ABSTRACT
In order to advertise or otherwise announce an academic job opening and hire someone to fi ll it, the decision has to have been made to create or fi ll such a position, and a job description or candidate profi le has to have been written up, which means that matters of academic discipline, fi eld, and perhaps subfi eld have to be determined, as well as what activities and duties will be required of the new hire. In sum, before an opening can be announced, a particular unit of labor supply has to be “constructed.” Job profi les obviously affect the hiring process in that they enable potential candidates to identify jobs that are relevant for them while helping hirers identify interesting candidates. But what I am calling supply construction also affects overall number of academic positions and how they are distributed across disciplines, fi elds and subfi elds, and therefore the relative weight of all these entities. When American East Coast history departments deem they have too many specialists of Europe and that their job openings should now be used to bring in colleagues working in fi elds or periods that are not as well represented, this should ultimately result not only in changed job descriptions but a reorientation of the academic discipline of history and thus a change in the labor market for historians.
