You tell the chair that you will need to see the offer letter before 
you can decide; he tells you to call when you have questions. Then you 
go off, mildly depressed, to find your significant other, your advisor, 
and your office mate.

You and your significant other discuss the career implications for him 
or her, given that he or she is in the fourth year of a graduate computer 
science program. You both decide to go through with the negotiation, 
"even if it's only for practice." That makes you feel better, because it 
gives you hope that it is only for practice. The two of you then discuss 
your current situation: you sent out 99 letters of application (there was 
that "thing" about not going to three significant figures), of which 75 
have responded negatively, 19 said they would consider you, and the other 
five have not replied at all. There are also the two postdocs that your 
advisor said at one time were possibilities.  You then discuss whether 
two people from Carolina will ever find happiness in the frozen North.

When you catch up with him, your advisor has no information about SPOT, 
but reminds you that there are other offers still pending---small consolation!
He does say, however, that he will now call the two possible postdocs 
to "see where they are in the selection process."

Your office mate says she knows someone in linguistics who went to school 
in northern Minnesota, maybe even to SPOT. She will get that person in 
contact with you as soon as possible so that you can talk about the area 
and the school.

You decide to go to the library after your next class to research SPOT 
and the market in general: How large is the school? Who's in the department? 
How many students do they have? Are there any possibilities for your 
significant other? What should you expect for a salary?  You start to 
formulate a list of questions for the chair. You don't want to call more 
than once or twice, because any more would seem like badgering.

The next morning you find a faxed letter in your mailbox detailing the offer; 
it's about $4,000 less than what the Chronicle of Higher Education says is 
average for a beginning assistant professorship. Furthermore, the letter 
does indeed say that you are being offered a "terminal, two-year position."

Before you respond you want to call those schools among the remaining 
nineteen possibilities that are higher on your list than SPOT.  This 
consists of seventeen schools (two are lower than SPOT), of which nine 
tell you that they have either filled the position or stopped the search 
for "institutional reasons."  Three chairs or search committees are out 
of town for up to a week. Of the other five, three say that they haven't 
reached the point where they have a short list yet, but they can contact 
you "in two or three weeks."  When you mention that you have another offer, 
they say that, given their situation, you should "seriously consider it."

The other two schools say that they are "really interested"; one chair 
says that you are on her short list. When you press for details, however, 
she becomes more guarded: "Of course, the search committee is still at 
work, and they haven't decided who to bring to campus yet, and we won't 
really have an offer to make for some time...maybe a month."

The linguist calls; she liked northern Minnesota. "The people are nice, 
and there's a lot of outdoor stuff to do. Of course, you have to drive 
eighty miles to the nearest big town, and the winter is colder than you've 
ever experienced. I didn't go to St. Pat's, but it has a rather good 
regional reputation.  I'm pretty sure your significant other could get 
some kind of job at the school."

You start to put together a list of questions for the chair at St. Pat's. 
Is the salary firm? If so, are there any travel funds? At least if you 
can go to conferences, you can keep yourself current, show off your 
research, and network for another job. As to the teaching schedule, your 
advisor has suggested that, since you will have to leave in two years, 
it might be possible to get release time for research during one or 
two semesters. Summer research support is another factor you want to 
pursue. You will also be asking the chair about possible jobs for computer 
scientists.

You also want to know how firm the two-year commitment is.  If another 
position opens in the department during that time, will they consider 
you? And if they do consider you, will they count the two years toward tenure?

As you are considering these questions, you begin to realize that, in some 
ways, a two-year position is a blessing in disguise - if it is used properly. 
A contract for that amount of time allows you to see if you are interested in 
the school, while at the same time forcing you to continue your research 
and look for other positions.

When you call the chair the next day, he says that while the salary is firm, 
"you can get some travel funds, within reason, for up to two conferences 
a year and only if you give talks there."  He says he will consider you 
for any opening that comes up, but he will have to confer with the dean 
about the "two-years-toward-tenure" issue. He thinks he "would entertain 
a two-course reduction" during the first year, or maybe one course less 
each year. He says he doesn't know about the computer science possibilities, 
but he will check and get back to you.

On a whim you mention that you might fly up on Friday to see the place. 
You want to know about rentals and the like. The chair suggests that 
the department does not have much left in the budget, but they can 
"put you up" for a day or two.

Let's analyze the situation so far.

You have made lots of good decisions, you have not refused the job 
outright, and you have asked lots of people for advice. You have 
contacted the other schools you are considering and in the most 
positive light: "I am considering another offer and want to know the 
status of my application."

Keeping your significant other and your advisor in the loop is also 
important. After all, they are the people most concerned with this 
decision. You and your significant other have stopped calling the school 
"SPOT", which indicates that you are beginning to be serious about your 
choices. Meanwhile, the postdoc is still a possibility, and it is best 
dealt with by your advisor.

You have been meticulous in having gotten as much information as possible 
about St. Pat's. Further, the strategy of spending some money to visit 
a place at which you might have to spend two years is a good one. You will 
also want to talk to some younger faculty at the school to see how they 
feel about being there, and doing so face to face is the best possible way.

You need to have one more phone conversation with the chair to discuss his 
conference with the dean over the two-years-toward-tenure issue. At that 
time you can suggest that you need a little more time before coming to a 
decision, because you are seriously considering the offer but you need 
to look at one or two other possibilities.

It will be time to get a letter of understanding from the chair or send 
the same in a memo of your own. The most serious outstanding issue is the 
two-course reduction. If you don't get this spelled out in detail, you will 
end up next year having to renegotiate the entire deal. At that time you 
will have little or no recourse if the chair says, "Oh, yeah. I thought 
I might be able to help you, but I just can't do that." If you then get 
upset, you may be viewed as "not a team player", someone who should not 
receive any future consideration for jobs at St. Pat's.

At this point, since you have negotiated the deep waters of the job search 
so well - but watch out for that two-course reduction issue - we will 
leave you to your own devices as to how to continue.

Good luck. We hope to hear from you over lunch at the next national meeting 
as to how things went from here. Maybe you would be willing to be on a 
panel on the job market in academia?