At academic conferences, we always organize an activity called a CV clinic. Professors help graduate students who are going on the job market to revise their CVs to make them more employable. These events used to be very popular. We would have students line up to get help with their job application portfolios. At one of the conferences, we had to introduce an appointment system so that the graduate students who wanted help wouldn’t have to wait in line for an hour.
After COVID, this all dried up completely. We still organize CV clinics and sit there for hours alone, reading or working on our research, because nobody comes. The job market did not improve. If anything, it has gotten worse. But the prospective applicants stopped seeking help. When I volunteer for these CV clinics, I mark them in my calendar as writing time because I know that nobody will come.
This observation bears out in other aspects of academic life as well. I have offered help to get published in a journal or an edited volume. I have offered to help job seekers revise their articles for publication, but nobody ever takes me up on these offers anymore. The last time somebody did was in 2019, right before COVID hit.
My own academic career was literally saved by a senior colleague who mentored me and explained what I was doing wrong and why I couldn’t get published. I wanted to pay it forward and transmit this knowledge now that I am a senior academic. My university instituted a program where it would actually pay extra to senior academics to mentor tenure-track colleagues so that they would be able to present a successful tenure case. I didn’t manage even to get as far as convincing the two people I was mentoring to send me their CVs because they couldn’t find the time to do that. The university still paid me, but I stepped down from the program after one year because I feel uncomfortable getting paid for the work I don’t do.
I’m old enough to know that this wasn’t always like this. And it’s not simply my own experience. Last year, there were six of us manning the CV clinic. I asked the other five people how many students showed up to seek help with their CVs. The answer was one. In the three days of the conference, one person actually came by to seek help. Every professor at the CV clinic stated that this was a dramatic change from only a few years ago.
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