Recruitment of ESRs: coordination round table CERN, kick-off meeting, September 16 th 2015

Reminder: ESR timeline 6 of the 10 trainees in the network should be hired and start working for AMVA4NewPhysics from December ‘15 to March ‘16 One more should start Feb-Apr ‘16 Let’s try and coordinate the hiring process of these 7 guys

The two calls already active Two nodes – INFN and UNIPD – have already published calls for application for their ESR positions – INFN requires a longish bureaucracy to give a contract to the student, so in order to have the person start the PhD before end of 2015 (otherwise he would not be enrolled this year) we had to speed things up – UNIPD has leaner bureaucracy but tighter constraints for the enrolment – the student really has to start in October We were unable to coordinate the advertising of these two positions, but OTOH they refer to different fields and the distribution channels are different We did produce consistent procedures and application forms (INFN parasited the UNIPD one) This work can be exploited by the other calls we are going to put out NB in the dropbox folder we have subfolders with material for all the calls

The calls for application Available at (UNIPD) and (INFN) The two are very similar – let’s examine the INFN one (physics) Guidelines for the calls are specified in our proposal. – Please ensure that the statement “We strongly encourage the application by female students and researchers” or similar is present Divided in sections: – Description – Conditions – Eligibility criteria – How to apply – Selection criteria – Deadline and timeline – Further information and contact Will briefly go over some of them in the next slides

Conditions “The gross salary amounts to euro per month; in addition, a gross mobility allowance of euro 600 per month is provided for, as well as a gross family allowance of euro 500 per month if applicable. The cost of the doctoral courses, as well as all expenses related to travel to schools, workshops, and network-organized events, will be planned and sustained by the network. The ESR will be provided with office space at the department of Physics of the University of Padova, and access to a cluster of computers for his or her research work.” You should replace the salary figure with your own (multiplicative factors change) Maybe the text can be made less wordy

Eligibility criteria “There are strict eligibility requirements for the ESR positions in MSCA-ITN. Please ensure to be qualified before applying, as ineligible candidates cannot be considered. - Applicants should not have resided or performed their main activity (work, studies, etc) in Italy for more than 12 months in the period December 1 st, 2012 to November 30 th, 2015 (short stays such as holidays are not taken into account). - Applicants should be in the first 4 years (full-time equivalent) of their research careers and not yet have been awarded a doctorate. This 4 year period is measured from the date of obtaining the degree which would formally entitle to embark on a doctorate. - At the time of hiring applicants must have acquired an at least four years full-time university education degree in Physics, formally enabling them to embark in a doctorate program in the country where the degree was obtained or in Italy.” Maybe we can revise this text – in retrospect it looks threatening. One way could be to put it “in positive”, such as starting with “If you have a master in a scientific discipline and have less than 4 years post-lauream experience this position may be for you” We have also been criticized for this text being a bit unclear: – is it for students or postdocs ? Somebody said it looks as if we are recruiting the worst students – those who did not manage to earn a PhD – this has to do with the EU rules and we can’t do much about it, but maybe we can take it into account in the way we word the eligibility criteria...

How to apply “Applications must be sent by September 30 th, 2015 at 17:00 central European time to the address as follows: 1) an with an attached zip folder including: - A signed application form filled according to the format available at (also available in Word document format at ) A scanned copy of a valid identification document (Passport or ID card) - A copy of education certificates and transcripts of records - A copy of the degree thesis and publications (if any), or hyperlinks to pdf files of those documents Subject of the should be: FIRST NAME FAMILY NAME APPLICATION (e.g. “JOHN DOE APPLICATION”) The total size of s to the above address cannot exceed 10 megabytes. If the provided material does not fit in 10 megabytes, candidates are allowed to submit it in multiple s. 2) Two letters of recommendation must be sent to the above address by the same deadline, in a separate directly by the referees of choice of the candidate. Subject of the should be: FIRST NAME FAMILY NAME LETTER OF REFERENCE (e.g. “ JOHN DOE LETTER OF REFERENCE”)” This looks clear enough – however both at UNIPD and INFN we are receiving 50% of the applications in anomalous form; apparently applicants can’t read the call. Or is it unclear ? If we have ways to simplify the above, they are probably the way to go

Deadline and timeline “Complete applications must be sent by September 30 th 2015 at 5PM central European time. Incomplete applications or applications sent after the above deadline will not be considered. A selection board will evaluate the applications and make a pre-selection of the most promising candidates based on the requirements above The preselected applicants will be contacted to arrange for a colloquium which will be held by videoconference during the first week of October Candidates will be notified of their ranking on the day after the end of all scheduled colloquia. The best scoring candidate available to accept the position will be chosen. The selected ESR will be required to move to Padova or its vicinities at the beginning of December 2015, to formally take service at INFN-Padova and start attending Ph. D. courses there. This is a mandatory requirement.” This must reflect the specific boundary conditions of each call – so it has to be adapted for each Note that there is no formal requirement that the ESR be hired in a PhD program in our programme, although we sort of implied it; in special cases we can accept candidates who have started a PhD elsewhere, e.g. It is a bit unclear how much arm-twisting power we have once we sign a hiring contract: what happens if the person does not comply (e.g. delays arrival, does not enrol, etc.) must be clarified with PO

Application form A very exhaustive application form was put together for the UNIPD call – Thanks to our Statistician colleagues ! I think other calls can largely benefit from cutting and pasting it No time to go in the details – each node PI should have a close look and ensure it covers all they wish to know about the person they want to hire We can devote the next Executive Board meeting to a fine- tuning of that document

Selection committees We need to form selection committees consistently with what is stated in our proposal: – “The selection board usually includes the local Human Resource Coordinator, the supervisor for the position, and the Network Coordinator or his deputy, plus the Equal Opportunity Officer if needed. The board should be as gender-balanced as possible, include members with selection experience from at least two countries, and if possible a member of the partner company providing secondment [...] Unanimous agreement is always sought, although the final decision is the responsibility of the institution members.” Selection committees for INFN and UNIPD calls are already formed: – UNIPD: Menardi, Dorigo, Saoulidou, Sanarico + Monica Chiogna (head of PhD program in PD) – INFN: Dorigo, Checchia, Stanco, Saoulidou, Sanarico Many thanks to Niki (Equal Opportunities Officer) for accepting this workload – If your call results in candidates of both sexes you should invite her to take part I will always take part in the committees, unless prevented (Paolo will replace me in that case) Please plan ahead and let us know the possible dates well in advance!

Advertising A spreadsheet we produced at INFN contains lots of links for advertising of positions in web sites and services – some are free, some aren’t – We can coordinate and choose one or two services and invest in an ad covering several calls – INFN bought (euro 75) a slot in FindaPhd.com Then there are experiments web sites – INFN call went to CMS, ATLAS, LHCb web sites – being distributed to CMS institutional ML Then we should plan to print and put in bulletin boards our calls, in all network institutions’ buildings !! – at CERN the INFN call is widely posted – Please post the INFN and UNIPD calls ASAP at your site!! Don’t overlook twitter, lots of useful hashtags there ! Probably best, for early grad students, to use one’s network of contacts (targeted s and mailing lists), as students often are not smart enough to look around in the web – use as many mailing lists as you have access to Next: xls file and discussion