Universities
are currently fretting over the seemingly inevitable gaps in next academic
year’s finances. In the short term, staff recruitment is one obvious locus for
cost constraint. Beyond the financial drive to slow or stop recruitment there
are the practical matters of assembling interview panels, making appointment
decisions, connecting new staff to university systems and the more existential
question of whether they can usefully begin working remotely. However, at some
stage, large employers like universities will return to something more like
normal operating circumstances. Will recruitment decisions be shaped by
different priorities post-lockdown?
Before
answering this, it is important to make two observations. First, COVID-19 is
extracting a terrible human cost from society. Our staff and student
populations are experiencing anxiety, loss and isolation in the same way as
everyone else. Second, the speculations expressed here are my own and do not
represent the views of either the Chartered Association of Business Schools or
of Heriot-Watt University.
Digital Skills
The most
obvious pedagogical consequence of lockdown has been the wholesale switch to
online supported learning. A few pioneering universities have been engaged in
online learning at scale for some time. Many more have been quietly contemplating
the balance of online and face-to-face learning for several years. Suddenly
however, the whole sector has moved further and faster than anyone would have
thought possible. When campuses do reopen, there will be far greater emphasis
on online literacy in the recruitment process. Previously at an interview you
may have encountered one or two random early adopters of this new fangled
technology. Examples of innovation that I’ve encountered when interviewing have
included the use of online polls, flipped classrooms, webinars, etc. Though not
particularly revolutionary, such examples have tended to be reasonably well
received. Going forward, everyone on the panel will likely have completed a
“how to teach online” course offered by their own institution’s learning and
teaching specialists or a third party provider. Being seen as an online
enthusiast, innovator or expert will be both more important and more demanding
for interviewees.
International Networks
In
selecting new members of your university’s academic community, there’s an
allure to marrying upwards. Recruiting early career academics from the best
schools, preferably once they’ve been supervised to doctoral standard by the
world’s leading scholars, is a familiar pattern. It promises a low-cost way to
cross pollinate world-leading research culture with your own, perhaps less
esteemed but no less ambitious culture. Research networks may matter even more
since the ways in which such relationships can be nurtured in a post-COVID19
environment may change. The familiar practice of networking with leading
thinkers at conferences was already under question in terms of environmental
consequences. Now there are new reasons to worry about such mass gatherings.
Coming with a pre-formed research network will make you an attractive
candidate. Demonstrating the digital skills to build and expand that network
will make you even more attractive.
Local Networks
It is
striking that the university sector has resisted the kinds of consolidation and
extinction events that have characterised other industries from retail to
financial services and beyond. If you can access the best minds from the best
institutions digitally, why would you go to your local, mid-ranked university?
The answer may be a new localism. This must not be confused with parochialism.
Many universities pride themselves on their civic mission and descriptions of
them as anchor tenants or engines of their local economy are often hard earned.
Few organisations are better placed to reach out into their local community to
provide knowledge, skills, research and training. Both local and national
governments will rarely have been in greater need of help in nurturing local
economies and talk of levelling up will likely be taken up with renewed vigour.
Knowing your local environment, creating and leveraging relationships within
that local environment could go from being a perceived weakness in candidates
to a source of real competitive advantage. Would an ivy league import be able
to find their feet as quickly in your university’s community of public,
private, family and charitable organisations? Maybe it’s a time for a new breed
of local heroes. Those who can combine international excellence with local economic
impact are likely to be in high demand.
NB. A version of this article appeared in Times Higher Education on 12 May 2020 and can be found here.
