If I'm offered the job...?

[academicanon]

I'm lucky enough to have got myself a permanent lectureship (pending probation) though 1 year into my contract and before my job was secured as permanent, I applied to other university. At the time my job was 3 years fixed term rather than a 3 year probation.

I've now received an invitation for an interview for the job I applied for elsewhere. I will attend the interview but if I get an offer it will be a tough decision. I've summarised pros and cons below though essentially my current job is at a 'better' university where there are few people I can collaborate with. The interview is at an up and coming university (further away from home) a few league points behind but where there are whole groups of people I could work with.

Perks of the current job:

• permanent
• 30 minute commute
• better research performance
• slightly more research time
• Own office
• I've known the university and department for 8 years

Cons of the current job:

• overworked due to taking on too many responsibilities when I started
• some unpleasant internal politics and implicit sexism
• I've recently become the sole person in my field
• Poor facilities
• As the department where I did my undergraduate, I feel some staff still treat me as if I were still their student

Pros of the potential new job:

• Large group of colleagues in my field
• Department has a strong history in my field
• HoS is in my field
• Research performance is on the increase every year
• 2 research groups where I could feel 'at home'

Cons of the potential new job:

• 70 minute commute
• slightly more teaching than research focused

As an early career researcher with few close friends in academia, there's no one I can really ask for advice on this. All my non-academic friends see is a possible longer commute and they are baffled as to why I'd even attend the interview.

Any thoughts or advice from other academics are very welcome as I try to work through the pros and cons.

Thanks

AA

I'd pick the new one for sure (if it is also permanent). Strong history, and research group to feel at home in, count for a lot.

Thanks for the advice pleasewithcheese and yes it is also permanent. The research groups have a real appeal!

I agree that the new job sounds like a good option. there is a lot of value in moving on from where you did your PhD, making new connections etc.

I have a different view to pp - your current job sounds like a better bet for the time being, but keep an eye out for other (better) jobs.

I've worked in several places and have experience of the contrasts you mention - research-intensive vs. teaching-focused with growing research; short commute vs. long commute; research isolation vs. collaborators in dept. In the end, what really matters is time to do your research and a research environment that lets you do so. Moving jobs costs you about a year in research productivity, so a new job really has to be substantially better to make a move worthwhile. Fancy facilities are better than poor ones, but not worth moving jobs if the poor ones are still adequate. Lots of colleagues in your area is great, but not worth moving jobs if you have less time to actually do research.

In particular, would be very cautious about moving to a teaching-focused university if you're not very aware of the day-to-day expectations of teaching and admin - it's quite a different culture to research-intensive universities and there are lots of hidden time costs that suck time away from research. In the teaching-focused institution where I worked for a bit, my dept was one of the strongest in terms of research. Like the one your mention, it had a strong history and was steadily improving, putting money into great facilities, etc. However, nothing could overcome the demands that teaching-focused institutions place on academic staff. As well as more contact hours teaching, I also had to do a hell of a lot more low-level teaching-related admin because the level of admin support was very low (half the number of staff compared to a similar-sized dept in a research-intensive university). I also had to do a lot of repeat teaching because there wasn't the same norm of having PhD students assist with seminars and labs. I had to do lots of the admin for grant costings etc., because the research support office was either inept or understaffed. There wasn't any real support for applying for certain types of funding like fellowships or EU grants because no one had the experience. Ymmv, of course, but the above situations are common in post-92s.

Tbh, I would say clear sexism is the biggest reason to move from your current dept. If it's bad, and holding you or other women back, then get out. But the other issues aren't that serious and sound more like your have itchy feet after 8 years there

... and thank you autocorrect for changing "you" to "your" for no good reason in two different places.

I can see the temptation of the second institution. But like @geekaMaxima if I were you I'd want to thoroughly investigate the teaching implications: how many contact hours, what sort of contact hours etc. Investigate the admin burden too, because in my experience it's admin that really swallows up time.

The other thing I'd say, as someone with a 70 minute commute, is to think carefully about that.
How much would you go in- how much is expected and how much would you see yourself doing the commute? At 70 minutes the commute tends to put you off going in 'unnecessarily' and you WFH- but that has an impact on your relationships in the department. It can feel hard to be fully integrated. Harder to make social relationships. Departmental culture will affect things too of course.

Finally- do you have/are you thinking about having children in the nearing future? 70 mins is the range of commute where it becomes impossible difficult to do nursery/school drop off and get in for 9/get home in time for pick up at 6 if you have later teaching etc. So you either need a good flexible working agreement or a partner who can do it. Preferably both.

Don't underestimate the effects of a higher teaching load & longer commute. Unless you can use the commute for a good hour of reading/marking.

Other questions: what money os there for research at the new place? What's your personal research allowance? What record is there in seed funding for getting external funding? What os their record on external funding?

I've only ever worked in research-led/RG places, and even then, the teaching & admin loads are heavy.

So really don't underestimate the teaching loads.

geekaMaxima and others, thank you very much for all your thoughts and insights, they've been incredibly helpful!

I've given this a lot of thought and reflection. I hadn't thought too seriously about what the increased teaching and admin load might look like in practice (thanks for sharing your experience geekaMaxima!).

After some thought, I think this could well be a case of thinking the grass might be greener on the other side. I've been a little bitter about being given too high a workload in my first year of my lectureship however the Head of School has already informed me that this will be accounted for next year so maybe I just need to get over that a little, move past it and focus on the future - in my current post rather than consider packing up and starting up elsewhere.

I am now in two minds about whether or not to decline the interview all together or go for the experience and to see what happens. I feel much less inclined to take the position if offered however I also don't want to feel as if I've missed an opportunity to grow and learn something about myself and another institution. I've always struggled to turn down opportunities to grow which is probably why my workload was too high in my first year of lecturing!

Any, a huge thanks to all for giving me much to reflect on. I'll continue to reflect and will sleep on it tonight before deciding tomorrow whether or not to attend the interview!

AA