Almost hired
Aug. 22nd, 2001 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivka"Dear Ms. XXXX,
I am happy to extend to you an offer of appointment as Study Coordinator, in the Institute of Human Virology of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, University System of Maryland [...] This will be a full-time appointment [...] subject to the conditions, fringe benefits, and personnel policies applicable to Exempt employees [...] My colleagues join me in sharing the conviction that your association with the Institute of Human Virology will be mutually satisfactory and productive. [...] Sincerely yours, Robert C Gallo, MD, Director."
Now, if only it were signed, and didn't say "DRAFT" in big letters at the top, I'd be set.
This whole process has been... amazing.
In the middle of last year, my internship year, Lydia asked me if I'd like to stay on after I finished internship. And I helped her put together the research proposals that would supply my funding. Around the middle of April, we got e-mail from one of the granting agencies saying that the project would be funded. With that and the clinical contract, we'd have enough money to cover my salary, so I figured everything was set. Even more so once the letters of award arrived in June. What else did we need?
Heh.
So it turns out that you can't just obtain money and use it to hire someone - at least, not in academia. That's not how it works. First, you have to get permission to create a new position. To do so, you need to have funds in hand to support the entire salary and benefits associated with the position, and you need to fit it into an approved category of occupation, and justify the salary you intend to pay. (This was tricky, because Lydia wanted to pay me more than postdocs typically earn.) Then you have to create an advertisement for the position, and the advertisement has to be approved. Then you have to post the advertisement and leave an appropriate time for responses. Then the person for whom you're creating the job - and there usually is a person for whom you're creating the job; my situation is hardly unique - has to apply for the job. Then, after a suitable amount of time has passed, you have to fill out an "authorization to offer employment" form and get it signed by the intended supervisor, the division head (Big Red), and three vice presidents. Along with this, you have to submit an "affirmative action employment report," detailing the demographic characteristics of your top candidate and everyone you rejected. These forms get sent through the university (for the vice presidents to sign) along with a draft offer letter (see above) and the candidates CV and letter of application ("Dear Dr. Temoshok, I am writing to apply for the advertised position..."), and eventually they approve it, and then the HR person makes an official version of the offer letter and I sign it.
At no point in the proceedings is there ever even the hint of a suggestion that the job will go to anyone other than the person for whom it is intended. Oh, no. This is how, in academia, you use money that you have obtained to hire someone specific whom you already have in mind. The whole thing is so routine that the IHV has been paying me a salary - or at least, an hourly wage - snice July 1st, on the assumption that eventually I would be hired.
I hardly need mention that I already have an office, a phone line, and an e-mail account. That I printed my application letter on an IHV printer and walked next door to hand it to Lydia. That the office address on my CV is the IHV. I thought about printing my application letter on IHV letterhead, but then I thought that would probably be pushing my luck.
It will be nice to be a regular hire, instead of falling under this interim hourly deal. As a regular hire, I'll make about $2.50 more per hour - if I were going to be counting every hour, which I won't have to do anymore. And I'll have benefits - including a rather impressive five weeks of paid leave, which I personally negotiated with Lydia. Plus, I think once I'm a regular hire I get business cards. Then I can get girls.
This has all just been so ridiculous. I wouldn't mind, if it were really about making sure that the hiring process is open to everyone, and to ensure that there's fair competition for jobs. But it's not about that at all. It's about pretending that the hiring process is open to everyone and there is fair competition for jobs. That's the part that leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It's certainly true that in small labs, investigators need to be able to hand-pick their research staff - and that it makes the best sense for training relationships to continue as formal employment relationships, instead of hiring from scratch. But for the love of Mice[1], if that's what we're doing, let's say it's what we're doing. Let's not clothe it in the pretense of an open search.
[1] I saw this phrase in someone else's LJ, and instantly knew that I had to appropriate it.[2]
[2] Are journal entries allowed to have footnotes? [3]
[3] Not that anyone could stop me.
