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[musclememory]

The prevailing wisdom for those seeking a spousal hire is to stay mum until there's an offer in hand.  I do wonder though whether this move ever manages to tick off the SC.  Do SC members ever feel like they're in a bait-and-switch when their candidate turns out to be as interested in solving the two-body problem as they are in becoming a good colleague?

Also, how often, when unable to offer a requested spousal hire, does the SC get turned down by their top choice candidate?

[hegemony]

I think SC's are braced for it.  They're not ticked off unless the request is egregious, e.g. the candidate or spouse is unusually inflexible.  They're not delighted, because it causes so many complications, but they're not ticked off.  Some of them have probably been in the same position.  SC's do get ticked off when all three of their finalists insist on spousal hires and the university refuses to offer them, and the SC ends up with no one hired at all. 

How often the SC gets turned down by their top choice candidate depends on many factors, including, obviously, whether another university has offered a job for the spouse.  And it does happen.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

In our case it means you wasted our time and expense in bringing you out.  Had you brought it up when we first contacted you we might have been able to cut a deal with our dean, but now it is too late and we have to move on to the next candidate in line or declare a failed search. - DvF

[lorelei]

In our case it means you wasted our time and expense in bringing you out.  Had you brought it up when we first contacted you we might have been able to cut a deal with our dean, but now it is too late and we have to move on to the next candidate in line or declare a failed search. - DvF

You mean too late to create a job for this year, or too late full stop? If spouse is happy to trail 12 months behind would that help?

[daniel_von_flanagan]

We would not be in a position to create a spousal hire in time for this hiring deadline, even if the job was not to appear for a year.  In particular, we'd not be able to write anything into an offer.

You know, I've seen this spousal hire advice given many times on this forum, but I can't imagine it working except in a very large department with multiple openings every year.  For any other department positions are very precious, and for a couple to be attractive they need to sell themselves as a package which is better than any two typical single hires.  This takes careful persuasion and goodwill, and might as well be done in advance. Gameplaying is not going to sell the department that they want you as a pair of colleagues.

I do have sympathy for the problem; my wife is in a field similar to mine, at some institutions even in the same department, and many years ago (at a different institution) I was the accompanying spouse. - DvF

[lorelei]

I'm sure it's always tricky, and it's not a negotiation I've tried. I work at a school that promotes its "support" for dual-career couples, when it's actually a load of hot air.

When I was a PhD candidate, our placement advice was always wait for the offer to make a spousal hire request. Raising it at the first contact (phone interview) seems to me presumptious, like saying you want a south-facing office.

The logic - as I understand it - is that by the offer stage they really want you, and are invested in successfully hiring you (far more than at an earlier stage of the search). The only people I've seen who've managed to get spousal hires were senior profs coming in (with equally bigshot spouses).

[daniel_von_flanagan]

When I was a PhD candidate, our placement advice was always wait for the offer to make a spousal hire request. Raising it at the first contact (phone interview) seems to me presumptious,

No, but it can come up naturally when you are invited out for an interview. 

The logic - as I understand it - is that by the offer stage they really want you, and are invested in successfully hiring you (far more than at an earlier stage of the search).

Yes, that's the argument people make.  I don't buy it: (a) you can't offer something you don't have, (b) any decent department is going to want to vet the spousal hire as thoroughly as a regular hire (unless it is just for a temporary position, but any department that can produce these on demand would likely have done so for the candidate at any point out of courtesy, even after an offer was accepted), and (c) it makes the candidate look difficult to work with. - DvF

[gekko]

Regardless of anyone's opinion of this situation, it seems so common that I wonder if one would benefit from implying they DO NOT have an academic spouse within a cover letter, perhaps during the same point they mention their affinity for a specific geographic area that many would consider undesirable. Has anyone ever seen something like this:

... I am also particularly enthused by the the school's geographic location in flyover country where most of my family lives which would be a practical relief after completing my studies on the coasts. The availability of a thriving widget industry is also of interest to my spouse who currently works in the field and would find the city ideal for his/her interests as well...

I suppose in small fields doesn't everyone know everyone by now anyway? Or at least someone who knows this situation behind the scenes anyway? Unless you're in a huge field isn't the cat out of the bag anyway?

[ucprof]

I have to agree somewhat with DvF on this.  If the candidate is looking for two ttrack positions it's likely not going to happen because direct line positions are hard won for departments and not taken lightly.  It is a very complicated issue because we are not allowed to ask about it nor are we allowed to rank candidates based on this issue.  The people I know in two academic career marriages who succeed in getting two line positions are those who apply as a couple or present the issue up front.  I know of a number of cases like this and the SC was aware from the beginning. 

