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missdianeFor context, this is the job that was posted to work with Elaine where I'm on the search committee - putting it behind a cut since it's a lot of text.
Overview:
The Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS), located on the George H. Cook Campus, is one of the largest schools on the New Brunswick campus. In addition, the School oversees the NJ Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES), which conducts a vigorous program of applied research and outreach through labs, farms, business incubators, and marine stations located across the state. SEBS/NJAES researchers strive to gain a deeper understanding of our physical world, from microorganisms to ecosystems, to identify the ways in which humans affect our planet and seek to develop multi-dimensional solutions to address real-world problems. Our faculty, staff and students apply for competitive funding from a diverse array of federal and state agencies as well as foundations and corporate sponsors to maintain a rigorous funding portfolio that provides the foundation of our broad research enterprise.
Posting Summary:
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey is seeking a Sr. Project Administrator (Research Development) for the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Among the key duties of the position are the following:
• Provides direct support to faculty and staff as they pursue funding in support of research, teaching and service projects which will ultimately grow the SEBS/NJAES research portfolio.
• Helps faculty, administrators and staff to develop and submit competitive external grant proposals to federal and state agencies, private foundations, and industry including large, complex, interdisciplinary projects that reach across units at Rutgers.
• Provides direct support and assistance to SEBS/NJAES faculty and staff including but not limited to identifying key funding opportunities that target strategic development areas and that align with SEBS/NJAES capabilities, working with PIs to understand proposal requirements, agency mission and culture with the goal of producing more competitive grant proposals, and coordinating timely workflow of proposal preparation and submission.
• Participates in hosting, developing and facilitating workshops and events offered by the office and assists with generating “best practices” guidelines for proposal development.
Required Knowledge and Skills:
• Strong communication skills, independent judgement, the ability to work effectively with diverse populations, and consensus-building skills.
• Ability to work independently and/or in a team, set appropriate work priorities, and require minimal supervision of regular work activities.
• Strong time management and organizational skills, attention to detail and the ability to balance multiple priorities under deadlines are essential.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills and ability to understand diverse disciplines that target multiple funding agencies is required.
• The position will be assisting a diverse group of faculty, thus strong interpersonal skills and the ability to remained composed when working under deadline constraints is necessary.
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience in research program development or grant facilitation, experience working with university administration, including sponsored research offices, and experience in writing successfully funded grant proposals is preferred.
The pay range is minimum $75382, midpoint $93917, max $112452This job is the same pay grade as me (I'm a program administrator rather than a project administrator), I'm stuck at the midpoint and honestly, I deserve and should be two pay grades higher, but that gives minimal context why tomorrow they are not going to be happy that I'm going to go against the "team" and say that I don't support hiring the person that we interviewed today. The person we interviewed today:
Yes, I understand that we're under the gun because there may or may not be a hiring freeze coming but this person has no qualifications for the job, hasn't shown an interest in what we actually do and is only interested in jobs where she can get upgrades (you know, like the ones I've never had in TEN FUCKING YEARS?) and can take off randomly because she is still on maternity leave which she isn't set to come back until May.
I could tell by Elaine's actions and expression that she had her mind made up before this interview started. She doesn't want to put the listing out again, she doesn't want to interview anyone else and she made every single excuse in the world for this person. The only positives I could give about this person is that she seemed intelligent enough and friendly enough and that was being GENEROUS. I also got a lot more hints that Elaine had tattled yesterday since he was making reference in the interview to the person also learning some of what I do and blowing smoke up my ass with compliments. Stop. I'm tired of that. Really tired.
We stayed on after the zoom and brought on our admin person to talk. I gave the laundry list of valid reservations which Josh agreed with but Elaine was in her bull in a china shop mode and just kept cheerleading and making excused. She looked irritated when she brought up to me that she could help with the database I've been asking for the last decade and I said "uh, she doesn't have any database creation experience?" She tried hard to wear me down and Josh was capitulating to Elaine and all wanting the "team" to be in agreement but dammit, NO. I fought to keep my reasoning solid and my tone even. She's not a good fit, she won't stick around and I'm sorry, this is NOT an entry level job, the person should at least have some experience or hell, some INTEREST in the field we're hiring for. It's an insult to me to think you can just drag anyone off the street and "train" them. Besides, if I agree to this, then I'll have to be part of the "team" training her and no, just NO.
Since I wouldn't give in, we're going to sleep on this and have another zoom at 10 am tomorrow. I really don't want to go into the office since I know very well that Elaine will get to work between 8 to 8:30 and drive me up the fucking wall until the zoom and I can't be stupid like I was the other day and say, well, ANYTHING. I wish I could shut my door but I can't do that for two hours unless I want to burst into flames since my office gets ungodly hot and I have to turn on a tower fan to blow air in from the main room.
There's a 9am webinar hosted by endocrine/animal sciences titled "Hypothalamic Circuits Underlying Feeding Behavior Dysregulation" that I can turn on and pretend that I'm involved in (no, I haven't a damned clue what that's about - something something TOTALLY SCIENCE something). I just need to load up 8-9am with something that I totally have to get done RIGHT THEN.
Ugh.
