American Finance Association guidelines to prevent unravelling of the job market

 Zoom is changing interview practices, and there's concern that academic markets for new Ph.D grads could unravel. The AFA is on the case for the finance market with these guidelines:

Guidelines for the AFA Rookie Recruiting Cycle

The AFA rookie job market cycle of 2021-2022 created uncertainty, confusion, and unneeded stress for job market candidates and for recruiters. In the interest of developing a more coordinated job market that benefits all involved, the AFA Board has the following suggested guidelines.

Timing of interviews:

Initial interviews can be virtual or in person, but the AFA recommends that the initial interviews should not begin before December 15, 2022, and that the timing of the “campus visit” should occur after the AFA meeting.

Timing of job offers:

In order to facilitate the best matching between candidates and positions, the AFA Board believes strongly that job offers should remain open until at least February 20. The AFA Board also encourages employers to abstain from giving exploding offers with too short of a time frame, since they are unfair to the candidates. Consequently, the AFA promotes the following professional norm: If a job candidate receives and accepts a coercive exploding offer (i.e., one that expires before February 20), the AFA does not consider such an acceptance to be binding.

These guidelines are designed for the AFA rookie recruiting cycle and do not pertain to recruiting cycles for other job markets such as the FMA or European job markets.

HT: Alex Chan