Academic Hiring Research Articles

Interviewing and Hiring Practices in Brazilian Academia: Proposals Towards Improvement

Though Brazilian academia claims equality, the sector has largely been referred to as non-meritocratic, and academic hiring is still inward-oriented. The Lattes platform, a public curricular information system, reflects elements of this protectionism. This article assesses two ‘obsessions’ in Brazilian academia: the ‘mandatory’ Lattes CV, and the assessment criteria and procedures in public tenders for faculty positions. The current situation is introduced to the reader, and the shortcomings of these methods and their effect on academia in Brazil are analyzed. The following improvements are proposed: (1) evaluations in public tenders based on a candidate’s CV, interview, and a sample lecture, (2) removing the Lattes CV as a mandatory format, and (3) using platforms such as Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, ORCID or ResearcherID for curricular information. With these recommendations, Brazil can move towards a more open and international-oriented academic hiring system.

Academic Hiring Networks and Institutional Prestige: A Case Study of Canadian Sociology.

This article examines the academic job market for Canadian sociology through its PhD exchange network. Using an original data set of employed faculty members in 2015 (N = 1,157), I map the hiring relationships between institutions and analyze the observed network structure. My findings show that institutional prestige is a likely organizing force within this network, reflective of a disproportionate number of faculty coming from a few centralized high-status institutions, as well as predominantly downward flows in hiring patterns. However, further investigation is needed to understand the role of prestige in Canadian higher education, which has been previously characterized as having a flat social structure. This requires attention toward the interrelationships between institutional prestige, scholarly competence, and department size situated within a segmented academic field in Canada. Overall, this study aims to encourage collective self-reflection and motivate discourse about status-based inequalities in our own discipline.

The Imbalance between Female Scholars’ Abilities and Chances: Evidence from Sociologists in China

Abstract Gender-based prejudice and discrimination are phenomena embedded in cultural stereotypes and organizational practices that can disadvantage women in academic hiring. This article analyzes the biographies of female scholars in sociology from 18 top universities in China, finding that although the number of female scholars is increasing, it is still substantially less than that of male scholars. Relative to the increasing enrollment rate of female college students, the ratio of female scholars has dropped. Female scholars show their strong performance in research, not only doing well in work evaluation but also further developing their specific fields of research. Female scholars’ research interests are not limited to “Marriage and Family” or “gender studies”, but extend into a wider field of vision area of research. Although this article has not found the reason why female scholars are underrepresented in universities’ hiring, it proves that the limitation of research interests and abilities of female scholars are not the explanation.

A Theoretical Discussion on the State of Scientific Research and Publishing: Critical Reflections and New Directions

The present article raises a counterpoint to rethink about the state of scientific research amidst increasing pressure of academic publishing, growing disenchantment with scientific methods, and the issue of replicability of research findings around the world. The article discusses the major issues that upset the present-day academic publishing, along with highlighting the ingredients of scientific research. With increasing commercialization of education and human capital issues in science, linking of research output with academic hiring, institutional ranking, and funding has been discussed with potential implications. Based on previous researches, the current paper offers a matrix of researcher’s dilemma to understand the issue of career vs. knowledge orientation among researchers within the temporal choice of the dissemination of scientific ideas. The article also presents a roadmap for developing research orientation among kids with a vision of developing a culture of research since an early age and questions if the research has the potential to emerge as “the fifth R” after reading, writing, arithmetic, and programming.

The meaning-making of educational proficiency in academic hiring: a blind spot in the black box

ABSTRACT This article develops knowledge about the meaning and value ascribed to educational proficiency in the recruitment of full professors. Hiring processes reflect standards that organize academia and notions of academic scholarship, its value and quality, and agents involved have an institutional gate-keeping function. The empirical data, external peer review letters, is drawn from an old comprehensive research-intensive university, offering educational programmes within a broad range of scientific domains. Although a large variety of aspects are ascribed to educational proficiency, and variations do occur across scientific domains and reviewers, the main finding is a restricted notion. A special value is assigned to the scope of doctoral supervision and teacher training. Internal individual classroom performance is focused, while scholarly interaction is less emphasized. Reviewers primarily serve as gatekeepers of disciplinary research, not the education thereof, thus educational proficiency is no game changer in the context of academic scholarship.

