recruitment
aardvarchaeology | June 27, 2017Academic recruitment procedures in Sweden are a mess. There are at least four strong contradictory forces that impact them.
Meritocracy. As Head of Department you are legally obliged to find and employ the most qualified person on the job market, even if it's just for six months. This is after all the public sector.
Labour laws. As Head of Department you are legally obliged to give a steady job to anyone who has worked at your uni for a total of four semesters in the past five years, regardless of their qualifications.
Funding. As Head of Department you cannot give anyone a steady job unless…
aardvarchaeology | April 17, 20132009. University of Lund publishes the PhD thesis Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning in Created Agricultural Wetlands, dealing with biological diversity and ecosystem services in ponds in the agricultural landscape (and commented on here).
2013: Same department advertises a post-doc in the field "Biological Diversity and Ecosystem Services in Ponds in the Agricultural Landscape".
Because in the Scandinavian countries' public sectors, you always have to go through these elaborate charades to suggest that you're really looking open-mindedly for the best candidate for a job, not simply for…
jdupuis | July 15, 2010When we think of outreach and recruitment, we don't usually think of using the library as a tool to attract students to our institutions. Here at York I do occasionally take part in Faculty of Science & Engineering outreach activities -- mostly when the library is included in high school science class tours of the institution.
Rather than do something really boring like a "here's the reference desk" tour, I like to take smaller groups down into our teaching lab and do (hopefully) fun and amusing interactive sessions on the current state of the information universe. You can get an idea…
sciencewoman | July 22, 2009Another letter from my inbox:
Dear Sciencewoman,
I am a mom of 3 just starting my own lab. I have been thinking hard about how to recruit good postdoc talent despite the fact that I have no track record as an independent investigator. And then I remembered an article about an organization to help mentors and mentees who would like to return to science after a break (for taking care of children, family, whatever) to find each other. I was psyched about using such an organization because juggling three kids during my training taught me pretty quickly that productivity is often more about…