Mailbag Uk vs. US
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[00:00:00] Andrew Hibel: Welcome to the HigherEdJobs Podcast. A brief moment for listener mail edition. I'm Andy Hibel, the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

[00:00:12] Kelly Cherwin: And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy

[00:00:15] Andrew Hibel: and we're joined today by Matt Trainum, the Senior Consultant for Leadership Strategy with Credo and a good friend of the podcast. Matt, thanks for being with us today.

[00:00:22] Matt Trainum: Hey, I come every time you call.

[00:00:26] Kelly Cherwin: Well, today the question is surrounding a PhD in the UK versus the US. So our listener emailed a question in, and this is the question. I got my PhD in the UK and heard that US academia looks down on academics with a PhD in the UK because the training is different.

If that is true, does that essentially mean that it is pointless for me to apply for jobs in the US or what can I do to improve my chances? So Matt, just curious what your thoughts are on this. This listener's question.

[00:00:56] Matt Trainum: Kelly. Thank you. Uh, with this question has, with the other [00:01:00] questions that we've talked about, um, I grab it up and I send it out to my network around the country of different leaders in academia and say, What do you think of this? What's the take on this kind of question? And the responses I got back to this question. They were two sided. They're half the responses said, Yes, that's true. I've experienced that and seen that.

And half the responses said, No, I haven't experienced that at all. It required me to dig a little bit into who was responding to my inquiry, and that gives me an answer for you all that perhaps adds a little bit of illumination to this question, and that is institutional type and size. So the smaller, the more regional of the institution, the more they seemed to not necessarily know what to do with international degrees.

And the larger and more networked of an institution, the more responses I got that said, Oh yeah, we're used to that and we understand how to manage that and are happy to do that. So I would say for this individual looking for work, [00:02:00] that would make me go, well, I guess we should then target larger institutions, probably more state institutions.

Institutions that are already doing business in other countries, institutions that are already sponsoring lots of other international scholars that need that kind of sponsoring.

[00:02:17] Kelly Cherwin: So your response, remind me of a question that we did earlier regarding what advice would you give to people who are applying for positions?

And it sounds like some of the, the techniques that you applied there, like connecting up, following up and playing it up might apply here. Kind of transferable skills. So if, if an institution is not familiar with what, you know, what the training was or you know, what, what type of degree was in the UK, do you think it's the job seeker's responsibility to kind of play it up and describe and highlight what he or she did and kind of why they'd be a good fit for this type of position?

[00:02:47] Matt Trainum: Kelly, I love that. Maybe in an ideal world, it would not be the job seeker's responsibility, but every job seeker needs to fully translate their experience to wherever they're looking to get work. [00:03:00] Those ideas, the idea of connecting up, following up, and playing it up, um, those really still work here. A matter of fact, I got a lot of responses that sounded similar to this particular question as to the previous one where folks said, Yeah, they should network and they should connect with folks and they should get to know the people at the institutions and they should tell them about their skills and backgrounds.

So I certainly did see a lot of that. And it also skewed based on institutional type. 100% folks need to translate. Here is what I've done. Here is the degree and background I have, and here's how this connects. There's also probably a, um, a difference across discipline where we have some disciplines that really are very international with a lot of international conversation and international exchange between scholarship and we have other disciplines that are less so.

And so the more international exchange in that scholarship, the more those international degrees are probably gonna be valued and welcomed as well.

[00:03:52] Andrew Hibel: That's a great distinction Matt. I was wondering if any of your colleagues had differentiated between a newly minted PhD and [00:04:00] a PhD who maybe has some experience.

I would imagine that, and, and maybe they touched on this, that once you have your first job or two in the US it's a very different thing to have a UK PhD as opposed to having no experience in the US and trying to take over either a brand new PhD or a PhD where you've had a little bit of experience overseas.

[00:04:24] Matt Trainum: Andy, really interesting question because I did have some folks respond and say their experience was that it was harder for folks who had not taught in the US but had taught in other countries. So a version of your answer, So let's say I have a PhD and I've actually been a faculty member in another country and I come over here and the system's entirely different.

