Over the last three decades, successive reforms in the French higher education system have transformed the university landscape. The growth in the number of universities and university branches was intended to respond to the massification of the number of students, which increased by 26 % between 2000 and 2020 to 2.7 million. However, this growth in student numbers was not matched with the rise in the number of tenured research lecturers and professors. In France, the recruitment of tenured academics is organised annually through a national competition. Selective steps are conducted at the national level through the National University Council (CNU) to validate applicants’legitimacy to enter the recruitment pool. Only then can applicants apply to the positions posted by the universities with an open academic position. Focusing solely on recruitment in the disciplines of geography and urban planning, this paper provides a spatialized understanding of lecturer recruitment (maîtres de conférences [MCF]) in France between 2013 and 2020. Using secondary data published on a collective website (wiki), 200 lectureship recruitments are analysed. The aim of this work is both to highlight the (im-)mobile trajectories of the recruited MCFs and to provide a spatial analysis of links between universities training future MCFs and those recruiting either their PhD graduates or those of whom have been considered outside of their respective PhD university alma maters. In conclusion, the article broadens the debate of the applicants’ precariousness regarding MCF positions by encouraging the study of the individual and spatialised trajectories of said candidates.