I am happy to extend to you an offer of appointment as Study Coordinator, in the Institute of Human Virology of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, University System of Maryland [...] This will be a full-time appointment [...] subject to the conditions, fringe benefits, and personnel policies applicable to Exempt employees [...] My colleagues join me in sharing the conviction that your association with the Institute of Human Virology will be mutually satisfactory and productive. [...] Sincerely yours, Robert C Gallo, MD, Director."
Now, if only it were signed, and didn't say "DRAFT" in big letters at the top, I'd be set.
This whole process has been... amazing.
In the middle of last year, my internship year, Lydia asked me if I'd like to stay on after I finished internship. And I helped her put together the research proposals that would supply my funding. Around the middle of April, we got e-mail from one of the granting agencies saying that the project would be funded. With that and the clinical contract, we'd have enough money to cover my salary, so I figured everything was set. Even more so once the letters of award arrived in June. What else did we need?
Heh.
So it turns out that you can't just obtain money and use it to hire someone - at least, not in academia. That's not how it works. First, you have to get permission to create a new position. To do so, you need to have funds in hand to support the entire salary and benefits associated with the position, and you need to fit it into an approved category of occupation, and justify the salary you intend to pay. (This was tricky, because Lydia wanted to pay me more than postdocs typically earn.) Then you have to create an advertisement for the position, and the advertisement has to be approved. Then you have to post the advertisement and leave an appropriate time for responses. Then the person for whom you're creating the job - and there usually is a person for whom you're creating the job; my situation is hardly unique - has to apply for the job. Then, after a suitable amount of time has passed, you have to fill out an "authorization to offer employment" form and get it signed by the intended supervisor, the division head (Big Red), and three vice presidents. Along with this, you have to submit an "affirmative action employment report," detailing the demographic characteristics of your top candidate and everyone you rejected. These forms get sent through the university (for the vice presidents to sign) along with a draft offer letter (see above) and the candidates CV and letter of application ("Dear Dr. Temoshok, I am writing to apply for the advertised position..."), and eventually they approve it, and then the HR person makes an official version of the offer letter and I sign it.
At no point in the proceedings is there ever even the hint of a suggestion that the job will go to anyone other than the person for whom it is intended. Oh, no. This is how, in academia, you use money that you have obtained to hire someone specific whom you already have in mind. The whole thing is so routine that the IHV has been paying me a salary - or at least, an hourly wage - snice July 1st, on the assumption that eventually I would be hired.
I hardly need mention that I already have an office, a phone line, and an e-mail account. That I printed my application letter on an IHV printer and walked next door to hand it to Lydia. That the office address on my CV is the IHV. I thought about printing my application letter on IHV letterhead, but then I thought that would probably be pushing my luck.
It will be nice to be a regular hire, instead of falling under this interim hourly deal. As a regular hire, I'll make about $2.50 more per hour - if I were going to be counting every hour, which I won't have to do anymore. And I'll have benefits - including a rather impressive five weeks of paid leave, which I personally negotiated with Lydia. Plus, I think once I'm a regular hire I get business cards. Then I can get girls.
This has all just been so ridiculous. I wouldn't mind, if it were really about making sure that the hiring process is open to everyone, and to ensure that there's fair competition for jobs. But it's not about that at all. It's about pretending that the hiring process is open to everyone and there is fair competition for jobs. That's the part that leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It's certainly true that in small labs, investigators need to be able to hand-pick their research staff - and that it makes the best sense for training relationships to continue as formal employment relationships, instead of hiring from scratch. But for the love of Mice[1], if that's what we're doing, let's say it's what we're doing. Let's not clothe it in the pretense of an open search.
[1] I saw this phrase in someone else's LJ, and instantly knew that I had to appropriate it.[2]
[2] Are journal entries allowed to have footnotes? [3]
[3] Not that anyone could stop me.
