Interviewing at the AALS Recruitment Conference: A Newbie's Perspective

Continuing on my recent posts of what I learned during my first tour of duty on my school's appointments committee, I'd like to offer a few comments on some of the mistakes I observed candidates making during their interviews in D.C.

1) We want you to want us -- Call us insecure and shallow, but we want to hire someone who is excited at the thought of joining our faculty.  When you give off the vibe of "Well I'm talking to you today because I was already going to be here in D.C. and I had some time available, but boy I hope one of my preferred schools come through," we'll pick up on that and likely cease all consideration of your candidacy.  Of course, from our perspective, such an attitude is very helpful -- it makes the decision that much easier about who to invite for callbacks, and we don't want to hire anyone who doesn't really want to be here.  Thus, we appreciate you telegraphing your preferences to us so early in the process.  For the candidate, however, it can be quite costly.  After all, your dance card may be completely full at AALS, but you do not know which schools (if any!) are going to make you an offer.  We might have been your best (or only) bet.  

So how do you show your interest?  Well, beyond simply appearing happy to be in the room with us, you should do at least minimal research on our school so that you can talk about our program in a more informed way and, at the same time, ask more meaningful questions (and you should ask us questions -- the failure to do so can come across as a lack of interest).  How can you show your disinterest?  By arriving late and not apologizing (we understand the nature of the conference and the delays it can cause), by requesting to leave early because "I'm really excited about this next school, and I don't want to be late," or by asking questions like "So what city is the University of Tennessee in?"  These are extreme (and admitedly made-up) examples, but not that far removed from things I have witnessed and heard about from friends who have served on their school's appointments committee.

2) Know why we are talking to you -- I don't know about other schools, but we primarily hire by subject area.  Thus, when you come into our AALS suite, it is primarily because we think you are a strong contender to teach X at our school.  It is your job to find out what X is PRIOR to the conference.  Ideally, we should tell you what X is when we call and set up the D.C. interview; however, if we fail to do so (and it happens), please ask.  One of the first questions we ask is "What would you consider to be your ideal teaching package?  Please list four courses."  If X is not in that list, you are likely done.  We may ask, "Well, what about X?"  And you can respond quite favorably to X; however, the fact that you didn't list it upfront will likely introduce enough insecurity as to your commitment to teaching X that your journey is over.  I can see the comments to this posting now -- "Well that's just ridiculous!!!"  Maybe so, but I've seen it happen enough that I feel comfortable throwing it out there as advice to future candidates.

3) If we are in the room with you, you need for us to like you -- Some candidates make the mistake of turning their D.C. interview into a conversation with a select member of the committee.  Now, maybe it was that member who engaged you in this dialogue that lead to a 30 minute one-on-one discussion; however, make sure you are talking to everyone in the room.  If the school paid to fly that person to D.C. to sit and interview candidates, then the school is going to be listening to what that person has to say.  Thus, candidates need to cast a wide net over the room, engaging as many folks as possible.  The University of Tennessee, for example, sends a student representative to D.C.  Once interviews are complete, we very much value that student's opinion (the same student also reports at the eventual hiring meeting to the full faculty); thus, it could be a costly mistake to dismiss that member of our committee as "a mere student with no authority."

4) Failing to get a callback often has little to do with your performance -- I have listed the above as examples of things that can hurt you.  The truth is, however, that most candidates give very engaging, thought-provoking interviews.  In fact, I had many candidates reach out to me after the conference, asking "I was surprised I didn't get a callback -- I thought the interview went very well!"  And I responded that the interview did go well!  The main reasons someone wouldn't get a callback was either because there were others in the pool who had more experience in some area (teaching, scholarship, etc) or they weren't quite the curricular fit we were looking for.  Thus, despite what I'm saying above, one shouldn't think the failure to get a callback invitation is any indication on how well one did at the interview in D.C.

As always, I value your comments on the subjects raised in this posting.