QS launches global academic job portal

After more than 20 years of finding the right courses and universities for internationally ambitious students, QS is now moving on to the next logical step: finding the right jobs and institutions for globally mobile academics.

Launched earlier this year, QS AIM (for Academic International Mobility) is intended to supplement today’s nationally-oriented academic job sites and publications, adding a new option with a completely international view.

Tony Martin, project director of AIM, says: “AIM is a global jobs portal for the academic world. We started it because we know that universities are more likely than ever before to mount a global search for faculty. They want a more international, and higher-quality, academic workforce. The nationally-oriented media in which most academic job advertising appears at the moment get about 90 per cent of their business from their home country.”

QS AIM helps universities find talent from around the world, aggregating job advertising on a global basis and supplementing it with content such as country guides and higher education news, geared to the needs of the actual or potential expatriate academic.

Martin says that AIM is a logical development for QS. “Although most of our work is with students rather than academics, we know that a fifth of the visitors to our topuniversities.com web site are employees of academic institutions. Several QS businesses are oriented towards universities rather than students, such as the QS Intelligence Unit, QS unisolution and QS Consulting.” He adds that these businesses mainly engage with university managers. “While there will be advertising for senior managers on QS AIM, it will also connect us directly to active academics.”

The QS AIM web site now has details of over 2000 jobs. They are mainly from top academic nations such as Australia, the UK and the US, as well as mainland Europe, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and China.

Martin says that the US is an especially interesting market because of its historically low number of international academics. “Many US universities are becoming more aware of how insular they are, and as their outlook broadens, they will want a more diverse faculty.”

? QS AIM’s beta web site is at www.qsaim.com. Advertising there is free during the current launch period.