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My fiance and I are trying to find jobs in the same city within a specific region due to family. My partner is a physician, I am an academic - recent PhD graduate now post-doc'ing abroad for 1 year. My partner has an unofficial permanent job offer that's practically ideal, from "university x" in the region. Unfortunately, university x has almost no research / faculty / courses in my research area, and there are no other nearby universities (e.g. for commuting). I am wondering if I might still get hired at university x, knowing that I would likely teach other topics, but still try to build up a lab in my own research area if they are open to it. Is this a reasonable possibility? Common? A bad idea? Has anyone had a similar experience? Is there anybody I could/should talk to at university x about this (e.g. best-fitting department dean)? I am meeting with my PhD supervisor to discuss as well. I also appreciate that academic job hunting is difficult at best ...

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  • How much change in your research area would be required so that you match X? Would that be acceptable to you?
    – Buffy
    Commented Nov 8, 2023 at 10:54
  • Similar question: Does what you call your "research area" at least fit into one of the departments/faculties at the university (maybe with some generosity)?
    – Christian Hennig
    Commented Nov 8, 2023 at 23:35
  • Thanks - there is one department that I could probably teach most of the intro-level courses, and one other faculty member that does slightly similar work. One concern with this department is whether they expect publications in field-specific journals, since I would probably not publish in any of those.
    – jessexknight
    Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 18:13

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The right place to start is with the department that will hire your spouse. Most university have partner placement programs. Let the department of your spouse get you in contact with the people who run these programs, and talk to them about what is possible and what is not.

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If university X has hired your spouse as a physician and you are a new PhD in a laboratory research field, your chances of getting a permanent job at X are extremely low. If your "lab" would be a computer science lab in the "right" field (not infectious disease modelling, probably), it might be slightly higher; I do not know that as well.

X might hire you as an adjunct instructor, but that will not help you earn substantial money or advance your career.

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  • Thanks for your answer. Can you edit to remove the identifying information you found it my profile, that I purposely omitted from my question in a weak attempt to remain slightly more anonymous?
    – jessexknight
    Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 18:09

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