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[gradstudent1982]

Hello all.  First off, I'm new to this forum, so apologies if this topic has already been covered ad nauseam.

I'm British, and did my undergrad and master's in the UK, but I'm presently at an east coast R1 institution in the US getting my PhD in the social sciences.  I'm a little way off from the job market yet, since I've only just completed my coursework, but I'm starting to think about my long-term career plans.  Specifically, I've been thinking a lot lately about whether to remain here or to return home for my first academic appointment.   

Ironically, while I'm now fairly well briefed on the vicissitudes of the US job market, having heard first hand accounts from friends and colleagues in my department, I know next to nothing about how the system works in the UK.  I gather that there are no hiring seasons to speak of, as there are in the US, one simply has to keep an eye out for job adverts in places like The Guardian education supplement and www.jobs.ac.uk.  Is this true?  Also, and I realize that this question is so vague as to be almost pointless, but I'll ask it anyway: how well do British departments look upon US-trained academics? 

And what about all the JRFs at Oxford and Cambridge - how frequently do they go to candidates who received their doctoral education outside of Oxbridge (my impression was that they usually went to insiders, but this might be purely anecdotal, and I'm hoping that I'll be proved wrong). 

Any other insights you might care to offer will be greatly appreciated.  Many thanks. 

[babbinacara]

Welcome gradstud82.
Generally UK universities want staff to begin in October of any year, so they look to hire in spring of that year--which usually means adverts in Jan-March, interviews March-May. But, that may vary by subject, by whether the univ is looking for a researcher or lecturer, and....everything has been thrown off recently by the RAE ("Research Assessment Exercise"). Short version: every university's/ department's research quality is assessed and govt funding depends on grade achieved. In order to be included in this exercise, staff had to be in post as of this last October. After a frenzy of hires in spring to expand lists of staff with good publications, there seems to be a general hiring freeze that in many places will probably last three years minimum, as posts were mortgaged forward.
Beyond that, there are plenty of US-educated staff in the UK, although again, this may be very subject- and university-specific. The last search ctte I sat on shortlisted two UK PhDs, one EU PhD and two US PhDs. And that's been a typical mixture of previous searches.
JRFs are very, very college specific. Some colleges never look outside, others nearly always do. They do mostly go to UK PhDs, but the applications are overwhelmingly from the UK because the posts tend to be advertised in the UK only. Good quality post-doc research that can be completed within 3 years is what the cttes are looking for, and the source of your PhD *should* be second to that. Be warned that they are competitive in an odd way. Unlike a job app, where, say, you are applying for a history post and you will be in competition with other historians, with a JRF application you, as a historian, will be up against easily 300-400 applicants in "Humanities".

[august_leo]

I'm under the impression that they like US PhD's here.

Some things that are different:
- they interview everyone at once, like the US often does grad school applicants
- your job talk will likely be more like a 20min conference talk than a US 1-hour job talk
- only the search committee will likely vote on hiring you
- you will know the result soon, e.g., 1week later (or so most people experience)
- you have to ask to see the department or do nonessential things on the interview

apply for jobs in both places and see where you get offers.