The bit about the competitions specifically doesn’t ring true for me. Many friends from grad school have tenure-track jobs. None of them, as far as I know, par

The bit about the competitions specifically doesn’t ring true for me. Many friends from grad school have tenure-track jobs. None of them, as far as I know, participated in these contests. I would bet that things effectively reset once you start grad school and again once you’re in a faculty job. It is true that academic recognition tends to snowball. Winning your nth grant or fellowship is exponentially easier than the first one “because you have a track record.”