Applying for lecturing job - advice

[ComplexCookie]

Hi,

I am a qualified health professional and I am considering applying for my first lecturing post. I might be punching above my weight a little but presented well I may have a chance as I have excellent clinical experience, personality etc. This is certainly the route I want to take my career down so I want to give it my best shot. I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestions / help / advice.

The application process is a covering letter and CV which is very different to the kind of applications I've done recently and I'm pretty sure my last CV is 20 years old so any suggestions on format etc.

Also, the areas I lack experience in, am I better to be brazen and up front about this?

Many Thanks
CC

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

Hi, am in humanities so worlds away from you - so this may not help - but in my area you would need to show evidence of research activity at least and in reality, have several papers in peer reviewed journals plus a track record of securing funding.

Do you publish?

[Sillybillypoopoomummy]

Go through the job description with a highlighter and highlight every little thing that they want. Then in your covering letter specifically mention how your experience etc is directly relevant to those things. Summarise what you do and your publications (if it is that kind of post, and what you have found). Explain why they are relevant to what you would be teaching if possible. Do you do any existing teaching/supervisions/practicals, have you ever received feedback? Summarise it, - ie I have experience in teaching type x, y and z and have received excellent feedback. Do you also do research - can you weave that in to what you would be teaching?

good luck!

[Sillybillypoopoomummy]

Go through the job description with a highlighter and highlight every little thing that they want. Then in your covering letter specifically mention how your experience etc is directly relevant to those things. Summarise what you do and your publications (if it is that kind of post, and what you have found). Explain why they are relevant to what you would be teaching if possible. Do you do any existing teaching/supervisions/practicals, have you ever received feedback? Summarise it, - ie I have experience in teaching type x, y and z and have received excellent feedback. Do you also do research - can you weave that in to what you would be teaching?

good luck!

[cauliflowercheese14]

I lecture in healthcare alongside many clinicians turned lecturers. You won't need to worry about the teaching side of things, although they will expect you to do a teaching qualification (we have to have a PG Dip in Higher Ed) but you probably do that on the job.
Research experience is presumably what you are lacking? Be upfront, show that you have an understanding of health research (methods, funding, collaborations, evidence based practice), if you have any experience refer to it e.g. a masters dissertation, being part of a trial or study through your work. Don't worry about not having publications or funding now but you will be expected to develop the research part of your post quite rapidly. Unlike a lot of other disciplines we tend to work in fairly large teams and apply for a lot of grants, hit rate is 10-20% so there's a lot of rejection, but you are unlikely to be going it alone. Team working experience is transferable to research teams so stress that. People skills are really important in health, we have to communicate to patients, professionals, other researchers, commissioners as well as students, so emphasise that.
You might be expected to sign up for a PhD - we expect new clinician lecturers to do that - so think about what research you would do for that, be able to talk about your research interests and how they have come out of your own practice.
I'm waffling on here but hope that helps. Oh and use the cover letter to address the person / job spec and get as much reference to research and teaching into your cv as you can get away with!
Good luck and let me know if there's anything else.

[ComplexCookie]

I don't have anything published. I have areas of research interests and specialist clinical knowledge that very few other people have and there isn't a great deal of research in. I intend to publish but do to service provision etc this has not been a priority and this opportunity has come about sooner than I anticipated. I teach in my current position as well as supervision / student mentoring. I have co-authored several policies and procedures in my clinical work but no journals. I also have management experience. I know the academic staff at the uni I am applying to and I know all of them weren't published when they joined the staff but I think there is a move forward with it and therefore if I can demonstrate a commitment to it then I am in good stead

[ComplexCookie]

Cauliflower Cheese that is so helpful and spot on with where my anxieties lie. In all other aspects, I know I am the right person for the job but the lack of research is what puts me off applying. Thank you so much for the advice.

[GoatsFeet]

If you don't have published research, you may need to be prepared for not being interviewed, but, you will have more of a chance if you show awareness of the research framework for the department/unit you're applying to.

Can you show a research trajectory - how your clinical practice could convert to research.

You'll also need to know about likely contribution to REF (and if you don't know what that is, get googling).

You could also talk about your clinical work as research in practice ie the application of research principles to clinical practice.

Have a look at the staff profiles of people in the unit you're appkling to. What are people at lecturer level doing? What are their qualifications? and track record?

[ComplexCookie]

Goats Feet, thank you. I am prepared for the fact I may not get an interview due to my lack of research but I figure the experience if applying is a good one. I do know about REF and can demonstrate a research trajectory / application of research principles in my CV and that is useful advice. Many Thanks again x

[MiladyThesaurus]

It might make a difference what kind of university you're applying to. In my current post-92 both lecturer and senior lecturer are equivalent to lecturer on the more traditional university pay scales and job description. Senior lecturer is just the higher grade of lecturer (with delusions of grandeur - I say that as one!).

People with PhDs tend to be appointed at SL even if they're straight out of the PhD. Practitioners without PhDs tend to be appointed at lecturer in my faculty, and are expected to undertake part-time doctoral study of some kind (lots of people in this position do the professional doctorate) while they are in post.

There are also graduate tutor positions at my university, which are paid slightly less than lecturer but have half the workload allocated for doctoral study and more of a training route to becoming a fully fledged lecturer embedded within them (at least theoretically). The idea is to start off in TA type roles and gradually gain more experience of lecturing etc so that at the end you can be 'promoted' to lecturer.

[cauliflowercheese14]

I'm at a Russell Group and we appoint people without phds as lecturers.

complexcookie that all sounds great, you'd definitely get an interview with us and we only interview people who look appointable on paper, never to make up numbers.