"We are intellectually curious and want to have colleagues we can learn from"

ASSA (Allied Social Science Associations), an annual event organized by the American Economic Association (AEA), was held in San Diego in early January 2020. For three days, reports, workshops, panel discussions are held, but for what university representatives and young scientists from all over the world really come here, this is an ASSA meeting – a job market for the academic community. We spoke with Udara Peiris, an associate professor at ICEF, who was one of the interviewers this year and met a few candidates at the ASSA. He told us which universities are active on the job market, how a scientist can get a job at ICEF, how the Moscow university can attract an international professor, and what reflects the prestige of the candidate on the academic labor market.

– Do all universities in the world use the ASSA meeting as a recruitment channel? 

In general, all major universities around the world where research and publications are a priority are present at the ASSA meetings and conduct interviews. This is because many of the people searching for academic positions in Economics or Finance in the world are present at the meetings and so it becomes easier to conduct many interviews within a short period of time. There are several other meetings similar to the ASSA where interviews are conducted, in Europe like European Job Market by EEA (European Economic Association) and RES (Royal Economic Society) for example, but these are on a much smaller scale. In the future the European Economic Association meeting may grow in importance as a secondary or alternative venue to conduct interviews. The practice of a centralised time and location of interviews is somewhat unique in academia to Economics and Finance and is motivated by a desire to improve the opportunities (and reduce costs including time) to obtain better matches between job market candidates and prospective departments.

– How many times have you been at the ASSA for ICEF? What does the academic hiring strategy at ICEF look like?

I have participated in most of the annual interviews at ASSA since I arrived at ICEF 7 years ago though ICEF has been hiring from the International academic job market with the participation and advice of the London School of Economics since 2005 and was one of the first Russian departments to do so. We now have around 20 internationally recruited faculty members, around half of whom are tenured. ICEF also has formal regular academic visitors from major international universities.

To understand the hiring strategy, I think it is useful to think about the end goal of a research focused department and university: to be recognised by the profession as a place that produces research that makes significant contribution to knowledge and science. This is measurable mainly by the publications that members of a faculty have at leading international journals, but also by participation in major conferences and impact that their research has on the private sector, government, central banks and multinational organisations such as the IMF and WTO. Therefore we need to make a judgement whether our potential future colleagues can meet these expectations, especially within the period in which their tenure is evaluated.

We decide on the suitability of a candidate by understanding if the candidate is working on important and interesting problems, whether they have the skills and training to be able to progress in making solutions, and whether their solutions will be valued by the profession (that is, will it be publishable in a major international journal). To determine this we look at who their advisors are during their PhD, the letters of reference they have, and perhaps most importantly their job market paper.

The job market paper is the major piece of work that graduates of economics and finance PhD programmes produce and on which they should be able to showcase their potential as researchers. Our faculty and our colleagues from the London School of Economics review each application package and job market paper carefully.

Given that a candidate is academically suitable, it is important to understand if they will be a good colleague for us.

As academics, we are intellectually curious and want to have colleagues we can learn from. ICEF is looking to hire one or two candidates each year, but it is not the situation of a major company hiring employees: it may not be possible for us to find a candidate that both meets our expectations and prefers us to another major international university.

After the interviews at the ASSA, we invite a small number of the most suitable and desirable candidates to visit Moscow and ICEF where they get a chance to meet the rest of the faculty, see the university facilities, and city they may live in. During this visit they present their job market paper to the faculty, after which the entire ICEF faculty meets to discuss the appointability of the candidate. In the end, a very small number of candidates are recommended to the ICEF International Academic Committee (IAC) which makes decisions to make formal offers according to international standards.

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The American Economic Association (AEA) is an economics research and education community headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, founded in 1885. AEA publishes one of the most prestigious academic journals in economics – the American Economic Review. One of the main aims of the association is to maintain the most independent economic discussion in the scientific community and to encourage research.

The number of AEA members is about 20,000 from academe, business, government, and consulting groups within diverse disciplines from multi-cultural backgrounds.

