April 02, 2008, 04:46 PM ET

The Incredible Flammable Candidate

A friend of mine chaired a search committee several years ago. The committee had settled on a very clear first-choice candidate and was excited to make a pitch to land her. She was a very strong teacher and researcher and had great potential. After a few weeks of negotiations, though, the candidate accepted an offer from another institution.

The committee was really sad about the loss and, honestly, needed a couple more days to regroup after the disappointment. When they gathered to decide what their next steps should be, they determined to drop back to their second-choice candidate, who was admittedly a “safe” choice, but who would be a fine addition to the department.

When the committee chair went to the dean to ask that the candidate be contacted ASAP, the dean sort of turned a weird shade of green and pursed his lips.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he said.

Confused, the search chair said, “Why not? The committee voted unanimously to offer the position.”

The dean reached into his desk and retrieved a photocopy of a letter: “Here’s why.”

The letter was from the No. 2 candidate, and it was brutally nasty. It complained about every portion of the search, about the campus, about the administration, about the “self-evident” politics of the department, the quality of the students, and everything else under the sun. The date on the letter was just a few days previous, about the same time as the other candidate had withdrawn.

I have yet to hear of another bridge burning that outstrips that incident.

I suppose it’s almost passe at this point to blame the Internet for fueling some of this, in that flaming is so common, but I thought I’d just offer a little cautionary tale as a reminder and see if anyone else has had similar experiences, either as regretful flamers (any confessions out there?) or as flame-ees.

Categories: Faculty-hiring