Dealing with the psychological stress of faculty applications
I'm in a field where some positions get close to 1000 applications.  Here are the two pieces of advice I have for everyone on the job market.

Probability does work.  If you're a slightly above average applicant, the odds of getting any job from your point of view (in other words, not having any insider information) are at most 5%.  For most jobs, it's considerably lower.  However, if you send out 100 applications, all those 2-3% chances, plus all those 0.5% chances, actually do add up to something approximating a pretty good chance for a job.  (In particular, they are actually pretty close to probabilistically independent.)  This means you really should not think about any particular job; your chances of that job are tiny.  It's the mass of applications that gives you a chance.

Before the whole process even starts, you should have some idea what you will do if you don't get an academic job.  Having a plan is more reassuring than having no plan.  Also, having a plan gives you some baseline to compare any prospective job against, so that you don't end up in an unsuitable job.


As a professor at a university with a low-ranked PhD program, I make sure students understand how bad the job market is before agreeing to advise them.  I will only agree to advise a student after I've made sure they understand they most likely will not find an academic job after their PhD.