Throwing in the towel (not me...someone else)

It's funny.  We're peaking in terms of hiring activity for TT jobs, and so my conversations with friends in-the-hunt have been slowly turning away from the usual immature conversations to talking about the successes, failures, and frustrations of the faculty search cycle.  Because of this, I'm intending on throwing in a couple posts of my friends' experiences since I think their stories are interesting.  This post covers a friend at a VERY elite school who has been academic-focused since she was a kid:

A good friend is finishing her third year in her second post-doc.  She's been applying to many many universities with no hits whatsoever except one phone interview.  Her BS/PhD pedigree is similar to mine, just I went to industry and she stayed in academia (plus, most people really really REALLY hate her PhD advisor).  She got a pretty cold reception in her phone interview and they haven't gotten back to her for 4 weeks.  We Skyped earlier today and she has told me that she's officially throwing in the towel: she wants me to give her a referral for a job at my company.  I'm going to oblige because I know we will take care of her, and the things I don't like about industry and my reasons for going to academia don't necessarily apply as strongly to her.

This is really unfortunate because she's a very talented researcher (double digit pubs, good presentation record, solid ideas), and if I can bring her into my company, she's going to be a quickly rising star.  I read her research statement and CV, and if I had the budget, I would bring her in my group at a senior-level in a heartbeat.  She's also a great teacher, winning multiple TA awards during her time in grad school.  I think she'd make an unbelievable faculty member, but it's not going to happen.  I told her it was way too early to be giving up, but after years of rejection she's done waiting.

I guarantee that the people in charge in my company will recognize the talent she has and scoop her up very quickly.  I have 11 patents (submitted+awarded) from the past few years, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her pass me in a couple years.  Why can't academics see her talent?  I've read stories of people giving up, but I've never seen it.  It was heartbreaking, and it actually pissed me off.  I've came across many professors that are bad teachers, don't bring in too much grant money, and are total assholes.  My friend would be far better than half of the professors out there, I'm sure of it.

It was heartbreaking, and I'm pretty upset that she won't be able to train the next generation of scientists and engineers.  But, on the bright side, she's going to change the medical field (plus, we'll be able to hang out more. YAY!).  And if I end up giving up (though I'm not giving up hope, yet), she and I will be changing it together. :)