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[untenured]

1. Yes, your application was received.  If you sent the email or software says so, we have it.  Confirming is fine, but you only need to do it once.

2. If you request an informal chat, don't use it as an excuse to tell me all about your qualifications.  I have your CV, remember?

3. Telling me you 'really want this job' does not get you anywhere.  I'm not driven by how much interest you have in the position.  I want to know what value you can bring to the university.  This also makes you sound needy.

4. Don't inflate the CV.  If you taught as an adjunct, just say it.  Don't puff it up with fancy words.

5. Don't ask me what I am looking for in a candidate.  The job ad tells you exactly what the committee wants in a candidate.  There's no hidden agenda here, no secret warp gate to information that opens only to people who are nudges.

6. If we ask for A, B, and C, we want A, B, and C.  Don't omit one.  We really do want all three.

7. And please know this, the number of emails you send me does not enamor me to you.  If you are right for the position, I'll notice.

That's all for now.  I'm sure there will be more.

[glowdart]

8.  Hiring someone is not the SCs' only task.

9.  Hiring someone is also not the only task of the 47 other people on campus who are involved in hiring someone for this and every single open faculty search we're running.

10.  Don't send 88 pages when we ask for three.

11.  We're a teaching school.  We need to be able to see what you have taught.  Please put this information on your CV. 

[paulsa]

12. And you damn kids get off my lawn before I call the police!


I do appreciate that search committee members are busy people, and that a lot of applicants are needy, demanding, and fail to follow simple instructions (the solution to which should be to just send their applications to the rejection pile and forget about them).

On the other hand, I think that quite a few search committee members take their annoyance with job applicants a bit far--to the point where it often appears that they're displacing onto job candidates their irritation with having to do this (admittedly arduous) task at all.

I agree with the majority of the things on this list, but some are a bit idiosyncratic, and several run exactly counter to the advice applicants are often given by their advisers. I think it's fine to have one's own preferences about the behavior of job applicants--and to hold those applicants to them if you've made those preferences clear. But a little empathy for the position applicants are in is also in order. As well as a realization that personal preferences are not universal laws and that that a candidate's failure to intuit your desires doesn't always reflect poorly on the candidate.

For example:

"Telling me you 'really want this job' does not get you anywhere.  I'm not driven by how much interest you have in the position.  I want to know what value you can bring to the university."

Expressing strong personal interest in the job is Successful Interviewing 101 stuff.  Everyone tells you to do this. What's the problem here? Part of the value someone can bring to the university is their desire to be there. If you're looking at candidates only for the supposed "value" they can bring and divorcing that from their interest to stick around, you could be running this same search again and again and again. How does that bring value to the university?

"Don't ask me what I am looking for in a candidate.  The job ad tells you exactly what the committee wants in a candidate."

Job ads have space limitations. They are  often stuffed with committee-written bureaucratic boilerplate, buzzwords, and "mission statements" which are required to get the administration to sign off on the ad. These ads reflect in part, but don't always wholly reflect, what the department might want from a new colleague.

When a candidate asks you what you're looking for in your hire, his/her intention may actually be to approach you as one human being to another and acknowledge that you are more than a bureaucratic cog whose desires have been distilled into 25 words or less.

[notaprof]

"Telling me you 'really want this job' does not get you anywhere.  I'm not driven by how much interest you have in the position.  I want to know what value you can bring to the university."

Expressing strong personal interest in the job is Successful Interviewing 101 stuff.  Everyone tells you to do this. What's the problem here? Part of the value someone can bring to the university is their desire to be there. If you're looking at candidates only for the supposed "value" they can bring and divorcing that from their interest to stick around, you could be running this same search again and again and again. How does that bring value to the university?

Saying, "I really want this job, " is meaningless.  Any one with the ability to speak can say those five words, and some people will actually mean it and others won't.  The fact that you have applied and that the job market is so difficult at the moment, your desire for this job is a given.  Do you want the job because you want any job or because this job is something you can excel at?  You express strong personal interest in the job by showing me that you have done your homework, that you have scoured our web site and researched how you might fit with our organization and then you say something like, "I see that X is a particular interest of your department,.  I have this experience and these interests that dovetail perfectly with that topic and these are the contributions I would love to make in that area...."

