Is being an international job-candidate a disadvantage?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, an Australian PhD asks:

Just out of curiosity. I applied for many jobs. My estimation is that more than half of the jobs I applied for are in North America. Three years on the job market and I've been through 17 interviews. 5 are for North American jobs. (All first round, no final round compared to all other interviews being for final rounds.) So basically my interview rate for North American jobs are much lower than that of for Uk, European, Australian, New Zealand, and Middle Eastern jobs. Is this a common experience for those who got their degrees not in North America?

Fair question, though I have to say that this person's three years on the job market seem pretty spectacular to me (17 interviews is quite a lot!). It would be great to hear from other job candidates, as well as from search committee members. Is being an international candidate a disadvantage on the US market?

Comments

[newly tt]

I bet this varies from committee to committee, but I also wonder if the applicant pools for non-US jobs are different (perhaps even smaller). I was extremely reluctant to apply to jobs outside the US, not that they were usually hiring in my areas. :)

[Michel]

I think it is. I don't think it is where more prestigious and well-founded schools are concerned, because they're accustomed to filling out the paperwork for indicating there was no equally qualified American, work permits, etc. But so many jobs are NTT, and are at schools where departments and HR have little experience doing that sort of thing...

For example, as far as I can tell almost nobody knows that, under NAFTA (and now CUSMA), Canadians can automatically qualify for a temporary work visa (TN). The assumption is just that they'll need to go through a whole huge process to get you a work permit.

But yes, 17 interviews for three years is a huge success, even if only 5 were in the US. FWIW, in five years, I had just two TT interviews (both first-round), and 2 NTT interviews (both second-round). Two of those years, I had no interviews at all. The only job I was offered (and took) was from one of the NTT interviews. From what I've seen from friends and acquaintances, this seems like the more normal situation.

[Emanuele]

I thnk it is. The reasons Michel mentions make sense. I'll also add that if you have not a PhD from the US or you don't work in the US, you may not know how to write a compelling application tailored for the US job market. This is what happened to me: once I started working in the US and I had help from US professors in writing the application materials, I got my first interview request

[Also international]

I am tenured in the US and I got my PhD from a European university (outside of the UK), a bit over 10 years ago. After receiving my PhD I was for several years on the job market. I got several interviews in the US, including at an Ivy (alas that didn't pan out into an on campus), and I received two job offers. I'm currently tenured at a liberal arts college in the United States. Currently we are hiring so I also get some sense of how we're looking at international candidates (though I am not in the committee, so this is based on my knowledge of who was longlisted and then shortlisted).
My sense is that prestige of institution doesn't play that much of a role, if only because US institutions don't really know about institutional prestige internationally (except if it's Oxford or Cambridge). Publications and experience become more important.
A school like ours has hired, and still hires, international people. It's a bit of a headache with the work visa and subsequent permanent residence application but they have a dedicated office for this (which also keeps track of work visa expiry dates etc) so it doesn't figure negatively in their decision. I imagine smaller and/or cash-strapped schools might be less willing to hire international people.

[Chris]

I’m skeptical. The main reason for my skepticism is that I’ve yet to see a plausible alternative hypothesis ruled out. I’m at a job in Canada at an R1. We consistently get fewer applications than comparable universities in the US. So I would ask: how many applications are applying to the jobs in these different countries? Until you know that you don’t know if your success rate is worse. There are typically more American applicants than from any other country in the English speaking job market, and many of those only apply to US schools. So I suspect the competition is tougher at US universities. But of course there may also be bias.

[me]

Chris,
From my experience you are probably right. I recall getting rejection letters from US institutions where they said they had 200+ applicants (and at least in one case 600 applicants). And even at a state college we would get 80 for a VAP position. In Europe, a very good Post Doc position may get about 30 applicants. The European positions though are more pointed, and require a very tailored application.

[historygrrrl]

I have a PhD from a university in the US.

During my last run on the job market, I applied (albeit selectively) to English-friendly universities in the US, Canada, EU, and MENA (I skipped the UK!) My success rate (measured by interviews, campus invites, etc.) was much higher in EU/MENA than US/CA.

This is one data point, and it may be related to my AOS. There are reasons why it may be more difficult for international applicants in the US: some smaller universities will not sponsor visas, for example. There are also reasons to suppose that the non-US market is a bit better for certain types of candidates.

