Because I got married while I was still doing my doctorate, I’ve never really considered finding a job for two people as something unusual. A pain, yes; but just something that we had to work out. Kate’s fort\u00e9 is in the technical side of things, so she tends to worm her way into a lab managerial role (if not position) while I do the eternal postdoc thing. This makes Kate far more employable than me, actually, but she still insists on doing school hours and making me work (for money. The Pawns are hard work, for no money) the full day.<\/p>\n
\nIt used to work quite well (as long as we weren’t actually working together<\/em>), and now, after several years working at different places, we’re back under the same roof. Gratifyingly, we have been able to collaborate on a piece of work and still talk to each other in the evenings. I’ll publish the results from this collaboration when we have them (and no, we’re not pregnant).<\/p>\n \nRelated to this, FSP has some tips<\/a> for couples being interviewed for faculty positions:<\/p>\n \nDon’t tell cute stories about each other, including revealing affectionate nicknames and embarrassing childhood episodes. Professors, especially those on search committees, prefer not to know any of this until after an interviewee becomes an actual colleague. Then we definitely want to know.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \nand I suspect that the ‘two jobs for the price of one’ imperative is actually rather common.<\/p>\n \nDo people here have experiences of 2-job hunting they’d like to share? Is your partner\/spouse in the same trade, and if not, does it make things easier or more difficult? What are your experiences of finding jobs for you both in another country<\/em>? (Our own experience was perhaps unusual.) Did your interviewing institute reimburse two travel claims? Arrange for childcare?<\/p>\n \nAnd what about other professions entirely? The cynic in me says that non-academic professions actually pay a living wage so that both halves of a couple don’t actually have<\/em> to work, but that’s possibly unhelpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Because I got married while I was still doing my doctorate, I’ve never really considered finding a job for two people as something unusual. A pain, yes; but just something that we had to work out. Kate’s fort\u00e9 is in … Continue reading