly accepted, the candidate risks losing a guaranteed opportunity in order to explore other programs. The lack of uniformity in the application process can create additional difficulties for applicants.

Similarly, knowing that good candidates are likely to receive offers from other institutions during an interview, many institutions feel compelled to make a quick decision in their selection of fellows. In an effort to avoid vacancies, program directors may be tempted to select applicants who are available but may not be the best choice. Adopting a formal match system would create a more organized process with clear advantages for both applicants and programs."

Early admissions continues to grow at Harvard and elsewhere

The Harvard Gazette reports: 938 admitted early to College Class of 2021
Early action is ‘new normal’ for undergraduate admissions, Fitzsimmons says

"Applications for early action at Harvard College rose 5 percent this year to 6,473, and 14.5 percent, or 938 students, were admitted to the Class of 2021. Last year, 6,167 applied early, and 14.8 percent, or 914 students, were admitted.

“Early admission appears to be the ‘new normal’ now, as more students are applying early to Harvard and peer institutions than ever before,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid. “At the same time, we have continued to stress to applicants, their families, and their guidance counselors that there is no advantage in applying early to Harvard. The reason students are admitted — early or during the regular action process — is that their academic, extracurricular, and personal strengths are extraordinary.”

The admissions committee is careful to ensure that only those students who are, in Fitzsimmons’ words, “100 percent certain” to be admitted in regular action are admitted early. “This is particularly important because in recent years we have received record numbers of applications,” said Fitzsimmons. Last year, 39,041 students applied for admission to the Class of 2020. Ten years ago, 22,754 students applied for admission to the Class of 2010."
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Maybe the growth in early admissions is happening at Stanford too, but apparently we're not saying:
In break from past, Stanford declines to release early admissions data

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In the NY Times, Frank Bruni complains of the stress it causes the children of his friends: The Plague of ‘Early Decision’

Unraveling of college sports recruiting--continued

Inside Higher Ed has the story:
Too Young to Commit?
Urging colleges to change a recruiting culture that targets middle schoolers, Ivy League announces proposals for curbing early recruitment of athletes.

"The Ivy League will announce today a series of proposals aimed at curbing early recruiting in college sports, urging other National Collegiate Athletic Association members to “change the culture of recruiting that forces prospective student-athletes to commit earlier and earlier.”

The proposed Division I rule changes, which would potentially be voted on at the NCAA’s annual meeting in January, would prohibit verbal offers from coaches to potential recruits until Sept. 1 of the student’s junior year of high school. The legislation would also prohibit players initiating or receiving phone calls with and from college coaches, and ban any recruiting conversations at camps or clinics until that date.

"Current NCAA Division I rules differ among sports, but they largely already prohibit players from receiving phone calls from a coach, going on official campus visits or getting an offer before their junior or senior year. Prospective athletes are allowed to initiate phone calls with coaches, however, and are allowed to visit campuses and meet with coaches prior to their junior year, as long as the trip is an unofficial visit not paid for by the institution.

...

"Harris pointed to increasing transfer rates in intercollegiate athletics as evidence athletes are making recruitment decisions too early. According to the NCAA, one-third of college athletes transfer to another program.

“There’s a lot of talk about there being a transfer problem,” Harris said. “Well, I would say a lot of the problem with transfers is the fact that we have individuals making decisions too soon that are too rushed.”

Early recruiting is especially prevalent in sports like women’s soccer and lacrosse, where some players are being recruited as early as middle school. An analysis by the New York Times and the National Collegiate Scouting Association in 2014 found that 36 percent of women’s lacrosse players who use the consulting firm to commit to colleges are doing so early, as are 24 percent of women’s soccer players.

The athletes cannot sign binding letters of intent at such an early age, but middle school students are increasingly announcing verbal commitments to specific institutions after receiving unofficial scholarship offers from coaches."

Unraveling of apprenticeships in Switzerland

The Neue Zurcher Zeitung has the story: Die heikle Jagd nach den besten Lehrlingen von Hansueli Schöchli
Die Lehrstellen in der Schweiz werden zum Teil «zu früh» vergeben. Absprachen zwischen den Lehrbetrieben wären ein Gegenmittel. Doch solche Absprachen scheitern oft.

Google translate: "The tricky hunt for the best apprentices--The apprenticeships in Switzerland are awarded partly "too early". Agreements between educational establishments would be an antidote. But such agreements often fail."

A trading firm promises to restrain itself from early exploding offers

Self restraint doesn't always do the trick, but is worth a try: here's a post from the Jane Street blog.

Unraveling of the tech hiring market

Thu, 2016/03/17 - 3:20pm - David Powers | OCaml

Recruiting talented people has always been challenging.