The Social Network of US Academic Anthropology and Its Inequalities

ABSTRACTAnthropologists often call attention to the problems posed by social inequality, but academic anthropology also reproduces many of the very inequalities that its practitioners work to critique. Past research on US academic hiring networks has shown evidence of systematic inequality and hierarchy, attributed in significant part to the influence of academic prestige, which is not necessarily a reflection of merit or academic productivity. Using anthropology departments’ websites, we gathered information on all tenured and tenure‐track faculty in PhD‐granting anthropology programs in the United States, totaling 1,918 individuals in all. For each faculty member, we noted their current institution and PhD‐granting institution, which we treated as a “tie” between those academic programs. With those data, we applied both statistical and social network analysis (SNA) methods to explain variation in faculty placement as well as the network's overall structure. In this article, we report on our findings and discuss how they can be used to help rethink academic reproduction in American anthropology. [academia, anthropology, social inequality, hiring networks, social network analysis]

How complex domination enables selection: Academic hiring conventions in a Pakistani university

ABSTRACTThe heterogeneity of criteria and of the faculty members involved in assessing candidates for academic positions raises the question how colleagues can find a common operational mode that enables them to select candidates. In this paper, we draw on convention theory (CT) to examine how powerful actors foster quietude and confidence in prevailing conventions which perpetuate their privileges. Findings from a study of a university in Pakistan show how actors use coordinative power to amend regulations, but also highlight how participating colleagues may resist this. The findings help to explicate the notion of complex domination and enrich CT scholars’ understanding of factors that can exacerbate inequalities in hiring.

Using Students’ Evaluation in Improving Teaching Effectiveness

By all means, teachers need the evaluation and feedback of their students to know how they are doing and whether their efforts are fruitful or going the wrong direction. Consulting with students and exploring their perspective of the proficiency of their teachers could be the most efficient method to develop and enhance the teaching efficiency. This paper aims at probing to what extent the academic members in Applied Science University possess the professional competencies required, as per the students’ perspective. We chose the most important four dimensions of core competencies associated with teaching in higher education, namely professional, technological, humane, and assessment. A designed survey shall be developed and distributed among a representative sample of students. The analysis of which will show the availability level of such competencies, and any missing ones, from the students’ perspective. Qualitative data will also be gathered through structured interviews with the Deanship of Student Affairs and the Students Council members. In the light of the paper’s findings, a conceptual framework will be developed and a set of recommendations will be submitted to the top management of the university in order to be considered in the future academic hiring process, and the development programs of the current academic staff aiming at improving the teaching process efficiency.

Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy

Albeit its constitutional claim for quality, Brazilian academia has largely been referred to as unmeritocratic and academic hiring is still inward-oriented. Lattes platform, a public curricular information system, reflects elements of this protectionism. This article assesses two ‘obsessions’ in Brazilian academia: (i) the ‘mandatory’ Lattes CV, and (ii) the candidates’ assessment criteria in public tenders for faculty positions. Several pros and cons (mostly) of the Lattes platform are identified. The following improvements are proposed: (i) evaluations in public tenders based only on candidate’s CV, interview, and a sample lecture, (ii) the dismissal of Lattes CV as a mandatory format, and (iii) the use of platforms as Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, ORCID or ResearcherID for curricular information. With these recommendations, Brazil can move towards a more meritocratic academic hiring system.

When Two Bodies Are (Not) a Problem: Gender and Relationship Status Discrimination in Academic Hiring

Junior faculty search committees serve as gatekeepers to the professoriate and play vital roles in shaping the demographic composition of academic departments and disciplines, but how committees select new hires has received minimal scholarly attention. In this article, I highlight one mechanism of gender inequalities in academic hiring: relationship status discrimination. Through a qualitative case study of junior faculty search committees at a large R1 university, I show that committees actively considered women’s—but not men’s—relationship status when selecting hires. Drawing from gendered scripts of career and family that present men’s careers as taking precedence over women’s, committee members assumed that heterosexual women whose partners held academic or high-status jobs were not “movable,” and excluded such women from offers when there were viable male or single female alternatives. Conversely, committees infrequently discussed male applicants’ relationship status and saw all female partners as movable. Consequently, I show that the “two-body problem” is a gendered phenomenon embedded in cultural stereotypes and organizational practices that can disadvantage women in academic hiring. I conclude by discussing the implications of such relationship status discrimination for sociological research on labor market inequalities and faculty diversity.

Hiring Your Friends: Evidence from the Market for Financial Economists

We study connections in academic hiring in a sample of finance doctoral graduates. Departments hire individuals with school connections to other recently hired faculty at a significantly greater rate than is expected. Similarly, schools exhibit an elevated propensity to hire individuals with names that indicate a similar ethnic background to incumbent department members. School-connected hires tend to publish at a significantly higher rate than expected, a finding that is robust to a large number of model modifications and is stronger in more research-intensive departments. The evidence on school connections appears highly consistent with an employer information benefit from hiring based on school connections. Ethnic-connected hires tend to publish at lower-than-predicted rates when controlling for hiring-school characteristics, but this finding is not robust to the inclusion of hiring-school fixed effects. This evidence suggests that the possible information benefits of school-connected hiring do not immediately extend to other types of connections.

