In July I invited readers to tell us about their worst job-search experiences. The responses were even more painful than I expected.
Many stories described search committees that treated their candidates with amazing disrespect. I hope that committee members reading this will be prompted to think about the simple things they can do to assist candidates -- helping with travel arrangements, for example, or providing maps, directions, or other assistance when the candidate is on campus.
Failure to do so harms not only the candidate, but also the institution's reputation. On the other hand, things do go wrong and candidates must learn to respond effectively even in the most-trying situations.
Let's look at a classic interview-from-hell story, submitted by a candidate who was up for a vice-president's position at a community college in California. He arrived on the West Coast the night before his interview after working most of the day and traveling from Ohio:
The next day ... I'm waiting in the storage closet of the human-resources office while another candidate finishes his writing sample in an adjacent conference room. A bell rings and then I'm summoned to the conference room for my writing test. After my host explains the assignment, she sets a portable cooking timer at the edge of my desk and says she'll be back when it goes off.
Somehow, I manage to concentrate well enough to write an unremarkable but adequate essay on the topic requested. My host appears and walks me over to another building where the interviews are occurring. She seats me in the lobby, directly outside the meeting area.
From this location, I can hear everything being discussed inside the room. No one bothered to close the door or maybe they didn't want to. Should I? The committee's questions are not really hard, but the man seems to be struggling. Embarrassed for him, I move to the farthest corner of the couch and hum softly to myself.
Time passes, the other candidate is exited through a back door, and then it's my turn. The questioning begins. Again, to my surprise, it seems to go rather smoothly and privately I'm amazed at how coherent I sound given the ordeal it's been to get to this point. Forty minutes later, we are done. The vice-president for human resources accompanies me back to her office suite. She tells me I did well. She also tells me what the next step is -- "detailed reference checking."
"If you're chosen, we will send a team of representatives -- the president of the college, the chair of the search committee, and myself -- to your institution. We'll have you reserve a room for us. Then we conduct 'on-site' reference checks of those you listed. In addition, we might walk the hallways or campus commons or even the departments that work under you to find anyone else who is willing to comment on your qualifications. It also goes without saying that our president absolutely must meet with yours. Typically, we spend two days doing this. We've had very good luck operating this way, so it isn't negotiable."
I'd never heard of such a thing. Instantly, warning lights flashed in my head as I pictured what kind of professional damage this type of intrusion could do to me. I'm not a devious person, but I also don't believe that my job search is everyone's business, particularly the people I work with. How would my current supervisor react to them? Assuming that I wasn't offered the job after College Q's team visits, what then? My position, the morale of my support staff, raises, and future promotions could certainly be in jeopardy.
"So, do you have any problem with this?" the vice-president was asking.
"Yes, I do. Surely you know that I can't allow that to happen."
"Then I guess we cannot consider you a viable candidate for the position here at College Q."
"No, I suppose not."
"Well," she added curtly, "thank you for coming. Have a safe trip back to Indiana."
There are many unpleasant aspects to this story, but I'll focus on the question of search-committee visits to a candidate's campus. Many committees believe that such a visit will allow them to ferret out the true perception of a candidate by his or her colleagues. In some cases this may be true, and a committee that didn't make such a visit would regret it later if it turned out that the person appointed had problems that weren't uncovered.
On the other hand, the "home campus visit" is no guarantee of an accurate appraisal of a candidate. (Some colleagues may want someone to move on, and they may put a more positive spin on a candidate's portrayal.) And, as the writer of this story notes, campus visits are extremely intrusive. Even when the visiting team is far more discreet than the team described here, it can be damaging and embarrassing.
I can see why the writer of this letter declined to allow the visit. In my consulting practice, I am willing to support committees that want to do these visits if they agree to handle them discreetly, but I do not advocate them.
Turning now to particular questions asked during interviews, here are several very different examples:
I was interviewed as one of four final candidates for a very senior position at a university in the South. At the conclusion of the interview, the chairman of the board asked me, "Do you believe in the Infallible Word of God, or Darwin's Theory of Evolution?" Later, I thought I should have said, "I'm not even going to monkey with that question," or "You Southern folks still go ape over that question, eh?" or "This interview is over."
Knowing that the question was illegal, I sought clarification. "Are you asking me if I believe in biology?" His response: "I'm asking if you believe that the world was created in seven days." Although I spoke to beliefs prevalent in other cultures that would dismiss either theory, and to the notion that the "Word of God" was nonetheless recorded and possibly embellished by fallible men, and to the notion that either theory bespeaks determinism and that I favor theories of free will, innovation, and serendipity -- I was never satisfied with my response."
This candidate wasn't offered the position, and would have declined it had it been offered. That sounds like a reasonable reaction to me.
Another candidate describes interviewing for a position in a major metropolitan area and being asked by the director of human resources, "So how tall are you?" (He is 5 feet 5 inches tall.) "Incredulous, I laughed and asked, 'What, is there a height requirement for this job?' Needless to say, I never would have taken the job even if they had offered it to me!"
One reader asked what you're expected to tell search committees about matters not directly related to their search:
In an interview for a faculty position I was asked, 'What other places have you applied to?' This question stunned me. I was thinking, what a stupid question! I've applied to every full-time, tenure-track position that remotely applied to me! Instead, I first mumbled only the names of the two other campuses at which I had already had interviews -- all the while still searching for an answer that would not reveal my emotional response.
Then I was inspired -- remembering a particular paragraph that I had added to my generic application letter. I took a deep breath and said, "Actually I have applied for a number of *jobs*, but this is the only SCHOOL to which I applied. I applied here in response to the description of the college and its mission statement." The entire room hummed in approval. It was the truth, and I got the job -- but I will never forget how absurd the question seemed then AND still does.
There are a variety of ways to answer this question, and the candidate quoted here did a good job. Another option is to redirect the question: "I'm in a number of searches right now, and I've had two preliminary interviews and one on-campus interview. The timetable of those searches is a little quicker than this search. But I have a real interest in this position, so I hope that you'll be able to reach a decision about my candidacy soon."
Another answer could be the one that this candidate thought about but didn't say: "I'm sure you know how scarce positions like this are. I hope very much to be offered a position like this one because I really value this institution's mission. And there are some institutions that I'm not interested in (e.g., large universities that don't seem to value teaching; small colleges that don't seem to value research; rural institutions where my spouse would have difficulty finding a job). But within this framework, I've decided to look widely at the alternatives."
Many experiences described in these letters are unfortunately quite common. Sometimes you just need to respond honestly and live with the consequences (declining to allow an intrusive visit to your own campus, for example). But there may be other times when you need to relax, give the committee the benefit of the doubt, and try to respond creatively.
In my experience, it's rare that a single "wrong answer" rules out an otherwise strong candidate. Most of the time, there are several areas of concern, and together they create a basic lack of fit. With this in mind, you may be able to worry less about a single terrible question or answer.