In some years that meant competing with a hot new company that aggressively courted every fresh graduate with promises of stock options and IPO glory.  In other years there wasn’t a specific company so much as an entire rising industry looking for people (I’m looking at you cloud services, driverless cars, and peer-to-peer sharing).  Either way, we understood the yearly back and forth.  Our job was to explain to candidates how we stacked up, and more importantly, why a career at Jane Street might be the right choice for many of them.

But this year I got to learn a new name for a new challenge.  “Unraveling”.

I first encountered it in a book I was reading for fun: "Who Gets What, and Why", by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin Roth.  He does a lovely job explaining the idea of a matching market.  In a matching market each person wants only one of each item, each item is unique, and each item can be given to at most one person at a time.  Jobs are a classic matching market, and just like any market, matching markets can work well, or poorly.

Unraveling is one of the primary things that makes a matching market fail.  When a market unravels  matches start to happen earlier and earlier, to the point where people no longer get a complete view of their options.  In the book Roth relates the story of a person who stepped off of a plane to find three voicemails on his phone.  The first offered him a job, the second urged him to respond soon, and the last rescinded the offer because he hadn't responded quickly enough.

We call them exploding offers, and this year they have gotten completely out of hand as companies race to the bottom in their efforts to recruit the next wave of interns and fresh graduates.

Colleges try to impose deadline limits explicitly to stop unraveling, and in the past these have largely been honored.  The cheating and fudging, such as it was, was kept to the fringes.  But this year it seems like the seal is broken, and we've seen major companies delivering internship and full-time offers with 2 week (and less) hard deadlines.  Other companies now routinely deliver expiring bonus offers for signing early.  Many of these offers circumvent or outright break the guidelines set down by schools, and if past matching markets are a model for this one, next year will come with even earlier offers and worse conditions.

This unraveling has been the subject of a lot of discussion, both internally at Jane Street and with the various schools we recruit at, who see it - rightly - as bad for their students.  How can someone make a thoughtful decision about where they want to build a career without the time to interview at more than one or two places?  Unfortunately, most of this discussion is out of the public light, and so the unraveling continues.

We can't control the actions of others, but we also don’t have to follow the herd, so we'd like to be clear:

Jane Street is committed to making sure that you have the time and information you need to decide on an offer from us.  Our offer letters do have good-until dates as a matter of professional practice, but we try to work with every candidate to choose a date that works for them.  We are also happy to extend the date if something unexpected comes up, or, frankly, if someone just needs more time.

Choosing where to start your career is a big decision and we hope you have the time to make a good one.

Unraveling of the philosophy job market

The American Philosophical Society has posted the following Statement on the Job Market Calendar

The following statement was adopted by the board of officers at its November 2016 meeting. It is effective beginning with the 2016-2017 academic job market season. 

For tenure-track/continuing positions advertised in the second half of the calendar year, we recommend an application deadline of November 1 or later. It is further recommended that positions be advertised at least 30 days prior to the application deadline to ensure that candidates have ample time to apply.

In normal circumstances a prospective employee should have at least two weeks for consideration of a written offer from the hiring institution, and responses to offers of a position whose duties begin in the succeeding fall should not be required before February 1.

When advertising in PhilJobs: Jobs for Philosophers, advertisers will be asked to confirm that the hiring institution will follow the above guidelines. If an advertiser does not do so, the advertisement will include a notice to that effect.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has picked up the story this month:
A Disciplinary Association Aims to Rein In a ‘Chaotic’ Hiring Calendar

"Q. What problem is this statement reacting to?

A. Over the last few years, as more philosophy departments have moved away from in-person interviews at the APA’s Eastern Division meeting and toward other approaches, such as web-based interviews or elimination of first-round interviews altogether, we’ve begun hearing from members that application deadlines have crept earlier and earlier, as have deadlines for accepting offers of employment.

These changes have disadvantaged job candidates by, for example, forcing them to make a decision on an offer from one institution before having even been interviewed by another. Many members, as well as an internal APA task force, have suggested that an APA policy statement would help to address these concerns about the job-market calendar.

Q. What are the goals of this statement? What would the APA like the calendar to look like?

A. Our goals with this statement are to set clear expectations for hiring departments, and also, by including a notice on ads for jobs that don’t follow the calendar, to provide job candidates with better information at the outset of their job searches so that they can make more-informed decisions.

The statement specifies the earliest date by which applications for academic positions should be required, and the earliest date by which final acceptance of offers of employment should be required — the two portions of the job-market calendar that are of most concern to our members. We respect that different departments have different approaches to the hiring process, so the statement is limited to just those two dates."

