Despite the shriveled academic job market, some colleges and universities in New England are stepping up hiring to make the most of this year’s skewed ratio of candidates to jobs, The Boston Globe reports.
Among those aggressively recruiting tenure-track faculty members, while many of their peer institutions sit on the sidelines, are Northeastern (46 positions) and Tufts (52 positions) Universities, though Amherst, Emerson, and Wellesley Colleges, as well as College of the Holy Cross, are also still on the prowl for new professors, the newspaper reports.
According to the Globe …
They’re able to do so amid the economic downtown by cutting back in other areas: delaying construction, limiting travel, even whittling the number of applicants flown in for campus interviews.
“We look at it from a strategic perspective,” said Joseph Aoun, president of Northeastern. “Does it give us an advantage to hire when others may not be hiring? Yes. Financial challenge always provides you with opportunity, and this is one of them.”
Of course, that opportunity presents a challenge for many job seekers, the newspaper notes:
Keyu Jin, who is finishing a doctorate in economics at Harvard this year, is interviewing this week for teaching positions at European business schools – including the London School of Economics and Insead, just outside Paris – because she did not find opportunities at elite business schools in the United States.
“It was nerve-racking in the beginning and people are disappointed, but everybody’s expectations adjust given your choice set and they become content with what they have,” said Jin, who said she was also recruited by Tufts and Boston University. “You can see this kind of behavior among second-tier schools aggressively hiring the best they can, so that squeezes out the people who normally would have gotten those jobs.”
Is your institution taking advantage of a market flooded with applicants to do some extra hiring?
