I'm with WJGibson on that P'bughead :p As I said, I've no issue at all with non-national lecturers/researchers anyway, but what I hate is when people who can't do the job, or aren't as well qualified for it are given the positions over someone who is a national, or like yourself has trained here and put a lot of work into the system. We have a lot of foreign students, its something that the uni prides itself on, and they also end up with nowhere to go and no jobs when someone comes in. I do think some areas are more problematic than others - politics obviously, I'm actually quite interested to see what my own field is like in this.

Wj_gibson, did you network and make a lot of contacts during your PhD/Research project?

I've just started an IR PhD, this doesn't sound good at all....

Well, I did network - you can always network better, I suppose, but I'm part of the Historical Sociology and Poststructural working groups, I know the people that run those groups pretty well, and I am trying to get 2 collaborative projects off the ground as well (including one with a lecturer in Miami who I met at ISA in Chiacgo in 2007), so I don't think I did too badly, considering I'm a naturally shy person who doesn't take to networking very easily.

Now the RAE is out of the way things might move a little more on the job front, although probably not until March when the allocation of research funding is made known by the research councils. But IR is a very, very tough field to crcak. I just wish I'd known more about the realities of the job market before starting the PhD, because I would have gone and done journalism training instead - ridiculous as it may seem, the odds are better even in a notoriously tought field such as the media thhan they are in academia at present - and the training is shorter and easier too.

I'm a little more politically incorrect about the recruitment of foreign candidates in that I believe the system should be changed to follow the more protectionist practice seen in many other Western countries.

For example, in Canada, it specifically says on job applications that Canadian citizens and/or permenent residents will be prioritised for the post if they suitable. In this respect, they keep their home grown talent (to some extent funded by the taxpayer) in their own country, and prevent the brain drain. Foreigners who have gone thru the Canadian education system are not normally discriminated because if they have done their MA, PhD, postdoc in Canada, they are likely to have applied for permanent resident status.

This is in complete contrast to the way the UK works, which has a very open door policy for academics all around the worldwide, and this has led to a very screwy system where entry level British educated or (EU educated) candidates are competing with much more experience foreign candidates, and this often leads to British/EU candidates looking beyond EU shores to then be faced with the stringent recruitment policies like those employed in Canada. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with this if the UK education system was privatised, but as students and academic staff are funded by the British taxpayer I strongly believe the talent of UK candidates should be fostered and prioritised over foreign candidates (assuming both are on an equal footing in terms of talent).

Of course there are valid reasons (in my opinion) why departments are now >50% or more non-national:
1. We are European.
2. The pool of UK talent is getting smaller as students opt for the private sector.
3. Experienced foreign academics offer RAE points.
4. Foreign academics will work for much less to get a foothold in the UK system.
5. Foreign academics (an internationalised dept) helps attract high fee paying international students.

Unfortunately, this is all leading to UK uni's failing to foster 'new blood' (UK/EU), which will compound the brain drain problem.

It depresses me no end, honestly. I find myself now doing my PhD and whilst madly writing up, I taught very heavily in my second year but now in my third Im trying to cover the other modules in my department so I have some teaching experience in all of those. As well as that though Im trying to do all the extra non PhD training offered through my uni, with IT training, software training, things that arent of any help in my PhD but are now felt helpful and that I am being encouraged toward doing. The reason being, its so difficult to get a job and we now all have to set ourselves apart. Now our PhDs aren't good enough, we need more publications than everyone else, even thats not good enough, we need more teaching experience than everyone else. Even then we need other transferrable skills. Well Im just tired. Honestly Im tired.

Our PhD's are devalued by all of the other frills we have to add to even get to an interview. In my department I have more transferable skills than many of the lecturers who are amazed at the hoops we are now being made to jump through as PhD students. I feel this is a real difficult time for us all doing PhDs with stricter and stricter deadlines being put on our time limits and the entire system engineered to get us through as quickly as possible its getting harder to find your feet and build up a lot of the experience you need.

