• 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

What Not To Do at Your Campus Visit

By Karen Kelsky | April 17, 2015

Today I share some remarks by a tenured client, who just completed a search at her department, and wrote to tell me about it:

“We just finished doing a job search here and an offer has been made.  I wanted to share with you something the last candidate did because I was shocked.

The candidate walked around most of the time she was here with earphones in her ears listening to music. At one point she started dancing in the hall!

She was wearing a dress that looked like she was going out for cocktails.  It looked like this, but in two tones (beige and black):

unnamed

I am not very judgmental about dress, and it didn’t bother me at first, but then it did  at the point that she was dancing down the hallway to her own music.  I’ll be honest, it freaked some of my colleagues (the science types) out.

Also, she was left in my colleague’s office to prepare for her talk; when my colleague came back into the office she was on my colleague’s computer without permission, surfing the web.

She is very young, but…yikes.  I felt like I was back in my son’s teen years.

The grad students also didn’t like her; she was very unengaged at the graduate student lunch.

By contrast, our first choice asked each student what they were reading at the moment at his lunch with them and commented on every book they named. He also asked them what they were working on and made recommendations for readings.

We were blown away by this guy. His job talk was excellent–even the [distant subdiscipline] people understood it; he was just a humble but brilliant guy.  After he left I told my students: ‘take note, that is how you do a perfect interview.’

Meanwhile, the ‘dancing candidate’ is still the talk of the hallways.  In a very bad way.

I truly wondered who advised her in grad school and almost feel compelled to call her after all is said and done to give her advice.  Anyway, I thought you might want to add earphones, cocktail dress, and dancing in the hall to your ‘do not do this on a job interview’ list for grad students.”

Similar Posts:

  • Do Your Homework! A Live Report From a Job Search
  • Encountering Racism in the Faculty Lounge – WOC Guest Post
  • An Inconvenient Truth (A Guest Post)
  • Getting Schooled for My Sexism
  • Dance, Dance, Revolution

Filed Under: How to Interview, Major Job Market Mistakes, Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student, Strategizing Your Success in Academia, The Campus Visit, What Not To Wear, Yes, You Can: Women in Academia

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Brent Chesley says

    April 17, 2015 at 9:40 am

    Be glad she danced in the halls during the campus visit and took over someone’s computer. By doing those things, she made picking a colleague easier.

    Reply
  2. Asa says

    April 17, 2015 at 12:02 pm

    To contrast this post, how about managing abhorrent behavior by faculty towards candidates? Ex: Department search committee members texting thoughout job talk? And then asking questions that clearly reflect that they have not understood a single word of your talk?

    Reply
  3. Valerie says

    April 18, 2015 at 12:54 am

    We had a candidate send her drink back during the interview dinner with faculty…not once, but twice! We were all quietly stunned, but everyone mentioned it in later discussions of the finalists.

    Reply
  4. Murray Anderson says

    April 18, 2015 at 1:04 pm

    Thanks for sharing. It certainly is an interesting scenario. I can’t help but wonder if there was possibly something else going on for this individual. At risk of medicalizing the person, I would be curious if there was some mania emerging…

    Reply
  5. Brian Purnell says

    April 18, 2015 at 5:27 pm

    What’s the point of this? How can this help anyone who is seriously on the market for an academic job? Honestly, the candidate who danced does not strike me as absurd as the academics who evaluated her. At least she was her total and honest self. Meanwhile, all these other profs critiqued her every move and probably never had the honesty to pull her aside and say, “hey, you might not want to do x, y, z.” So what’s the take away from this post: if you get the coveted campus interview, be on guard at all times; be an anxious, nervous mess; don’t be yourself; don’t dance if the spirit moves you; don’t serf the web, like every single academic does; and don’t try to impress boring graduate students. I used to recommend “The Professor is In” because it I thought it had helpful posts. But lately, I don’t know.

    Reply
  6. Amira Sims says

    April 22, 2015 at 8:33 am

    Reading this blog was interesting. I chuckled as I pictured myself as both the dancing interviewee and the perfect candidate. The point I took away from the story was that there is a time and a place for everything. In academia there is an idea that we promote individuality and freedom of thought and expression. However the reality is there is another side to the coin. Academia also pushes being “true to the norm” which from what I found is to be rather vanilla. I think its possible to tone it down for the interview and still be true to oneself. I wore a bright yellow blazer to the interview and hot pink high heels. I also toned down the ensemble with a navy skirt, white blouse and neutral make-up. I hoped that my colleagues evaluated me for my words and my dress. After all who we are seeps out in our words, deeds, and dare I say style (including dress).

    Reply
  7. Matt says

    June 27, 2015 at 9:19 am

    It is starting to look like hiring faculty spend as much time on this blog as job seekers. It helps candidates prepare, but is also shaping expectations and possibly fueling the nonsense expectations you might run into at a campus visit.

