1/ There’s been a bit of excitement about the French government’s shake-up of higher education which has apparently, as one of its aims, increasing the international staff* in its universities. Here’s a thread based on my experience.

*Sometimes called ‘foreign talent’

2/ The Universities I know have no money for the creation of posts, new posts are frozen. Your job will be to fill the shoes of someone who has retired or moved on. The government hands out the money for posts centrally, although in theory Universities balance their own budgets.

3/ So even though they receive (nearly) all their funds from the government, somehow it’s the universities’ fault they don’t have enough money to create posts.

4/ All jobs are advertised centrally, once a year, and applications are managed through a clearing house system, a portal. To apply for a job you need to be qualified to apply, which you’d think means that you need to have a PhD, or something.

5/ Well yes, and no. It means that a panel of elected representatives from your domain judge your PhD, CV and publications to see if you’re good enough to be allowed to log in to the all-important portal. Don’t worry, it’s a fair and transparent system.

6/ Spoiler alert. Throughout this thread, I’m going to write ‘Don’t worry it’s a fair and transparent system’, when in fact I mean the opposite.

7/ These gatekeepers, who uphold quality, are banded into rigid disciplines, ‘sections’, and you will be admitted to one which will define you and what you apply for. Try not to work across disciplinary boundaries.

8/ Careful it doesn’t say ‘doctor of philosophy’ anywhere on your PhD certificate for they will think you are, alas, a philosopher. If you are a philosopher, this concern doesn’t apply.

9/ Unless they think that you think you are a doctor. The whole of France, including the Universities, treat you like Ross from Friends. You’re not a doctor. Even though it’s an ‘Ecole Doctorale’ and a ‘Doctorat’, you are not a doctor.

10/ You’re qualified, and you can search for a job. Jobs are described and announced on a soulless form and organised on the website joylessly in reference-number order, so you will have to remember the number of your section. Pro tip: get it tattooed on your person.

11/ You find a suitable job. You apply to the website, not a person, although you will have the contact details of someone to talk to. They will talk to you about their institute and your candidature with indifference. To do otherwise would generate inequalities and unfairness.

12/ You upload many documents to become qualified in your section. When you apply for a job you upload them again. If you don’t have a given document because it doesn’t exist in the system where you trained you can upload a signed document attesting to the lack of said document.

13/ You will get called to an interview. If this date is difficult, tough luck. If this date is the same date as another interview for a different job the other side of France, tough luck. Don’t forget, there’s a fixed calendar, and a definite ‘season’ for interviews.

14/ You pay your own interview expenses. I repeat, you pay your own expenses. And, incidentally, you pay your own moving expenses too should you get the job. Unless you’re already in France and in a University job, then you get some expenses, because you know, that’s fair.

15/ The interview may be in English. Usually it’ll be in French, because if you got to do it in your native language it would be unfair on the others who get to do it in their native language. (I think its fair that interviews are in French when you will be teaching in French.)

16/ The interview may last anything up to 45 minutes, although that would be crazy long for deciding whether to give someone a job for life. There will be a presentation to give. You must focus on your 'insertion' into the department. After this questions will be asked.

17/ This is academia, so in questions people mostly try to shoot you down whilst making gratuitous references to their own work. Your opinions on open science, the motivation of students, or the use of laptops in class are not of interest.

18/ “Do you have any questions for us?” said no member of a French interview panel, ever.

19/ The panel will be about 8 people. At least half will be from a different university. That means a large proportion of the people who decide your fate don’t care about your fate. At least you don’t need to impress them, because you won’t be working with them.

20/ But then you won’t know who those guys are, because no-one gets introduced. Some people won’t speak at all. They are either in conflict with you, or they there to talk about a different candidate.

21/ Conflict of interest includes them being from department x where you have also applied. Department x is really keen on getting you, so their members may act inappropriately while you’re interviewing at department y. Or the inverse. It’s a fair and transparent system

22/ In many universities, the director of the department where you are applying is in conflict of interest and banned from proceedings. They are your future boss and the senior manager responsible for the resources at you disposal, and the scientific direction of the lab.

23/ You get the job. To accept it, you must click on a button on the website. If you don’t, tough luck. With your excellent fit for the job, and great interview, don’t think you’re above the button. It’s all about the button. What? No one thought to tell you about the button?

24/ You take the job. You haven’t been offered a salary or a start up. A committee will look at your service and decide your salary. This won’t be the people that appointed you. You won’t know the outcome of this until your job has started. Your overseas service counts less.

25/ You start on the 1st September. If you have a notice period to work out, or find it difficult to organise moving, there is some flexibility: start on the 1st of September or don’t start at all.