I’ve heard from friends that in physics schools here in Brazil you can only be accepted as a new teacher if you are already from a research field being researched in a group in that school. If you are not intending to work with topics that people are already working there, you can forget about entering.

On the other hand, my impression from the engineering schools is that the opposite happens: if you are an expert from an area that nobody studies in a certain school, your chances of being accepted there are higher, and if you want to study a topic that already has an “owner” inside a school, it will be more difficult for you to enter there a priori.

It’s something like physicists preferring to have strong groups, while engineers are more concerned with diversity. The way research happens in these disciplines probably has much to do with that…

I would like to hear from people from other countries and areas: what is your experience? When a school is already specialized in a topic that a teacher candidate is specialized, does that attract or repel him/her?