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> I think I have gained skills and experience that can be very valuable to the astronomical community, but I know that that is simply not what candidates for ac

> I think I have gained skills and experience that can be very valuable to the astronomical community, but I know that that is simply not what candidates for academic positions are selected on. t seems pretty damning to suggest that a community selects its members based on something other than having "skills and experience that can be very valuable" to that same community. Is that really true? Hopefully we're putting the best people in place for these academic jobs, and not simply the well-connected people who happened to go to the fanciest schools.

petschge 6y ago
You get hired permanently if you excel (or promise to excel) in three categories: 1.) Getting grants 2.) Productive science 3.) Teaching. All the skills that the author has gained might help with #2, but he hasn't actually published in the last years to prove that. And he has nothing to show for #1 and #3. All the while he is much older than other candidates, i.e. the university will get much less use (in particular of the service duties that are fulfilled later in the career) out of him. So why exactly should they hire him over somebody that has gotten a similar amount of experience while doing a postdoc or two and maybe a junior university position, while ALSO improving on grant writing experience and gaining teaching experience?
borroka 6y ago
Just to make an example, politicians are certainly not the best political/organizational minds that one can find in this world. When the results of an activity are nuanced, that is the results are not clearly measurable (revenue, profit, distance, weight, etc. are clear, measurable metrics), the skills of the members of the community are unlikely to be the best one can find. Since most of the research work is inevitably useless, there are reasons for hiring that are other than skills and experience and quality.

petschge 6y ago

You get hired permanently if you excel (or promise to excel) in three categories: 1.) Getting grants 2.) Productive science 3.) Teaching. All the skills that the author has gained might help with #2, but he hasn't actually published in the last years to prove that. And he has nothing to show for #1 and #3. All the while he is much older than other candidates, i.e. the university will get much less use (in particular of the service duties that are fulfilled later in the career) out of him. So why exactly should they hire him over somebody that has gotten a similar amount of experience while doing a postdoc or two and maybe a junior university position, while ALSO improving on grant writing experience and gaining teaching experience?

borroka 6y ago

Just to make an example, politicians are certainly not the best political/organizational minds that one can find in this world. When the results of an activity are nuanced, that is the results are not clearly measurable (revenue, profit, distance, weight, etc. are clear, measurable metrics), the skills of the members of the community are unlikely to be the best one can find. Since most of the research work is inevitably useless, there are reasons for hiring that are other than skills and experience and quality.