[Bill Vanderburgh]

Over four recent searches I've noticed that European (and South American) applicants have a different style of preparing their application materials, That sometimes makes it difficult to compare them to the rest of the pool. Frank Herbert said "fear is the mind killer"; well, doubt is the application killer. If a committee has doubts of any kind, reasonable or not, it is easier to pass on that file and move on to the others. (There are always so many others.)

Besides matters of style, it has seemed to me that non-US-and-Canada applicants often have less teaching experience than the most competitive candidates for our jobs. Or at least their teaching experience is harder to translate (so to speak) into terms comparable to what we are looking for. Candidates can and should do more to make their experience clear and show how it makes them ready for the job to which they are applying. (So, for example, tell us how many students were in the course, how many contact-hours there were, and your precise role in any team teaching effort.)

Non-US candidates have sometimes seemed to me to not really understand what we are looking for when we ask for a teaching statement or a diversity statement. This is partly (maybe mainly?) about showing that you understand the social, economic, and cultural conditions of the students you are proposing to teach, and that the committee should have some reason to expect that you will be successful at it. Committees sometimes have doubts about candidates who have never taught in the US, or at a specific institution type in the US even. (If you have only taught courses at Cambridge and NYU, lucky you, but committees at US regional commuter public institutions are going to wonder if you can really reach their kinds of students. You have to show that you can.)

Publications in languages other than English pose a challenge for US committees, too. They probably can't evaluate the argument or even know what the publication standards are for that journal. Comments in the cover letter, research statement, and/or reference letters can help with this, a bit.

[Curious European]

Since a few people have mentioned that there are subtle differences in style between US and non-US applications, might it be helpful to have a separate thread on that? I'd like to hear in more detail what the differences are!

[Andy Peet]

Here's my experience: I have had 7-8 years on the job market. In that time I have received a single first round interview at an R2 (no followup). In the first maybe 5 years on the market i applied to a lot of U.S. jobs. In the last few years I have applied for fewer as A) it seems a waste of time, and B) I don't want to be in the U.S. anyway (at the moment at least).

I have been given a few explanations for my lack of success in the U.S., a few of which are covered by Bill Vanderburgh's comment above:

1. U.S. PhDs have way more teaching experience than non-U.S., and this experience is more transferable to the U.S. so there will be less worries about teaching ability, 2. The ways of assessing teaching outside of the U.S. are sometimes quite different to the U.S which makes it hard to put together a teaching portfolio that will make sense to U.S. search panels, 3. U.S. grad students tend to spend longer in grad school meaning they are usually stronger (with both teaching & publications) when they enter the market. A UK/EU candidate will generally only have comparable experience after a postdoc. But that looks less impressive since it seems achievements are often judged on the basis of time since completion of PhD. 4. It's far cheaper for U.S. schools to fly out U.S. candidates than UK/EU candidates. So, of they have a limited budget for flyouts, and a bunch of roughly equivalent candidates, it makes sense to just opt for the U.S. ones. 5. By the time a UK postdoc has comparable teaching experience to a U.S. candidate straight out of PhD they will often have a significantly more publications. This removes the "mystery factor", raises "why don't they already have a job" worries, 6. There are more flight risk worries about international candidates (if we wanted to be in the U.S. why wouldn't we study in the U.S.?).

Add all these factors together and it's fairly unsurprising that U.S. candidates do significantly better in the U.S. than international candidates.

[curious2]

I second Curious European's request.

[Marcus Arvan]

Done! I’ll put up a thread on that next week.

[Filippo Contesi]

Being an "international candidate" (provided we agree on the definition of that phrase) is likely to be an (unfair) disadvantage for all markets. To use Chomsky's words, philosophy is a "rather parochial" discipline.

[delayed despair]

A very real problem for me as an international applicant is that I cannot get US visa appointment in time for any campus visits. None or few appointments are available in many countries during and post the pandemic. I try not to think about this, but are my prospective employers willing to go with a virtual visit? It is the only thing I can do. (FWIW I have only applied for US and Uk positions.)

[Central-European]

Just another data point: I got my PhD in the US but am a European citizen; I had about the same number of US interviews as my American colleagues, even though I needed visa sponsorship etc. So it may indeed have to do more with teaching experience and the ability to put together the US-specific job application documents. (My US interviews were mostly for SLACs.)

(What I did learn in the process, after taking a job at a small college, is that it's one thing for a school to promise they'll deal with your visa, and it's another thing for them to actually do it. So I would make sure to check whether they have a good international support office. For this and for other reasons, eventually I ended up working in the UK instead.)