Are Conference Interviews on the Way Out?

My original academic discipline is English, so I was socialized to the hiring process fostered by the Modern Language Association — applications in October, conference interviews at the end of December, on-campus interviews in early-to-mid spring. For years (really, until I became a dean with responsibilities for disciplines with customs very different from my own) I was convinced that conference interviews were the way to go for hiring new faculty members.

I still think that conference interviews have a lot of advantages. Meeting candidates face-to-face is, I believe, considerably more effective than talking to them on the phone. Simply being able to read their body language, make eye contact, and interact directly provides a clarity that isn’t available by phone. The intensity of the conference-interview process, while exhausting, gives hiring committees the opportunity to make direct comparisons between candidates, refine their impressions, and get a sense of the candidates’ interest in the position.

That said, I see good arguments for doing preliminary interviews by telephone instead. The most important is the cost to candidates, many of whom can ill afford the expense. When I started attending the MLA convention in the late 80s, conference hotel rooms were routinely less than $70 a night. Now they are pushing $200. Airfares were cheaper, as were meals. Conference fees were generally much less as well.

It’s one thing for candidates with multiple interviews to roll the dice by spending a lot of money to attend a conference for interviews, but it’s quite another to make that “investment” for only one or two interviews. Asking candidates to make a financial commitment to a conference well in advance of knowing if they will get any interviews is problematic, at least until airlines develop rational and fair refund policies (for which I shan’t hold my breath).

It also costs institutions a great deal of money to interview at conferences. Would that money be better spent on, say, professional-development activities or travels costs for conferences where the faculty members are themselves presenting? I can think of a lot of good arguments for those positions.

Given the changes in the academic market, which is increasingly competitive and hard to navigate, I suspect that institutions like mine should consider not engaging in the conference-interview process. I regret to say that, as I have learned a great deal from serving on interview teams at a number of MLA conventions, and have certainly enjoyed my visits to the various cities where they have been held. But the cost to candidates may well counterbalance the advantages of the process.