Liminalplace I entirely agree, it is depressing. I spent time over the New Year looking at a job description and person specification for something that came up a while back, for a fractional SL job that I wasn't in a position to apply for then. The list of essential and desirable experience required wasn't just a PhD and subject specialist knowledge, but at least 3 years teaching experience, a teaching qualification, RAE profile (or potential one), the usual admin/QA/IT/VLE skills and experience, plus the willingness to train as a PhD supervisor. I wonder how it would be humanly possible to tick enough of those boxes while actually trying to do a PhD. I've got a decent chunk of teaching experience now, then someone said "oh, only teaching here? I thought you taught at other unis too..." I just thought, how much time is there to realistically do all these things properly? You just have to do what you can and hope it's enough, and if your face fits at the end of the day at some job interview then whooppeee. It does pile on the pressure though, on top of the usual PhD stuff. I hope it's all worth it in the end.

I'm aware I'm moving away from the debate on foreign vs. UK/EU lecturers, but after my job hunt (they're slippery little things, jobs...) I've had an epihany: should we expect a lecturing position straight from PhD? I have applied for numerous positions (mostly outside of the EU because of the apparent job freeze) and I'm from a good institution, 3 years of teaching experience (+100 hours), supervised a couple of undergraduate dissertations, lecturing on Masters courses at two institutions, etc etc, but as everyone else is finding, it still isn't good enough.

So perhaps the people employing us are right - we need a post-doc (I'm talking from the sciences here) or two to get some further experience, then we'll be better rounded researchers and educators. Of course the money is rubbish, its not permanent employment so you can hardly settle your life down, it probably means moving somewhere else for a year or two, and it gets silly when you're still doing post-docs 20 years down the line for 18K a year. There are some RCUK fellowships (which same problem - are ultra-competitive) which are post-doc research with some teaching, and lead to a permanent lecturing position after 3-5 years or something, and these should be encouraged, to stop the brain-drain that has been discussed, and to give some permanency in your life!

I'm just saying, we shouldn't expect too much after a PhD I guess.

OK, ramble over.

Coastman, ramble away! ;-)

I was just moaning as it all seems to take so long. I expect to spend at least a year or so sorting myself out after I complete, getting more relevant experience and decent things published, from what friends who have done PhDs have said. I just wish there were short cuts or I could speed things up a bit!

To be honest its made me question staying in academia, those in my area of academia seem to be vastly overworked with little pay to show for it. And I just look at us all working our backsides off to finish PhD's, get transferrable skills for what seems like b*gger all. Anyway Im sorry for ranting Im just a bit work stressed and disillusioned with it all. To be honest right now anything for an easy life.

It seems that I have a very different view from most of those who have posted here. I am currently doing my PhD in IR in the UK, and from what I have read in this forum I might end up being one of those f...ing foreigners that apparently are taking away all the jobs from the locals. Anyway, from what I have seen and experienced in my field, there are two things that really count when looking for a junior position in academia:
1. Teaching experience, publications and all the things we are told about.
2. Which institutions you got your PhD from.
And to be honest, I think that the second element is becoming increasingly important to get your first position. I have worked for British recruitment companies in the private sector and most big corporations will only look at candidates from seven or eight institutions - literally. I have seen dozens of CVs not considered simply because the candidate did not get his/her degree at one of these universities.
This trend has now reached academia. When I have a look at IR departments, it seems that all recent recruits and young academics (under 35-40) have received their PhDs from a handful of institutions: Oxbridge, LSE, UCL, KCL, Aber, Warwick and Essex. I am doing my PhD at one of these and it takes an average of five-six months for us to find an academic job upon completion. Those who do not go into academia because they have not interest in this sector at all, which are around 60% of all grad students in my department, take even less. And given that we have very different methodological and theoretical approaches, let alone academic backgrounds, the only explanation we have come up with is that the university brand matters a lot.
Certainly, as I mentioned 60% of all those who complete do not go into academia, since a PhD in IR transfers well to the private sector. And of the 40% who do go into academia, many leave the UK because of personal or professional issues. Simply put, academics are, in relative terms, much better paid in the US, Canada, Australia, Asia, the ME and a handful of European countries. Still, around eight or ten of those who pass their viva each year find a job at a UK institution within the just-mentioned six-month time limit.
Personally, I got into my current institution by sheer luck. I am not cleverer or more hard-working than research students from other institutions whom I talk to at conferences or seminars. Besides, I only applied to this institution because my MSc dissertation advisor told me to do so, since I did not know anything about UK unis back then. I will never be thankful enough to him for his advise, seeing what difference it will make once I start looking for a job, be it in the private or the public sector.
In short, I am not too worried about the current academic job market, at least in IR. Of course it could be better, but at the end of the day you can always go into the private sector and there is no need to live in poverty for three or four years if an academic job does not come up.

