Description:
This paper analyzes the system of academic job position-filling in Brazil, a country whose academic community has been steadily growing in recent times, with a 401% increase in MA and Ph.D titles over the last 20 years. The Brazilian system of academic job search, known as the concurso, is very different from those practiced in most countries, presenting mixed features of very strict rules on the one hand, and covert political patronage on the other. Some aspects of the process will be commented, with an analysis of the main strategies used when different parties with conflicting interests try to manipulate or influence the outcome of a concurso.