next »

[wordsmith2006]

Hello.  I've heard that some SC's get turned off by candidates invited for on-campus visits who are too "high maintenance."  They may ask too many questions, seem over-anxious about details, etc....

In your experiences, are there certain things candidates do that are a turn-off and make them seem too high maintenance for the position and as a potential colleague?

I probably have lots of anxieties and questions, like many people on this board, but how do I make it appear that I'm not too anxious and not a high-maintenance hu?  :/ 

[untenured]

Go with the flow.  Search committee plans often run awry.  Emergency meetings are called.  Schedules are changed.  You may wind up with unescorted time or an unusual wait or a rushed lunch.  Don't complain about unexpected changes or mishaps.  If your job talk is reduced by ten minutes the audiovisual guy didn't get the projector set up on time for your powerpoint, don't sweat it.  Smile and begin your presentation.

The more you quibble or express frustration during the interview, the more likely you will be considered high-maintence and thus unattractive.

The fact that you are even asking this question places you ahead of the pack.  These fora threads (especially some of the older ones) are scattered with posts from self-indulgent job seekers.  Don't be like them!

Best,

Untenured

[smurfette]

Maybe, but just as SCs are evaluating us, we are evaluating them, so we do have to ask detailed questions. Just make sure you ask the right people and be casual about how you ask sometimes. For me, high-maintenance means a candidate that is difficult to please, like complains about the hotel or the restaurants SCs take them to, or complains about the weather incessantly while during the interview. Stuff like that. But I've never been on a SC so what do I know.

[untenured]

Smurfette's point reminds me of one more thing.  Detailed questions are usually just fine.  Except for so-obvious-they-are-on-the-website-you-dope questions, detailed questions show a specific interest in a specific department.  I wouldn't worry about that so much.  Within reason, ask away.

Untenured

[onion]

I'm going to piggy-back (hijack?) on Wordsmith's original question--when do you stop worrying about being high maintenance and start asking questions? 
For example, my interview is less than a week away. I do not yet know how I'm getting to campus from the airport; I have not yet been told where I will be staying.  They haven't told me if I am doing a teaching demo, a traditional research talk, or both.  I have to stay two nights, but I don't know if it's a one-day or two-day interview.  Um, help? I'm trying to be zen, but the uncertainty is freaking me out.

[bio_prof_]

I'm going to piggy-back (hijack?) on Wordsmith's original question--when do you stop worrying about being high maintenance and start asking questions? 
For example, my interview is less than a week away. I do not yet know how I'm getting to campus from the airport; I have not yet been told where I will be staying.  They haven't told me if I am doing a teaching demo, a traditional research talk, or both.  I have to stay two nights, but I don't know if it's a one-day or two-day interview.  Um, help? I'm trying to be zen, but the uncertainty is freaking me out.

If the institution hasn't given you this information, I think you will be fine asking. Either they are super busy and forgot to give it to you, or they don't have their act together. If they are just busy, a reminder will help them clear this item off thier list. You have a life too, and it is not unreasonable to ask what the interview entails, especially whether it involves a talk or teaching demonstration.

As for the original question, my philosophy about interview is, you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Ok, so you need a job. Any job may be better than no job... unless the place is going to make your life miserable, or your work impossible. When I interview, I think about the things I need to get my job done. Funding? Space? Support for teaching, such as lab coordinators and teaching assistants? If you get wooly answers, it may be a sign that once you're in the door, you're on your own. You need to know that in advance.

Entertain this fantasy: You have two job offers from institutions where all else is equal (weather, location, housing market, colleagues, blah blah blah).  What would you need to know in order to make your decision?

I hope this becomes a reality for you!!!

[yellowtractor]

Echoing untenured:  by "go with the flow," hu means, in part (I think), paying attention to the cues the SC offers.  There are almost always plenty of moments for asking all those questions, which moments are usually marked by a certain sort of gnostic cue, for instance "What questions do you have for us?"  This can happen at any point from the first drive from the airport to the final drive to the airport and anywhere in between.

Myself, it usually takes me at least a few hours, if not a few days, to get a "feel" for the people and the place, and to massage my standard questions (start-up, attitude toward interdisciplinary approaches, etc.) into something that sounds specific to the school in question rather than canned.

"High-maintenance" to me--and my department is the middle of a couple of searches--would include the following:

1) excessive pre-visit phone calls or e-mails (e-mailing once or twice to clarify schedule, teaching demo, etc. is not excessive; e-mailing four or five times to ask questions we could have answered on this fora is);

2) complaining about logistics, accommodations, etc.;

3) continuously forwarding materials we didn't request (again, one update to a c.v. or dossier is one thing; three or six is another);

4) post-interview inquiries, unless they're absolutely necessary (make sure to ask the SCC for a decision timeline before you leave campus so that you have some idea of what the wait will be like).

