....to apply for uni admin jobs when universities seem to be in trouble?

[mumofoneofeach75]

Hello, hoping for some advice from current university staff. Posting here for traffic. I asked for advice a few months ago - I'm a secondary school teacher (core subject) desperately looking for alternatives (especially after the GCSE & A Level results....). Uni admin was recommended by some posters, but Brexit was also mentioned as a worry. Things seem to be much worse since I posted-falling numbers of both UK and international students, potential losses of EU funding, closing departments and "restructuring". I read an article in the Guardian yesterday about huge numbers of EU academic staff looking to leave UK institutions because of immigration worries and potentially significant loss of research funding. Are things looking as dire within the universities as it seems from the media? I'm really desperate and where I live, a uni job looks to be my best chance of getting out of teaching. Any information will be very gratefully received.

ikeadyounot why sceptical? She was working under world class academics blah blah who asked her to do all sorts of things outwith her job description and also that they were perfectly capable of doing themselves but had gotten extremely lazy.

I'm skeptical because that's her fucking job - to support the academics in any reasonable way they ask for her paygrade.

in terms of working hours, it depends what level you are looking to work at. Some roles, more junior admin would be set hours with over time paid if they went over the agreed time.

My role is more salary based, I get paid to do the job and if it takes more than 9-5 so be it. I do work PT though and to be fair i love my job. I also get a lot of leave and good pension.

The reason why there has been a historical divide between professionals and academics is research/publication etc. However, most admin industry professionals usually come with masters, multiple degrees, phds, and a list of publications a mile long, and could quite easily double-hat into both academic and admin roles (by admin I don't mean support staff). Not many universities have acknowledged this and so most highly qualified professionals don't bother to apply.

There's also the point where a lot of uni support and admin roles need academic qualifications while they don't in industry (example: industry values PMP while unis value an msc in project management for project management which in most unis is not even equivalent to prince2/msp in terms of content - something even the lowest grade change analyst in industy has. Mscs in project management are useless and expensive yet unis keep requesting them). I presume this is because HR teams at unis don't tend to understand professional recruitment or aren't given enough autonomy in defining job descriptions.

(I'm one of the rare breed who lectures and works in industry).

@PeaFaceMcgee. Were the things she was being asked to do part of the job description of the academics though ?

I don't know what exactly she was being asked to do, but if you have a word class academic on your team, it makes no sense to ask them to do administrative work. They are both more expensive and less good at admin than a professional administrator and whilst they are being paid a lot to adminstrate badly, they're not doing the world class research work you acutally hired them for.

The flip side of this is that universities should not skimp on the number of adminstrative and support staff they hire.

Booking holiday accommodation, picking up shopping, calling the cleaner.

My sister complained, was ignored, and left.

I'm skeptical because that's her fucking job - to support the academics in any reasonable way they ask for her paygrade

It wasn't reasonable, see above. Why are you swearing at me?

Universities have some challenges bit still employ thousands and thousands of people so go ahead and apply.

Universities have some challenges bit still employ thousands and thousands of people so go ahead and apply.

sorry for the delay in posting here-had to pop out and just going through the replies now

I don't know what exactly she was being asked to do, but if you have a word class academic on your team, it makes no sense to ask them to do administrative work. They are both more expensive and less good at admin than a professional administrator and whilst they are being paid a lot to adminstrate badly, they're not doing the world class research work you acutally hired them for.

Precisely.

She was being asked to nothing absolutely nothing relevant to work, as I have detailed above.

just had a quick read through-thanks so much for all the useful information. of course, forgot that admin in unis has a different meaning. the job vacancies I have seen are for support staff doing various admin type roles. aside from teaching my subject (which I enjoy) and the pupils (many of whom I adore), I'm trying to get away from insidious, covert, nasty bullying. I've hung on for years because of my kids (salary trap), but can't bear it anymore. Also, both my kids are in exam years and failing, so they really need my time and support. I'm not worried about the job being too easy or boring, or a lack of promotion (seriously lacking in self confidence etc) in the short term. also, unis are much bigger than schools. if I found myself caught in another toxic situation, I figured it would be easier to move to another dept more easily.

Not quite the same thing, but I know quite a few people who work in University finance teams or executive assistant type roles, and their situations seems quite stable, indeed they're taking new people on in many cases.

To some extent these are the jobs which will still need to be done whether there are 20,000 students at the university or 10,000, so they are slightly protected from the potential Brexit impacts which are more likely to impact on the academic and research side of what they do.

also, used to working for arsey, rude types even prior to teaching. so long as I can do a good job (which I can't seem to in teaching) and I'm not personally being targeted, I think I should be ok. I know I'm at a really low point, but some of the pros pps are listing look absolutely lovely - fixed core hours, possible flexi-time, really easy procedures etc....

