Teaching fellow jobs

[LikeDylanInTheMovies]

I completed my PhD (Humanities) last September so too late for last year's cycle of teaching fellow jobs.

I've applied (unsuccessfully) for some research assistant and post doc things, but have been scrimping by on non-academic part time work. Several people have assured me that teaching fellow jobs for the 2016-17 academic year will start coming on stream in the spring.

Nothing I could apply for has come up on jobs.ac.uk in months and the job market seems pretty fallow. I was wondering if anyone knows if/when universities start advertising their teaching fellow posts or is now the time and this reflects the dire state of affairs?

I'm just starting to organise part-time teaching (budgets are falling again) for October. But there's no really definable cycle. And AHRC/ESRC funded post-docs come up as the projects are funded. Again, real cost cuts are ongoing with RCUK funding.

Some things to think about; no need to answer them here.

Are you in touch with the department where you did your PhD?

Have you made personal contact with other nearby universities, and found out who does the hiring?

Are you subscribed to the email list/s for your subject area? We usually put jobs on those as well as jobs.ac.uk

Are you attending conferences in your field, and making a network of your peers - who are both competition but support?

Are you looking in other countries?

Have you looked at EU possibilities via the Marie Curie actions?

Are you making connections with possible sponsors for BA/Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships, which need to be applied for usually from a different institution from where you did your PhD?

Are you developing material for publication? Do you have a sensible publication/research plan for the next 5 years?

A lot of it is about cultivating networks - not in a conniving or venal 1980s style way, but genuine connections with people & groups whose work runs alongside, complements, or connects with yours.

I think nowadays it can be at least 2 years of waiting in the wilderness before really substantial paying work comes along.

I'm a teaching associate. My current job was advertised in June, interviewed in July, for an October start. There's at least one other teaching job going at my place at the moment, but I wouldn't be very surprised if more came up over the summer, because there must always be people who apply for a new post around this time and leave their old one vacant, right? This is peak time for new lectureships/senior lectureships to come up, too, so all of those leave vacancies further down the chain.

Also, might you be looking at too narrow an area? I have a colleague whose PhD was in one sub-field, and she's now teaching in a different but related one, and it works fine.

Hi there, thanks ever so much for the advice and apologies for not getting back sooner! It dropped off my 'most recent threads' list and I had forgotten about it until I glanced over these boards again.

sunshower - yes to (most of) the above aside from EU applications (family circumstances), but I'll move anywhere in the UK and Ireland. One thing that does seem to crop up in the job person spec is a teaching qualification is often down as one of the desirable criteria for entry-level teaching fellow jobs. How does one work towards one of those if no one will give you a chance to teach in the first place? Likewise teaching MA groups!

Jeanne two jobs have come on stream that I could apply for. I did have an interview for one in a sociology department about six months back (there appears to be a fraction more money knocking around in the social sciences than the humanities, but nothing comparable has come up since.)

Likedylan re the teaching qual, look at what used to be called PTTLS and is now the award in Education and Training. You can get this for between £300-500 ish and do either over 12 weeks or sometimes do it in five days residential.
I have this qualification and when I was applying for GTA PhD studentships I was told this would be adequate for the teaching qual box tick.

Just cheers for that. Will look into this!

Op,

I'm sorry but most of these 'jobs', especially in humanities, are advertised with the candidate already chosen. Most unis insist on all jobs being advertised, even if they have no intention of hiring an external candidate.

It sucks, but I'm just being honest.

Sun Yep, very much getting that impression, but I have to keep going on the off-chance that one of them isn't a shoo-in for an internal candidate. I've got nothing else I can do.

I'd dispute that. Am currently in the midst of managing an application process - we have no preferred candidates and want the best researchers/teachers we can snag to come to us. I've never overseen a recruitment process where there's been an 'insider' candidate. That's in 25 years of academia, the last 15 as an HoD.

Have you applied for OU Tutor posts to get more teaching experience? There are some vacancies at the minute,though they close in two days.

Foggy the I need that make me think they have a particular person in mind often have really short closing dates (in one case a week after it was posted on jobs.ac.uk) and/or will ask for an ability to teach or have a research background in something incredibly esoteric.

Soliman ooh I'd not thought about the OU. So thanks for that. There's nome of their current vacancies that suit me, but will keep an eye out. Are they advertised throughout the year or are they predominantly this time?

Dylan, most OU posts will be advertised around now/June for Oct starts. I recently left but we still had some Feb start modules so do keep an eye out. It helped me in terms of addition experience too. Good luck :)