First, a little about how the administration is structured in German universities (at least the ones we have experience with).  At the top is the Rektor (roughly speaking, the President).  Unlike in an American university, where the president is mostly involved with fundraising, a Rektor will also be involved with the actual running of the school.   Within the Rektorat are vice-presidents (“Prorektor“), which assume some of the administrative responsibilities.

After that, within the Rektorat is the Kanzler, who is responsible for the budget and the day-to-day running of the school (sort of like a provost in the U.S., but not necesarily a professor).

From there, each university is divided up into different faculties, which are not standard.  For example, at Uni-Bonn, the economics department is located in the faculty of law and economics.  At Uni-Köln, the economics department is in the social science faculty (which is more common).   At the top of each faculty is a Dekan (Dean), who is the administrative head of the faculty.  They are not like American deans, however, in that they have no role in setting salaries, and are always drawn from within the faculty, rather than from outside.  Dekans also have a somewhat reduced teaching load, but are not ful-time administrators in the way that deans are in the U.S.  There is a great wariness in Germany of “professional deans” (by which I think they mean full-time).

The negotiations take place in two parts.  The first discussion regards the Ausstattung.  In the US, this might be  a relatively minor part of the discussion (at least in history and economics — we are sure that it is extremely important in the hard sciences).  But in Germany, because each Lehrstuhl carries its own workforce with it (post-docs and secretary), bargaining over these positions and the startup funds is much more important.  This discussion takes place with the Kanzler and the Dekan.  One’s request is in the form of computers, furniture, books, etc., but in the end the startup package is just a sum of money, that is totally fungible between different uses.

The second part of the discussion takes place only with the Kanzler or another represenative of the Rektorat (a Prorektor, for example), and this is about salary.  Salary is divided into two pieces:  a base salary that varies (a little) by Land and more by level (W2, or roughly associate professor or W3, roughly full professor).  The base salary or Grundgehalt is perhaps comparable to a mid-term humanities professor’s salary in the U.S. at each level. After that, one has to bargain for additions on the basis of one’s current salary.  Usually some of this additional pay will be predicated on meeting certain goals for publishing or conference acceptances.   Overall, German salaries are not comparable to those in economics in the US, but are probably about as good in history.  In our limited experience, German universities take as their reference point only other offers within Germany — offers in other countries are valued less.  It’s not exactly clear to us why this is (except , perhaps, for German arrogance), and is certainly something that will have to change if German universities want to be internationally competitive.

After the meeting (at which the University may or may not make a concrete counteroffer), one has to wait for some period of time to get everything that was discussed in writing.  Once that happens, the process iterates (without the face-to-face meeting) until convergence.

After everything is agreed to, one then still has to have an “Ernennung” — a small ceremony where a lot of papers are signed and where one receives an “Urkunde” for one’s professorship.  It is much more formal than the typical one-page letter one gets in the US and in which there is more or less just a verbal agreement… even for a tenured position.

We are fortunate that we were able to negotiate two jobs at two different German universities, although it came not without certain difficulties.  Overall, the German system seems ill-equipped to deal with spousal hires (even to the extent that some folks think it is corrupt for a university to offer a spouse a position).  German academia is extremely sexist (reflecting, perhaps, the society in general), and this causes a lot of resistance to hiring couples in certain quarters.  This, too, will have to change in the future.

–dj

Well, not quite, actually.  Once the Kommision makes the list, it must be approved by outside referees (Gutachters), and, depending on the Land, the education ministry.  The referees can disagree with the content of the list as well as the ordering of the candidates.  But usually it gets approved the way the Kommission made it.

Once the list is approved, it has to be voted on by the Rat (council) for the faculty.  Then and only then, will a Ruf be issued by the Rektor (president) of the university.

This apparatus is much more clumsy than in the US, where departments are pre-authorized to make offers, and all that needs to be done is have the department vote to whom the first offer goes (although most departments will engage in some kind of ranking as well, to save time in case the first candidate turns the department down).

