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[airball]

Hi All,

Just wanted to share this one, and since I'm kind of competitive see if I win. It's a bit convoluted, so bear with me.

A job posting came out for a position in modern basketweaving. A friend wrote to the department chair saying, "How about renaissance basketweaving - does that count?" The chair replied, "We'd love to hire a renaissance person!" My friend then sent me the email as an attachment. (If this were a movie, the camera would linger on that fact.)

I read the attached email, hit reply, and wrote, "What a s***ty ad. If they are willing to hire a renaissance person, they need to say so." You guessed it. A couple hours later, I received an note from the department chair wondering why I had emailed him. I did not get the interview.

What is your contribution to Academic Darwinism?

airball

[kedves]

Not applying.

[onion]

OP, that's hilarious.  And sucky.

Here's mine:  a few years ago, I was hitting the market as hard as I could.  I even started to apply to jobs on the OAH website.  Now, I don't know if the OAH website has improved over the last 5 or 6 years (and a cursory glance suggests it has not), but it has a small job ad section--far smaller than other sites in my field.  But I applied to every single job that I could make even the tiniest claim of competency for.  Well, as it turns out, all of the ads were one or two years old.  I hadn't paid attention to the YEAR in the app. deadline dates.  One kind department chair sent me a letter informing me that I was applying to an old ad; only then did I realize that they were all old ads, and I had spent about a hundred dollars sending Interfolio dossiers and assorted assorteds to old searches.

Not as good as OP's, though. 

[laurel_knx]

Thanks and curses to the OP for starting this... I'm laughing now, but I think it's just going to feed my paranoia about the market (but it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you, right?) I'm sure I'll have something substantive to add in the coming months.

[giant_hogweed]

I love my MAC, usually.  What I didn't know is that sometime changes to documents and pictures using "MAC only" programs such as Pages or I-Photo can only be seen on a MAC.  So when I updated a converted .doc file the changes chowed up on my MAC but not on the PC.  Well, I updated my cover letter  and CV to include new refrences and a new email address and sent the packet off to School B.  I was a bit confused when I received a confirmation of receipt of the package at my old email.  When I looked at the documents none of the changes I made on my MAC were showing.  So I applied for Job X at School B with a cover letter announcing my interest in Job Z at School A. 

[michigander]

In a conference placement service interview in a true cattle call-like setting, I forgot which school I was interviewing with and said the name of another school.  Something like Rochester instead of Syracuse.

[lurkingfear]

I cited the position School A was advertising for in my cover letter for School B (e.g., Modern Basketweaving vs. Renaissance Basketweaving).
Still got the job with School B.

[seniorscholar]

Every time I've been on a search committee, we get half a dozen letters addressed (inside) to a different university or mentioning the fields specified in another university's ad. But we've already checked the MLA job list to figure out who we're "in competition" with, and we know how many positions our own grad student in the field who's defending in January is applying to, and we don't pay any attention as long as the c.v. has what we're looking for and the rest of the letter is reasonably intelligent.

As experiences of job candidates on this thread reveal, other search committees evidently feel the same way.

[macaroon]

I cited the position School A was advertising for in my cover letter for School B (e.g., Modern Basketweaving vs. Renaissance Basketweaving).
Still got the job with School B.

I've run across this when I was on a SC, too, and it doesn't phase me.  It's such an easy mistake to make, and the SC knows you're applying for other jobs anyway.

[lurquita]

Ohhhhh, this is embarrassing.  But if I can't shamelessly embarrass myself here in the forum, where CAN I embarrass myself shamelessly?

I have a bit of a perceptual disorder with numbers.  I've never been officially diagnosed with anything, but if I am not tremendously attentive, I reverse orders some times.  I have never had trouble with grading except for one time with one student's grade because I ALWAYS check my numbers twice.  Always.  I do the grading one day and then come back a day later and very carefully check the numbers.  In the one case, I skipped that student and it happened to be a time that I mixed the number but it was very easy to fix once called to my attention.

As a candidate?

I reversed the numbers in my phone number on my c.v.  Yes, I sent around a c.v. to all the places where I applied with THE WRONG NUMBER ON THEM.

Yes.

And I didn't notice it until I got an email for an interview and the person mentioned that hu simply could not reach me via telephone, that it seemed that the number was incorrect.

Urp.

I think I am going to retreat into complete and utter Lurqui-dom for a while now....

:/

L

[mountainguy]

This didn't happen to me, but a friend of mine was returning a phone call from a department chair inviting her to campus for an interview. When his administrative assistant answered, my friend slipped up on the chair's name and ended up using the name of a tabloid celebrity instead. It would be like calling for someone named "Brad Stevens" and instead asking for "Brad Pitt."

My friend still got the job, but both the admin. and the chair made fun of her for the blooper.

[ucprof]

Is there a thread on stupidest things Deans and Chairs have said to you as a candidate?  I have some real winners.

[alleyoxenfree]

I had a dinner the night before the official interview day with Dean, dean's wife, and some other big guy.  The purpose quickly became apparent - to have the dean's wife interrogate me in a nonofficial setting about my religious background and views, given that my long-ago undergrad school had a religious affiliation.  After quizzing me, she regaled the party with all things loathsome about her own religiously affiliated college.  Poor woman had been scarred for life by those nuns or whatever.  Thankfully, I didn't get that job with those people.

Dumbest thing I've done was for a job where I was to bring samples of my work.  I drove for hours from the nearest airport, to the hotel, and the following morning left my portfolio on the bed, discovering that fact only after hours' of driving to interview not enough time to go back for it.  Housekeeping did find it later, but needless to say, didn't get that job, which was probably a good thing too.  Maybe the universe is looking out for me.....

[pinkmouse]

Is there a thread on stupidest things Deans and Chairs have said to you as a candidate?  I have some real winners.

Some are here:

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,57000.0.html

[tenured_feminist]

They told me 30 minute talk. I believed them.