[macaroon]

I suppose in small fields doesn't everyone know everyone by now anyway? Or at least someone who knows this situation behind the scenes anyway? Unless you're in a huge field isn't the cat out of the bag anyway?

No, because at smaller schools, departments won't have two people in the same field.  I'm at a small RU/H, and NOBODY has mutual colleagues.  It's a big world. 

  I don't buy it: (a) you can't offer something you don't have, (b) any decent department is going to want to vet the spousal hire as thoroughly as a regular hire (unless it is just for a temporary position, but any department that can produce these on demand would likely have done so for the candidate at any point out of courtesy, even after an offer was accepted), and (c) it makes the candidate look difficult to work with. - DvF

This is where we are at.  We're small.  We don't have it, and if spouses are in the same field, we would never need it.

[lorelei]

This is interesting. It's not a situation I've faced but I saw a colleague's attempt turn out badly. (Leading to much ill-feeling and this person is now desperately on the market).

The placement advice we got (mentioned upthread) also included "make sure you get your third or fourth year off" (as a sabbatical) and various other demands which I thought sounded inflated at the time, and since I've been working in academia I've seen just how far from reality such expectations are. But the notion that a job for a spouse is a reasonable request is obviously perpetuated, I don't know why (it wouldn't happen outside academia).

[ucprof]

There is another consideration - one of favoritism in hiring as regards to the spouse's job.  Right now, with budget cuts and all, we are under quite a lot of scrutiny by the state on all things financial.  For administrative hires, which can very high profile, the spousal job has come under attack as one of the things considered as a possible `inappropriate' perk. This issue has come up at other state institutions as well (e.g. North Carolina).   I have not seen this trickle down to regular faculty hires, but it could.  The point is that we have regulations in hiring and if we are hiring a less than top candidate for a position because of a spousal issue we could run into serious problems.  Our policy is to make inquiries if the candidate presents a spouse issue - basically do the legwork, but our hands are tied in terms of creating positions or leveraging people to give someone a position. 

[janewales]

We hardly ever do spousals, and it doesn't matter when you ask. Our university's "support" for spousals boils down to this: in some circumstances, departments are allowed to use an existing line, or mortgage a future one, for a spousal. The dean and the provost have to agree that you're enough of a superstar to warrant this kind of treatment, and if they do, they'll kick it back to us, and ask us to think about which line to devote to the spousal hire-- the other job we haven't yet made an offer in, or, sometimes, a future line.

So, if we're searching for, say, ancient basketweaving and postmodern basketweaving, and our pick for ancient basketweaving has a spouse who does 16th-century basketweaving, we could give up the postmodern line we're also searching for, and hire the spouse instead. The department is likely to say no, because the postmodern basketweaving specialists are firm that their field will die without an infusion of new blood, and the 16th-century basketweaving specialists will point out that, as a result of the last 3 spousal hires, there are now 10 16th-century basketweaving specialists, and they're currently trying to work out how to carve up the only PhD student in the department in that field, so that they can each have a piece. So, even though one of them is retiring in 5 years' time, we wouldn't normally hire in that field anyway...

While all this is going on, candidates 2 and 3 are slipping away. Eventually, we won't be able to offer you anything, and you'll turn us down, and the search will be cancelled. And given budgetary uncertainty, it may never start up again.

All of which is to say, we know you may be thinking spousal. We're dreading hearing about it, but honestly, the outcome will be the same no matter when you tell us. We're a big R1, the kind of place people seem to expect to be able to conjure positions out of the air, but we can't.

[helpful]

Not formally, but informally, we always find out the status of the spouse of a candidate during the hiring visit. It always comes up in conversation (the existence of the spouse and what they do is usually initiated by the candidate).

Once we had a candidate expressly ask administrator they met about the university policy on spousal hiring. We didn't take this into consideration when we discussed who we would make an offer to, but it was apparent that the candidate would probably not come without a spousal hire. It didn't matter in this case as the candidate in question didn't end up first on our list.

I know someone who included in their cover letter of their application that they needed a spousal hiring. In this case, there were two positions and their spouse had applied for the other position. Unfortunately, only one of the couple were selected for an interview and so that person withdrew their application (the university was in an out of the way location with no other academic opportunities within 100 miles).

[lyndonparker]

Yes, but some requests are met better than others. Our dean seems to like spousal hires--I am less convinced. That being said, if the spouse has a high-need PhD that radically improves his or her chances. If the spouse has the same area of study as the candidate, you might also ask about a split position. When I got to higher ed I was surprised to find these often did not mean working at 50% salary--more like 60% to 70% each for half-time teaching load. Not perfect, but better than nothing.