Help me get back in the game

[Wineandshine]

I have had 2 unsuccessful job interviews at universities despite having previous experience. I’m just wanting advice on how to improve my chances of employment and how I can understand how the roles have changed. There seems to be committees and awards for everything. My role is very niche and I feel was just starting to begin to understand how to progress and then Covid hit. Can anyone give advice on how I approach what I would like to do professionally in interviews?

what level of job are you applying for? arts or sciences? teaching or research or admin?

Its some time since I worked in a uni but there is now far more emphasis on all this diversity awareness and wokeness stuff than before. Make sure you look up the latest terminology as it can be a minefield and saying the wrong thing can really go against you!

Its some time since I worked in a uni but there is now far more emphasis on all this diversity awareness and wokeness stuff than before. Make sure you look up the latest terminology as it can be a minefield and saying the wrong thing can really go against you!

Any evidence for this?

(I would advise OP to ignore completely.)

I had the same question as @parietal.

But I'd also just say it's very rough at the moment. Everyone I know, including really stellar people, is interviewing multiple times and getting a lot of knock-backs. So I think the first thing is not to be discouraged because you didn't get something straight off - it could well be it's not you.

Sorry it took me so long to come back to you. It’s for the social sciences but a lot of the funding is now towards the impact of Covid on certain diversity groups. I’m just feeling very old and overwhelmed and I’m late 30’s.

What sort of jobs? Research & teaching (standard) continuing contracts? Post-docs? Teaching only? Admin? Advice will be different for different roles.

But as @SarahAndQuack says, the job market is very tough at the moment. And yes, there have been RCUK schemes for funding around COVID, especially its unequal impacts on women, and BAME people, and those in low-paid but key roles.

What did they tell you about why you didn't get the job in those 2 interviews?

The last job I interviewed for, was datasets about TypeZpeople with typeABChealth-problems using (very technical skills and I spent the whole interview talking about the limits in what could be done with that dataset credibly but couldn't say much about ABC). I had all the technical skills and experience with typeDEFhealth-problems which are similar to but not same as ABC. I had no specific experience with TypeZpeople.
Apparently the person who go the job over me had expertise in ABC. Fair enough. Maybe talking to me clarified for them they wanted expertise in ABC. So next time I will read up more on ABC if I really want the job enough.

Job I didn't get before that I was declined for very similar reasons... except I secretly thought their ABC-health-intervention was dull as dishwasher and potential woo-hocus-pocus so probably for the best; I was willing to see if the evidence could change my mind, at least.