Would you apply for a head of dept role at another institution?

[Closetlibrarian]

Pondering whether to put in the effort of an application for a HoD (humanities/arts dept) role at another HEI. It would be a step-up for me and a bit of a reach. Part of me thinks no harm in trying - I'm ready for a change and this would be, on paper, a good move (better institution, bigger dept, more colleagues in my field, more money). Part of me thinks it's a waste of time because surely it will go to someone internal? In fact, makes me a bit suspicious that they're advertising the role externally at all - why wouldn't they just promote someone internally? It's a big department with lots of people at my level and higher, so I'd have thought they have rich pickings. Also, it seems to be being advertised as a leadership role, rather than an academic/ research one, if that makes sense, which seems a bit odd. Alas I have no insider intel as I don't know anyone there to ask and the deadline is about 18 hours away. Time that would probably be better spent tackling the massive pile of marking and other various things that have deadlines looming in the next 10 days...

I missed this last night and I guess it’s too late now, but I would say that it’s not possible to put together a strong application in that timescale, and also that externally-advertised HoD roles are usually looking for strategic leadership which they don’t feel they can fill from within the department, so yes it would be a leadership rather than an academic role. That may be because of problems within the department or because the University’s senior management want to impose certain (most likely unpopular) changes.

I agree with the poster above - it is a strategic position and also there is a lot of politics involved. There might be a good reason for why they are recruiting externally. From what I have observed, when heads are HoD are recruited externally it is done either to align departments research profile with the University's strategic goals (be it new collaborations with specific institutions or bring in a new research cluster, whatever the department might need). Alternately, you might want to bring a new senior person in because in a top heavy departments senior faculty members have been rotating as HoD/head of respective programmes, at it is eating into their time, but there is no senior enough mid-career academics to fill the post without it reflecting negatively on the prestige of the department. Finally, on my limited experience, confidentiality of applicants at this stage is extremely important to avoid bad blood and a lot of recruitment is done by agencies. I thought it was not common in academia, but saw it done twice. Also, part of the applications for such positions are solicited - they basically poach form competitions and "invite you to apply". Don't let that discourage you and maybe talking to the insiders in your preferred department might provide you with more information when the time comes for the application at this level in the future.

I know you’ve missed the deadline now, but just to suggest- is this a diversity action? I’ve seen it as an Athena SWAN action to recruit HoDs externally to improve female representation- just a thought.