And before you whine that it is impossible to devote that amount of time to each of the applications you are making, well, then apparently you did not want THIS job.  If you really, really want this job then prove it.  I don't want to know that this job is perfect for you, I need you to demonstrate that you are more perfect  for this job than the other candidates who are also telling me that they really, really, really want this job. 

[msparticularity]

Paulsa, some of these things might be perfectly appropriate questions in an interview setting, but I believe Untenured is talking about random telephone calls from applicants. While one might quite appropriately call the SCC before applying to ask a specific question about a job, that's not what I'm seeing described above. I'm seeing descriptions of people who are calling anxiously after submitting their apps, and who are doing a lot of things that they would know not to do if they were receiving (or, perhaps, listening to) adequate mentoring in academic hiring.

If you advisor is suggesting you do any of these under those circumstances, you are either in a very different field with different norms than most of us, or perhaps in a different country.

[paulsa]

"Telling me you 'really want this job' does not get you anywhere.  I'm not driven by how much interest you have in the position.  I want to know what value you can bring to the university."

Expressing strong personal interest in the job is Successful Interviewing 101 stuff.  Everyone tells you to do this. What's the problem here? Part of the value someone can bring to the university is their desire to be there. If you're looking at candidates only for the supposed "value" they can bring and divorcing that from their interest to stick around, you could be running this same search again and again and again. How does that bring value to the university?

Saying, "I really want this job, " is meaningless.  Any one with the ability to speak can say those five words, and some people will actually mean it and others won't.....

And before you whine that it is impossible to devote that amount of time to each of the applications you are making, well, then apparently you did not want THIS job.  If you really, really want this job then prove it.  I don't want to know that this job is perfect for you, I need you to demonstrate that you are more perfect  for this job than the other candidates who are also telling me that they really, really, really want this job. 

I agree. It's meaningless to simply say "I want this job," if that's all that's said. Obviously, there has to be more to it than that... an articulation of why, and how your dedication to this job would be an asset to the university. The OP did not, however, complain that this desire was being poorly articulated. The complaint was about it being articulated at all.  Oddly enough though, search committees routinely ask, "Why do you want to work here." If everything one needs to know is on the CV, this wouldn't be such a common question. Slamming applicants for anticipating this routine question is just crotchety and petulant. 

Paulsa, some of these things might be perfectly appropriate questions in an interview setting, but I believe Untenured is talking about random telephone calls from applicants...

The OP didn't specify the time, place, or setting, in which he/she has had to endure these questions. Maybe you're right about what the OP meant didn't say. But if what you say was what was meant but not clearly expressed, I agree that these questions would be inappropriate. In that case, the OP's entire list could have been much more easily summarized as "It's a bad idea to contact the SC about anything in the early stages of a search."

[oldfullprof]

13.  Do not let anyone coach you during the phone interview, especially your idiot spouse who works in our department.

[atlchemist]

Based on these criteria, it seems that I haven't pissed off SCs too much yet, so go me! :-D

[dalekk]

Anyone who enjoys devaluing candidates as much as OP is obviously really enjoying be on a search committee.  Good for you, OP.  Thanks for sharing. 

[zharkov]

Anyone who enjoys devaluing candidates as much as OP is obviously really enjoying be on a search committee.  Good for you, OP.  Thanks for sharing. 

Not devaluing candidates in the least, just giving good candidates a better understanding of what the SC expects from their side.

About "really wanting the job," that sort of stuff is best left for the ending phase of a campus visit.  Don't go all "Sparky the Wonder Poodle" at the get go.

[cgfunmathguy]

If "I really want this job" is the answer to "Why should we hire you?" during an interview, it's an inappropriate response. To echo the OP, tell me why you are better than everyone else. The appropriate response might be:

"I saw in your advertisement that you're looking for someone with a specialty in Utopian underwater basketweaving, and I wrote my dissertation on the unique construction of Utopian reed baskets woven underwater. Not only that, but I've had two published articles in Journal of Utopian Baskets concerning this unique weaving method. At the last annual conference of The Basketweaving Society of America, I presented a paper on why this construction method did not seem to translate to terrestial basketweaving.

On your department website, I noticed that your department teaches Survey of Basketweaving, Introductory Basketweaving Studio, and The Design of Baskets. As the instructor of record, I've taught sections of the first two courses during my time in grad school, and I was a TA in the Design class last semester. This semester, I'm teaching a section of the Design class as the instructor of record, as well as two sections of the Survey class."

