Jason Mittell, a professor at Middlebury College, has been on five faculty search committees. During each search, he found that prospective employees were very nervous about the committee’s lack of openness, and sometimes close to paranoia if they didn’t get a call back for weeks. He remembered feeling just as anxious when he was applying for teaching positions.
“The entire process seems so draped in mystery and obscurity,” says Mr. Mittell. “Anything that can be done to counter that is very valuable.”
When he became the head of a search committee for a new position at the college’s department of film and media culture, he tried to think of a way to seem more open and inviting.
He decided to advertise the faculty search on his blog, which gets approximately 150 visits each day, but then he started wondering: What would happen if he received a question about the position on his blog? “Blogs, by their nature, invite conversation,” Mr. Mittell says. “So I figured, if I have the forum, I should use it.”
After receiving his provost’s blessing, he added a blog post about the job opening on a Monday evening. By Tuesday, traffic to his Web page had nearly quadrupled. By Thursday, he noticed that at least 10 people had “retweeted” his post on Twitter, adding a link and words of encouragement, and several people had posted questions about the position.
He hopes that using a more interactive forum to discuss the job will calm possible applicants’ nerves. “Look, I’m the chair of the search committee. It is my own personal opinion, but also an insider’s perspective,” he says. “Any rumors and questions can just be put out into the open.”
Mr. Mittell is happy with the positive feedback so far, and encourages other colleagues to try to use blogs to discuss vacancies . But as the committee begins interviewing job candidates later this year, he doesn’t plan to reveal personal information about anyone or to make any announcements until all is said and done.
“Hopefully someday,” he says, “we will announce our new colleague right there on the blog.”
