Chances of getting a job?

So, how many realistic options do I really have? Who wants to live out their lives in such an environment of mediocrity and pettiness?

"Systematic Indoctrination"

Even the good interviews can be excruciating. Committee members are tired, bored, distracted, and wary. Each one has a preference, and rarely do they coincide. Candidates are desperate and inexperienced. A career is at stake, but you can’t let it show. He who relates best to the whole group, not to just one of them—an exciting 10-minute exchange with one prof excites the suspicion of the others—moves on to the campus visit. While on-site for two days, you become a friend for some, a threat for others. Identifying who has power is hard, so sounding genial to all is crucial. You must find topics for lively conversation, but steer clear of department sensitivities and expect anything.

All the decisions are collective, a result of majority voting. Which candidates triumph? Those who cause the least discomfort to the largest number of voters. Scholars who don’t fit smoothly into ready classifications and mutter the standard pieties are hard to figure, and the hiring of a colleague is so long-term a commitment that nobody on the faculty wants to take chances.

Professors don’t want to go to war over a hiring—you’re not
that important—and so the compromise candidate, the less adventuresome and strong-minded one, survives. It is okay to have strong opinions, as long as they’re shared by all and won’t disrupt the department. The ardent minds are passed over, the singular intellects weeded out.

This is conformity by passive selection. It explains why political correctness is so dominant in a world of academic freedom, and why a few bullies are able to intimidate the rest.