Assprof, Part II: Waiting, worrying, wondering, or don't you want people hired already?
I managed to send the remaining parts of my application pack from holiday in Norway. About a month after the deadline I got a letter from the university confirming that the university had received the application. Well, I actually got two letters since I had applied for two of the advertised positions. No information about how the selection process would be and how long it would take.
I called a couple of weeks later and then I was told that the central university administration had just sent the list off applications to the respective departments who were to appoint external reviewers for the candidates. Apparently not an easy task to find two reviewers that can impartially evaluate 25 candidates. I was flabbergasted that there was only 25 applicants per position but the administrator was flabbergasted there were that many. Different perspective I guess. I called again towards the end of June and was told that the reviewers were appointed. I called again in September and was told the reviewers had a deadline in Mid-October to finish their ranking and statements about the candidates.
Mid-October comes and goes and as we approach December I have given up hope. The University must be eager to hire candidates and would surely short-list, interview and hire people as early as possible after the evaluations are done? I guess I didn't make it this time around either. :-(. A lot of competition and a lot of good people who are desperate to stay in sweden because of family obligations. Yeah, well, at least I could finish my postdoc which still had funding for another 15 months.
Different perspective indeed. I though that things in northern Europe worked more efficiently, but from your description, we're not so bad down here after all. Looking forward to the rest of your report.
ReplyDeleteI recognize it from the time I was on the committee hiring people for teaching/research.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to find "impartial people" to evaluate the candidates since you can't have published with any of them.... for at least 5 years. And then the time... think peer review waiting time but of course, these reviewers (for the job) get paid.
It is interesting though to see spring 2007 application turn into starting in october 2008. Maybe there is hope for me too??
I talked to a Norwegian professor this summer about this stretched out process and he said it's the same there. Very democratic - everyone has to say their thing before someone is hired. Takes ages.
ReplyDeleteTo be continued...