• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Professor Is In

Guidance for all things PhD: Graduate School, Job Market and Careers

  • Home
  • Courses & Events
    • How To …
    • The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
    • The Art of the Article
    • Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
    • On Demand Courses
    • Upcoming Live Webinars
    • Free Productivity Webinars
    • Gift Certificates
  • Personalized Job Help
    • Document Editing
    • Quick Reviews
    • Specials
    • Interview Prep
    • Personal Negotiating Assistance
    • One on One Career Consults
    • Testimonials
    • Interview Testimonials
    • Graduate School Application Assistance
  • Productivity
  • Coaching
    • Productivity Coaching
    • Private Coaching
    • Leaving Academia Coaching Group
  • The Professor Is Out
    • It’s OK to Quit
    • Our Art of Leaving Program
    • Prof Is OUT Services
    • Our Prof Is OUT Team
    • Prof is OUT Client Testimonials
    • Ex-Academics: A TPIO Support Community
  • Workshops
  • Blog

Dealing With the Informal Conference “Chat”

By Karen Kelsky | November 9, 2011

Today’s post is a Special Request Post for Cynthia, who wishes to know how she should deal with an invitation from a search committee member to meet and “chat” informally at an upcoming conference.

These invitations are evil. Search committees should interview or not interview. They should not drift around “chatting” in an exclusive and inconsistent way that ends up privileging some candidates over others. And trust me, the privilege does not necessarily accrue to the candidates who get to chat! There is far greater risk of ruining your chances during the informal chat than there is of gaining an advantage.

So what to do? Well, in general, if you are definitely going to the conference, and the inviting search committee member knows it, then you can’t really refuse to meet them without looking like a toad. And toads don’t get jobs. So, you pretty much have to go.

But beware. These may look like informal talks but let there be no mistake, they are interviews. You need to bring it.

First off, read, memorize, and meditate deeply on my post: “The Six Ways You Are Acting Like a Grad Student (And how that is killing you on the job market).” Then read and meditate on the complete series on “Working the Conference, Parts I, II, and III.” All of these rules apply, in spades, for the conference “chat.”

Be on guard, and prepared with a complete arsenal of rehearsed responses to basic interview questions. It is true that this is very much a conversation, so you must not “hold forth” at great length. You must make good eye contact, and be sure and keep the conversational ball bouncing back and forth at a good clip. Indeed, there might be small talk before and after, so think ahead about small talk themes like the weather, or better, a terrific panel you just heard.

But the bottom line is, you need to comport yourself like a candidate, and be able to: give the “elevator” version of your dissertation; briefly describe a really cool class or two that you’d teach, with texts by name; explain your immediate publishing plans, mentioning specific journals and presses; talk intelligently about your next research project and how it will be funded; and above all express familiarity with the department/ program/ faculty/job at hand.

In addition to basic interview preparation, which you can read about here, you also need to master conference status jockeying, which you can read about in the Working the Conference posts mentioned above. It is critical that you DO NOT cling! Perhaps the single most important element of the conference chat is that you look like you have somewhere else important to be/someone else important to meet immediately after the scheduled chat time.

I would hazard to say that this is where the greatest risks lie for candidates. In an interview setting you are ushered in and ushered out. But chats have no clear beginning or end, and you could find yourself succumbing to the desperate and undignified temptation to trail along with the faculty member to their next panel. Do No Do This! Cut the cord! Leave!

In fact, leave expeditiously, glancing sternly at your watch while courteously but hurriedly saying, “Oh, pardon me, this has been delightful, but I have to go—I’m meeting the editor at Duke in a few minutes….”

Remember, leave THEM wanting more! The greatest kiss of death of the conference is clinging. I can do no better than to quote Tenured Radical (not for the first time) on this subject:

“Leave any and everyone before they leave you. If you see someone’s eyes drifting over your shoulder, even slightly, say warmly: ‘I’ve really got to run — so nice to have had a chance to say hello,’ then skate.”

Just today I heard from a reader that he had found himself sitting next to a Famous Professor in his field during a 5-hour flight home from a conference. This is kind of like a conference chat on steroids. Having read this blog faithfully and practiced his professional skills, this reader was ready. Instead of pretending to sleep, he pulled out his punchy dissertation shpiel and other Dr. Karen-patented professional skills. The conversation didn’t just flow; he was actually invited to visit the department and meet some other faculty members for lunch! And that, my friend, is the kind of “chat” we all want. That is “Chat-Ching”!

Similar Posts:

  • How Do I Address Search Committee Members?
  • #Dispatches: Help, My Campus Visit has Gone Online! 1/2
  • No Missed Opportunities on the Campus Visit
  • What Should Graduate Students Ask Candidates? A Special Request Post
  • An Inconvenient Truth (A Guest Post)

Filed Under: How To Do Conferences, How to Interview, Major Job Market Mistakes, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Buy My Book!

4.8 stars on Amazon!

The_Professor_Is_In.indd

Get Immediate Help

In addition to our blog and book, we have upcoming live webinars, pre-recorded webinars and other programs that you can get started on right away:

The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
The Art of the Article
Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
Quick Reviews
Free Productivity Webinars

Categories

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Academic Job Search
    • How To Choose and Manage Recommenders
    • How to Interview
    • How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters
    • How To Write CVs
    • Landing Your Tenure Track Job
    • Major Job Market Mistakes
    • Negotiating Offers
  • Adjunct Issues
  • Advising Advice
  • Alt-University Critique
  • Black Lives Matter
  • COVID19
  • Dispatches
  • Goodbye Ivory Towers
  • Graduate Student Concerns
    • Bad Advisors and Good Mentors
  • How To Do Conferences
  • How to Get Grants and Fellowships
  • International Perspectives
  • Intersectional Analyses
  • Makeup
  • Marginalized Voices
  • Mental Health and Academia
  • Ph.D. Poverty
  • Podcast
  • Post-Ac Free-Lancing and Small Business
  • Post-Ac Job Search
    • Careers Outside
  • Postdoc Issues
  • Productivity
    • Book Proposals and Contracts
    • Publishing Issues
    • Writing
  • Promote Yourself!
  • Quitting–An Excellent Option
  • Racism in the Academy
  • Rearview Mirror
  • Resumes & Postac Docs
  • Sexual Harassment in the Academy
  • Shame
  • Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student
  • Strategizing Your Success in Academia
  • Teaching and Research Statements
  • Teaching Demos
  • Teaching Portfolios
  • Tenure–How To Get It
    • How To Build Your Tenure File
    • Surviving Assistant Professorhood
  • The Campus Visit
  • Unstuck
  • Webinars
  • What Not To Wear
  • Women of Color in Academia
  • Work/Life Balance in Academia
  • Yes, You Can: Women in Academia
  • Your Second and Third Jobs

Footer

About Us

  • Who Is Dr. Karen?
  • Who Is On the TPII Team?
  • In The News
  • Contact Me
  • FAQs
    • Why Trust Me?
  • Testimonials

Community

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Peer Editing
  • PhD Debt Survey
  • Support Fund
  • I Help With Custody Cases for Academics

Copyright © 2023 The Professor Is In·

We Are Redefining Academic Community

That’s why we upgraded our private
Mighty Network.

We are committed to building a community with a focus on productivity support. Every day, in a dedicated space, we offer free coaching advice and encouragement. And the couple thousand people who have already joined are steadily building a supportive and interactive community devoted to that elusive idea of work-life balance.

Learn More

Get on Dr. Karen's Schedule

Get on my schedule to work on your tenure track job cover letter, CV, grant applications, book proposals, interview preparation, and more.  [si-contact-form form=’2′]