Jimmy Alfonso Licon delivers a blistering, insider indictment of the academic philosophy job market, stripping away the veneer of meritocracy to reveal a system driven by arbitrary gatekeeping rather than economic logic. What makes this piece essential reading is not just the raw data of rejection, but the author's willingness to expose how his own stellar credentials were rendered nearly irrelevant by a broken structure that punishes excellence and rewards conformity.
The Guild, Not the Market
Licon, a philosophy professor at Arizona State University, begins by dismantling the fundamental premise that the hiring process functions as a labor market. He argues that true markets rely on price signals and feedback loops to balance supply and demand, but the academic sector operates as a protected guild. "The philosophy job market isn't a market. It is instead a guild protected by the requirement for credentials, and is oversupplied and structurally insulated," Licon writes. This framing is potent because it shifts the blame from individual candidates to the institutional incentives that drive graduate programs to produce more PhDs than the system can possibly absorb. The author points out that departments have no financial penalty for creating this surplus; in fact, they benefit from the cheap labor these candidates provide.
This dynamic mirrors the broader historical trend of credentialism, where the value of a degree inflates not because of increased skill, but because the supply of holders has outpaced the number of available roles. Licon notes that "universities continue to mint PhDs far beyond what the market can absorb," creating a scenario where a generation of highly trained scholars competes for a handful of positions. The result is a system that hoards information rather than distributing it, leaving candidates in the dark about why they fail. Critics might argue that the shortage of tenure-track jobs is a symptom of broader budget cuts in higher education rather than a deliberate guild strategy, but Licon's evidence suggests the incentives within the academy actively perpetuate the imbalance regardless of external funding.
The difference between "employed" and "failed academic" was razor-thin. That should not be the case in a profession that calls itself meritocratic.
The Contingency of Success
To prove his point, Licon offers a personal case study that defies the narrative of the "unqualified" applicant. He spent three years on the market with an impressive record: 17 peer-reviewed articles, a book contract, teaching awards, and a robust public philosophy portfolio. Yet, he describes the process as "like looking for work at the height of unemployment during the Great Depression." His experience highlights the extreme fragility of academic hiring, where a single administrative freeze or a change in committee composition can erase years of preparation. "I still barely made it," Licon admits, emphasizing that his eventual success at ASU was a matter of luck and timing rather than a guaranteed reward for his output.
The author details how even faculty who publicly praised his work and cited his research failed to advocate for him during hiring cycles. This suggests a deep disconnect between intellectual reputation and hiring outcomes. "Academia claims to reward excellence but routinely punishes it when it threatens comfort or hierarchy," he observes. This is a damning assessment of a system that claims to value truth and rigor while operating on opaque, often contradictory criteria. The lack of feedback—reduced to boilerplate rejections—prevents any correction of these errors, cementing the inefficiency.
The Hidden Biases of Hiring
Perhaps the most uncomfortable section of Licon's analysis involves the non-academic factors that influence hiring decisions. He identifies three specific reasons why strong candidates fail: overqualification anxiety, demographic politics, and aesthetic bias. Regarding the first, he explains that smaller departments often fear hiring productive scholars who might leave for better opportunities, preferring instead a candidate whose ambition is "perfectly calibrated to their budgetary ceiling." This reveals a cynical pragmatism where institutions prioritize retention over intellectual vitality.
On the issue of demographics, Licon argues that the push for diversity has sometimes devolved into performative signaling. He notes that during the 2020–2022 cycle, being perceived as a straight white male was a liability, even if inaccurate, as departments faced pressure to diversify through "crude and often inaccurate or unjust demographic targeting." While the goal of inclusion is vital, Licon contends that "when identity replaces intellectual contribution as a hiring criterion, the result is neither justice nor excellence." A counterargument worth considering is that these measures are necessary corrective actions against centuries of exclusion, and that the friction Licon feels is a growing pain of a necessary transition. However, his point remains that the execution often lacks the nuance required for genuine equity.
Finally, Licon addresses the taboo subject of physical appearance and health bias. He reveals that he weighed over 500 pounds during his job search and suspects this played a role in his rejections. "Even though mostly unspoken and tacit, factors like charm and beauty shape outcomes," he writes. In a field dedicated to the life of the mind, the persistence of such visceral, unspoken prejudices is particularly jarring. He argues that if two scholars achieve comparable results, the one overcoming a visible social stigma has demonstrated more resilience, yet the system fails to recognize this.
The philosophy profession congratulates itself on its commitment to justice, fairness, and truth, but the hiring process contradicts these ideals. Economists would call this a coordination failure. Philosophers should call it hypocrisy.
Bottom Line
Licon's most powerful contribution is his refusal to accept the status quo as inevitable, exposing the philosophy job market as a "deceptive" system that wastes human capital while masquerading as a meritocracy. The argument's greatest vulnerability lies in its reliance on a single, albeit highly qualified, perspective, which may not fully capture the structural constraints facing all disciplines equally. Nevertheless, the piece serves as a crucial call to action: if the field wishes to teach epistemic humility and justice, it must first reform the very institutions that gatekeep its future.