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It’s an open secret in France that many, maybe most (?) calls for new teaching/research positions in university labs are designed to be won by someone already a

It’s an open secret in France that many, maybe most (?) calls for new teaching/research positions in university labs are designed to be won by someone already attached to the lab (like a doctoral student for example, or someone with a temporary contract). In French it’s called being "fléché", as in attributed for someone. It’s of course totally contrary to the rules. (It’s most of the time somehow well intentioned, from the point of view of labs doing it, like there’s this great person doing a lot of work and they deserve this new opening the lab fought to get budgeted.) The sad part is that some poor naive young researchers will prepare and cross the country to interview (hopefully now there will be more video calls) not knowing that the call is already custom fitted to someone in the lab. The fun part is that, as there has to be a majority of external jury in the commission appraising the candidates, the external jury sometimes don’t even know that the call is rigged and pick another, clearly better candidate Then, a few months later the candidate starts their new job and is really puzzled at the attitude of this one person… the one that was supposed to win the call

theshrike79 6y ago
France has this down to an art. When the French government puts out an EU wide bid for something (As is the rule in the EU), the bid will be won by a French company. Every. Single. Time. And it's not by accident. Finland, on the other hand, is playing things stupid. We've had cases where a city's laundry services was won by an Estonian company(!) because they were the cheapest. They actually shipped all laundry 300km+ south, over the bay and to Estonia. Wash it and send it back. For some reason the people handling the bid were all suprised_pikachu.png when it turned out the arrangement didn't work AT ALL. That's all down to knowing how to write the bid so that the winner will also be the best.
- rvnx 6y ago
  Estonia was probably chosen because Estonia has very good experience doing laundry of the Russians if you know what I mean. Joke aside, it seems one of the winner of the Finland->Estonia washing contract is actually a Finnish national that incorporated a company in Estonia: https://www.aripaev.ee/article/2011/2/22/soome-pesupesijad-uhisrindes-eesti-firma-vastu https://www.aripaev.ee/article/2011/2/22/soome-pesupesijad-u...
  - siilats 6y ago
    Estonia has done a great job with these contracts. Washer salaries are 400Eur per month here and 1600eur per month in Finland so Estonians keep the washing factories open overnight.
haddr 6y ago
I have a friend who was lucky enough to present himself and get such position. the reason was that the other guy made some mistake in the formal process (missed some required sheet of paper).
user5994461 6y ago
For more context: When opening a permanent position, research institutions are required by law to advertise the position publicly and interview candidates. We are talking about permanent positions guaranteed for life with fantastic perks. They're extremely competitive to get. When a permanent position is opened, it's often for a position that's been contracted out for a while. Want to hire the contractor who's been doing the job perfectly for 2 years? It's simply not possible because of the law above. Gotta advertise the job nationwide and run formal interviews. An interview panel will run interviews and pick whoever they like (it takes months). It's not as rigged as the poster makes it out to be. The panel is 5+ random people selected among a very large company. They don't know that the position is tailored to someone and they couldn't care less either way, they're all people with a cushy position guaranteed for life, no favor to give. (It's really the opposite of Russia/China for those doing the comparison). It's rigged in the sense that if there was somebody doing the job for year, they're probably more qualified than you are. This rule exists to prevent middle managers from doing empire building and growing their headcount indefinitely. It works as you can see above where a better person was chosen.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

theshrike79 6y ago

France has this down to an art. When the French government puts out an EU wide bid for something (As is the rule in the EU), the bid will be won by a French company. Every. Single. Time. And it's not by accident. Finland, on the other hand, is playing things stupid. We've had cases where a city's laundry services was won by an Estonian company(!) because they were the cheapest. They actually shipped all laundry 300km+ south, over the bay and to Estonia. Wash it and send it back. For some reason the people handling the bid were all suprised_pikachu.png when it turned out the arrangement didn't work AT ALL. That's all down to knowing how to write the bid so that the winner will also be the best.

rvnx 6y ago
Estonia was probably chosen because Estonia has very good experience doing laundry of the Russians if you know what I mean. Joke aside, it seems one of the winner of the Finland->Estonia washing contract is actually a Finnish national that incorporated a company in Estonia: https://www.aripaev.ee/article/2011/2/22/soome-pesupesijad-uhisrindes-eesti-firma-vastu https://www.aripaev.ee/article/2011/2/22/soome-pesupesijad-u...
- siilats 6y ago
  Estonia has done a great job with these contracts. Washer salaries are 400Eur per month here and 1600eur per month in Finland so Estonians keep the washing factories open overnight.

haddr 6y ago

I have a friend who was lucky enough to present himself and get such position. the reason was that the other guy made some mistake in the formal process (missed some required sheet of paper).

user5994461 6y ago

For more context: When opening a permanent position, research institutions are required by law to advertise the position publicly and interview candidates. We are talking about permanent positions guaranteed for life with fantastic perks. They're extremely competitive to get. When a permanent position is opened, it's often for a position that's been contracted out for a while. Want to hire the contractor who's been doing the job perfectly for 2 years? It's simply not possible because of the law above. Gotta advertise the job nationwide and run formal interviews. An interview panel will run interviews and pick whoever they like (it takes months). It's not as rigged as the poster makes it out to be. The panel is 5+ random people selected among a very large company. They don't know that the position is tailored to someone and they couldn't care less either way, they're all people with a cushy position guaranteed for life, no favor to give. (It's really the opposite of Russia/China for those doing the comparison). It's rigged in the sense that if there was somebody doing the job for year, they're probably more qualified than you are. This rule exists to prevent middle managers from doing empire building and growing their headcount indefinitely. It works as you can see above where a better person was chosen.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]