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human
Academic job hunt failure: am I road kill or is there a way to continue?

I just finished the process of my academic job hunt and no dice.  My postdoc is up in two months and I don't have another job to go to, and the chances of me getting something else before then seems slim.  My supervisor already extended my postdoc when the job search looked like it was going to take longer before, and that option is out.  Any ideas on where to go from here?  Is my career in science, or at least a creative researcher over? 

Here is some background/details that might be relevant. I work in genomics and this is my second postdoc right now. Soup to nuts the process has taken most of the last year -- starting with networking, giving seminars, writing applications, going for on-campus interviews, and finally getting responses.  I applied for several research positions and about 35 faculty jobs.  I got 6 on-campus interviews all of which went well, some of which I would say amazingly well.  Yet, nothing turned into a job.   I was very close for two research positions, in fact both made offers, but later neither one panned out.  (For the first, they decided to change to position to something lower-level.  For the second, after offering it to me verbally (with salary, benefits, start date, etc.) they dragged out the process for 5 months as they had to openly advertise and other things have just come up and they have been giving me the kind of run-around that I know means "this is never going to happen.") 

The funny thing is, almost all of these seemed like pretty terrible jobs. Ones where there were all sorts of teaching requirements, but where teaching doesn't really go towards your tenure decision.  Most of the faculty members I spoke with both acknowledged how bad the funding climate is, yet also emphasized how the schools had less money so it was even more important to secure outside funding.  Almost all of the young faculty members I spoke to seemed overwhelmed by some aspect of either the position per se or being a scientist at this point it time.  It's just so awkward to feel like you are begging for a position that sounds actually pretty rough and then get rejected on top of it.  But I do understand that this is the game.  I have already been playing it for many years.
gpt
Hey, 6 on-campus interviews is a lot! It means that you are highly marketable, and all that was missing was a "fit", which is 90% luck. You can try to improve your chances even further by diversifying a bit, but still luck is incredibly important, and the only way to "game" it is to give it a shot several times.

Think of a 1-2 years gig that would not _harm_ your chances in those types of places that you like. Depending on the type of places that you apply to, and that actually seem to like you enough to invite you for interviews, it may be another postdoc, some kind of weird non-traditional postdoc, a teaching position, even an industry position... You know it better than we would, as it really depends on your skills, ambitions, and CV.

But unless you are really unhappy about academia, I'd say 6 on-site interviews is a solid indication that you have a good chance.