I just finished another Interview Intervention (a service where you hire me to conduct a role play interview based on the ad and institution; right now it’s slow season and we can get you on the calendar almost immediately) and once again found myself explaining to the client that the interview is a *performance*, a performance which bears very little relation to the work you’ll actually do if hired.

Allow me to present:

The Interview Dance (TM)

 

Yes, academic interviews are places to deliver well organized and brief sound bytes that efficiently communicate that

a) your research is viable and productive

b) you can teach competently enough

c) you are a pleasant and collegial colleague

But, the ostensible substance of an interview is not the point.

They know your research and record from your CV and research statement. They know the courses you’ve taught or will teach from your teaching statement and syllabi.  The point of SPEAKING to you is to determine if you can *communicate* your research and teaching interests and plans in a way that reflects back to them what THEY want: a good colleague who they can work with, who they can chat with, who will be able to function collaboratively in faculty meetings, who shares their priorities (research for R1s and R2s and elite liberal arts colleges; teaching for teaching colleges).*

(At this point in the Intervention I will perform a brief interpretive dance to demonstrate my point and lighten the mood.)

The place where this is most evident is the final element: “do you have any questions for us?”

Once again, I found myself confronted with questions that while appearing appropriate, were manifestly wrong for the context:

what are you looking for in this hire?

what will I be expected to teach?

what resources do you have for professional development?/Will I get a mentor in the department?

Why are these bad?  All of them are bad because they are information seeking. The point of the questions you ask is not to gain information.  I know, you very reasonably, think it would or should be.  It certainly appears that way. But it isn’t. The point of the questions you ask is to serve as the final act in the Interview Dance (TM), in which you continue to perform your candidacy for the position.

(We wrote about this a decade ago, in the post, The Question Is Not The Question. It’s in my book as well.)

There are additional issues with the questions above.  The first one puts both parties in an impossible situation.  The job ad already stated what the department is looking for, so the interviewers now have to randomly improvise some pointless additional content, while the candidate sits there and either passively receives it, or rather desperately claims (subjectively) to be able to do All The Things.  This is not a position of strength.

The second one situates the candidate as a person of lower status who has to be TOLD what to teach, rather than operating as a full fledged colleague who mutually and from a position of status parity, will DISCUSS what to teach. It’s also a flat information query that does nothing to promote exchange.

The third sends the indirect message that the candidate NEEDS support to be able to function. Let me clarify: There is nothing wrong with professional development!  We hope that there are sources available. But the Interview Dance (TM) is not the place to bring them up – it’s the place to, once again, perform that you are ALREADY in your current state and without needing additional support, more than prepared to successfully execute the requirements of the position.

I realize that you don’t mean to communicate any sense of inadequacy through this question. Of course not. But in the overheated competitive atmosphere of a hiring process (ie the interview), any hint that you see yourself as requiring help will work against you.

Schedule an Interview Intervention Here

I’ve written in my book about better questions. They should be open-ended to promote dialogue; reflect the priorities of the institution and department and job (ie research, teaching, outreach etc.), and always be framed as reinforcing the candidate’s strengths.

Examples include:

For an R1: “I have several research projects that I expect to complete over the next 3 years and so I’d like to hear more about sources of research support on campus.”

For a Teaching Institution: “Student career mentorship is important to me, so I’d like to hear more about what the students do after graduation.”

For a position involving outreach: “As I was speaking about earlier, one of my priorities has always been community collaboration, and I would like to hear about any programs in the department or across campus that support community outreach, especially with local XXX communities/industry.”

In some cases there are questions so bad, they could lose the candidate the job.  If interviewing for a 4-4 (or 5-5) load tiny regional teaching college, you ask: “I have an ambitious research agenda and my top priority is completing my monograph that is under contract with Harvard University Press, so I would like to hear about what kinds of research leave and junior sabbatical you provide”….  well, there is a non-zero chance that you have undone any enthusiasm you garnered in the rest of the interview and have instantly rendered yourself unhireable.

So, please never forget the Interview Dance (TM).  While of course you must prepare and practice answers to basic interview questions and learn how to describe your research and teaching effectively, always do so with the understanding that the POINT of the exercise is not the exchange of information but the performance of communicative skill and collegiality.

Schedule an Interview Intervention Here

*Is collegiality the place where bias enters most directly? Where insider/outsider demarcation is most rigidly (if unconsciously) drawn?  Where folks from marginalized backgrounds get judged for doing it wrong?  Where folks from academic families have every possible advantage? Yes, yes it is.  That is why I write posts like this. So people can see the hidden curriculum of academic hiring, and learn the unspoken codes (of which to be sure, most faculty members remain entirely unconscious) that lead to job offers.