It feels surreal to offer advice from the hiring side of the table only a couple years after being on the job market myself. And I’m certainly no expert — just an American Ph.D. who landed a faculty job in England. But now that I’ve attended several candidates’ job talks and sat on a search committee, I’ve found myself thinking about tips I would like to offer other U.S. candidates searching for a teaching job in Britain.
First, there’s already good advice out there, so go read it. As you prepare to apply to British institutions, pay particular attention to the Research Excellence Framework, or REF, a system for assessing scholarship in Britain. For every REF cycle, each scholar submits four peer-reviewed publications that are assessed in a way that hypothetically determines how much funding a department receives. We’re now on the other side of the last REF and looking ahead to the next one — which is likely to occur in 2021 — so keep in mind that any advice you read about the REF may soon be outdated, if it isn’t already. At any rate, you need to understand its role and importance (more on this in a bit).
From what I have seen, American applicants misunderstand British expectations and traditions in two key areas: cover letters and interviews.
Many candidates make the mistake of not tailoring their cover letters to our teaching requirements. Online job ads often lead you to a British university website that provides an additional link — usually called something like “job particulars.” Read the job particulars before beginning your application, as you may find that there’s a specific course (not always listed in the ad!) that you’re expected to teach. If you want to be shortlisted, you need to mention how you would teach that course.
American applicants misunderstand British expectations and traditions in two key areas: cover letters and interviews.
You also need to have a sense of the types of readings you can assign. British students read more than their U.S. counterparts to prepare for lectures, seminars, and assignments, but expect most books to be on reserve at the library — which means you’ll probably be authorized to purchase one or two copies. Think seriously about journal articles, online primary sources, and databases you would use to make your class cheap (and thus appealing to students).
In their cover letters, candidates also seem to struggle with describing the relevance of their research to the department’s faculty. In general I would say that overlap between researchers’ interests is a bit more accepted here than it is at U.S. institutions because collaborative grant projects are more common. You do, however, need to avoid overlapping with a potential colleague’s teaching, unless that professor is team-teaching a course to which you can contribute. (Team-taught classes are more common in Britain than at American colleges.) Try to identify the department’s research strengths and explain in your letter how your research would improve them.
Some tips about vocabulary: Classes here are “modules.” A major or a degree is usually a “course.” Advising students is “pastoral care.” Assistant professors are “lecturers” and associate professors are “senior lecturers.” No one gets called “professor” until they are promoted to full professor. Seminar leaders are “tutors,” but at the lecturer level you’ll probably be responsible for lectures and seminars.
With luck you will write a cover letter effective enough to get you shortlisted. If you don’t hear anything after about six weeks following the deadline, you should assume you’re out of the running — but many searches make an effort to tell candidates as much by that point in time, anyway.
The second major problem that U.S. candidates face relates to what happens after short-listing: the interview day.
Temporary positions are better than visiting assistant professorships in the United States because they have more potential to become permanent positions.
We don’t do preliminary interviews here. If you’re shortlisted, you’ve obtained the equivalent of a campus visit. That visit, or interview day, is scheduled faster than in the United States, and usually involves all candidates coming to the campus on the same day — and meeting each other (sometimes U.S. candidates are skyped in). If you get an offer you’ll also find out quicker — sometimes on the same day of the interview. You’ll be expected to accept or decline within a shorter period of time, and there will be less room to negotiate contract terms and almost no chance of a spousal hire. Salary ranges are almost always listed in the job ad; don’t apply if you find the range unappealing.
During your campus visit you’ll interview with the search committee and give a presentation (probably on both your research and teaching). The whole department will probably be invited to the presentation, but given that our hiring cycle is year-round you shouldn’t take offense if, in addition to search-committee members, only a few faculty members turn up. That just means many of us are teaching during your presentation.
Given the public nature of the presentation, you need to grasp the essentials: length, tone, and research. Presentations are often about 20 minutes, and you really cannot go over the time limit. Remember that all candidates present on the same day. If you run overtime it is not only more apparent that you’re less organized; it also means that you will have less time to answer questions during the Q&A. Because of HR rules you will only be allowed to speak and answer questions for as long as the previous candidates. If you speak too long for your presentation, you will not get more time for the Q&A.
If you need help cutting your talk, I’d excise any description of your intellectual development. I have not seen British candidates talk about that. I’d also advise against giving people handouts because they draw audience attention away from your very short presentation. You have only limited time to discuss your teaching, so be sure to model good lecturing skills during the research portion of your talk.
Be energetic, perhaps even entertaining — not only because panel members will have sat through four to six job talks and interviews in a single day, but also because we understand students’ attention spans and want to see that you do, too.
During your presentation, you must talk about the Research Excellence Framework. Because I was hired at the end of the last REF cycle, I qualified as an early-career scholar and was allowed to submit only one publication. We’re more likely to see that option again as 2021 gets closer. At this point in the cycle, however, you should be prepared to have a full REF submission of four publications. Almost every British candidate I’ve seen has a slide in their presentation that lists their four potential contributions; I don’t ever remember seeing a U.S. candidate do that. The four submissions must be published by 2020, and must have been published after 2013 (earlier publications would qualify for the previous REF, and cannot count for this one).
All of this is not as bad as it sounds. History monographs are sometimes double-weighted to count as two submissions, so ideally you need to show that your book will be out by 2020 (a contract is excellent, but it’s not a deal-breaker if you don’t have one), and that you have two articles very recently published, accepted, or close to submission. Only after discussing these options should you consider mentioning book chapters, which (as in the United States) are less highly regarded. If you are editing a book, it can count as a submission, but you must be writing a chapter that draws on original research (you can’t just be writing the introduction).
The last, and I hope, most reassuring advice I would offer about the British job market from the perspective of an expat: There’s a difference between temporary positions here and in the United States. Both markets have an adjunct problem. While adjunctification is not as severe as it is at American institutions, the problem here is growing as a result of rising enrollment. And good British candidates have trouble getting jobs here, too.
In the main, however, temporary (one- or two-year) positions are better than visiting assistant professorships in the United States because the British version have more potential to become permanent positions. If, in the job ad or interview, the department says that there is the possibility that the role will become permanent, they are not trying to string you along. What that means is that if you are serious about obtaining a job here, you need to treat the application process as if you are applying for a permanent (our version of a tenure-track) position.
People who are trying to get temporary positions made permanent have a better chance of succeeding if they show publishing promise. Perversely, that means that publishing expectations can be higher for temporary positions than they are for permanent ones, because the department knows the line is more contingent on the candidate’s ability to recruit students and to publish.
No doubt I have made some slight generalizations here, but, as always with the job market, you won’t know unless you apply. There’s a lot to like about the job market in Britain: Applications can be less onerous because they rarely ask for writing samples, teaching portfolios, or recommendation letters off the bat. And the speed and transparency of the hiring process can be a welcome change from obsessively checking the Academic Jobs Wiki.