Difficult economic conditions make Russian universities establish new mechanisms of personnel policy and compete for the strongest professors. The article deals with modern employment practices in leading universities. It raises questions about starting an academic career and efficiency of competitive procedures. It provides the experience of university teachers and human resources personnel.

Highlights:

► demand for teacher is associated with the methodological quality of his/her work
► efforts of universities to motivate their teachers, including grants and bonuses for publications, are of great importance
► competitions for posts are usually formal but are gradually turning onto real competitions of job seekers
► experiments on teacher ratings made by their students are ambiguously assessed by the academic community
► university HR departments introduce specialized information systems of the integrated assessment of the candidates’ experience and portfolio
► as a rule, universities are opposed to the external secondary job, although many teachers are forced to go that route
► the crisis deepens the problem of academic employment of young staff