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This question is about faculty.
How hard is it to get a faculty position?
It is extremely hard to get a faculty position. Nowadays, many more qualified applicants are available than full-time, college-level teaching positions. In this highly competitive job market, the white whale of all faculty positions is one that is tenure-tracked.
Landing a tenure track faculty position can be very difficult. Being competitive in this market starts with completing a graduate program from a well-known university or under the mentorship of a well-established researcher in the field.
In fact, just a quarter of all universities account for over 80% of all tenure-track faculty in the U.S. and Canada in the fields of computer science, business, and history.
A major reason for this is that a tenure track position is an investment for the school. Therefore, when hiring for tenure-track positions, schools often have to guess lifelong productivity based on just a few years of experience.
This makes hiring faculty a high-stakes decision. While you can always deny someone tenure, doing so means you've wasted years nurturing talent.
A much less difficult path is becoming an adjunct faculty, a contract faculty position that typically pays little and does not come with benefits. There is still much competition for these positions, depending on the field.
If you're in a field where demand is high, for example, it's not hard to be hired as an adjunct. Since adjuncts are temporary positions, schools tend to have more available positions than tenure-track positions.
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