Academic couples take heart. Your numbers, and your bargaining power, are rising, according to a report from the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. Dual academic couples now make up more than a third of the US professoriate. Universities should use them as a recruitment tool, the report concludes.

Dual-Career Academic Couples: What Universities Need to Know advises academic institutions that still practise secretive, inconsistent employment negotiations to join the growing number of universities with written policies or guidelines for partner hiring. Eighty-eight per cent of survey respondents who were hired as part of a couple said they would have gone elsewhere if their partner had not also been taken on, says Londa Schiebinger, director of the Clayman Institute. She led the survey, which included 9,000 full-time faculty members from 13 leading US research institutions.

Couple hiring could help institutes attract female faculty members, as 83% of women scientists in academic couples are partnered with another scientist. The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is one of many that can demonstrate the recruitment benefits: in a recent study of its dual-career programme, 72% of respondents said the programme had made a critical difference in decisions to accept a position. “Our programme is tied to the heart of the institution — it is about recruiting and retaining faculty,” says Glenda Haskell, assistant vice-provost of academic affairs.

Many candidates are concerned about when in the interview process they should bring up a partner's career, and often wait until they have a written offer, Schiebinger says. Beth Mitchneck, associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Arizona in Tucson, says: “Some interviewees fear that requesting a partner hire during the interview would preclude an offer.” But she disagrees with that strategy. “Here we want to know as early as possible in order to best find satisfactory employment options,” she says.

So how can a couple negotiate one offer into two positions? Schiebinger says the first step is for couples to discuss their individual career expectations by asking 'Whose career will we follow?'. They should then find out which universities are couple-friendly by looking for specific guidelines, typically found on the university provost's website. And, Schiebinger suggests, talk to couples who already work there.