next »

[lam]

I am new on the job market, have had two phone and two on-site interviews. Both times I have gone to interviews, the institutions expected me to make and pay for my reservations; the first time it took three months to get reimbursed, and this last time, it has been five months and I am still waiting for my check.

I went out of my way to find the least expensive flight possible (under $500 for a cross-country (international) flight. I am only marginally employed at this point, and this is an extreme burden for me to carry.

I am at the point where I will refuse to front the cost for going to interviews. Anyone have any experiences and/or suggestions?

I obviously don't want to be perceived as a difficult candidate, but I am an individual, and I would think that a university has more financial flexibility than I have, especially now after an extensive period out of the normal job market getting a Ph.D.

[Lucky if reimbursed at all]

Consider yourself lucky if they reimburse you for your interview expenses at all. I just went though a series of interviews, and I have found that many majorinstitutions do not even reimburse candidates for their trips, regardless where they are traveling from! At a large public institution in the Midwest, I was told that I was the top candidate, yet they could not reimburse me for the trip. The chair, however, was willing to give me $250, out of pocket, to "defray the cost." That was really nice of her, and I did get the job, but I ended up taking another job. Am I a bad person?

[Brent Chesley]

You may not want to be perceived as a difficult candidate, but if you fuss about travel reimbursement, your potential employers will label you "PAIN" and give the job to someone else.

You expect a university to behave like an individual. An individual might think of the problems that you face and take steps to help you, but a university isn't an individual. When it comes to matters such as reimbursement, a university is a jumble of protocols. No one stops to think about how the protocols affect a specific candidate. No one needs to. If one candidate squawks, there are 50 more who will accept the burden silently.

Reimbursement often takes three to five months. It isn't fair, but you need to accept that fact.

[David]

No,

You are not a bad person at all. It is a free market.

They can hire anyone they want, or post the job when there is no job to fill (just to satisfy the equal-opportunity-employment requirements), or not send out rejection email /letters to the candidates they interviewed.

By all means, take the job you think it is the best for you.

[Noname]

It is a bit embarrassing, and it might hurt your chances, but many universities have credit card accounts for just such purposes, either with their own travel agencies or even yours, and you can say, "I have too many other expenses and cannot wait for reimbursement, can your university arrange to cover my trip? "  

This happened to me in my first year of job-hunting. I had no money coming in, but credit card bills from four on-campus interviews (for positions for which I wasn't hired). For the fifth interview, I simply had to say this, and the administrator who interviewed me actually put the trip on his own credit card and waited for reimbursement (and I was hired).  

More recently, a reimbursement stalled, and the committee chair reimbursed me out of pocket and waited for the reimbursement.

[Former chair]

You have every right to press for reimbursement, so don't be afraid to ask. In the larger scheme of things, any school at minimum should arrange and pay for a candidate's travel expenses up front. It isn't that hard to do in this day and age, and expecting job candidates to front the bill is unreasonable. It also is an indication that the school or department is not accustomed to acting professionally or, worse, is broke, so I would take this as a bad sign. How hard can it be for a school, even a smaller one, to arrange and pay for air fare, hotel, etc., up front? It isn't, and you shouldn't be stuck with the bill. Any school that does this to candidates isn't worth working at.

[M.M.]

Several years ago I was offered an interview at a college 1,000 miles away, and when I was told I would have to pay my own way, I refused to go. Several days later they came up with the money, so I went.
   
So if this is a common practice, refuse to go and see if they will then offer to pay. What can you lose? (As it turned out I neither wanted to move nor was offered the job, anyway.)

[José Aspie-Hunter]

My situation is a bit different. Since I was booted out of graduate school a few years ago after completing my coursework for the doctorate, I was left with very few opportunities in teaching. I am now relegated to searching for positions in community colleges, for which I am not as well-suited as I am for four-year university faculty positions.

In the community-college world, the rule is to expect not a dime in travel-expense reimbursement. Further, one is expected to be at the interview when the search committee says one must be there, regardless of one's other obligations. And, of course, travel costs are not tax-deductible if you don't itemize your deductions. Most academicians are not going to be in the tax bracket in which they would be able to itemize. The net result is that, in most cases, one will not obtain a position at a community college that is not relatively close by.

It seems to me that applying for a faculty position at a community college is a strange form of gambling, and a shocking indictment of the educational system. But that's just my opinion ...

José

[Eric Martell]

I'm in my fifth year of trying to find a tenure-track job (so far I'm visiting at my third school), and out of  the 16 or 17 on-campus interviews I've had, there's been only one institution that didn't pay all of  my expenses. Maybe whether or not interview expenses are paid for depends on the field you're in (I'm in physics). However, it was also clear that the one school that wouldn't pay much (I got them to cough up $250 eventually for a 1,000 mile trip) also was the worst off economically, and teaching there would have been a constant fight to get a competitive salary (or even a decent living wage in a big city), funding for equipment, course development, and research.

On the other hand, schools with more money have always been more than generous with interview funding (for example, schools that wish to interview me in five days will pay through the nose for last-minute flights). But those are my experiences. One thing I have learned on the job market is that it never hurts to ask for things -- if they really are interested in you, and funding isn't completely non-existent, they'll pay.

[C.R.]

Any institution that offers you an interview should tell you whether you will be reimbursed when the interview is offered. If the policy and procedure for reimbursement is not explained, ask.

Community colleges normally do not reimburse candidates for travel expenses. Four-year institutions should. Paying a few thousand dollars for interviews to land the best candidate for the job -- someone other department members may have to work with for the next few decades -- is common sense. Of course, common sense is often rare in academe.

[Anon]

One school I went to for an interview lost the airline and hotel receipts that I submitted for reimbursement. I made the mistake of sending them copies that I had kept for my records. Be sure to make extra copies of your receipts.

[Whatever]

I was on the job market a few years back. One institution wanted me to front the air-travel bill and told me that if I was "the candidate" they would reimburse me 50 percent of the cost, but if I wasn't hired, I wouldn't get anything. Is that crazy or what? If I had the money up front to be spending on interviews, I probably would not be job hunting in the first place. Duh!

[Bill Monroe]

lam, you are right to be wary of these situtations. I try to simply say I can be there and look forward to the interview, but I would like you to purhase the plane tickets and book the room in the school's name. If denied, you make the decision about how interested you think they are, etc.