Now if I've just got my degree in another country and I have not taught there, and this is the first place I teach. Then the the differences in approach and structure. Are not as obvious because I haven't lived in the other one. I've lived in there as a student, but not as an actual faculty member. And so I did have folks that responded back and for [00:05:00] instance, I've got up here on my screen, someone responded and suggested that if someone's coming from an international role looking for visiting positions, short term contract roles where they can come in and experience the US higher education system in a way that is maybe safer for them and exploratory so they can see what they like.

[00:05:16] Kelly Cherwin: Well, thank you for those thoughts. I have a question actually to both Andy and and Matt, and I don't know if there's an answer to this, but its kind of is zoning in on. How this person said how US academia looks down on academics from the UK. How can we get rid of this snobbery? You know, a, a PhD, you are supposed to be an expert in your specified area.

So if you're a, an expert in the US versus an expert in the UK, like why, why is this snobbery exist? So, like I said, I don't know if there's an answer to this I'm just throwing that out there. If either of you have thoughts to. Sorry. There are no thoughts.

[00:05:58] Matt Trainum: So Kelly, I [00:06:00] love the question. The majority of responses that I got as I messaged out and, and asked people about this was more of a question of transferability of skills and experience and teaching approach. And I, I didn't get a sense of the snobbery piece, which is certainly in a little bit of the writer's question, a little bit of being looked down upon.

Uh, I do think that that is also a reflection of the exposure of the institution, the amount of connection that institution has with international locations and that kind of thing. I do a lot of work at, at very small regional institutions who might not necessarily know what a, uh, foreign degree entails.

[00:06:40] Kelly Cherwin: Okay. Well, thank you. Well, I think we can all. Hopefully agree that, you know, the, the person asks essentially, meaning that it is pointless for me to apply. And I think we can all say, no, it's not pointless. Like, I don't, when I, when I read this question, my, my heart was kind of like, well, of course you shouldn't give up.

You know, you have to keep, keep trying, you know, kind of going to our, [00:07:00] um, thoughts on, on people putting their, their songs in the playlist, having faith and keep going. So to this person who wrote this question, don't give up. Keep, trying.

[00:07:10] Andrew Hibel: I think your spot on Kelly, I mean, I. You have to recognize, even if you were just on a job search a year ago, every job search is different.

These aren't cookie cutter. I think just like any other job search if, if you're searching with the UK PhD, it presents its own unique way of going about it and some things you have to do differently than people who have US based degrees. But I don't think the task is at all impossible. I think you just need to be more cognizant of the places where telling your story is gonna require a little bit more work or coming at it a different way. Probably anybody who's coming at a job search is gonna have a challenge or two like that. Contrary to what employers may lead you to believe, there is no perfect candidate for a job out there. There's not this ideal candidate that everybody's chasing after.

There's candidates that come at positions with different strengths and bring different [00:08:00] experiences. And your story's just your story. And Matt's previous advice from a couple of podcasts ago, play up who you are. This is who you are. I think having an international experience and going to school in the UK could be something that would be really, really an awesome thing to offer some of the folks you'd be teaching. So lean into it. Don't lean away from it.

[00:08:20] Matt Trainum: Kelly, Andy, both of those things sound like so much wisdom.

[00:08:24] Kelly Cherwin: Thank you, Matt. Thanks. Thanks again for joining us today for our brief moment of Listener Mail, and we remind you,

[00:08:31] Andrew Hibel: …if you have any questions you want us to tackle on the next episode of a brief moment for listener mail, please tweet us @higheredjobs or email us at podcast@higheredjobs.com

And if you're looking for a soundtrack to your job search. Go add our playlist to your library on Spotify. Thanks Matt for being with us.

[00:08:49] Matt Trainum: Thanks Matt. See ya. Well, thanks for this brief moment with listener mail, which I hope has some sort of sound that happens whenever he says it. Mike, I'm just hoping there's some sort of mm-hmm.

Yeah, like little slippery [00:09:00] whistle or something that, Ooh.

[00:09:05] Andrew Hibel: Thanks for listening.