[untenured]

The context for this list is a search that is in the earliest stages.  We have not selected anyone for interviews yet.  Applicants are still sending their materials.

At this stage, telling me how badly you want this job is a waste of your time and time.  But wait, this will get twisted out of context, so let me explain:

Informative: I really would like this job because my skills match closely to what the position requires.  I teach Basketweaving.  You require Basketweavers.  I research in Basketweaving History and you need someone to direct the Basket Center or Historical Studies.  In fact, my thesis was based on Turkish Baskets which coincides will with the Turkey Basket program for graduate students.

Irritating: I really would like this job because my family likes the warm weather where your school is located.  Teaching has been a dream for me for many years and I can't wait to be in front of students.  Orlando is only one hour away and that would be exciting for the kids.  We already bought a summer home a few years ago and this would be perfect for moving there full time.  Florida is such a great place to be.

See the difference?

I never wrote that SC's should never be contacted in the early stages of the search.  If I wanted to make such a point I would have come out and wrote exactly that.  Distorting what people say through your own mental lens does not enamor you to anyone.

Job ads have space limitations. They are  often stuffed with committee-written bureaucratic boilerplate, buzzwords, and "mission statements" which are required to get the administration to sign off on the ad. These ads reflect in part, but don't always wholly reflect, what the department might want from a new colleague.

When a candidate asks you what you're looking for in your hire, his/her intention may actually be to approach you as one human being to another and acknowledge that you are more than a bureaucratic cog whose desires have been distilled into 25 words or less.

If the job ads you read are stuffed with unnecessary language, then they are bad job ads.  We carefully choose the language we place in our job ads.  Every word and phrase is considered. Yes, every word and phrase.  We debate what we want in a candidate and express it as precisely and concisely as we can.  Human resources scours the language and only approves it if it meets their standards.  Every word counts.  Universities that just throw words around or add puffery are wasting the candidate's time.  Universities that evaluate candidates on criteria that are not in the job ad are unnecessarily increasing their exposure to lawsuits.  I trust there's no need to explain why.

On edit: OMG, cgfunmathguy and I just performed a mind meld with Basketweaving.

[voxprincipalis]

Oddly enough though, search committees routinely ask, "Why do you want to work here." If everything one needs to know is on the CV, this wouldn't be such a common question. Slamming applicants for anticipating this routine question is just crotchety and petulant. 

"Why do you want to work here?" is not actually a question about why the applicant wants a job. It's another way of saying, "Show me that you have done your homework about the institution by telling me some more ways in which your qualifications and interests meet our needs." Some of the ways in which the candidate may answer that question may not be things that go on the CV or cover letter, given the need for those documents to be concise and to highlight job ad requirements without an accompanying novella, but that may be very influential in figuring out "fit." Asking that question at the campus interview also allows the candidate to include reactions to things that could only have been discovered while on campus: the campus climate, the quality of students in the department, the level of interaction between faculty members, an institutional commitment to pedagogy informed by research, the amount of involvement of undergraduates in research, whatever.

Search committee members: Don't be jerks.

Applicants: Don't be idiots.

VP

[ruralguy]

Saying "I really want this job" is vapid.

Demonstrate how well you'd fit in by giving good talks and lessons, being polite and friendly in all interactions on campus. Before that stage, I think crafting a solid cover letter and CV (and other statements asked for) are more important than most applicants believe. Also, do not neglect letters of reference. They really need to be solid, and cover the bases of what we think is important.

That all being said, I don't think the "list" of annoyances was even a little but idiosyncratic. I agree with all of them. If advisers are telling people to do differently, then they are pretty bad advisers. ALL of these things have been more or less standard for decades now. There's no excuse.

[glowdart]

Saying "I really want this job" is vapid.

Demonstrate how well you'd fit in by giving good talks and lessons, being polite and friendly in all interactions on campus. Before that stage, I think crafting a solid cover letter and CV (and other statements asked for) are more important than most applicants believe. Also, do not neglect letters of reference. They really need to be solid, and cover the bases of what we think is important.

That all being said, I don't think the "list" of annoyances was even a little but idiosyncratic. I agree with all of them. If advisers are telling people to do differently, then they are pretty bad advisers. ALL of these things have been more or less standard for decades now. There's no excuse.

Exactly. 

And much more importantly, if your answers are that vapid and lack substance, support, evidence of research, and analysis, then you have just made me question your ability to teach our students that their answers need substance, support, evidence and research, and analysis.