1) Tell us about your research.
You think they care about your research.
You say way too much about narrow, narrow, oh so narrow, tediously narrow interests.
No. They want to learn about how your expertise fits into their departmental needs as
expressed by the job ad, and connects with the work of the people doing the interview (which
is why your methodology and contribution are actually the most important portion of your
answer), and is quickly getting funded and published in ways that bode well for tenure. At
the same time, they observe how you express yourself, how self absorbed you are or arent.
2) Tell us about your plans for the next five years.
You think they want to hear about your interests and motivations in the life of the mind in
huge, grandiose, boring abstractions.
This is the equivalent of someone asking you how to get to from LA to NY by car, and you
start the answer: the corn of Nebraska is beautiful in late summer!
No. Its not about the corn. Instead, youll need to explain how, leaving on XX date, on XX
road, youll make it to XX city by sundown. Then starting the next day, youll reach XX by
sundown. You will give the step-by-step route complete with mileage goals and destinations
along the way. They dont need to know your feelings about the scenery.
Same for tenure. Tenure is a destination that must be reached in careful and well-planned
stages. The search committee needs to know 1) that you get what tenure at their institution
means and 2) that you have plan complete with dates and locations to get there. All framed
within THEIR concerns. R1 = RESEARCH goals, along with teaching and a tiny bit of
service; SLAC = TEACHING goals, always informed by research and more service.
3) Tell us how you would teach our big survey course.
You think they want to hear how youre going to make those undergrads finally grasp the
point of transnationalism, once and for all. Or modernity. They must know modernity. Or
intersectionality, goddammit! They MUST. BE. TAUGHT. INTERSECTIONALITY.
No. They do not want to hear that you are going to dogmatically hijack their big intro course
and make it into an altar to your personal theoretical preoccupation. They want to know that
1) you get that you will be teaching big survey courses, 2) you get what the discipline expects
students to learn in those classes and have a plan to assure students learn it. They want to
know that even though they are hiring an expert in the power dynamics of gender on Mars it
does not mean you will hijack their Introduction to Anthropology class and teach it through a
Martian gender theory lens. In other words, they want to know that you will not take their
courses off the rails and leave them with ill-prepared students in their 200 level courses.
4) Tell us how you see yourself contributing to this department.
You think they want to know the courses you will propose and how much you loooooooove
students (graduate or otherwise)
No. They need to see you making specific connections between your work and the work
being done by current faculty in the department, at thematic and/or topical levels.
They also want to know how you will raise their department profile or raise the profile of
their students (depending the institution) both on an off campus. Working Groups.
Interdisciplinary collaborations. Professional Affiliations. Programs. Initiatives. Field
Schools. And yes, courses. But really the courses you propose only go so far.
5) Tell us why you want to work here.
You think they want to know how great their department will be for you and all the great
things you will do with all of their great resources.
No. That is self-absorbed. This is not the time for more me, me, me and how the job is
going to serve you. They want to know that you understand the university, the department,
the faculty. That you have thought it through and see where you can connect, build, and
engage, giving specific examples and ideas.
6) Do you have any questions for us?
You think the purpose of these questions is to gather information.
No. These questions are more ways they elicit information about you. They want to know
what you are prioritizing in your academic life. Your questions always reveal your values,
and you must manage them for what they disclose. They are often where your deepest
priorities and anxieties come out into the light. If all your questions are about teaching, and
its an R1, you look like you dont belong. You must show them that you are thinking about
what they think you should be thinking about. Always with an eye to your tenure case. I
wrote some specifics about this in a recent Chronicle Vitae post, Good Question!
Kellee was talking with her brother recently and lamenting how often people theyve
interviewed for positions had clearly failed to prepare in any way to understand the position
or the organization. He mentioned a recent search he was chairing for a position in the U.S.
Forest Service. He and his colleagues asked, do you have any questions for us? The
candidates fell into two groups: those who asked something like, How often am I paid and
what are my benefits? and those who asked something like, I was looking at XXX project
that you did last year, and it really intersects with my work; I am interested to know if you
have plans to further develop XXX? I would like to be involved.
To quote Kellees brother: Who do you think made the short list?
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Want to work with Kellee on a live Skype Interview Intervention? Heres the info:
The Interview Intervention and Job Talk Intervention are both 50-minute Skype
appointments with TPII colleague Kellee Weinhold, who specializes in communications and
presentation. The latter is a practice job talk. The former is an intensive mock-interview.
The cost for each is $250.
For the Interview Intervention, we take you through a set of 6 basic interview questions
(several of these are described in my blog post, The #Facepalm Fails of the Academic
Interview) in a mock interview, stopping after each question to evaluate every answer for its
strengths and weaknesses in terms of brevity, spin, word choice, tone, body language, etc.,
and refining it for effectiveness. For some basic questions, you may repeat your response 2-3
times until perfect. Its grueling, but very effective. Read some of the testimonials on the
Testimonials page to learn more.
For the Job Talk Intervention we listen to about 30 minutes of your job talk while referring to
a written outline of the complete talk that you provide, along with your powerpoint
slides/visuals. You will not give an uninterrupted version of the talk, but rather the most
important sectionsthe opening, the meat of the research, and the contribution/conclusion.
Kellee provides an evaluation of your organization, approach, balance of theory and data,
wording, body language, speech patterns, effectiveness of visuals, etc., with particular
attention to the effectiveness of the talk for the particular job.
Once an I-I or Job Talk Intervention has been scheduled it is non-refundable. It can be
rescheduled up to 48 hours in advance; after that the slot cannot be changed.