Quite a lot of uni admin staff at the higher levels started doing PhDs and decided to not go down the academic route, or couldn't get a job. It's quite common for them to be very familiar with the HE sector so you'd potentially be competing with them (depending on what level you're aiming at).

In my institution there have been many rounds of redundancies (I've lost count) & it was the support staff who were targeted first. Admin support has been cut to the bone--we used to have 2.5 secretaries to support my department. We now have 1. This means academics are picking up loads of admin jobs.

The positives are that there tends to be some flexibility in work hours/days, support staff are gone at spot on 5pm (unlike academics who are sometimes stillat work very late). But there's also a lot of uncertainties in HE--it very much depends where you are (e.g. Scotland is in a different situation to England). In my area there are very few jobs so university support positions attract a lot of applicants.

I'm an academic. I am not arsey or rude to the admin staff (or anyone!), I am so happy they are there, doing things that I don't want to do, and that they are better at than me. I have total respect for (most*) of them. If anything, I would say that students are more difficult to deal with where I am, than academics. They can get very rude and arsey!

Good luck mumofone - it could be a good environment to regain some confidence and at my university, admin/support staff who are good have the opportunity to move into different types of job. I think there's a difference between support roles with particular functional specialisms such as marketing and HR, and those more general roles which administer the running of coherent degrees on behalf of students and academics. Not sure what the latter are called. They do seem very process driven, so if you like that kind of thing, that could be great. Sometimes it can get especially busy (eg start of term, exam periods, etc) but I don't think (and I hope this is OK to say) that the work is especially challenging in other respects. Having said which - I received several emails at the weekend from a member of staff administering the marking of resits. But that is very unusual.

(*When I say most ... there is one fairly senior member of our admin team who is known to respond to male professors within 24 hours and the rest of us .... well, often never, which can get a bit trying !!)

I'm following this thread with interest as I'm considering applying for a senior admin. role at a university. I too am a teacher and have taught at secondary level for 15 years. I'm confident that I can satisfy the criteria with bells on ( they refer to experience with HE/ FE or equivalent - 6th form is equivalent to FE, no? ). I guess I should be prepared to be up against a lot of internal candidates though. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Don't worry too much about the rude and arsey academics! Academia is a sheltered bubble and people are generally nice to one another. I guess you can get office politics anywhere but if the worst you get is someone asking you to phone their cleaner then it doesn't seem that bad. Hardly seems worth leaving a job over if that was the only problem. Admin staff will get asked to arrange accommodation and flights, book meeting rooms, make tea and coffee etc, this is all vital stuff and is definitely part of (some) jobs!

In the university I'm in the support staff seem to have a very pleasant environment. They definitely spend much of the day internet shopping and chatting to each other. They also always leave on time. It tends to be the academics who are working long hours and we also do our fair share of admin jobs (and internet shopping!) at times

thanks again for so much useful information-I don't know how to "@" specific posters but every post has been really helpful. does anyone know if the long teacher resignation dates would likely be a problem? I have many exam classes I could not leave mid year. I missed an opportunity last year because the interview date was the day before the last teacher resignation date and I didn't think they would wait all of June and most of July for me to start working. Now I have to go back to school I realise I should have at least applied in case I got an interview. Also, will being mid 40s count against me - I'm "young at heart" :)

also, didn't mean to imply that academics were rude etc in an earlier post. just meant I don't mind people with difficult personalities at work if that's just the way they are, and they aren't being specifically nasty to me.

if the worst you get is someone asking you to phone their cleaner then it doesn't seem that bad. Hardly seems worth leaving a job over if that was the only problem

It wasn't. It was the air of impatience, rudeness and condescension under which these sorts of daily demands were made. No friendliness at all. No pleases or thankyous. But it seems this is a minority case perhaps - was initially just chiming in with a pp.

Sure you'll be fine OP!

I don't know any academic who asks admin staff to do the stuff Peaface lists. Nor that many are difficult personalities these days. And we do most of our own admin eg producing handouts & inputting marks that used to be done by admin.

We have much much fewer admin staff than when I started & equally academics do much more admin now. Agree with Toast re periodic restructuring/redundancy rounds in universities too. They are run as businesses these days.

I am very grateful to work in an environment of ideas & learning :) Most of the time!

Asking support staff to phone my cleaner (if I had one) isn't something I or any of my academic colleagues would dream of. Just no.

Hi, worked 30 years in university admin. Universities are businesses now and seem to need more and more admin.
We recruit more admin than academics and generally on better contracts. It's a comparatively well paid job, good holidays and sickness benefits and good working conditions. Also there's still a good pension scheme.
It was rumoured a few years ago that between 5 and 10 universities were going to fall, there was even an unofficial list! They didn't though.

So I'd go for it but be prepared to compete with lots of applicants. We had 86 applications for our last post.