The Two-Year Track

The Impersonal Touch

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By George Lefray

In the midst of my graduate studies in biology, I had an epiphany. I enjoyed research, both in the laboratory and in the field, but I found myself looking forward to, and investing a lot of time in, the courses I taught as part of my teaching assistantship.

Many of my peers, and my thesis adviser, derided teaching as a distraction from the real path to success in a university setting: publishing research papers and winning grants. However, I came to rely upon my students for a weekly renewal of enthusiasm and a dose of professional satisfaction. As I began to look for tenure-track jobs, I discovered an entire line of potential employment -- teaching at community colleges -- that I hadn't considered before.

Forewarned that the market would be competitive, I applied for jobs at both two-year and four-year colleges. In the process I noticed a striking difference in the way hiring is conducted in each realm.

Job interviews at two-year colleges, I've found, are far more perfunctory and far less personal than those at four-year colleges. Some Ph.D.'s already consider jobs at community colleges to be beneath them, but two-year colleges put themselves at further competitive disadvantage by giving short shrift to interviews. In my experience four-year institutions do a much better job of making a candidate feel welcome and recruited. Two-year colleges, by comparison, seem to devote as little time to the interview as possible, making candidates feel like so much grist for the mill.

At most four-year colleges, candidates are invited to the campus for several days, during which time they meet with as many members of the department (including graduate students) as possible. That gives both interviewers and candidates ample opportunity to evaluate one another's collegiality and congeniality. It gives everyone a chance to evaluate how well the candidate fits a department's academic profile.

Moreover, job candidates at four-year colleges are often asked to give two presentations: The first, usually to a faculty audience, details the applicant's research interests, recent projects, and plans for the future. The second is typically a lecture in a course to give candidates an opportunity to demonstrate their teaching skills. Candidates are also allowed to interview undergraduates, who are often refreshingly frank about the strengths and weaknesses of their institution.

The interview at a four-year college seems designed to extract the most information possible from -- and provide as much as possible to -- a candidate for an academic position. It is an excruciatingly and appropriately thorough affair.

My shortest interview at a four-year college was a two-day affair. And at every interview I had at such institutions, the college took responsibility for hospitality during my stay. I never ate a meal without the company of a faculty member, and I was never left to "wander the campus" unless I specifically asked for that opportunity.

Many of my hosts at four-year colleges were also willing to give me a tour of the town, including potential housing and recreational facilities. Several people took time from their own weekends to introduce me to their communities. I learned about local issues ranging from politics and fishing to farmers' markets and environmental concerns.

I typically left my interviews at four-year colleges knowing whether I was a strong candidate, whether I liked the institution and the city, and whether I was interested in joining the department.

By contrast, almost every two-year college that invited me for an interview allotted a single afternoon to the process. Only one college offered to help offset my travel expenses. At one institution, I was graciously invited to stay with a faculty member whose college would not provide overnight lodging. That faculty member also provided the only local tour I was ever to get from a two-year college.

At one two-year college, I was asked to arrive on the campus for a Friday-afternoon interview and stay, at my own expense and with no plans for the interim, for a Saturday appointment with an administrator. At another, I was asked point-blank, why I had come so far for the interview and whether I thought I could live in the local community. At a third institution, I learned more about the community by reading real-estate advertisements in the local newspaper than I did by posing questions to my interviewers.

Once on a community-college campus, I was typically greeted by a panel of faculty members and at least one administrator. I fielded rote questions read, often without enthusiasm, from previously prepared sheets.

From such experiences I was left with three impressions of community colleges: First, the faculty members didn't much care whether a candidate's personality and interests meshed with their own. Second, the administration didn't trust the faculty members to meet one-on-one with candidates. And third, the questions I was asked had been vetted for content before I arrived.

I learned little about my potential colleagues, even less about the administrators, and next to nothing about the students, who were never available for interviews, much less encouraged to talk with candidates. If I wanted to learn about the campus, I often had to approach the process as any visitor would: by going to the visitors desk, getting a map, and figuring things out for myself.

At the end of my interviews at community colleges, I usually couldn't tell how well the process had gone, or even whether I was a good fit for the institution.

Despite that experience, I did find a wonderful job, with good colleagues and intriguing students, at a two-year college. In some ways, accepting the job was a leap of faith. I just had a gut feeling about the position, and it turned out to be right.

However, now that I have served on hiring committees at my two-year college, I have witnessed some of the same problems from the other side of the hiring table. I find myself wanting to offer candidates a better experience than my own.

I want to get to know my potential colleagues. I want them to get to know me. If we can amicably talk our way through a half-hour interview, there's a good chance that we're going to work well together. I want the candidates to know what we're asking them to do, and what they're getting themselvse into.

Picking the brains of job candidates can be an interesting and informal way to refresh my expertise in my field, much like attending a professional conference. I enjoy interviews from both sides, and I want to extend that enjoyment to our job candidates.

More importantly, offering candidates a better interview experience can help us compete with other colleges who are interviewing the same people.

My advisers always warned me that there were more candidates than jobs. That's definitely true, but it does not make good colleagues common, and we cannot afford to let good instructors slip away.

If we want to attract good faculty members, we should put our best foot forward during the interview process. We need to remove the stodgy, uninformative, and vague half-day interview, and replace it with a lengthier process that is personal, informative, and engaging. We do not encourage mediocrity in our students, and we should not allow it in our faculty recruitment.