IRtype, snobbery/elitist branding in academia is certainly not a new trend - it's been around for donkey's years in the UK. I'd go as far to say it's been around a lot longer than academic snobbery in the private sector.

Obviously, having a PhD from a top 10 institution will hold more sway when applying for a job (private or public), and many uni's will only employ academics from their own strata or higher eg. Oxbridge takes Oxbridge applicants, UoL takes UoL or Oxbridge applicants, and red-bricks take Oxbridge, UoL, red-bricks and so on.

No one is calling anyone 'f...... foreigners' here - we are talking about non-nationals who have no UK education, and/or non-nationals who are given the job when a domestic candidate of equal ability is available.

Conversely, I've found the private sector to be more open to graduates from a variety of universities compared to academic recruitment. Excluding some very elitist companies who only ever employ Oxbridge grads, the majority of big companies will recruit from a broader pool of applicants holding undergraduate degrees derived from RG uni's (the top 20, not top 8).

I agree with Miss Spacey about the incremental snobbery which travels up through to the uk academic stratosphere. And, I think, if anything, it is gradually and very, very slowly, cracking in places, due to Oxbridge and many red bricks lacking expertise in newer disciplines such as film and television studies. But this is a very long standing state of affairs. Since the year dot I'd say.

My advice to anyone on this is to look at the departments they want to teach at, and find out where staff got their qualis from and where they publish. You'd need to at least equal that.

Also, I think the UK has very open policies on employing none UK qualified academics - unlike Canada, where I would love to work!!!, and which is almost a closed shop. I do sometimes pick up on undertones of general racism in the UK though - which shock me (although I haven't noticed any which would discourage employment in universities) - but I have no idea if this is worse than elsewhere.

For the record, I got my IR PhD from Newcastle - not Oxbridge, but still a very good institution. And, to be honest, it still hacks me off that, nearly 3 years after submitting my PhD and 2 years from passing the viva, I still can't get anywhere. I got one of my articles straight into an ISI journal with no revisions for f*ck's sake!

And I wouldn't be going around saying "pah, well you'll get work in the private sector if you don't get into academia". In the current economic climate that really isn't the case at all, I'm afraid.

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That's not really what The Times said today. In an article on Graduate unemployment (and proposed help) it was saying that most 'milkround' employers were just looking at grads from the top 4/5 Uni's. Not trying to rain on anyones parade here. Just say whats actually happening out there at present.

I agree with what you're saying given the current economic conditions, but putting the last 4/5 months aside, companies generally, for example financial services or law firms, will recruit from the Russell Group universities.

At the moment, I think that anyone who isn't a sparky 22/23 Oxbridge grad will have an up hill struggle getting an entry job in a FTSE 100 firm. I know quite a few people who have had their graduate jobs withdrawn, which must be awful.

Being in a PhD programme is probably a very good career move at the moment (one hopes at least!).