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[wet_blanket]

Background: I am a US-based PhD student, with no conenction to the UK.  Through my Australian citizenship, I think I might be eligible for what used to be called a working holiday visa, although I may be too old.  If not, I'll need an employment based visa, I suspect.

Situation:  I just saw a job advertised at a UK institution.  It's a short term (a couple of months) research gig.  I haven't had a chance to think about whether it's a good idea in terms of finishing the PhD yet, but it is an extremely attractive job.

And applications close in about 24 hours.

Questions:
Is there a visa that I would be eligible for?  Will the school be put off needing to do visa stuff for such a short-term hire?  Should I be upfront about needing such a visa in my application, or wait until I have an interview or job offer?

And also - this job strikes me as oddly worded.  Is there any way to tell if it was created for someone in particular before I spend my Saturday night on an application packet?

[chaosbydesign]

How long has the job ad been up for? I've known the place I work at to advertise positions created for someone within their department for 24 hours just to get around some rule that means you cannot hire an internal candidate without advertising externally. I don't know how you'd identify such a job ad from the ad itself though.

I can't help with visa information, sorry.

[notaprof]

I think in both cases, if they had an internal candidate, and if they are not willing to deal with the visa, they would have included the fairly standard phrase "must already be eligible for employment in the UK" in the job ad.  That is a helpful phrase for limiting the applications they would have to consider.  It you are a student, it might be nothing more than a letter from the university stating your expenses are covered as you study/research in the country to qualify for the Tier 4 visa that allows you to also work in the UK.  

[wet_blanket]

How long has the job ad been up for? I've known the place I work at to advertise positions created for someone within their department for 24 hours just to get around some rule that means you cannot hire an internal candidate without advertising externally. I don't know how you'd identify such a job ad from the ad itself though.

I can't help with visa information, sorry.

I saw the ad on the Uni website and they don't have that information.  But the ad is also on jobs.ac.uk, where it has been up for several weeks.  So maybe it's a "real" job

It you are a student, it might be nothing more than a letter from the university stating your expenses are covered as you study/research in the country to qualify for the Tier 4 visa that allows you to also work in the UK.  

I'm not sure how this would work since I'm a student at a US institution.  I'll do some research, thanks.

[notaprof]

It you are a student, it might be nothing more than a letter from the university stating your expenses are covered as you study/research in the country to qualify for the Tier 4 visa that allows you to also work in the UK.  

I'm not sure how this would work since I'm a student at a US institution.  I'll do some research, thanks.

I was thinking of something like study abroad, if you are technically, a student doing research at a university perhaps it would work.  But Tier 5 may be more appropriate in your case.  It is what replaces the working holiday visa.

[wet_blanket]

Thanks, notaprof.

I'm still not sure if it would be better to say something about what kind of visa I think I'll need in the application package, or to wait until the interview or even later. 

[notaprof]

I would assume they would know what to do about visas and I wouldn't mention it in the application packet.  If they don't know that you might need a visa when your address is from outside of the UK, then they would be pretty clueless but it will be their problem to figure out if they offer you the position. 

[k2323]

I'm not an expert, but if you are not going to be a student at the UK uni, then you would likely need to come in on a Tier 2 visa. It depends on how long the job will last, I think. It would probably be easier if the UK uni could somehow give you student status so you'd qualify for a Tier 4, but I don't know if that would be possible.

If you come in on a Tier 2, the post *has* to be advertised for 4 weeks at minimum. Otherwise they cannot sponsor you for a Tier 2. A Tier 2 is expensive and very time consuming to put together, then you have to wait (on average) 4-6 weeks. I got my most recent one in 3 weeks, but I had just gone through the process.

K

[wet_blanket]

I'm not an expert, but if you are not going to be a student at the UK uni, then you would likely need to come in on a Tier 2 visa. It depends on how long the job will last, I think. It would probably be easier if the UK uni could somehow give you student status so you'd qualify for a Tier 4, but I don't know if that would be possible.

If you come in on a Tier 2, the post *has* to be advertised for 4 weeks at minimum. Otherwise they cannot sponsor you for a Tier 2. A Tier 2 is expensive and very time consuming to put together, then you have to wait (on average) 4-6 weeks. I got my most recent one in 3 weeks, but I had just gone through the process.

K

Thanks, very helpful.  The ad ran for exactly four weeks, so the Tier 2 isn't out of the question.  I'm goign to apply and see what happens.

I really, really hate repsonding to selection criteria such as "can work unsupervised" and "competent on microsoft word" and the like.