The Academic Job Market

The Chronicle of Higher Education was at APSA and apparently was following the Poli Sci job market.

while there is much debate within the profession about whether graduate students should be encouraged to publish articles prior to their dissertations, those doing hiring answer the question with a decided Yes.

Um. Huh?!! Who is debating this? The job market changed about 16 years ago--when finishing quickly was replaced by pubs. This is not news.

Likewise, raising questions about how many students go into the pipeline and when to tell them to find another path is an old question as well:

Several chimed in to say that they agreed that it would be far more humane to such individuals to be honest after two years, rather than letting them face a long time in graduate school to be followed by potentially fruitless job searches.

We are a bad guild, and I often felt like there were two big ethical problems at my previous job:
Can we place our graduate students? Do I feel right if we are successful in placing them.

Otherwise, the article, especially its suggestions of what folks should do, is pretty good.