We are recruiting a temporary lecturer in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling

Please see our Vacancy page for the details: https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/work-at-stirling/list/details/?jobId=2353&jobTitle=Lecturer%20in%20Public%20Policy

I am the pre-interview contact point and these are my personal thoughts on that process, which blend background information and some helpful advice. These notes are also there to address a potentially major imbalance in the informal side to recruitment: if you do not have the contacts and networks that help give you the confidence to seek information (on the things not mentioned in the further particulars), here is the next best thing: the information I would otherwise give you on the phone.

This approach is also handy under the current circumstances, in which (a) the vacancy will run for a short period (deadline: 19^th July), while (b) many relevant members of staff are taking ‘annual leave’ (mine is 13-29 July).

In contrast to most of the positions I have described on this blog , this post is temporary (12 months, beginning in September). It is grant funded (IMAJINE) until 2021, with a vacancy arising following the successful departure of Dr Emily St Denny to the University of Copenhagen. As such, the essential criteria and descriptions of teaching are narrower than usual because we are approaching the final year of a 5-year research project and the main teaching responsibility is to lead the MPP programme and core modules. There is a more-than-zero chance of extending the contract, but it would not be responsible of me to raise your hopes. In other words, if thinking about applying, you should assume that the post is temporary.

Here are some tips on the application and interview processes.

The application process:

• At this stage, the main documents are the CV and the cover letter.
• You should keep the cover letter short to show your skills at concise writing (I suggest 1-page). Focus on what you can offer the Division specifically, given the nature of our call and further particulars.
• Lecturers will be competing with many people who have completed a PhD – so what makes your CV stand out?
• We take teaching very seriously. Within our division, we plan an overall curriculum together, discuss regularly if it is working, and come to agreements about how to teach and assess work. We pride ourselves on being a small and friendly bunch of people, open to regular student contact and, for example, committed to meaningful and regular feedback.
• You might think about how you would contribute to teaching and learning in that context. In particular, you should think about how, for example, you would deliver large undergraduate modules (in which you may only be an expert on some of the material) as well as the smaller, more specialist and advanced, modules closer to your expertise.
• However, please also note that your main contribution would be to running the core MPP. You can find MPP01 and MPP03 modules guides here, to get a sense of the programme (but please note that the module guides will change somewhat this year, partly to update our approach, and partly to address our current reality).

The interview process

The shortlisting is on the 30^th July. All going well, you will know if you have reached the interview stage by the 31^st. The interviews will take place on the 5^th August (morning).

By the interview stage, you should have a conversation with me to make sure that you are well prepared. For example, here are the things that you really should know at that stage:

• The teaching and research specialisms of the division and their links to cross-divisional research.
• The kinds of courses that the division would expect you to teach.

Perhaps most importantly, you need to be able to articulate why you want to come and work at Stirling. ‘Why Stirling?’ or ‘Why this division?’ is usually the first question in an interview, so you should think about it in advance. We recommend doing some research on Stirling and the division/ faculty, to show in some detail that you have a considered reply (beyond ‘it is a beautiful campus’). We will see through a generic response in a heartbeat and, since it is the first question, your answer will set the tone for the rest of the interview. You might check, for example, who you might share interests with in the Division, and how you might  develop links beyond the division or faculty, since this is likely to be a featured question too.

• Then you might think about what you would bring to the University in a wider sense, such as through well-established (domestic and international) links with other scholars in academic networks.
• Further, since ‘impact’ is of rising importance, you might discuss your links with people and organisations outside of the University, and how you have pursued meaningful engagement with the public or practitioners to maximise the wider contribution of your research.

[Note: I wrote that text for open-ended posts with much higher stakes and a longer-term focus. With this post, we are likely to focus relatively intensely on specific questions regarding the likely teaching and research, so please do not feel that you should research the history of the University, or conduct a bunch of BBC interviews, as preparation]

The interview format

For open-ended contracts, we tend to combine (a) presentations to divisional (and other interested) staff in the morning, with (b) interviews in the afternoon. However, in this case, I suspect that we will ask you to present briefly to the interview panel. I can let you know when we speak beforehand (and the details will be in the invite). In any case:

• We recommend keeping the presentation compact, to show that you can present complex information in a concise and clear way. Presentations are usually a mix of what you do in teaching, research, and what you will contribute in a wider sense to the University.
• The usual interview panel format at this level is four or five members, including: one subject specialist from the Division (me), one member of the Faculty (our Head of Division), the Head of Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and a senior academic in another Faculty.
• In other words, only 1 member of your panel will be a subject specialist in Politics (me). This means that (at the very least) you need to describe your success in a way that a wider audience will appreciate. For example, you would have to explain the significance of a single-author article in the APSR!

It sounds daunting, but we are a friendly bunch and want you to do well. You might struggle to retain all of our names (nerves), so focus on the types of question we ask – for example, the general question to get you started will be from the senior manager. There are often more men than women on the panel (I think this one will be 50-50), and they are often all-white panels, but we are committed to making such routine imbalances a thing of the past.

I am happy to answer your questions. We can try email first – p.a.cairney@stir.ac.uk – and then phone or skype if you prefer.