American PhD moving to Ireland

a814

Does anyone have any experience obtaining a PhD in the US and finding work in Ireland? Specifically, I'm finishing up a PhD in Social Work focused on social work with children at a top US university and I'm interested in moving to Ireland. I'd likely be moving to the Dublin area, but I'm flexible. How receptive are Irish universities to PhD's from the US? How is the academic job market in Ireland? Are there many opportunities in non-profit agencies or government agencies for PhD's? Any advice would be welcome. Thanks!

evolving_doors

There's a good few PhD's hanging out in the Researcher forum HERE. Although they're from diverse disciplines they have a good idea of employment terms and conditions within various universities.

gaiscioch

a814 wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience obtaining a PhD in the US and finding work in Ireland? Specifically, I'm finishing up a PhD in Social Work focused on social work with children at a top US university and I'm interested in moving to Ireland. I'd likely be moving to the Dublin area, but I'm flexible. How receptive are Irish universities to PhD's from the US? How is the academic job market in Ireland? Are there many opportunities in non-profit agencies or government agencies for PhD's? Any advice would be welcome. Thanks!

State jobs are posted on www.publicjobs.ie. I have seen vacancies from the universities there, also, but to be safe check the vacancies section of UCD, TCD, DCU, etc.

It's a small country so there are few universities, fewer academic vacancies in any one subject, and a relatively large number of PhD holders applying for each post, even a 1-year contract. A PhD from MIT, Harvard or the like would often give you an edge (especially if you've published a lot), assuming a job comes up in your area. Due to the recession for the past seven years there have been major cutbacks. The vast majority of people who are awarded PhDs leave academia fairly soon afterwards for financial reasons. A number continue on doing various postdocs, and they would therefore be doing the networking in the small academic community in their area. These sort of people will be your biggest competition for a job.

Having said all of that, if you can tell any interview board that you have just personally secured massive funding, they will kill each other to give you a job. As we don't have massive funds like the big US colleges, it is often the case that a lesser qualified person can get a job simply because they will bring a large research grant with them. "Publish or Perish" is not necessarily the most important thing for success in the Irish university system today.

dingding

http://www.universityvacancies.com/

http://9thlevel.ie/about-irish-universities/job-opportunities/

Some websites that might help.

Black Swan

I'm Irish currently across the pond in California on scholarship and grants finishing a PhD at a flagship American university. My Da is Irish faculty, and has cautioned me that the Irish university job market is tight, and to apply elsewhere if seeking university employment.

Ireland has not recovered from the Great Recession, and the job market reflects those employment limitations across many for-profit industries, as well as government posts and non-profit NGO positions. I cannot specifically address Irish job opportunities in Social Work, but I would suspect that it too would be adversely affected by the current economic situation.

challengemaster

Black Swan wrote: »

Ireland has not recovered from the Great Recession, and the job market reflects those employment limitations .

Debatable - The turnover of academic jobs isn't overly affected by the recession, that's more to do with when current faculty either leave or die (and is the rate limiting factor). What did happen is many people saw it as an opportune time to up skill and returned to University. So there's now multiple times more candidates with masters degrees and PhD's than previously, yet even fewer jobs available.

Zaph

OP, I've merged your thread from Teaching & Lecturing with this one as there were replies in both, and your third thread has been deleted. Please don't start threads about the same thing in multiple forum. Thanks.

YFlyer

Post Doc salaries are about €5000 less thrse days compared to 6 or 7 years ago.