The Scientific Self: Reclaiming Its Place in the History of Research Ethics

How can the history of research ethics be expanded beyond the standard narrative of codification—a story that does not reach back beyond World War II—without becoming so broad as to lose all distinctiveness? This article proposes a history of research ethics focused on the “scientific self,” that is, the role-specific identity of scientists as typically described in terms of skills, competencies, qualities, or dispositions. Drawing on three agenda-setting texts from nineteenth-century history, biology, and sociology, the article argues that the “revolutions” these books sought to unleash were, among other things, revolts against inherited conceptions of scientific selfhood. They tried to redefine the scientific self in their respective fields of inquiry by advocating particular catalogs of virtues or character traits. These ideals of selfhood, their contested nature notwithstanding, translated into practice in so far as they influenced hiring and selection policies and found their way into educational systems. The project of reclaiming the scientific self as an important subject of study in the history of research ethics is not an antiquarian pursuit, but related to an ethical question faced by scientists today: How are their scientific selves being shaped by funding schemes, research evaluation protocols, and academic hiring policies?

Exploring academic hiring and life in humanities and social sciences at an English research university through a PhD students-as-partners project

PurposeThe purpose of this study is twofold: to make explicit academics’ tacit knowledge of academic employment and to develop the educational research and employability skills of 12 postgraduate researchers.Design/methodology/approachTwelve postgraduate researchers from ten different disciplines conducted 24 semi-structured interviews (12 with early career academics, 12 with senior academics). Respondents shared the skills, experiences and attributes sought when hiring and their lived experience of being academics.FindingsThe importance given to both explicitly stated (publications, teaching experience) and implicit (values, behaviour) factors varies greatly among individual academics. There is a mismatch between stated job requirements and the realities of academic life. A students-as-partners project fosters critical engagement with these questions and offers other benefits to participants.Research limitations/implicationsMost respondents work at one research-intensive English institution, potentially limiting generalisability to teaching-led and international institutions.Practical/implicationsResearcher development programmes should make explicit the range of factors considered in hiring while also encouraging critical engagement with the realities of academic work. Through students-as-partners projects, postgraduate research students can uncover first-hand what academic life is like and what hiring committees are looking for.Originality/valueThrough involving students-as-partners, the research question changed to reflect the actual concerns of those contemplating an academic career. Students gained invaluable awareness of academic hiring and insights into academic life, as well as transferable skills.

Risk-taking in the academic dual-hiring process: how risk shapes later work experiences

This article examines risk-taking in the job search process and whether women and men who are part of a dual-career couple experience different work-related consequences for taking such risks. Specifically, we explore how the decision to reveal dual-career status in the academic job search process impacts faculty members’ later promotions, productivity, pay, mobility, and career-related goals. We draw on a sample of roughly 230 faculty in seven US universities who were part of a dual-career couple at their time of hire. We find that risk-taking during the job search impacts some career outcomes, and does so similarly for women and men. Members of a dual-career couple who took the risk of revealing their dual-career status before a job offer reported significantly more positive career experiences related to promotion and productivity than those who did not reveal their status during the job search. Only the salary outcome was negatively related to revealing dual-career status in the job search process. Because of the nature of academic hiring, revealing a risky status during the job search process may ameliorate barriers to employment. Our study has important implications for research and the development of academic dual-career policies that make dual-career hiring more transparent.

Time-to-Credit Gender Inequities of First-Year PhD Students in the Biological Sciences.

Equitable gender representation is an important aspect of scientific workforce development to secure a sufficient number of individuals and a diversity of perspectives. Biology is the most gender equitable of all scientific fields by the marker of degree attainment, with 52.5% of PhDs awarded to women. However, equitable rates of degree completion do not translate into equitable attainment of faculty or postdoctoral positions, suggesting continued existence of gender inequalities. In a national cohort of 336 first-year PhD students in the biological sciences (i.e., microbiology, cellular biology, molecular biology, developmental biology, and genetics) from 53 research institutions, female participants logged significantly more research hours than males and were significantly more likely than males to attribute their work hours to the demands of their assigned projects over the course of the academic year. Despite this, males were 15% more likely to be listed as authors on published journal articles, indicating inequality in the ratio of time to credit. Given the cumulative advantage that accrues for students who publish early in their graduate careers and the central role that scholarly productivity plays in academic hiring decisions, these findings collectively point to a major potential source of persisting underrepresentation of women on university faculties in these fields.