Offers in the US always carry some kind of salary commitment and usually some details about a “startup” package.  So in this sense, the university is the first mover (although I have had people ask me what my salary expectations were — a cheap and sleazy move, in my opinion).

In Germany, a Ruf is nothing more than an invitation to bargain.  It carries no offer, per se, of salary or anything else.  And by design, the candidate is the first mover.  They must send to the university a list of expectations on salary and Ausstattung, or equipment (but really more… see below).  Either after, or simultaneous to, to the submission of salary and equipment, a meeting will be set up between the candidate and various administrators within the administration.   Meeting in person is mandatory.  It occupies a huge amount of time for both candidates, but also for the members of the administration who must prepare the counter offers prior to the meetings.

More on meeting with the administration and the actual bargaining that takes place in my next post.

–dj

I think even for many German academics the process is a bit opaque, so hopefully this post will be of general interest.

Like in the US, no (permanent) professorial position can be filled without first being advertised.  Unlike in the US, however, positions are not advertised primarily through the various professional associations for each discipline.  Rather, they tend to be primarily advertised through the Deutscher Hochschulverband (DHV) and posted to academics.de, which is run by Die Zeit.  One has to pay EUR 80 per year to join the DHV, but academics.de is free.  Both sites provide a service that sends regular emails with job postings in a specific field or fields.

At least in history and economics, the two fields we know best, in Germany letters of reference are not usually requested in an application, nor are offprints or preprints of publications.  But one is usually requested to send photocopies of your high school, university, and graduate diplomas.   Having sat on hiring committees in the US, I find that letters are extremely useful, and it is nice to have candidates send articles (even if they aren’t always closely read).  Given the paucity of other information, in Germany the cover letter carries substantially more weight, of course.  Electronic submission of applications is rare in Germany.  

There is a bit of a distinction between the standard US curriculum vitae and a German Lebenslauf, too.  My impression has always been that a CV should be relatively brief, devoid of (too much) puffery.  The typical German Lebenslauf, however, will list everything that an academic has done during their career, more or less since high school.  Brevity is not an asset. Indeed, I am convinced that substantially more weight is placed on the quantity of publications in Germany than in the US — in the US a few really top publications will have a substantial impact, whereas a Lebenslauf full of numerous 3rd tier publications will be considered ok.  There is less recognition of the quality-quantity tradeoff in Germany, although one hopes that may be changing.

After one sends off an application (the standard is to gather everything into a plastic Mappe), nearly always an acknowledgement of receipt of the application follows in the mail.  This is kind of nice, knowing that everything is all in order (and since there are no letters to arrive, you know the application is complete).  In the US, one rarely receives an acknolwedgement.

Then the waiting begins.  This is, I think the biggest difference between the US and the German markets.  In Germany, there is no standard timetable (e.g. send out applications in October, interview at meetings in January, have flybacks in February, and get offers by February or March), because there are no conference interviews.  So you can wait months to hear whether you’re going to get an interview.  Usually, 4 or 5 candidates (at most) will be brought to campus for every position, and that’s it.  No one else gets to interview.  Given the relative lack of information (no letters), it is surprising that they don’t interview more people. 

“Campus” interviews are also substantially different in Germany than in the US.  In Germany, you might have an hour to make a presentation about your research and teaching.  After that, there are usually group questions for an hour.  And that can be it!  One might have meetings with a few professors, or even possibly a meal, but that is relatively rare.  It is a far cry from the daylong (or longer) meetings where one might give a seminar, but also meet with every member of the department, as well as someone from the administration (usually a dean), at a US university.  Usually in the US one would have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with someone from the faculty during the course of the day.

Another difference is that in Germany interviews of different candidates can take place on the same day, given that the faculty spends so much less time with the candidate.  So it would not be impossible to run into the competition during the course of the day.  This is not unique to Germany (it’s worse in England, from what I’ve heard), but it’s hard to imagine it happening in the US.

After going to campus, one goes home and waits… and waits… I’ll cover what happens next in my next post.

–dj

Welcome! We hope you’ll stay with us.

–dj