Overview:
The Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS), located on the George H. Cook Campus, is one of the largest schools on the New Brunswick campus. In addition, the School oversees the NJ Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES), which conducts a vigorous program of applied research and outreach through labs, farms, business incubators, and marine stations located across the state. SEBS/NJAES researchers strive to gain a deeper understanding of our physical world, from microorganisms to ecosystems, to identify the ways in which humans affect our planet and seek to develop multi-dimensional solutions to address real-world problems. Our faculty, staff and students apply for competitive funding from a diverse array of federal and state agencies as well as foundations and corporate sponsors to maintain a rigorous funding portfolio that provides the foundation of our broad research enterprise.
Posting Summary:
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey is seeking a Sr. Project Administrator (Research Development) for the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Among the key duties of the position are the following:
• Provides direct support to faculty and staff as they pursue funding in support of research, teaching and service projects which will ultimately grow the SEBS/NJAES research portfolio.
• Helps faculty, administrators and staff to develop and submit competitive external grant proposals to federal and state agencies, private foundations, and industry including large, complex, interdisciplinary projects that reach across units at Rutgers.
• Provides direct support and assistance to SEBS/NJAES faculty and staff including but not limited to identifying key funding opportunities that target strategic development areas and that align with SEBS/NJAES capabilities, working with PIs to understand proposal requirements, agency mission and culture with the goal of producing more competitive grant proposals, and coordinating timely workflow of proposal preparation and submission.
• Participates in hosting, developing and facilitating workshops and events offered by the office and assists with generating “best practices” guidelines for proposal development.
Required Knowledge and Skills:
• Strong communication skills, independent judgement, the ability to work effectively with diverse populations, and consensus-building skills.
• Ability to work independently and/or in a team, set appropriate work priorities, and require minimal supervision of regular work activities.
• Strong time management and organizational skills, attention to detail and the ability to balance multiple priorities under deadlines are essential.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills and ability to understand diverse disciplines that target multiple funding agencies is required.
• The position will be assisting a diverse group of faculty, thus strong interpersonal skills and the ability to remained composed when working under deadline constraints is necessary.
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience in research program development or grant facilitation, experience working with university administration, including sponsored research offices, and experience in writing successfully funded grant proposals is preferred.
The pay range is minimum $75382, midpoint $93917, max $112452This job is the same pay grade as me (I'm a program administrator rather than a project administrator), I'm stuck at the midpoint and honestly, I deserve and should be two pay grades higher, but that gives minimal context why tomorrow they are not going to be happy that I'm going to go against the "team" and say that I don't support hiring the person that we interviewed today. The person we interviewed today:
- ONLY has HR work experience, none of which is useful to us
- Has no experience working with faculty
- Has no knowledge of grants or research
- Wants to leave her job for a lateral move since where she's at doesn't seem to have opportunities to go higher (mind, she got a promotion there after two years and then another one after another year in 2023)
- Expressed no reason for being interested in moving to research administration
- Kept going on about how she wanted to work "at SEBS"
- Has degrees in English, HR Management and just about to get an MBA but doesn't know what she wants to do
- Only questions she asked were 1) What is a typical day like? 2) Why was the job listing out for so long? 3) Are there more members in the team? (this one I clearly pegged as wanting backup for when she wants to go for her umpteenth degree or wants to be out of the office
Yes, I understand that we're under the gun because there may or may not be a hiring freeze coming but this person has no qualifications for the job, hasn't shown an interest in what we actually do and is only interested in jobs where she can get upgrades (you know, like the ones I've never had in TEN FUCKING YEARS?) and can take off randomly because she is still on maternity leave which she isn't set to come back until May.
I could tell by Elaine's actions and expression that she had her mind made up before this interview started. She doesn't want to put the listing out again, she doesn't want to interview anyone else and she made every single excuse in the world for this person. The only positives I could give about this person is that she seemed intelligent enough and friendly enough and that was being GENEROUS. I also got a lot more hints that Elaine had tattled yesterday since he was making reference in the interview to the person also learning some of what I do and blowing smoke up my ass with compliments. Stop. I'm tired of that. Really tired.
We stayed on after the zoom and brought on our admin person to talk. I gave the laundry list of valid reservations which Josh agreed with but Elaine was in her bull in a china shop mode and just kept cheerleading and making excused. She looked irritated when she brought up to me that she could help with the database I've been asking for the last decade and I said "uh, she doesn't have any database creation experience?" She tried hard to wear me down and Josh was capitulating to Elaine and all wanting the "team" to be in agreement but dammit, NO. I fought to keep my reasoning solid and my tone even. She's not a good fit, she won't stick around and I'm sorry, this is NOT an entry level job, the person should at least have some experience or hell, some INTEREST in the field we're hiring for. It's an insult to me to think you can just drag anyone off the street and "train" them. Besides, if I agree to this, then I'll have to be part of the "team" training her and no, just NO.
Since I wouldn't give in, we're going to sleep on this and have another zoom at 10 am tomorrow. I really don't want to go into the office since I know very well that Elaine will get to work between 8 to 8:30 and drive me up the fucking wall until the zoom and I can't be stupid like I was the other day and say, well, ANYTHING. I wish I could shut my door but I can't do that for two hours unless I want to burst into flames since my office gets ungodly hot and I have to turn on a tower fan to blow air in from the main room.
There's a 9am webinar hosted by endocrine/animal sciences titled "Hypothalamic Circuits Underlying Feeding Behavior Dysregulation" that I can turn on and pretend that I'm involved in (no, I haven't a damned clue what that's about - something something TOTALLY SCIENCE something). I just need to load up 8-9am with something that I totally have to get done RIGHT THEN.
Ugh.