Candidate Pulse — October 2026
Download this edition (PDF)Live job-market dashboard
I’ve picked up 29 new PA / PP tenure-track postings since the previous snapshot (2026-09-02), including searches at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of North Florida, University of California-Berkeley and 26 other institutions. Of those, 19 are Assistant Professor searches and 10 are senior or open-rank. Across all ranks, the PA and PP panels added a net 49 canonical postings (de-duplicated — one row per real search after merging cross-postings) since 2026-09-02. We’re in the fall window. October volume sits below the July–August peak; most active searches now are carry-overs nearing decision.
What’s changed since 2026-09-02
| Metric | Previous | Current | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assistant Professor TT postings (PA + PP) | 95 | 114 | +19 |
| Senior or open-rank TT postings (PA + PP) | 49 | 59 | +10 |
| PA postings (all ranks, canonical) | 309 | 329 | +20 |
| Public policy postings (canonical) | 266 | 295 | +29 |
| Political science postings (canonical) | 481 | 537 | +56 |
| Canonical postings (all disciplines) | 17,393 | 20,909 | +3,516 |
| OpenAlex author profiles linked | 614 | 628 | +14 |
| Career observations | 22,472 | 96,441 | +73,969 |
New PA / PP tenure-track postings
Tenure-track searches I first observed since the previous snapshot (2026-09-02), split by rank. Assistant Professor is the slot most first-time TT candidates are targeting; senior or open-rank searches are useful context for where the field is moving. Click any title to open the listing.
Assistant Professor
Senior or open-rank
| Title | Institution | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Open-Rank,Tenured/TT Position in Cybersecurity and Privacy | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus | Atlanta, GA |
| Assistant / Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and… | Wayne State University | Detroit, MI |
| Eads Professor of the Practice in Energy | Duke University | Durham, NC |
| Democracy and Public Policy | Cornell University | Ithaca, NY |
| Hennebach Visiting Assistant or Associate Professor, Humaniti… | Colorado School of Mines | CO |
| Faculty Position in Data Science and Society | Georgetown University | Doha |
| Faculty Position in Health and Environment | Georgetown University | Doha |
| UCI - TT Assistant or Tenured Associate Professor Faculty Pos… | University of California-Irvine | Irvine, CA |
| Associate Professor of Political Science and Coordinator, Mas… | East Tennessee State University | TN, United States |
| Asst/Assoc/Full Prof - Addictions and Behavioral Health Focus | University of Connecticut | School of Social Work, CT |
How we’re doing relative to expectations
I don’t have a clean year-over-year comparison for September 2026 yet — the live scrapers came online in April 2026, so prior years are Wayback-sampled and thin. The seasonality shape in the figure below is still the right calibration tool; year-over-year context sharpens as more cycles accumulate. The chart below shows the underlying shape: PA and PP postings stacked by calendar month, pooled across the complete sampled years (2016–2025). I recommend candidates use it as a calibration tool. Volume arrives in two waves — the larger in July–August and a second in January (each about 13% of the year) — while May and December are the two dead months (roughly 1% each). Read the comparison above against this typical pattern to see where the current cycle sits.
Suggestions
This pulse is a work in progress, and I’d genuinely like to hear what’s not landing for you. If something’s missing, miscounted, mis-framed, or just unclear, let me know — the panel and the prose both get better when I know what readers actually want. A short feedback form is in the works; in the meantime, click here to open a reply with the right subject line pre-filled.
Privacy. Every figure, table, and number in this document is an aggregate across programs, institutions, or the market as a whole. No per-person identifier is published.
Candidate Edition (monthly). The annual Candidate Edition and the annual Institutional Edition are posted separately. This monthly pulse regenerates on the first of each month from the faculty_market_analysis panel. Build system: Claude Code (Anthropic).
This is the October 2026 edition. The current pulse is at /academic-job-market-report/monthly/.