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[shrek]

It can happen, but you have to be a star. Last year we tried hiring someone who had several influential articles. At least two of these had been cited over 100 times, this person had NIH funding (in the 7 figure range), etc. etc. Would have gone up for tenure in another year, we offered a tenured assoc. level position. Unfortunately (for us) the home department counter-offered, and offered early tenure, etc.
So, yes it does happen-- not typical but it can happen.
We did end up hiring an assistant who had 3 years in a first job-- moved because our university is an R1, but this person has an R1 type of profile. It's likely that this assistant professor will go up for tenure early if they continue their level of productivity. And yes, this is negotiated (but you don't want to HAVE to go up early, because anything can happen to derail your research). So, if you negotiate early tenure-- make sure you haven't locked yourself into it.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

One reason we almost never hire with tenure is that the dossier for tenure is far more extensive than any normal job application dossier, and the vetting is done not just by the department and dean, but also by a university committee containing no members of the applicant's field, then by the chancellor's office, then finally it is brought to the board of regents for final approval.  My school takes the latter steps pretty seriously - it is the main control the university has over the quality and integrity of the individual departments.

When we do hire with tenure these same staps are taken, but usually it requires convocation of extraordinary committees, and a whole lot of extra work and expense on our part (also the candidate's, since she must produce a tenure-quality dossier). - DvF

[pink_]

I think part of it, too, has to do with the line and the financial resources for the job.  Obviously, that wouldn't be an issue if the OP is applying for associate-level positions, but if s/he is applying for assistant-level jobs and hoping to get the bump, it just might not be possible.

Me, I'd be very wary about going somewhere now with tenure to start unless I was either very unhappy at old school or very familiar with new.

Good luck OP!

[seniorscholar]

At my R-1, we can hire to tenure only if the person has already been tenured *at a comparable institution* -- and this is for all the reasons about tenure packets vs. job application packets already mentioned. In addition, we can hire someone with tenure at the associate level only if the position has been advertised as "senior" or "open" -- reasoning is that if we advertise at assistant we will get only relative beginners, but if we advertise with the possibility of higher rank (and tenure) in the ad, we'll get a different pool from which to hire the best person available (and also, the dean will have committed a suitable salary figure in advance and not have to beg for extra money for the associate line).

For all of these reasons, hiring someone currently an assistant professor and only 4 years beyond the Ph.D., even if they're coming from a first job at Yale and has published a book, is extremely unlikely. And the only time in my long career here that we've ever hired at a senior rank after advertising for an assistant professor was when a really big name scholar (you'd recognize the name even if you're not in my field) near retirement whose younger 3rd wife had landed a job at a nearby university contacted the department about the position we'd advertised for an assistant professor and negotiated a 5-year visiting post as full professor: we (and the Provost) knew there was a definite time limit on the salary commitment; our graduate students in that field gained a big-name committee member; our depratment got some publicity; and (since he was, by the way, a nice guy) we had a stimulating colleague to help us search for the junior person to fill the ranks in that field four years later.

[oldfullprof]

I tried this twice with a pretty good publication record (a book plus about nine articles going into the second place.)  They didn't go for it, but did give me years toward tenure at place number two, where I was tenured and promoted at the end of year three.

What frosts me is the supply and demand nature of promotion on hiring.  Many of the applied disciplines (education, criminal justice, even public administration) on our campus get lines authorized for assistant-associate, but those of us in the traditional disciplines get only assistant lines.  Sometimes positions as associate have been filled by people who were previously assistants, or, in one case, someone outside of academia.