A young philosopher on the job market writes, regarding the recently announced merger:
I worry that, since PhilJobs is already pretty much perfect, the joint venture can only make it worse. First, since they're going to charge for ads, some jobs that would otherwise be posted to PhilJobs will probably not be. Second, one of the worst things about JFP is that job ads vanish after 30 days if departments don't shell out extra. Sometimes they vanish even before the deadline, which creates obvious problems. But sometimes it's helpful to be able to look up job ads months after the application if, say, one unexpectedly gets an interview.
I suspect a number of your readers (anyone on the job market) might have similar worries.
I have no information, but hopefully knowledgeable individuals will respond!
UPDATE: David Chalmers, who is co-director of the PhilPapers Foundation (which hosts PhilJobs) writes:
I'm glad your correspondent thinks so well of PhilJobs! The new service will use the PhilJobs software and so will keep most of the old service's virtues. We certainly expect to keep ads available until deadline and at least for a while after deadline. It's true that because we'll be charging advertisers where the old PhilJobs was free, we may lose some ads. But we'll make a proactive effort to reach out to such advertisers in these cases to ensure that the service is as comprehensive as possible. In any case, it was inevitable that PhilJobs would have charged advertisers eventually in order to survive, so the merger shouldn't be blamed for this development. The new service will be more comprehensive than either JFP or PhilJobs on their own would have been.
If one compares the new service to the situation just a couple of years ago, we think the new arrangement is great for all parties. For the APA, it provides a much better job service with which to serve the profession. For the PhilPapers Foundation, it provides desperately needed income that will support many new services to the profession.
For job seekers, it provides a definitive high-tech job service that is now free to job seekers around the world, with features that are far beyond the old JFP already, and with many new features to come in future years. We're grateful to the APA for being forward-looking enough to help make all this possible.