Also keep in mind that it's not just a matter of not letting the SC see the obsessive-compulsive and/or high-handed aspects of your personality:  meaning, don't expect to divert the above to an administrative assistant and get away with it.  At my school, we are very protective of our administrative assistant--treating hu badly, or even insensitively (referring to hu as "the secretary" in hu's presence, asking hu to go to the drugstore for instance to pick up something for you), would seriously degrade one's candidacy.  (And yes, we do ask hu for hu's opinions when it comes time to make decisions.)  As others have said before in this forum, assume that anyone you interact with while at your campus interview may have some lever to pull in the decision-making process.

Most SC members are more than happy to talk about any aspect of their school, department, or program in response to a candidate's questions, so fire away (again, assuming it's not something you could have easily picked up from the website, or something that seems to pre-demand that the SC member deliver a negative judgment about hus own program or school).

[yellowtractor]

(Other turn-offs, though not of the "high maintenance" sort:  dissing your present school, being late, going way over the stated time for your job talk.  Especially this last.  Practice, folks.  Read it to your partner, or in a closet, or to a mirror with a timer running.  At my school, when we say 35-40 minutes with 20 minutes for Q&A, we are saying that we have blocked off an hour of our collective day in which EVERYBODY can be present.  If your job talk takes 50 minutes, you've just (a) shown that you don't care enough to work with our schedule and (b) deprived yourself of Q&A time in which you might have come across as the witty, charming, intelligent, well-read scholar you really are.)

[cronopio]

Treating the SC as if they were administrative assistants, with thousands of requests before and during interviews, with complaints, problems to solve that you'd expect the candidate to solve, etc. In other words, not showing judgement, adult behaviors. Those who are guilty of it rarely "know" it and cannot correct for it unless someone points it out to them. Hint: if you find yourself tempted to write to the SC chair and say, "I see you have me staying at the Holiday Inn on Main St: how close is the nearest pharmacy"? Don't. God invented yahoo maps etc. for a reason.

[yellowtractor]

In other words, not showing judgement, adult behaviors.

Yes, yes, yes.  Thanks, Cronopio.  Sorry for the above rants.  I just hate seeing qualified, talented candidates shoot themselves in the feet and other organs with behavior that's simply the opposite of common sense.

[cronopio]

Yellowtractor-- and yet, shooting themselves in the foot (or higher) is what they often do. In this buyer's market, SCs can always get SMART, COMPETENT, etc. so they can be picky, and refuse to hire the candidates that scream "I'm gunna be hard to work with! You're gunna get complaints from my students!" and so on.

It's the stealth candidates I also worry about, though. They say the right things, they are generally charming at interview stage-- seductive, in their way-- and then they turn out to be like mrhistory's colleague. All in it for themselves, and in the worst kinda way.

Final story, then I'm retiring to my couch (dressed in Miyake, for those who obsess over the Crone's ebay finds.....): once we hired a candidate who was KNOWN TO BE A PSYCHOTIC at previous institution; two years later, I ask a colleague from that institution why he didn't tell me (he sang praises instead). Hideous grin comes across his face: "Cuz we wanted to get RID of hu and let the psychosis move elsewhere!" Um, thanks.

[untenured]

When I was interviewing and had questions, I tried to find out the answer from any other source than the SC.  I only asked them if it was a last resort.  That kept my many questions filtered down to a minimum for what are usually overworked committee members.

Untenured

[espagnole]

I would add to the excellent comments above that candidates should be careful to treat *everyone* involved in the search in a polite manner, including the support staff. We had a candidate at my school a few years ago who was quite snippy with the chair's secretary regarding reimbursement procedures for his flight (which was beyond her control). The chair and committee members found out about it, and we hired someone else, despite the fact that the rude candidate was better qualified.

[untenured]

I would add to the excellent comments above that candidates should be careful to treat *everyone* involved in the search in a polite manner, including the support staff. We had a candidate at my school a few years ago who was quite snippy with the chair's secretary regarding reimbursement procedures for his flight (which was beyond her control). The chair and committee members found out about it, and we hired someone else, despite the fact that the rude candidate was better qualified.

Oh yeah, this is huge!  Be nice to everybody.  Support staff are your best friends.    I owe my first adjunct gig to a secretary who remembered me as an undergraduate who treated her respectfully.

Untenured

[mytiaraisaskew]

The most high maintenance one I've seen is the candidate that shushed both me and the Assistant Dean.  That's right...he told us to hush.  And that was one of many errors in judgement he made that day; by that point, I was almost bemused at his antics.  He was, in the phrase that I have seen on these fora and come to love, a hu-hole of the first magnitude.