Are there any tricks to getting non-teaching staff jobs in higher ed?

[Anselm]

With private business the common advice is to follow up with a phone call or use someone inside of the company that you know.  Would this also help with higher ed jobs?  I got my first teaching job through an old friend and I was not even looking for that kind of job.  Afterwards I got called back for interviews at other schools without knowing anyone there.  For various reasons I want to get out of the classroom.  I see ads for attractive jobs in research university labs.  So far I have not gotten any replies to my applications. 

Is there anything else I can do to get noticed and get interviews?

[Puget]

When you say "in research university labs" do you mean research lab staff positions in another faculty members lab? It would be pretty unusual for someone who was faculty to take such a position (though in some cases with large multi-PI lab groups someone might step from a TT to a research faculty position for various reasons). Not to say it maybe couldn't work, but you might not get a response because it would just seem very odd for you to be applying. You could try directly emailing and explaining your reasons for wanting to make this change and why you think it would be a good fit. 

Or maybe you mean something completely different, like support staff for teaching labs?

[Anselm]

When you say "in research university labs" do you mean research lab staff positions in another faculty members lab? It would be pretty unusual for someone who was faculty to take such a position (though in some cases with large multi-PI lab groups someone might step from a TT to a research faculty position for various reasons). Not to say it maybe couldn't work, but you might not get a response because it would just seem very odd for you to be applying. You could try directly emailing and explaining your reasons for wanting to make this change and why you think it would be a good fit. 

Or maybe you mean something completely different, like support staff for teaching labs?

The former situation.  I  currently teach in a community college and do not perform any research.  I explain my reasons in my cover letters.  It did cross my mind to email someone directly but this time I could not figure out the who the PI might be.  I suppose I can call an administrative assistant and ask who the right person might be.

[Puget]

The former situation.  I  currently teach in a community college and do not perform any research.  I explain my reasons in my cover letters.  It did cross my mind to email someone directly but this time I could not figure out the who the PI might be.  I suppose I can call an administrative assistant and ask who the right person might be.

Unfortunately you may look both over and under qualified for these positions. Over-qualified in that these are generally entry-level positions, that don't require a PhD (unless you are applying for postdoc positions, in which case see next point). Under-qualified in the sense that if you have not been conducting research for a long time, it may not be obvious whether you have the skills needed for these jobs.

The other thing to be aware of is that often (not always, but often) by the time a position is posted on the university jobs website, it is in reality already filled-- PIs advertise these jobs via professional society email lists, jobs wikis, and informal emails to colleagues, while the slow process of HR formally approving and posting the job happen in parallel. When the job is finally posted, they have often already interviewed and selected a candidate who then formally "applies" so they can be hired.

So if you are serious about getting a lab position, I would suggest:

1. Joining your relevant professional societies and getting on their listservs, checking any jobs wikis in your field, and letting your professional network know you are searching.

2. Emailing PIs directly when you see a job opening, and explaining clearly how your skills match those in the ad and why what may look like a move backward to them is actually not for you.

3. Writing a skills-based resume that highlights the research skills you have, using as many of the key terms from the job ads you are seeing as possible.

[Mobius]

Staff jobs tend to go to alumni if said institutions, right, unless it's a director-type role where you'd need experience at a lower grade.

[AJ_Katz]

For postdoc positions, I try to advertise on Twitter (now X) and identify candidates without making a formal search because the latter takes 3+ months to identify a candidate.  So, I would suggest that you are tracking all of the platforms for potential positions.  Also, if you're looking for a lab / research job at a university, you should also broaden your search to industry. 

[doc700]

I work in physical sciences so we don't have a large number of technicians like in biological sciences.  We do have a number of central research facilities on campus and there are staff who manage the tools, train students and collaborate on research projects. At my university the people in those positions have a range of degrees from PhDs to an associates degree (all are highly skilled).  There are many more of those type of positions and its harder to fill them so those could be interesting positions to look at in addition to positions in individual labs.

[bio-nonymous]

From the other side of the equation:

I was looking to hire a research scientist, preferably with a PhD or Master's degree and research experience running a lab. TO make a long story short, I eventually hired an Associate Professor from a small teaching college who ran their version of a "molecular biology" core (as well as all the regular stuff of teaching and service). This person's reason for taking the job is that they loved research and wanted to get back into academic research. I bit. This person had much less technical ability than they portrayed themselves as having and I needed to extensively train them to do the research part of the job--they were fine as the lab manager (a part of the job that could be done with a BS). Fast forward a couple years and after investing countless hours in training, they left for an industry job to make more money (can't really blame someone for wanting more money, if that is what is important, and obviously Academia cannot compete). They reason this person had any way to compete for the position is because of the training from my lab. I can accept that (no one owes anyone anything in reality, and you have to take care of yourself, but it stings).

I had a chance during the process to hire a professional academic lab manager/research scientist (MS level) with over a decade of experience and also a fantastic recent grad (BS) with research chops (both of which would have been less expensive). Instead I took a chance thinking that to publish again and the eventual chance to become a soft money Research Professor was what the former (teaching) Professor wanted (and said they wanted). I thought that this person would be great at the research and be able to produce first author papers (but they also had far less less writing ability than I had hoped).

That was a long story to tell you what some of the people looking at your resume might be thinking...I would not do it again and would have hired the MS-level lab manager (who is still around working in someone else's lab) if I had another chance. TO get the kind of job you want, I think you need to have recent quantifiable research accomplishments in the arena you are attempting to break into--otherwise it may be a bigger risk than hiring someone potentially "less qualified" on paper. Perhaps using your network to find a job would work better than random applications, because at least  you would have the "in" from your relationships.

[BadWolf]

I'm a bit of a different creature than most. I started life in industry, working as I received 2, 4 and 6 year degrees in biological fields. Then after having been an established researcher I moved to administration, then changed fields completely at the request of a Provost (BEST decision I ever made in my life) and also now teach.

So basically the complete opposite of you.

Back in the times before, lab researchers were almost exclusively recent graduates who had worked in the labs as students, so by the time they were hired they were already familiar with the work and science in that particular lab. Older researchers were often Master's level, occasionally Ph.D, but had been with the researcher their entire careers. Job movement was rare.

My advice would be this: find someone whose research interests you, or where you may already have latent skills, and speak with the PI's directly. You can do this by looking at their profiles, looking at their publications, and following their funding. (i.e. if they just received a huge NIH grant they might be looking for new staff).

Have you thought about looking at Sponsored Research? It's not teaching, it's not bench research, but it still supports the research enterprise and is understaffed and in demand.