Since the academic job market collapsed in the early 1990s, however, the ratio has crept back up to early 80s levels of more than 2 candidates per advertised job in philosophy. But even these figures paint too rosy a picture. To make matters worse, many of those tenure-track jobs are hardly plums, since some involve heavy teaching loads at academically weak institutions, perhaps in unattractive locations to boot. For 1995-96, there were 341 philosophy Ph.D.'s awarded in the United States and Canada, according to data printed in the September 1996 Review of Metaphysics.
Anecdotal evidence confirms the grim picture painted by the numbers.
At the annual convention of the A.P.A., we ended up interviewing fewer than 20 candidates, only half of whom were rookie candidates. We invited only three candidates to the campus, only one a rookie job seeker, and he already had a book contract with Cambridge University Press. Competition for jobs may be fierce, but it is not hopeless. But whatever the status of your graduate program in the profession, there are several things to keep in mind in seeking a job in philosophy. The A.O.C. includes those fields where you could teach upper-level undergraduate courses.