HT: Ricky Vohra

Federico Echenique and Juan Pereyra on unraveling of matching markets

 Strategic complementarities and unravelingin matching markets 
by Federico Echenique  and  Juan Sebastián Pereyra, Theoretical Economics 11 (2016), 1–39

 Abstract: We present a theoretical explanation of inefficient early matching in matching markets. Our explanation is based on strategic complementarities and strategic unraveling. We identify a negative externality imposed on the rest of the market by agents who make early offers. As a consequence, an agent may make an early offer because she is concerned that others are making early offers. Yet other agents make early offers because they are concerned that others worry about early offers, and so on and so forth. The end result is that any given agent is more likely to make an early offer than a late offer.

Is "program hiring" a new name for unraveling?

The WSJ has the story: When a Job Offer Comes Without a Job

"Some companies are hiring first and figuring out jobs for these recruits much later.

"Amid a fierce market for college recruits, companies like Facebook Inc. and Intuit Inc. are making offers to dozens of hires without having a particular job waiting—or even, sometimes, a starting salary.

"Recruiters say so-called “program hiring” helps companies scoop up promising talent ahead of competitors and ensures their newest workers can stand a little uncertainty. College career officers say more students are getting offers this way.
...
"Entry-level hires are locked in more quickly, since recruiters arrive on campus armed with approval to make hires on the spot as they see fit, she said.

"This is important as employers press onto university campuses earlier and earlier in the school year.

"A candidate who accepts Intuit’s offer sets in motion a complex matchmaking process that includes salary discussions.

"Each new hire is assigned a recruiter who coordinates a series of matching conversations between the hire and various Intuit managers over the course of several months.

"The conversations are designed to align the hire’s interests and talents with an available position—and teams that help with campus recruiting often get first dibs on new hires—Ms. Carter said.

"Hires are given their assignments shortly before starting work, having received information about pay some time before that."

Could the Swiss apprenticeship market use some market design?

A review of Who Gets What and Why from Switzerland suggests that the Swiss apprenticeship market is unraveled and could use some market design: Ökonomie als Ingenieurskunst, by David Staubli.

Google Translate: "With these findings, perhaps could also improve the design of the Swiss apprenticeship market. The current system suffers from the same problems as before the American job market for junior doctors. A mandatory cut-off date to Submit quotations from the part of the company would preserve the future trainees from having to be set too early and then lose the motivation for the school routine. The coordinated timing to Submit apprenticeships contracts would also increase market depth and the "matching" improve."

Chapter 4 of Who Gets What and Why, in the Milken Institute Review (with art work...)

The Milken Institute Review, Fourth Quarter 2015, has published an excerpt--Chapter 4--of Who Gets What and Why.  It comes with illustrations, which aren't in the original. The chapter is mostly about unraveling, and includes discussion of college football bowls, the market for law school graduates, and medical fellowships...and why Oklahomans are called "Sooners," and fraternity and sorority recruitment is called "rush."

Book Excerpt--Who Gets What and Why

Here's the introduction to the excerpt, by Peter Passell

"Alvin Roth, the author of this excerpt from Who Gets What – and Why,* won a Nobel in economics in 2012 for his work on the “the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.” I know, I know: that’s hardly an intro likely to induce you to dive right in. Most Nobels in economics, after all, are awarded for accomplishments that are too arcane for mere mortals to comprehend. And even the prize winners who do have something pressing to say to the public can rarely write their way out of that proverbial paper bag.

" But Roth and this book are spectacular exceptions. While he was really trained as a mathematician (his PhD is in a discipline called operations research), Roth’s vision has never strayed far from the practical. And he’s a natural-born writer to boot.

"Roth designs “matching markets,” where price alone can’t balance supply and demand – think of markets for everything from marriage to college admissions. Indeed, he’s even saved lives by helping to design an ingenious way to match more donated kidneys to needy patients.

"The chapter excerpted here will give you a taste of his fine mind and formidable ability to make complicated ideas comprehensible. — Peter Passell"
***********
See this earlier post with a video of the conversation about the book that Peter and I had in June: Peter Passell interviews me at the Milken Institute on Who Gets What — and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design


The rest of the book can be found at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Who-Gets-What-Why-Matchmaking/dp/0544291131 

Unravelling of magnet school enrollment in Cincinnati: 16 days in a tent

Here's a story about a devoted dad in Cincinnati who slept outside of a school for 16 days, along with many other parents, to preserve his place in line for a kindergarten enrollment...

Waiting For Kindergarten
I slept outside for 16 days to enroll my son in Fairview-Clifton Elementary School

And some history:
"When there are more kids than spots in a popular school, how do you decide which kids get in?

