First Person

My Dream Campus Interview

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By Michael Dalton

Driving home from my last campus interview, I felt like Sarah Hughes making a perfect landing on her Olympic gold figure-skating routine. As a tenured associate professor of accounting and business at a small private college in the Midwest, I had ventured out on the job market for the first time in 18 years. In my teaching and research presentations, in interviews with potential colleagues, and in the general enthusiasm I conveyed, I felt "on."

For me, interviewing is exhilarating. Depending on the interview, you basically have about six hours to convince people who know nothing about you, other than what your application packet includes, that you are the right person for the faculty position that they have available. My strategy was to present the real me -- someone who loves to teach, wants collegial friends on the faculty, and appreciates the challenge of exceeding research and service expectations.

After four campus interviews and seven days on the road, I have had a lot of time to think about what a "dream" interview would look like. Here is how my experience has compared with my idea of a perfect campus interview.

Airport Arrangements

The day of my first campus interview I taught until 2:15 p.m., arrived at the airport at 4 p.m. for a plane that left at 6 p.m. to catch a connecting flight at 8:30 p.m. to arrive at my final destination at 10:30 p.m. It was great to meet a university representative for a ride to the nearest motel after a long day of travel. Contrast that experience with my second campus interview. It was the same drill, but rather than catching a connecting flight, I rented a car and drove for about 45 minutes. Navigating in a strange city at night is not the best way to end a hectic day.

Dream Interview: Arrange for someone to pick you up at the airport.

Breakfast on Interview Day

Universities are quite different about the first meeting of the campus interview day. My experience ranged from a 7:15 a.m. breakfast at the country club with a faculty member to breakfast on my own, with the first meeting scheduled for 8:30 a.m. in the department office. My favorite experience was a breakfast with two key faculty members about 8:30 a.m. at the local restaurant. It was a great time to just visit with the faculty members and find out what the place was really like -- a low-key affair and more promotional and friendly than evaluative.

Dream Interview: Start the day with a good breakfast and a pleasant experience. Given hectic travel schedules, 8:30 a.m. is plenty early to get started.

Interview Process

I found that the interview schedule in most places consists of the traditional string of 30-minute interviews, each with a single individual. Let's face it, the answers you have prepared for your interview questions lose some of their luster after the fourth or fifth time you have presented them. There was one university that seemed to schedule its time more productively. It had a morning and an afternoon session for all interested faculty members to come to a seminar room and visit and ask me questions. This really cut down on the repetition, and it gave faculty members time to share the departmental vision as well as their experience at the university. I still had the usual interview with the dean and search committee chair, yet I found the group interviews much more lively.

Dream Interview: Go for the group interviews. Everyone gets their questions answered and benefits from the discussion of others.

Lunch With Students

One of my most enjoyable experiences was meeting with a group of three students for lunch. It provided me an opportunity to interact casually rather than be in my professional interview mode. They purchased my lunch (with the help of a college voucher) at the university union and we sat and talked for 45 minutes. We talked about their careers, their examples of good teaching, and the campus news of the day. They provided me a campus tour. We even had time to play a little air hockey -- OK, that was my idea. My victory did not come in air hockey, but it did come in getting to know the university from a student's perspective.

Dream Team Interview: Have lunch with students. It's fun and informative.

Candidate Presentation

It's show time! Now comes the 45-minute session where the candidate delivers the goods in an enthusiastic, exciting, and maybe even interactive presentation. This is the pressure point. Three out of my four campus interviews required a presentation. Two of the institutions asked me to teach a class, while one wanted a discussion of my research. In the teaching session, I started with a relaxing anecdote and used a pretty interactive delivery. The audiences for my teaching sessions ranged from four faculty members to a group of about 15 professors and 2 students. Getting the audience to respond was probably better than having a full class of students. Faculty members could appreciate the content as well as the delivery of what I was doing.

Dream Interview: Encourage as many faculty members and students as possible to attend these presentations. A larger audience provides the speaker with more people to interact with during the presentation and can lead to more feedback about the candidate for the search committee. Institutions often say they place a priority on teaching, but a large turnout at these talks reinforces the point.

Wine and Dine

Collegiality between department members was a primary consideration for me in accepting a position -- yes, even more important than money. I wanted to find a place where colleagues, even though they might not agree on everything, were intellectually honest and professional. Most of the universities had a nice dinner with a few faculty members. However, there was one university where almost the entire faculty in the department met with me for dinner. This gave me a chance to see how they interacted with each other. What I saw made me decide to make the institution my first choice.

Dream Interview: Collegiality rules! A department's investment in a faculty member over a 10-to-15-year period can be a $1-million-plus proposition. If a department has a strong sense of collegiality, an informal evening social event with most of the faculty members is an excellent last memory to leave in the candidate's mind.

A great feeling of accomplishment came over me after the interviews were over. I had done my best. And after writing follow-up thank you notes, there was really nothing left to do other than to wait for offers.