The ideal job ad.

The APA is listening, folks! The APA feels our pain. The APA wants to help. It wants to serve us better.

Kevin Timpe just left a comment regarding Anon 8:19's contention that "[i]f the APA--an organization to which we pay a not insignificant amount of money in dues--had their act together, then all of the ads would be standardized, and all of the job dossiers, including confidential letters of recommendation, would be uploaded by candidates and letter writers to some secure server where search coms could access them."

Here's Timpe's response:

I'm on the APA Committee on Academic Career Opportunities and Placement. I strongly doubt Anon's request will happen anytime soon, for various reasons that you all can likely guess. But what I'd like to hear is exactly how the JFP (in roughly something like its current form--print and online copies) could be more user-friendly and helpful for folks on the market. This is something the committee was discussing earlier today. I've heard the desideratum of a standardized format, with fields for easy mail-merge. What else would PJMB readers like? Consider this the opportunity to design your ideal job ad, in terms of form/structure (rather than specific content).

Talk to the nice man, people. Enough of this wailing into the void. Give him some concrete suggestions about what the APA can do to make our lives easier. (Or, you know, at least slightly less riddled with despair.)

--PGOAT