Help me to word this application (academic)

[admylin]

Dh has been applying for jobs in research at universities for ages now. His application,CV and publication list is very good so he thinks his age(far end of 40) might be the thing stopping him getting as far as an interview.

How can he put it? He left his home country with a science degree in physiology that wasn't accepted to start a PhD where we live now as they only had biology to offer so he had to start again as a mature student and re-do his degree then went on to do his PhD - top grades in all his qualificatins. He thinks the fact that he's still a postdoc at his age is the problem.

Could he or should he try to explain that in his cover letter?

He should just leave his date of birth off his CV - prospective employers cannot legally ask your age.

Unfortunately it's not as simple as leaving off a DoB.

As soon as you list your education/qualifications/employment history with the relevant dates (even if not on your CV, this information is usually requested an an application form) then the person scrutinising the applications can do the sums.

Personally, I think a brief explanation in covering letters would be appropriate and may be helpful.

That's a thought. If he left off the MSc from years ago and only put his 2nd degree and 2005 PhD on his CV it wouldn't be too bad. Also never thought of leaving the DoB off - might atleast get him through to interviews.

I thought of him adding that he had studied as a mature student due to circumstances blablabla...but no idea how to word it.

I agree to explaining this in a covering letter. Keep it positive.

If relevant, experience outside of academia can look like a positive reason for his situation. Is there any such experience he can highlight? Periods spent applying his research?

Is his foreign language relevant to the job and could this be highlighted as an asset to the job (assuming the post involves international collaboration, say?)

Research jobs are very competitive at the moment. In my experience, it is unlikely to be age discrimination at the pre-interview stage at least. If he has 4 good publications which would count for REF then that should be ok.

When did he finish his PhD and has held a postdoc position before? One of the issues is that most research jobs are funded by external grants so if you have held a couple of research jobs previously you can become to expensive to employ.

I'm sure he does this but make sure that each of the essential/desirable criteria are addressed in a covering letter/supporting statement (depending on the application process). We usually have over a hundred applications for each research job and when we are going through them, the easier it is to find the evidence that they meet the criteria, the more likely they are to get onto the possible shortlist pile.

Yes, I know it's all to do with funding and he is too old or too expensive for some of the funding (so he's been told).

He did his PhD in 2005 and has had a year postdoc then a 3 year postdoc job and now he's officially still a postdoc but doing group leader stuff, supervising med students and 2 PhD students but they won't change his contract for some reason. They are giving him overtime pay but his status is still postdoc. That's why he's looking for group leader, lecturer type jobs.

As you say, when 100s apply you have to sort out alot before shortlisting. He's applying for funding now and he's on a joint Tourette research thing that they got funding for so that should positive for his cv atleast.