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[britprof]

I have a telephone interview next week (the only one so far this year) and I am in the process of preparing my interview notes towards questions that I think may be likely:

1.What attracted you to this position, and why do you think you would be a good fit?
2.How do you describe yourself as a scholar, and what is the main significance or contribution of your scholarship to your field/s?
3.How does your research inform your teaching?
4.How would you approach teaching differently at different levels for example introductory survey on X, upper division course on Y, and graduate seminar on Z?
5.At any of these levels, how would you approach teaching at a public university where students may well have a limited knowledge of X, Y and Z?
6.What texts would you use for teaching courses X, Y and Z?
7.What would you bring to the department and university in terms of service?

What other questions do you think I should be prepared for?

Many thanks.

[atlchemist]

What classes could you teach?

[polly_mer]

For some positions, "how will you involve students in your research" is a biggie.

What will you do to help us recruit students?

What kind of outreach to the community and the K-12 schools do/will you do?

"How will you deal with a struggling student" could be appropriate for certain interviews.

How comfortable are you with our-small-town/our-urban-student-population/other-geographic-demographic-potential-difficulty?

"Tell us your worst/best teaching moment" has been popular in my recent phone interviews.

[scion]

Here are a few I had during a recent phone interview:

Describe your teaching style.

What are some critical challenges of your field and what direction do you think your field will take in the near future?

Are there any events in your life that influenced your research focus?

Explain how your research might influence practitioners in the field.

Why are you interested in this university? Why this department? (Be sure to know some basics about the university--not just department.)

How do you evaluate student work?

Good luck!

[merinoblue]

How will you approach teaching an enormous class of immigrant / multicultural students, who may be the first person in their family to undertake a university degree? (if this demographic characterizes the university)

Do you think [central construct to your field] has any relevance today?

How do you see your work developing over the next X years?

[britprof]

Many thanks for the input. I have prepared extensively for this so hopefully I will not be blindsided ...

[polly_mer]

hopefully I will not be blindsided ...

Eh, you'll probably be ok.  There's only so much prep you can do and the rest has to be winged.

A committee will likely understand if you can't answer something like "What tree best describes your personality?"

A committee will be much less understanding if you hem and haw over "what do you want to teach?" or "how will you teach <standard intro course>?"

[britprof]

Nailed it - now to the campus stage.  I guess I'd better start reading all the threads on that!

[anorak]

Nailed it - now to the campus stage.  I guess I'd better start reading all the threads on that!

Congratulations!  Do you have much time to prep for the campus visit?

[atlchemist]

Nailed it - now to the campus stage.  I guess I'd better start reading all the threads on that!

Congratulations!!

[scion]

Congrats on moving to the next stage!

[postdoconsteroids]

Nailed it - now to the campus stage.  I guess I'd better start reading all the threads on that!

sweet.