No matter I do, I think I'll always spell it as Fenner Brock'a'way. Just a lost cause that one.

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The end times job dot ack automated email!

“Please be strategic away days and paperwork, please be strategic away days and pa…”

Honestly you go through their essays, show how they are the only essay to use obscure sources from ChatGPT/use the same turns of phrase from it, and you’ll still mostly get a flat denial. It’s just not worth the time.

Yep, have been doing this so far. I’m not convinced this route is helping. Repeat offenders suggests it doesn’t stop it. Lots of paperwork/evidence gathering for me. So fail plus informal “watch AI use” tip from now on.

I mean it’s *never* high level students accidentally stumbling into AI either.

This but finding other nominal reasons to fail them from now on. I just can’t be bothered with the bureaucracy.

Also crucially even this level of granular detail proves they know what a university *is*. Labour’s line seems to be higher education is like an annoying fly they occasionally need to swat away and fundamentally it’s a menace

This is a) still quite open ended and b) in Scotland but also c) the most detailed/sexy higher ed topline policy I’ve seen in a while

There's definitely a "cherished family pet moved to a nice family on a farm" type element to these announcements

The sector keeps giving

Interesting. Anecdotally I appreciate, but does any edge emerge more from the kind of generic impressiveness/skills of a PhD or in a “nobody else knows about Panama - this is our exact person!” sort of specific way?

Yeah, it's very much a shift from "this is a bloody long shot but at least I get to toss applications in" to just a wasteland really

Sorry guys it was actually really four-five gigs depending on how you're defining it

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Yep. Everyone without some slam dunk prior connection doing a PhD in our broad area should be writing it more towards a Civil Service application (or similar) than some future jobs.ac.uk trawl. See also (if funded/doable) interning in those sort of fields rather than scanning for teaching experience

Ofc. Documents on German Foreign Policy draws nowt.

People way more versed with the German Bundesarchiv than me. I'm looking for some transmissions from Franz von Papen from Ankara in early 1940. I've run the expected searches. Zip. But, in general terms, how much of this sort of thing survived? Is Kew (HW12 intercepts stuff) a better port of call?

Yup. And does the 25 year old who has eeked out a PhD whilst working to the bone at Caffe Nero or whatever then have a greater shot of getting entry level post in attractive field X, or are these so few that going from a 150/1 to 50/1 shot doesn't matter. It's all very depressing to say the least.

Addendum. One theoretical answer might be people in their 60s take early retirement. But let's be real: universities are just not replacing those jobs and instead just pocketing the salary saving. Or if they are it's in the form of a 37th REF Impact Officer somehow.

Yeah I'm interested in the counterfactual. What do the hundreds of young 20 something would be history PhDs do with that period of their life otherwise given related job markets...

The other argument might be, if you really have an insatiable itch for a topic, get a decent mostly wfh job, eventually dial it down to 3-4 days a week, and scratch the itch with the extra day.

Maybe at the top it becomes part of your "give me 10 grand more" narrative but for most of the time I'd think no benefit at all and likely decent detriment over doing, say, 2-3 early career gigs in that time.

I'd like to know the humanities/social sci PhD premium (if it exists at all) in non-academic jobs. Is there any uptick, or measurable uptick, from someone who does a PhD in something public policy related and then goes to work in that field (over just working 3 years in that field). I'd doubt it tbh

Only just spotted the massive typo in the above. AI is going to do a number on me.

The point about most not becoming academics at the end of it all is of course true. I would say in history it's got massively worse in terms of odds in the last decade.

This is a good point about how they are described. To be honest in the formal advert the "what do you do with this" is usually ignored altogether. But foregrounding the "make sure you do this in something applicable to other fields" is now prob sensible.This is usually raised at interview to be fair

Ha, expectations and all that

I should absolutely make clear again here - current vacancies

Fortunately my doctorate was in the History of Generic Central Initiatives, so I’ll be fine

True. Vacancies. Although give it time

There are currently 6 permanent full time history jobs in the whole UK. 500+ PhDs being produced a year - not all of whom will want to pursue an academic year but likely most, and of course years will stack up onto each other. What a sector.