Especially interested to hear from anyone who's been part of a search committee. Is my app just going to get tossed to the bottom of the stack, behind all those with postdoc experience? - Chris Miller

Apparently, if you in fields like CS or Statistics you don't need a post doc to get a TT position. I've always wondered why life sciences insist on post-doc'ing. Is it simply due to a crowded market? - Rajarshi Guha

That's the feeling I get, Rajarshi. The NIH boom created way more applicants than positions. They've gotta go somewhere, so we end up with a glut of postdocs (it doesn't hurt that they're cheap). - Chris Miller

The odds are against you, as you clearly know, but I don't see that it would be a waste of time. What's the worst that can happen: you never hear back, but in the meantime you've practiced your application skills (there's no such thing as too much practice for this), spruced up your CV and thought hard about what you want from a TT position and what you want to do once you get there. I say go for it. - Bill Hooker

Be advised, though, that if you do go straight from grad school to a TT slot, there will be a lot of postdocs who want to punch you in the junk. I mean, a LOT. :-) - Bill Hooker

A different thing to consider is that if you get a TT position, the clock starts ticking. You need to get funding and start publishing pretty quickly and you get a lot more (time-guzzling) responsibilities than a postdoc or graduate student. A postdoc has a lot of negatives, no argument there. But there are positives for the future of an academic career - if you do a (hopefully) short postdoc, publish quickly/well and have another (well-known?) PI to support you in getting a position AND later. Those rec. letters do count... - Mickey Kosloff

You make some good points, Mickey. I'm really just discouraged by the state of affairs and think postdocs are a bum gig for anyone. We somehow think it's okay to pay highly trained experts considerably less than the research techs working under them. The insanity of it all is one of the reasons I'm looking around in industry as well. That all said, if you can't beat 'em... - Chris Miller

You can do industry postdocs -- e.g. I know Genentech offers 'em, and they pay OK. - Bill Hooker

Genentech postdoc positions are highly regarded and I hear it's a great place to do science. However, I think it's still too early to tell if the Roche take-over will eventually change the culture there for the worse. - Mickey Kosloff

Or you can just work in industry ... Which is what I did with zero regrets. - Deepak Singh from iPhone

If you can't beat 'em... forget 'em! ..... :) - Shirley Wu

As someone who had an extremely short postdoc before getting a TT (equivalent) postition, I would strongly recommend postdocing before getting an academic job. The experience is invaluable, the pay is (at least in the UK/AU) not much different, and it is one last chance to devote time to research and not all the administrative crap that surrounds it. If it weren't such a short-term affair, it would be the ideal job, something I've heard reiterated by many others (both postdocs and faculty). Nevertheless, still useful to put your CV in the hat if only for practice, but think very carefully before accepting if they offer it to you. - Anna Croft

Decided difference there between US and Aus/UK -- in the US, as best I can tell, typical postdoc salaries are roughly 50-60% of the starting salary for a TT position. - Bill Hooker