    Building confidence, being prepared, understanding what a department wants are all very important when you leave grad school. But the job application theatre is so bizarre. There are some of us who will never be completely likable, who cannot glide through the grad student lunch, the faculty meetings, the dinners without some of our less universally wonderful traits poking out here and there. No matter how hard you practice, or what you decide to wear. In my own field, a lot of the pioneers were famously odd. And it is sad to realize how they would have fallen through the cracks of the modern job application process.

    Reply
    • Karen says

      June 29, 2015 at 10:30 am

      I agree 100%. I believe firmly that there should be a place for the dreamers and the oddballs. (Many anthropologists know the story of Clifford Geertz’s famously bizarre job talk at Princeton). Academia was once that place. It is no longer.

      Reply
      • Nat says

        July 10, 2019 at 11:24 am

        Wish I could find the story of Geertz’s job talk! I tried looking it up to no avail.

        Reply
        • Karen Kelsky says

          July 10, 2019 at 11:44 am

          An old prof in my department when I was a grad student told us the story in class one day.

          Reply
  8. Anon. says

    July 13, 2015 at 8:56 am

    ^THAT

    So sad because I’m guessing a lot of us came into this field specifically because of the delightful quirks and oddities and off-the-wall brilliance of certain pioneers and other current department professors who inspired us. The ones who have staked a claim and are their true dreamer oddball selves while doing totally cool work. It’s a tough balancing act for those of us now performing a straight (suit) jacket in-the-box academic self while simultaneously trying to think path-breaking work. My best work is done while I’m kind of like dancing girl and oblivious of surrounds. The job market is such a long slog that one ends up changing incrementally to “fit” and this has got to affect research. Anyway, duly noted, will leave the cocktail dress at home on campus visits and hope the inner music doesn’t leak out. And am desperately trying to banish accidentally breaking into skipping while walking (I’m short–it’s usually to catch up) while I’m at it.

    Reply
  9. Angel says

    August 24, 2015 at 1:35 pm

    Thank you for posting.
    I am completely new to academia and I have my first real interview in the morning (this blog was featured in the search results for interview expectations).

    Not only did your blog give me an idea of what to expect, it was also pragmatic. It gave me ways to address challenging job interview elements successfully. I plan to adapt the graduate student question/response into something that will have the same effect.
    But what, exactly, is a job talk?

    Reply
  10. Sassoula says

    November 11, 2015 at 10:09 am

    I also found this totally unhelpful. Whether to judge quirkiness or not aside, this was pointless for the following reason: Yeah, we kinda get that one needs to be at best behavior during the campus interview. What one does not get is why they do not get the offer, when they have done everything right, socially and professionally, and have received no cues whatsover until they get the rejection.

    Reply
    • Stella says

      January 16, 2019 at 7:19 pm

      well… they didn’t “[do] everything right, socially and professionally”.

      Using people’s computers without permission? Not professional. Especially for a visiting academic. I can’t imagine seeing that happen with any professional I’ve encountered.

      Being unengaged with the graduate students: not professional. Nor doing everything right socially. Part of the job is to engage, mentor, and support graduate students. If that ability isn’t demonstrated, it’s fair to judge a person less likely to be effective at the job.

      Dressing in a cocktail dress to be a professor? It’s ok for institutions to have implied or explicit expectations about professional attire. Having no concept of what that means is a red flag. It’s not just about an individual. Academics join a group of faculty and a wider institution. This means being the right personal and professional fit for the team.

      Spending “most” of their time listening to music and dancing? Unprofessional. It’s difficult to imagine an interview in any field taking someone seriously that is ignoring the people and space they are applying to join. It’s a display of disinterest.

      This wasn’t a story about a quirk of personality. It was a story of not getting an offer because they *not* done everything right – socially and professionally.

      Reply
  11. Raven says

    December 23, 2019 at 5:14 pm

    Great anecdote ! The oddities strike me quite interesting (in a good way) until you talked about the candidate browsing someone’s computer. That is a strict no-no.
    I would have enthusiastically considered the ‘dancing in the hallway’ candidate, despite her subtle interactions with the graduate students if her personality wasn’t rude and uninviting and her resume meets your preferred qualifications which I believe did, since you invited her for a campus interview.
    Too long have we looked at grey dimensionless personalities as the norm. We are hiring candidates based on their potential contributions to the department and the university, not their ability to disappear in a room full of people.

    Reply
  12. Helzy says

    March 25, 2021 at 3:03 pm

    I don’t know about criticizing a woman for what she chooses to wear …

    It’s always the women who get critiqued for how they look and what they do with their bodies. So she wore a cocktail dress to a job interview. So what. At least she put care and thought into her appearance. Have you ever watched the TV show Suits? All the high-powered women go around the office–and to court–in basically cocktail dresses. Perhaps this young woman thought that that’s the height of professional attire? Or perhaps that’s the kind of clothes that make her feel confident and inspired.

    As for the dancing? Maybe it’s her way to de-stress.

    If that department didn’t want to hire her, fine. But to go around gossiping about what a woman wore and how she did not behave properly… that’s kind of gross and archaic.

    Reply

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′]