Incidentally, my strong suspicion is that the wiki much more accurately tracks whether places have interviewed than whether places have made offers. Also, I should say that I am generally enthusiastic about collapsing information asymmetries, and so I personally believe the wiki is a great thing and am all for people spilling what they know to make it as accurate as possible.

so, A) I hang my head in institutional cluelessness. and B) isn’t it possible that other people (candidates, friends) are posting this info on the wiki? I know for a fact none of my colleagues put this info out there.

BTW — in terms of rejection stories. I once removed my name from consideration after an interview, and then later received a rejection letter. No fair. I broke up with them first.

If you make offers that get turned down, it can be six months before the position is really filled and the search is really over.

Colorado College, by contrast, sent a letter to all applicants after the job was filled, thanking them for applying and telling them whom they had accepted.

Some departments are paranoid about doing what the chair at regional-state did for me. They worry that candidates will pack up their toys and go home if they find out that they’re the second-choice person. I think that’s silly, but what do I know.

To those of you on the market, know that your behavior influences this to some extent. We’ve had candidates ask for 2 or 3 weeks to “decide” on our offer… when in fact, they were using our offer to leverage a more lucrative offer elsewhere. While that may be “the way the game is played” it jams up other candidates on the shortlist that we could be interviewing or offering jobs. If you have little or no intention of actually going someplace, either don’t apply or decline the invitation to interview. (I’m not saying, don’t apply broadly… or don’t be smart in your negotiating strategy. I’m saying that what you do effects others on the market).

At one of the places i interviewed, the department head phoned to tell me that they were extending an offer to someone else. i appreciated the information, however, that offer clearly fell through because a couple of months later they contacted me again to ask if i was still interested in the position. i had already accepted elsewhere by that point, so it was moot. However, that email exchange was a really strange one to have. So in the area of offers, i don’t know what i think is the “best” approach.

On the other hand - there was another one that i interviewed for that i never heard back from at all. Even after they settled on someone else. To that, i definitely cry foul. I spend days with them on the interview, and i can’t even get an email or a phone call to let me know they are through with their search? In the case of a completed search, i don’t think contacting those interviewed is too much to ask. And to be honest, even in the places i didn’t get an interview, i appreciated even the form letters letting me know the search was completed. The sting of rejection was definitely outweighed by resolving some of the uncertainty in the process.

Finally, as for general updates on info - i agree with socfreak. It was nice to know where i stood in terms of “long-short lists”, etc. from the departments as their process progressed. The blogs/wiki started in part to alleviate some of these disparities in information between departments and candidates. While they can provide some sense on these things, candidates can only place so much stake in anonymized, potentially 4th hand information. Hearing straight from the horses mouth was much more anxiety alleviating (regardless of whether it was good or bad news). My $0.02.