Too Much Information?

In a recent post, FemaleScienceProfessor considers the following questions: Should academic job seekers, postdocs, and graduate-school applicants omit all personal information from their applications? Must they act as though research is their one and only raison d’etre in order to be taken seriously?

Her conclusions? Yes and no (in that order). While you don’t “have to ‘pretend’ that you live only for research and have no personal life,” your application materials should not contain personal information, she writes. Unless, of course, that information is pertinent to the job you are applying for or essential to clarify something in your academic record, she adds.

The most appropriate time to give a potential employer a glimpse of the “non-work” you is during an interview or campus visit, she writes. But then again …

I do know of departments in which the vast majority of faculty are droids, and I even have one colleague at another university who only accepts grad students as advisees if their hobbies are on his personal approved list of acceptable activities (example: stamp collecting is bad), so I am aware that extreme/insane advisors are out there.

Now it’s your turn: Is it harmful for applicants to reveal that they have a life/interests beyond academe? Would you rather hire a “droid” or a dilettante?