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Responses come in two forms: bad news and good news. Let's look at the bad news first.
The careful reader will notice that most of my applications ended in failure (29 of 42 schools said, "Thanks, no.") Unfortunately, learning from these failures is not very easy. I was eager to get some feedback from these schools as to why they were not interested, but was wholly unsuccessful. As a general rule, you will probably not get any feedback as to why your application was rejected unless you have a close contact on the search committee. Their reasons are usually intangible, and even if they rejected you for specific reasons, very few search committees feel comfortable giving out this information. My advice would be not to pursue reasons for rejections but to concentrate on the schools that are interested in you.
This brings us to the good news. If you have made it through the interview process, congratulations! That was a big step. So what happens now? Usually within two weeks of your interview, the committee will contact you. They will tell you if you are their top choice (the good news), and they will usually tell you if they've made an offer to someone else and are waiting to hear from that person (more bad news, at least temporarily).
If they make you an offer, they will probably want an answer within two weeks. This answer to the department comes before the dean sends a formal offer. Make sure to call people back promptly and be honest. If you are waiting to hear from someone else before you can decide, tell them so. This can be a tricky landscape to navigate because, unfortunately, different schools do not have a standard decision date. Some schools will want an answer before you have even heard from other schools. Do your best to manage these problems honestly.
If you get the offer you want from the school you want, what should you do next? Well, the first thing you should do is negotiate the terms. Salaries are generally fixed by forces beyond the control of department chairs or deans. You should realize that there is little or no room for negotiating a higher salary unless you are coming in at a senior level.
What is negotiable, however, is everything else. Do you need more funds for startup or moving expenses? More lab space? Think long and hard about what will ease your transition from dependent to independent scientist. If you are building a lab from scratch, try to get enough startup funds to buy equipment, pay for a graduate student or postdoc, and pay your summer salary. (Remember the salary they offered is a nine-month salary; you can pay yourself during the summer on top of that.)
If they have a room for your lab already, does it have proper water and electrical supplies to power your equipment? If not, will you have to pay for this from your startup funds? If your work requires machining special parts, do they have a full-time machinist? If so, do you need to pay for special parts or is this covered by the college? What about page charges for publications, or travel expenses to conferences? If your work requires computational facilities, is there network support through the college?
There are, obviously, many questions that need to be addressed when starting from scratch. Think about these issues carefully and put dollar figures next to each item. When the dean or chair negotiates the startup package, he or she wants you to answer in succinct terms. "What do you need, and how much will it cost us?" Remember this is business, not personal. Treat it that way. If the terms are acceptable, then accept.
As soon as you are comfortable, tell other schools you have accepted an offer. Be reasonably prompt, as they need to resume their search and offer the job to the next person on their list. A couple weeks later you will receive the official offer letter from the dean. Make sure it agrees with what was discussed. Sign it and return it by overnight delivery.
Congratulations! You have joined the ranks of academia. There are, of course, a lot of demands placed on young professors, and I would encourage you to investigate books aimed at helping new faculty. You should realize that the hard part (teaching, doing research, writing grant proposals, serving on committees, surviving tenure review, and so on) is just beginning, but don't worry about that just yet. Take a moment to realize your accomplishment: People will now call you "professor." It's time to celebrate!
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