Please help me decide between 2 job offers

[bathsh3ba]

I am really unsure how much I should be weighting each of the pros and cons in my decision and would really appreciate some words of wisdom.

This would be my first postdoc job, got my PhD over the summer in the social sciences. Ultimately my aim is to get a permanent Lecturer position with a weighting more towards teaching than research.

Job 1: Lecturer (teaching-focused) at the non-RG but well-regarded university I got my PhD at, 12 month fixed term. Teaching focused. 30 minute commute, parking provided. Familiar site and faces, fits around family life easily. They would support me making an application for a postdoc grant to follow on from the contract to hopefully stay on doing teaching + research. But of course no guarantees, I could be job hunting again come Easter.

Job 2: Research Associate at an RG, well-regarded university in the next city along. 18 month fixed term. Research only contract, working on another researcher's project but allowed to teach 1 day a week. 90 minute commute via car, Park and Ride and a long walk. Means I'm out of the house from 7am to 6.30pm; I'm a single parent to two teenagers so they don't 'need' me home but like me to be around. Good progression structure but I'd have to change to a research + teaching pathway after this contract and of course no guarantees again. Better pay prospects although Job 1 have said they will match starting salary.

I am honestly frozen with indecision so any advice would be great. I do realise I'm lucky to have 2 offers but this feels like a big decision.

I'd go with less stressful option here (job 1)

Job 1.
Seems to align better with your own career aspirations and commuting is less stressful.

Congratulations! That's great that you get a choice. I think with your ambitions and family commitments that I would say go for job 1. I think there's a good likelihood of more work after those 12 months, whereas job 2 you would be working hard on someone else's project. It would be different if you were ambitious to build a reputation in research, but you say you are thinking more about the teaching side of things.

If there's no major shortage of lecturing roles with teaching focus in your field, 1.

If you need to become more competitive to secure a full-time role, 2.

Have a look at how many permanent full-time roles of the type you want are advertised in your field. Are teaching roles usually temporary?

Your university obviously wants to keep you. That's great. Is there someone senior who'd be honest with you about prospects for further openings there? Are many staff there "home grown"?

Well done on two offers.

The question is also how much commuting you realistically have to do, when so many are now wfh a lot of the time

Thanks all. I don't like working from home and it doesn't suit me so I'd want to be in at least 2-3 days a week.

I guess Lecturer feels like the dream job right now but I'm conscious job 2 has better facilities and possibly better long term prospects. But I enjoy teaching more than research and I would rather apply for grants to do my own research than do someone else's.

I think job 2. This is because job 2 will get you publications, and that is currency in academia. It will give you the CV and experience you need to apply for your own grants (if that is what you want), and you will also be in a much stronger position for future lectureships.

It would only be worth taking job 1 if there is a LOT of demand for lecturers in your area and people can get jobs with a basic academic CV (not many papers). And that is rare. Most places advertise jobs as teacher/lecturer jointly and want people who have publications and the potential to get grants. And only job 2 is going to give you that.

A lot depends which social science area - some are booming, some are in freefall. Would you be teaching undergraduates? Do you know if their numbers have been growing or shrinking at your current university - UK students are a better barometer.

If you're teaching on programmes that are growing / thriving, could absolutely be worth digging in at university 1, because if they're willing to match your salary, they're keen. If they've a history of hiring their own to permanent roles, I'd be v tempted.

Otherwise 2 would give you a better prospect of building up to your own research projects, among other things. But neither decision should be disastrous unless the teaching load is unreasonable - it's not for long and it's a good trajectory post PhD either way. So I wouldn't discount family issues in reaching final decision.

Policy sciences. Teaching undergraduate and postgraduate. Not sure of numbers tbh.

I'm in a field where there aren't that many jobs, so I don't think most people feel they can actively decide whether to go for a teaching-focused or research-focused job; what they tend to do when job-searching is, try to maximize their opportunities and not put their eggs in one basket.
I was wondering if your field is the same, in which case I would try to play it as strategically as I could. E.g. take job 1, but still try to get stuff published (maybe from your thesis? of course it's likely that you have to do this in your own time). Or take job 2, but try to get teaching that allows you to gain some experience in course convening, curriculum design, quality assurance, etc. From what you say, it sound as if job 1 would be a better fit.

I think that I wasn't expecting to get a Lecturer job straight off (and I know part of the reason I've got it is that the department know me and my teaching and my work and so they look beyond the fact I'm fresh out of a PhD and only have 2 publications.) I was expecting to have to take a research only job and keep up my teaching where I could.

But I think this Lecturer job may be the best idea as I can use the year to get more published from my PhD in my own time (ie I don't need to do more research to get publications right now) and get a grant application in. The dept said they would support me to apply for grants. And they seem to really want me as they offered to match the salary, which is surely a good thing. They do have 'home grown' staff and most staff do stay a while. They haven't historically done fixed term contracts for Lecturers but currently the uni finance team won't allow any permanent jobs to be advertised.

That's really useful information. Last sentence is key. Is there a local problem with revenue (student numbers shrinking in your department?) If so I'd be wary - that hiring freeze may continue. If not, I'd definitely go for the lectureship there in light of your other comments.

It's a university-wide freeze, not department-specific. They started the policy when the pandemic hit as they thought they'd be hit with a fall in international student numbers. It hasn't been reversed since. I don't know details of student numbers but they seem healthy to me.

Job 1. I had a 18 month lecturer post just out of my PhD, now doing a post-doc with no teaching, and as a fellow academic who prefers teaching with a bit of research, I'm not happy. It's difficult not doing what you're best at.

I've gone with job 1, so fingers crossed I don't regret it!

My reasons were that:

• they seem really keen so I think they'll treat me well
• the uni is a known quantity and I know they generally treat staff and students well
• it fits better round my kids and they won't be at home that much longer
• a less stressful and tiring commute
• I think if I'm looking for jobs mid-academic year it's going to be harder to move from research to research + teaching as teaching job vacancies don't often come up mid year

I'm conscious I do need to make sure I get my publications up this year though and try to get some grant funding for after.

FWIW this sounds like the right decision. You might consider how to leverage publications out of your teaching: something on teaching practice? Or can you get them involved in a research project? Good luck anyway.