How to design / interpret a difference in differences regression
The point of control group matching is to ensure similarity between the groups, to isolate the effect of the treatment variable. If are assuming that the development paths of all academics is identical, and at some point, all academics have a chance to become editors, and some do, then you a reasonable to match at career start.
That's not a good assumption. Academics differ widely in quality/competency/publication/citation over the course of their careers. Much better to find matches by identifying academics that were similar those the became editors, who (for whatever reason) didn't, so that your control group is identical to your treatment group.