The insecure scholar: Carrying on regardless isn’t an option

Everyone has their dramas. Even with the apparent freedom of not having family responsibility, my struggles are similar to those of the IS. However, people with permanent contracts also struggle to move places and advance their academic careers once there are children and spouses' jobs/careers to consider.

Welcome to the club! My research contract run out in August. Despite having an excellent research record (that is what my mentors, ex-PhD supervisor and colleagues think), I am still without a job. I have applied for twelve jobs, got some interviews,but always there was someone who had worked with the people on the project before etc.I I did get a job in a very prestigious university in London, but the salary they offered would barely cover all expenses and that would have also meant that my kid has to change her school yet again. A new school each years is probably too much to ask. I also applied for two grants. Despite very positive comments, the project did not get funded. To make things worse, I am a single parent and a foreigner not entitled to any financial support in case of unemployment, despite I pay the same taxes as everyone else. On the positive side- talk to your own institution about a possibility of an honorary position. Mine gave me it and it helps enourmously. Not only because you still can access a library and databases and apply for grants, but also because it is so good to go to your "workplace" and see other people, apart from your family, once in a while. Otherwise the world can quickly become a scary place;)

Two points. There seems to be a perception both from IS and one of the posters that frequent relocation shouldn't be a part of a young academic's career despite the fact that it is commonplace with many other young professionals. One does not have to have a Mandelsonian world view to see that research funding is not given for the benefit of the researcher but for the benefit of the donor. Even if the donor is a grant making charity, giving the grant is not an end in itself. If no-one is willing to fund IS either because they wish to see his research undertaken or because they wish to see him developed as a scholar, then he ought to be rethinking his career path.

Gary - I agree with your arguments. To advance in many research fields, mobility is necessary. It may not be convenient or much fun but is still nevertheless what is required. In my area, post-docs usually spend several years at an international lab if they want to get on. I appreciate that transplanting a young family across the world can be a nightmare but it must also be understood that those who have spent time at international labs are, in general (there are always exceptions), more attractive researchers who are more likely to pursue a long term career in the field than those who refuse to move. Research is often done in a competitive internatiional environment and there are rarely short-cuts to success.

It may well be 'commonplace' for 'young professionals' to relocate to find work. But usually we're talking about people in their early twenties with no other responsibilities. Due to the much more lengthy process of 'training' for academics (i.e. multiple degrees, postdocs etc.), academics seeking first jobs are much older than this - early to mid thirties in most cases. And with greater age comes more responsibilities and complications - partner's emloyment, children, elderly parents etc - which make it harder to go absolutely anywhere. I detect in Gary and Roger's opinions a certain complacency about the difficulties young academics (i.e. those under 35) face. In this particular case, they seem to assume that a reluctance to drastically relocate is somehow an indication of lack of worth or ambition, and that, conversely, a person who does relocate is necessarily more committed and 'attractive' to employers. This is peculiar thinking and risks mistaking someone's personal circumstances as an indication of their competence and talent. It seems to me sometimes that many departments are looking for young academics according to a formula: i.e. people who've relentlessly and uninterruptedly persued years of degrees and research (which usually means either being lucky with funders or being independently wealthy); who have published continuously (regardless of other distractions like paid teaching), are 'experienced' (i.e. are over 35), but yet have no other commitments or responsibilties; and are prepared to move anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat for any short term 0.5 contract. What irrites me more than this difficult situation - something that other professions share - is a general refusal by people with jobs to acknowledge that it exists and is a problem.

Rupert - try to avoid wrongly inferring opinions I'm supposed to hold before attempting to refute them. My point is an evidenced-based one - in my field those who have spent substantial time at external labs as postdocs are more employable and thus attractive to employers than those who haven't. If I'm on an interview panel, I'll choose the best candidate with the most relevant experience and skills - end of story. To do otherwise is unmeritocratic and unfair. The fact is that there are pitifully few permanent jobs in academia and it is a competitive field. The "solution" to the problem of those who won't/can't move to become competitive is to emphatically tell people before they start their Ph.D.'s that this is how it is and how it will remain short of an unlikely infusion of money for manpower.

Roger - It seems to me that I correctly surmised your position and its key assumption: in your view individuals who are able to relocate easily are more 'employable' (read capable, committed, ambitious, talented and successful) than those who are not. Your response merely confirms this further. Granted, in some appointments processes, willingness to relocate may be an important factor, or even directly relevant. But to see it effectively as a requirement or right-of-passage in and of itself is potentially flawed: the most well-travelled scholar is not necessarily the better. My point is that there's no automatic correlation between willingness to relocate and other qualities such capability, commitment, ambition and likely success. If your response to this is simply to say 'it's a tough world, get over it', then that's precisely the kind of refusal to acknowledge real individual circumstances that I was highlighting. Not everyone has the time, money, privilege, opportunity or inclination to be a cosmopolitan globe-trotter, you know.

Contrary to Rupert's opinion I am not complacent about the difficulties faced by young academics. I merely consider that they are not unique and are very similar to the difficulties faced in many professional careers. When I was writing of other professions (and I use profession loosely to cover graduate aspirational careers) I was not writing of persons in their early twenties. I think that age 35 is a more realistic benchmark not only for academics but for other professions as well. All military officers and most clergy can expect to move regularly until at least that age. So can most retail and commercial bankers despite this being unpopular with customers. The same approach is adopted by many of the big national and multi-national commercial "milk round" companies who regularly "post" managerial staff. This is also true for the civil service except for the few "high flyers" who will never move out of Whitehall. All these are movements prompted by employers. Other professions e.g. medicine, teaching and senior positions in local government bring about the same result by rarely promoting in situ. Finally there are professions such as solicitors, surveyors, architects, engineers and accountants where generally employers do not want to relocate staff and who do promote in situ but where the recruitment industry encourages a game of musical chairs. The big exception to all of this is London. One of a number of reasons why professionals tolerate excessive commuting to London over many years is because a London based career enables them to avoid relocation.

Rupert- you characterise employability as being capability, commitment, ambition and likely success. Essentially you are looking at potential. Most employers are sceptical of their own ability to judge potential and so prefer to look at experience and track record. That is an evidence based approach. The widest, not necessarily the deepest, experience is often gained by someone who has moved around a lot. Further, the experience that an employer values is not necessarily the experience the candidate most values. In an academic context, the recruiter may pay more regard to the year spent (after much arm twisting) as junior dean of a hall of residence than the latest journal article. Handing out fines for letting off fire extinguishers may not be the high point of an academic career, but for a head of department who is struggling to acheive a quorum for meetings of her academic standards and plagiarism committees, you may look heaven sent.

When I was a child, my father's academic life took us abroad several times. I didn't always like being in strange schools in strange countries but these experiences made some of the most interesting and stimulating times of my growing up. Having intelligent and curious parents I would hardly consider myself educationally disadvantaged as a result. On the contrary: I am eager to embrace new viewpoints and new experiences. Maybe I would have been anyway, but I bet the early travelling didn't hurt.