There’s an interesting thread at the Greedy Clerk’s board about the AALS “meat market,” the annual conference where law schools host first-round interviews for entry-level professorships. A bunch of the questions concerned how many interviews schools schedule, and when, how many 1st-round interviews lead to second-round, second-round to offers, etc.
I thought I would add in my two cents on this. Practices vary, of course, but in my experience, most schools interview anywhere from 15 to 50 candidates, and invite around 20% of the AALS interviewees for a second-round full day interview (for a total of anywhere from 3 to 10 full-day interview for each school). At most schools, the chances of getting an offer once you have a full-day interview (aka the jobtalk) is probably around 1 in 3. These odds vary tremendously, obviously, based both on different candidates and different schools. For example, I know someone who had something like 11 AALS interviews, and ended up with an offer from every school but one. But on the whole, a rule of thumb might be that if you have an AALS interview with school X, your chances of getting a permanent offer from school X are probably in the neighborhood of 10%.