We are recruiting a temporary lecturer in International Politics 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=2841&jobTitle=Lecturer%20in%20International%20Politics

I am one of the pre-interview contacts 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: 29^th November), because (b) we need someone to start in January.

In contrast to most of the positions I have described on this blog , this post is temporary (12 months, beginning in January). It arises from (very welcome) grant success, which prompted us to rejuggle our teaching and administration at short notice (the essential criteria and descriptions are narrower than usual because we have in mind some very specific teaching requirements).

Here are some general 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 generally 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 is specific:
• Dissertation supervision at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels;
• Coordinating and delivering specialist modules in the Undergraduate programme (including the advanced module POLU9PE Global Political Economy, and one other advanced module)
• Coordinating and delivering the International Conflict and Cooperation (ICC) Postgraduate taught programme (ICCPP02 International Organisations)

The interview process

The shortlisting is on the 10^th December. All going well, you will know if you have reached the interview stage by the 13th. The interviews will take place on the 16^th December (morning). 

The interview stage

Here is how I would describe an open ended lectureship. By the interview stage, here are the things that you should normally know:

• 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 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.

Here is how I would qualify that advice for this post.  With this post, we are likely to focus relatively intensely on specific questions regarding the likely teaching, so please do not feel that you should research the history of the University 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, we will ask you to present briefly to the interview panel.

“Please prepare a 10-minute presentation (with no obligation to use powerpoint) on this question: How would your teaching experience contribute to this Lectureship? Please focus on:

• coordinating and delivering the advanced undergraduate module Global Political Economy
• what other advanced undergraduate module you could deliver (based on your research expertise)
• coordinating and delivering the postgraduate taught module International Organisations
• supervising undergraduate dissertations in international politics”

In addition:

• We recommend keeping the (online, via Teams) 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 (but this one is more focused).
• The usual interview panel format at this level is four 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 (and, in this case, not International Politics). This means that (at the very least) you need to describe your success in a way that a wider audience will appreciate.

It sounds daunting, but we are a friendly bunch and want you to do well. You might struggle to retain all of our names (although they are written on Teams), 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.

Please email – p.a.cairney@stir.ac.uk – if you have further questions.