My dept (social sciences) recently advertised for a lectureship, and got 78 applicants! Its not a particularly prestigious university or a 'nice' place, and I'm both gobsmacked and a little scared - I'm planning on applying for similar jobs when i finish my PhD, and had no idea how much competition there would be.
What do others think? Does anyone else know of similar ridiculous numbers of applicants, or could this be a bizarre one-off?

at my place, there was a open post for a temporary lecturer (2 years). it is a quite prestigious university, and also social sciences. apparently there were 20 applications. apparently this is a high turnout for a temporary position.

i learned at a career workshop at my uni this week that in the hierarchy of post-PhD jobs the lecturer is the highest. the higher up in the hierarchy you go, the more people will be applying for fewer jobs. i suppose several of those applicants for 'your' lecturer post have several years of post-doc experience and loads of publications and teaching experience. i guess you have to be very lucky to land a lectureship right after your PhD. normally you'd first try for (teaching officer), research officer, research fellow/post doc on existing project, or, best of all, on your own project.

I am aware of a lecturing job going at UClan [Computing Dept.] that only attracted 12 applicants.

that definitely sounds unusually high, i've worked in admin at a top uni and social science lectureships there tended to get 20-30 applications on average with maybe 5 being asked to present and conduct interviews.

surely there must have been something special about this particular job?

it does not surprise me, especially if the position advertised was a permanent one. In social sciences there is an overproduction of social scientists, I read in Times Higher Educations supplement and competition is hard. And probably in non-top universities competition is harder than at the top universities, because the latter have much higher recquirements that less people can meet.

I work in the library of a large university - for my job there were over 200 appplicants. My boss and her colleagues had to go through the applications for several days. My position is not prestigious at all. I guess people love the idea of working in a library.

What made you stand out from the other 199 applicants, chris?

I would say nothing special. They interviewed about ten people and kept the rest for future contact. I think they just had to pick someone. It really must be a nightmare. I wonder what goes through selectors minds. I did spend like a week on the application form though!

Research assistant post for a 1 year contract attracted 50 applicants!