Let’s take a look at the numbers around the 2011 Job Center. Activity at the Job Center rebounded a bit after a down year at San Diego, as staff tracked 168 total searches at the 2011 meeting, compared to 115 for 2010. Sixty-five of those searches used the free tables in the ballroom (the rest of the searches used suites spread throughout the convention hotels), and at those tables they conducted 716 interviews, or an average of 11 interviews per search. The number of interviews per search has remained remarkably constant in recent years. As usual, the highest traffic day at the Job Center was the first full day of the annual meeting, Friday, January 7th.

Thirty-five of the 168 searches were open and collecting c.v.’s at the annual meeting (21%). This is the lowest percentage of open searches in at least five years, though not by much. Usually about a quarter of searches are open.

United States history was the most popular field looking for candidates—43 of the 168 searches were in U.S. history, broadly defined. European history was second with 29 searches, while Asia had 23, thematic history had 16, world history had 15, Africa 12, Latin American 11, and Middle Eastern history had 8 searches. Each field other than thematic history (which remained the same) had more searches conducting interviews at the 2011 annual meeting than at the 2010 San Diego meeting.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.