At Åbo Akademi University, around 1200 people work with a wide variety of tasks and skills – everything from professors, researchers and teaching staff to specialists and employees in various administrative tasks and support functions.
Do you want to work with us? This is what our recruitment process looks like, with a special focus on academic recruitments.
Recruitment principles
In our recruitments we follow the general principles for recruiting staff to ÅAU, including qualification requirements for different personnel categories (i.e.. professors, lecturers, researchers), in the Regulations on Personnel (approved 1.4.2022).
By implementing the European Commission’s Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R), Åbo Akademi University is committed to continuously developing and maintaining a stimulating work environment for researchers, developing working conditions in a purposeful way, and giving special attention to the recruitment of new employees to the work community.
The Strategy for Open, Transparent and Merit-based Recruitment (OTM-R) is available online.
Application process
When starting the recruitment, the specific eligibility requirements and other conditions are set for the employment and defined in a job description and advertisement.
All open positions are advertised in the university recruitment system (LAURA) and applications are accepted digitally.
For each position, the advertisement states the appendices to be submitted to support the assessment of the applicant’s qualifications.
As of Autumn 2021, we recommend that the applicant’s qualifications are documented in a curriculum vitae prepared in accordance with recommendations of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK).
A complete list of publications is included in the curriculum vitae, and we recommend that the list is dispositioned following the classification of publication types established by the Ministry of Education and Culture.
The teaching portfolio comprises among other things the applicant’s teaching experience and work with developing their pedagogics and teaching activities.
Evaluations of applications
When you apply for a position as a teacher, researcher and other staff member at ÅAU, an overall assessment of your qualifications and suitability for the position is made in relation to the evaluation criteria and work description in the job announcement. The assessment of your documented merits can also include additional external expert evaluations, interviews, demonstration of teaching skills, language tests or other aptitude tests. In order to be selected for a position, you must have the education and experience needed to successfully perform the duties.
Recruitment committees with experts and/or responsible recruiting supervisors, will participate in the recruitment process. The appointed committeesare responsible for putting forward a recommendation for employment based on a documented evaluation.
Your qualifications are assessed based on your merits from different areas of expertise. If you are a researcher or teacher, the qualification requirements will normally contain a broad variety of skills, i.e. scholarly and pedagogical requirements as well as expectations regarding societal collaboration. In addition, there are language requirements for both academic and other staff members.
When assessing the scholarly merits, Good practice in researcher evaluation. Recommendation for the responsible evaluation of a researcher in Finland including the National recommendation on the responsible use of publication metrics, will be used.
When assessing your relevant pedagogical experience, that you have documented in the teaching portfolio, a matrix for evaluation of the teaching portfolio will be used. In addition, the recruitment committee might arrange for a demonstration of your teaching teaching skills. The evaluation of teaching demonstrations follows the guidelines set in the document assessing teaching demonstrations.
The purpose of a public teaching demonstration is that it should be as authentic as possible and provide a relevant teaching situation for the sought position. The goal of the teaching demonstration is to assess your pedagogical skills, for example how well you manage to make the audience understand, take an interest in and problematize the subject, as well as to relate it to the rest of its studies. The audience of the demonstration consists of students of the subject. The length of the teaching session is normally 30 minutes. The recruitment committee will provide more details about the teaching demonstration.
Teaching and doing research in Swedish
The administrative language of the university is Swedish and ÅAU has a broad responsibility to offer education in Swedish.
The language requirements for teaching positions at Åbo Akademi University are defined in 78 § of the University Act (558/2009) and in the Åbo Akademi University internal language instructions (accepted by the ÅAU Board 25.2.2010).
The language requirements for an assignment are stated in the job description. If you are an international applicant or a non-native Finnish citizen you might need to show sufficient knowledge of Swedish for teaching. Depending on the position and teaching language, you might also be exempt from the requirement to have knowledge of Swedish and Finnish.
The language board of ÅAU will upon request arrange a test for the applicant’s demonstration of excellent/sufficient Swedish skills. The university will support you as an international staff member with language courses.