This is the last post in a series of posts (which was not intended to be a series). The series started with this post in which I reported some experience with job interviews I had in spring last year, and continued with this post which told what happened afterwards. The story ended with the paragraph “Now the final steps will be: Preparation of the next list of wishes, negotiations to stay and finally, the most difficult part, forming a well-founded decision.” That was about eleven month ago and was not totally wrong. Here is what happened then:

1. The Bleibeverhandlung

The Bleibeverhandlung (the negotiations to stay) is in principle similar to the negotiations with other universities. But there are important differences: The first one is due to the fact that there has been no official committee of the department involved so far and hence, the department has to form an opinion on how much they want to keep you. As far as I know this usually happens in an informal way and can be very different in different places and also the dean (or, in my case, the “speaker of the department”) may handle this in its own way. Also, you will not be involved in this step in any way (I think). The amount of support you get is crucial for the next steps. The department has to report its opinion to the dean (who is basically in control of the money here) and the dean has to decide about a strategy how to keep you (if your support is strong enough). Again, this is very different in different cases. Also, I do not know too much about this process, but at least there will be some communication between the dean and the president (or their offices). But after this procedure, the next steps of negotiations are basically the same as before: First negotiations with the dean, then with the president. Again, the first negotiation is somehow more important as many things are handled by the dean. In my case there was the question on which kind of position the department could keep me and how it could be arranged to fill this position with me. I have been Juniorprofessor (basically equal to assistant professor) and according to German law, there is not way of promotion to the “next level”. The university had to find an “open position for a professor”. But there was such a position (which I knew before since I had a tenure track position). The next obstruction was that, again according to German law, there usually has to be an official public announcement if such a position is to be filled. Consequently, anyone who is qualified could apply and should have a positive probability to get the job. However, I learned that my state has the possibility to fill a position without public announcement and it was part of my offer that my university “offered to start the initiation of this procedure”. It is somehow difficult to translate but the university could not even offer to initiate this “filling without public announcement” because this is something on which several committees has to agree.

2. The decision

Well, I had the official offer of my university pretty quick after negotiations. Basically, it was on par with the other offers (slightly better in some respects, slightly worse in others – but clearly no clear winner). The only caveat was, that there was no guarantee that I could get a permanent position because this depended on the decision of more committees. However, I had a formal statement that the president and the dean would initiate and support the procedure. Moreover, colleagues told me that my university had done a great job in keeping its promises in similar respects.

So, the decision was not easy. However, I decided not to play “ping-pong” with the other universities (which could be possible – but I can not tell you how that works) and to decide on basis of the facts I had after one round of negotiations. It was a tough and close decision which I do not comment in more detail here. But I decided to stay at TU Braunschweig.

3. Another application

Correct: I had to write another application! Although the process to “fill the position without public announcement” was granted by all committees (which took quite some time), that still meant that there had to be a normal procedure for an appointment: A committee had to be formed which had to agree on criteria for the position and had to ask me to apply for the position. Then, I applied and I even were invited to give a talk, a test lecture and had a job interview (all at my own university). Usually, there also had to be external referee reports but somebody found that there was the possibility to have enough external committee members present at the presentation and the job interview who then have their opinion recorded. After that, the committee had to form a decision and a one person list which went the usual way through administration. Then I got the offer in the official way and was even asked for another negotiations. But since the university really had realized the whole procedure totally as promised, I did not see any reason to insist on further negotiations. They had done anything as we had agreed on, and so I just said, that I agree to take the position on the basis of the offer they had formulated. This went smoothly and I accepted (officially by mail). The next step was that I had to go to the Amtsarzt (translates to “public health officer”) who had to check if was healthy enough for a lifetime professorship. (I had been at the Amtsarzt before I started my Juniorprofessorship, but then he only checked if I was healthy enough for six years…). Also, this went smoothly and a few days ago there was my “appointment for life”. (Last remark: I wondered that I did not had to repeat the “official oath” (Amtseid) because I had done this when I started the Juniorprofessorship, and this remains a lifetime.)

End of the story – indeed a happy end for me. The procedure was quite slow – but as far as I’ve heard all the people who have been involved did their best to make the procedure as quick as possible and I am very thankful for the effort and support of many people. It is just an awfully complicated procedure to appoint a professor in Germany which consists of many steps and many people and committees are involved…