The AEA held its first ASSA (Allied Social Science Associations) meeting in 1950. Nowadays annual meetings provide interaction between young scientists and departments of various universities in major US cities. In 1974, the AEA founded the publication Job Openings for Economists (JOE), and since Internet era begins, JOE is sent monthly as a digital journal.

The AEA also annually awards the John Bates Clark Medal to economists under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. This award is unofficially called the “Baby Nobel” because many of the medal holders subsequently become Nobel laureates.

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– What determines the suitability of an employee in the academic world?

Every department would like to have faculty that receive Nobel prizes! However, there are very few people that will ever get them and there are many people in the profession who are making important contributions to science without ever receiving a major prize. Essentially it is a matching problem, the more your department is known for producing great research, the more candidates that are likely to produce great results will want to join.

For a young department and university like ICEF and HSE it is a matter of taking a very consistent route of continually improving research outcomes and hiring candidates that would be desirable to other well-known universities. I think it’s very important that the department is ambitious in its targets and communicates this effectively. For example, I believe that ICEF can develop into a top 10 European department over the next 10 years and this is what I try to communicate to our candidates. We have excellent research culture and resources and most importantly ambition to make this happen. Young people are excited to be part of something growing and this enthusiasm will further help the department when they join us.

– How are ICEF interviewers selected to participate in the ASSA?

We invite the entire tenured faculty (Full and Associate Professors) and some juniors (Assistant Professors). The interviewers rotate every year based on contributions in the past and the match with the candidates to be interviewed. We usually have some faculty members presenting their work at the ASSA meetings every year.

At ICEF we are lucky to benefit from the participation of the London School of Economics, in particular Christian Julliard and Kevin Sheedy this year. Their knowledge and expertise helped us greatly in making decisions. It is very important that this process is driven by research focused people and this is best done through the participation of faculty.

– Do you know which Russian universities competed with you for best economic talent at ASSA?

As far as I know the New Economic School was present as well as two other HSE departments: the Faculty of Economic Sciences (FES) Moscow, and the St Petersburg School of Economics and Management. ICEF has been conducting the recruitment process independently since 2015. ICEF and FES screen initial applicants and conduct interviews separately. However, we coordinate campus visits in cases when both of us would like to invite a particular candidate.

I sincerely hope other Russian universities start this process of international recruitment through the ASSA meetings as I believe they have tremendous potential to attract quality candidates. The more people in Russia that are part of this international community the better it will be for all of us - faculty, students and the wider Russian community as a whole.

– Speaking about the candidates with whom you had to talk in San-Diego, what kind of people are they, what are they interested in?

I have been very impressed by the overall group of candidates that applied to the ICEF positions this year. I believe we are attracting stronger candidates and this reflects the growing reputation of ICEF and HSE and perhaps more importantly, the publications, conference participations and overall reputation of ICEF faculty.

Our new campus was something that we proudly told the candidates about as well! Most candidates do not have a geographic preference and what matters for their decision-making is whether ICEF will provide the right research environment to help them succeed in their research.

Of course, we let people know how great Moscow is as a city to live in, but ultimately it is not as important as the research culture at ICEF and HSE. The final decisions will be made in the next few months, and certainly by May. New faculty members typically arrive in August and participate in our regular activities from September with everyone else.

– How and when should a student begin to prepare to enter the academic job market?

Most PhD programmes start to prepare students for the job market and focus on their job market paper from at least the 3rd year of their (5 year) PhD. The only additional thing I would advise is that the profession is very small in as much as people are very connected and reputation spreads very wide and fast. Being humble and engaging even for students still at an undergraduate level matters as reputations start being developed from this early stage.

– How was your own recruitment process at ICEF?

The experience I had was very similar to what I experienced in US and European universities. I think ICEF, together with the LSE support we have, has always maintained a 'normal' structure and process that keeps candidates comfortable. I think the most attractive thing for me when deciding to join was the genuine interest of the faculty in my research and that signalled to me that it was a great academic environment in the making.