Last spring the teaching center where I work conducted a search for a new position, one that would carry a joint administrative and faculty appointment like mine. Because our center is relatively small, I found myself sitting on the search committee.
Once we had narrowed our search to two candidates, we invited them to campus for a series of interviews with the committee members. My task was to take each of the candidates to breakfast, speak with them for an hour or so, and escort them to their next appointment.
I saw my role as easing the candidates into their day of interviews.Since the area in which we were hiring (educational research and evaluation) was not directly related to my own disciplinary background (English), I had no plans to grill the candidates on their research.
I took both candidates to the same restaurant, a popular local eatery that offers a large breakfast menu. I rarely eat more than a banana for breakfast, so on those infrequent occasions when I find myself before a large menu of breakfast foods, I tend to indulge.
When I sat down with the first candidate, I ordered the Spanish omelet with hash browns, toast, juice, and coffee; the candidate ordered a large bowl of fruit. Prior to ordering, we had spent 10 minutes or so walking from the hotel to the restaurant, waiting for our table and studying the menu, so we had exhausted the first level of small talk about the accommodations, the weather in Chicago, and his knowledge of the university.
As we settled in to wait for our breakfast I threw out a very general question about his future research interests, intending to provide him the opportunity to offer his rehearsed speech on the groundbreaking nature of his work, his ambitious research program, his interest in the center, etc.
He answered my first question in about one minute. I offered a softball follow-up, which he dispatched in another 30 seconds or so.I continued through the set of questions I had prepared, all of which were handled in the same terse fashion. By the time our food arrived, it had become evident to me that I would need to carry the burden of the conversation if I didn't want the interview to descend into a socially awkward series of silences.
The most important consequence of this was, of course, that I didn't get to eat my breakfast.While the candidate listened to me describe the functions and responsibilities of the center, he chewed his fruit contentedly, and I cast longing glances at my slowly congealing omelet.
Flash forward one week, to an almost exact replica of that scenario. Small talk exhausted, omelet ordered, softball question pitched, and -- what a difference! The second candidate picked up my cue and gave a nicely detailed description of his research.He responded to follow-up questions with equally full responses, and provided me with a nice picture of where his research had been and where he expected it to go. And all the while, as his breakfast slowly congealed on his plate, I got to eat my omelet.
Guess who got the job?
The moral of this story is not that academic hiring decisions hinge on such frivolous matters -- the second candidate also had professional qualifications that exceeded those of his competitor.
But what this experience made me realize was just how completely -- and in sometimes unexpected and unusual ways -- candidates are scrutinized during the interview process.We come into job interviews expecting to be judged solely on the quality of our past research, our promise as potential scholars, and our preparation for a lifetime of teaching undergraduates.All of these things together, though, make up only a part of what is really being judged.
When the committee met to discuss the breakfast-eating candidate, everyone had a similar story to mine. I quickly realized that these stories were helping us assess the candidate's "collegiality."One member raised this issue repeatedly: What would he be like to work with?Will he be able to persuade other faculty members to collaborate with him on projects?How will he handle himself in academic meetings and at social events?
At first I resisted judging the candidates on these matters, which seemed to my idealist perspective unrelated to the job we were trying to fill. But eventually, simply by looking to my own experience, I began to see the logic of such questions: When you finally land that full-time academic position you're surfing these pages for, you will be astonished at how much time you spend with your colleagues on committees, in meetings, in informal hallway and formal mealtime gatherings. If job candidates exhibit qualities during an interview that would ultimately hurt their effectiveness in gathering support for their ideas -- painful shyness, for example, or abrasiveness -- we have to take that into account.
Now I am on the other side of the interview table, trying to secure a position teaching literature. Conducting those breakfast interviews has certainly made me slightly more knowledgeable about all of the parts of me that are on display in an interview, and you might assume that has generated greater anxiety.
It has actually had the opposite effect. Once you become aware of the almost infinite multitude of variables that might affect your chances for any single job (only a portion of which you can consciously and deliberately prepare to address) it is difficult to take it quite so seriously.
While I can prepare myself to exhibit collegiality, and to speak knowledgeably about my work and express an interest in the position, I can't always know what the colleges that are interviewing me for positions in the general field of 20th-century British literature want. Do they want someone who specializes in Modernist literature, or post-war literature, or post-colonial literature? Do they prefer a specialist in poetry, or fiction, or drama? Do they have some other criteria in mind that didn't find its way into their advertising copy?
Hence there's no point in agonizing about whether I'll fit perfectly into the job opening, or in trying to bend and twist myself into some awkward shape I think a college will find appealing. I'll never be able to find out the exact shape of their opening, so all I can do is come as I am and see whether we fit together.
One week from the moment I am writing this, I will wake up in a small New England community far away from my home.I will meet with the dean of the college that has flown me here, followed by a meeting with the president, lunch with some students and faculty members, and then an interview with the provost. After some time to myself, I will be teaching a sample class to a small group of undergraduates, interviewing with the search committee and the English department, and then having dinner with a small group of faculty members. I don't suppose I'll get to eat much, but after dinner I hope I'll have a chance to relax and wander around the campus and the town, taking in the local scenery.
I've never been to the state I'll be visiting -- I hear it's beautiful -- and I'll be spending an entire day there talking about myself and the things that interest me.On Saturday morning I'll get to sleep in and have a nice hotel breakfast by myself before my flight is scheduled to leave.
I'm really looking forward to that omelet.