CPS has tried to answer this question several times. In the 1990s, families enrolled in magnet programs via Super Saturday. CPS kept the enrollment locations (CPS schools) secret until the early morning on the last Saturday in January. After announcing the locations, lines formed quickly and schools accepted kids on a first-come, first-serve basis. Parents enlisted family and friends to patrol the city in cars so that the closest car could dash to the signup once revealed. Cars were manned in pairs, so that the passenger could get out and get in line without hunting for a parking spot. They communicated via pagers, walkie-talkies, and cellphones if they were lucky. There was more than a few fender benders in the process. Some families tried to guess the system, staking out schools for signs of “activity”, like building lights and cars.

Super Saturday ended sometime around 2000. For several years, parents enrolled their kids by taking a tour of the school and submitting a waiting list application up to 12 months before the first day of school. Your spot was not guaranteed however, and students were accepted partially on the basis of race and gender. Parents usually knew their result by December. Interestingly, this method was simple, straightforward and did not require waiting in line. However, due to demand from parents who wanted more control over their kids’ futures, as well as court decisions that outlawed the demographic basis of enrollment, CPS went to a first-come, first-serve enrollment around 2007. That first year, parents camped out in line for 24 hours.

To address the inherent unfairness in a totally first-come, first-serve enrollment method, CPS went to a hybrid system. Since 2011, 30% of open spots went to winners of a lottery system, with the rest still allocated via line. Families were eligible for the lottery only if their neighborhood school was underperforming."



HT: Pete Troyan

Unraveling and exploding offers in the market for new private equity analysts

The unraveling in this market (which is also highly competitive in salaries) continues. That is, vigorous competition by the timing of (early, exploding) offers coexists with vigorous salary competition.  The NY Times Dealbook has the story.

Private Equity Firms in a Frenzied Race to Hire Young Investment Bankers
By WILLIAM ALDEN and SYDNEY EMBER  FEBRUARY 10, 2015

"Junior investment bankers who graduated from college only last year are being madly courted by private equity firms like Apollo Global Management, the Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and the Carlyle Group in a scramble that kicked off last weekend. 6.After back-to-back interviews, many are now fielding offers for jobs that won’t start until the summer of 2016.

"This process has become an annual rite by private equity firms, which raise money from investors (like pension funds) to buy entire companies. But it has grown more frenzied since the financial crisis, and it started this year weeks earlier than many in the industry had expected. Fearful of missing the best talent being developed at investment banks, the giants of private equity have turned Wall Street’s white-collar entry-level workers into a hot commodity.

“It’s as if these were star athletes,” said Adam Zoia, chief executive of the recruiting firm Glocap Search, who helps private equity firms hire young workers. “The irony is they are professionals six, seven months out of undergrad. It’s hard to imagine you can tell if someone’s a star or not.”
...
"Private equity’s recruiters, trying to secure the best workers for their clients, have helped accelerate the interview timeline, so that it is now the norm to interview workers about 18 months before their jobs will actually start. Some private equity executives say this means the candidates, who have barely encountered their first Wall Street deals, are performing more poorly in interviews.

Participants liken the situation to what is known in game theory as the “prisoner’s dilemma,” in which a lack of information causes private equity firms to act according to their own self-interest rather than find a solution that would be mutually beneficial to all parties. Last year, the process started in late February — weeks earlier than the cycle in 2013.

“There’s essentially always a handful of firms that are the catalysts, and that creates this huge domino effect across the industry,” said Morgan Halberg, a partner at the recruiting firm Dynamics Search Partners. “Every other firm essentially mobilizes and has to be reactive.”

"Many participants traced the beginning of this year’s process to a move by a midsize private equity firm in San Francisco. The firm, Golden Gate Capital, extended a handful of offers to young consulting firm employees on Thursday, according to people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.

"This alone was not enough for the rest of the industry to spring into action. Golden Gate, which has a close relationship with the consulting firm Bain & Company, was not drawing from the investment bank pool where the big private equity firms fish. What’s more, Golden Gate’s internal rationale was that it was responding to moves by other private equity firms to hire consultants. At first, rival private equity firms and their recruiters decided to stand down.

"But on Friday, an email circulated through the industry from a Boston-based private equity firm, Advent International, which said it would begin interviewing candidates from investment banks, people briefed on the matter said. The biggest firms knew they could not afford to wait. Recruiters contacted young bankers Friday night, instructing them to show up for interviews on Saturday and Sunday.

"That led to a weekend of sleepless nights and back-to-back interviews for the would-be hires. In a reflection of how early the cycle began, the Blackstone Group, which had started some interviews on Sunday, was in the middle of recruiting interns for this summer. Golden Gate, now feeling pressure from other firms, told at least one candidate to respond to a job offer by Sunday, shortening the deadline from this Wednesday.

"Many had expected this process to start in early March, or late February at the earliest. But by the beginning of this week, some of the biggest firms had already extended offers for the summer of 2016."

HT: Eric Budish