Out of Asia: Topologies of Racism in Canada

This case study recounts my harrowing experience through a great Canadian equity swindle—involving two internal university equity investigations, BC Human Rights Tribunal, and the BC Supreme Court—to bring to account a deeply flawed and allegedly discriminatory academic hiring process. I situate my human rights complaint in the larger socio-political context of Canada becoming “too Asian.” Using a methodology of a critical personal narrative in the form of a self-interview, I discuss how diverse actors from the union to lawyers, the court system, the media, the public, and fellow academics stubbornly refuse to see the nexus between race and discrimination. These embarrassing conversations form the contours of topologies of race in Canada, stretching and bending our academic, legal, media, and social landscapes without tearing white hegemony apart. I highlight the common experiences of fellow human rights complainants who contacted me during this period and the implications of our ordeals on the Canadian social body.

What Do Job Candidates Consider Important When Assessing an Academic Position?

Surveyed job candidates and academic mavens differ in regard to what the candidates should consider most important (e.g., quality-of-life issues, characteristics of the position, and school/department dynamics) when interviewing for an academic position. A principal finding is that candidates weigh quality of life as the most important issue, while mavens weigh the job as being most important. This suggests that candidates view aspects of the academic position much more broadly than do the mavens who prepare them for market and engage in the job interview. Also, there were conflicting attitudes about what should and should not be asked by both sides involved in the interview process. A full discussion of the study’s findings is provided and suggestions are offered for making the academic hiring process more efficient.

A Matroid Approach to Stable Matchings with Lower Quotas

In 2010, Huang introduced the laminar classified stable matching problem (lcsm for short) that is motivated by academic hiring. This problem is an extension of the well-known hospitals/residents problem in which a hospital has laminar classes of residents and it sets lower and upper bounds on the number of residents that it can hire in each class. Against the intuition that variations of the stable matching problem with lower quotas are difficult in general, Huang proved that lcsm can be solved in polynomial time. In this paper, we present a matroid-based approach to lcsm and we obtain the following results. (i) We solve a generalization of lcsm in which both sides have quotas. (ii) Huang raised a question about a polyhedral description of the set of stable assignments in lcsm. We give a positive answer for this question by exhibiting a polyhedral description of the set of stable assignments in a generalization of lcsm. (iii) We prove that the set of stable assignments in a generalization of lcsm has a lattice structure that is similar to the (ordinary) stable matching problem.

How we missed the boat: reading scholarship and the field of LIS

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons for the gradual extinction of reading scholarship in Library and Information Science (LIS) departments and to identify three problematic areas accounting for its dropping prestige: paradigmatic conflicts, the influence of the corporate university and low awareness of the potential of reading research. It also proposes possible solutions to each problem. Design/methodology/approach – Close reading and analysis of an extensive selection of sources with novel conceptualization and critical perspectives. Findings – The information science paradigm, which has dominated LIS, is not sufficient to accommodate reading research. The information science model has a detrimentally restrictive effect on reading scholarship. Library science, which should be considered an autonomous discipline rather than an appendix of information science, is more conducive to the study of reading. Non-specialization-based academic hiring to increase values-based diversity in LIS through a larger influx of reading scholars is advocated. Originality/value – Reading scholarship, unduly deemed “old-fashioned”, or euphemistically “traditional”, is one of the most potent areas of academic inquiry, to which LIS scholars are perfectly positioned to make a unique contribution. Reading research in LIS has great merit irrespective of its connection to information and technology; a set of evaluative questions to determine the quality of reading scholarship is introduced. Using a case study, the paper illustrates the potential of reading research for interdisciplinary connections, community partnerships and the enrichment of LIS education and professional practices. An honest look at one of the most exciting academic fields, regrettably neglected by LIS.

National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track

National randomized experiments and validation studies were conducted on 873 tenure-track faculty (439 male, 434 female) from biology, engineering, economics, and psychology at 371 universities/colleges from 50 US states and the District of Columbia. In the main experiment, 363 faculty members evaluated narrative summaries describing hypothetical female and male applicants for tenure-track assistant professorships who shared the same lifestyle (e.g., single without children, married with children). Applicants' profiles were systematically varied to disguise identically rated scholarship; profiles were counterbalanced by gender across faculty to enable between-faculty comparisons of hiring preferences for identically qualified women versus men. Results revealed a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both math-intensive and non-math-intensive fields, with the single exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference. Results were replicated using weighted analyses to control for national sample characteristics. In follow-up experiments, 144 faculty evaluated competing applicants with differing lifestyles (e.g., divorced mother vs. married father), and 204 faculty compared same-gender candidates with children, but differing in whether they took 1-y-parental leaves in graduate school. Women preferred divorced mothers to married fathers; men preferred mothers who took leaves to mothers who did not. In two validation studies, 35 engineering faculty provided rankings using full curricula vitae instead of narratives, and 127 faculty rated one applicant rather than choosing from a mixed-gender group; the same preference for women was shown by faculty of both genders. These results suggest it is a propitious time for women launching careers in academic science. Messages to the contrary may discourage women from applying for STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) tenure-track assistant professorships.