How to stand out in a campus interview

*(in a positive way...)

Assumptions

"interview" = entire campus visit

• Formal presentations/seminars
• One-on-one meetings
• Informal gatherings and interactions
• Sample schedule

"standing out" = positive&Negative

• You want to be remembered… for the right reasons
• You are always "on"…

Components of a hiring decision for a research 1 institution

Step one: getting an interview

• Recommendations from dissertation advisor and others
• Publication record: quantity and journal quality
• Match between institutional needs and applicant’s research focus
• The “Hot” factor of research area
• Formal application materials:
  • CV
  • Statement of research interests
  • Statement of teaching interests
  • Start up needs

Step two: getting an offer

• All of the previous (and more…)
• THE CAMPUS VISIT

Who decides if an offer is made?

• Varies from campus to campus
• Full professors
• All faculty

Dean has the “final” say

Today's focus

The formal presentation

• Practice talks on Tuesday afternoon

One-on-one meetings and interactions with:

• Faculty
• Administrators
• Students

Strategies for success and for avoiding common pitfalls

Meeting and greeting activity

General hints for success!

Top rules #'s 1&2

1. Who is my AUDIENCE?
2. What is the CONTEXT/SETTING?

Before the campus visit...

• INVESTIGATE THE INSTITUTIONAL PRIORITIES, CULTURE AND NEEDS
• Find out what you are doing and who your audiences will be…AND PREPARE ACCORDINGLY!
• Don’t be afraid to ask for 30 min of prep time before your seminar
• Ask for meetings that will help YOU determine if position is a good fit
  • Assistant professors in the department
  • Potential collaborators in other departments
  • Graduate students in your area
  • Female faculty from other departments

Before the campus visit... homework

• Know who everyone on your schedule is and what their area is
• Find out what research areas the department is emphasizing
• Find out what courses the department needs you to teach
• How to get this info?

Things to ask everyone on your schedule

• What are the P&T criteria?
• Expectations about research $$ and supporting grad students?
• What is the teaching load?
• What are the strategic directions of the department?
• If you could change anything about the department, what would it be?

Before the campus vist... words of advice

• Presenting oneself as confident and competent is a balancing act
• The difference between: “I don’t know” and “I don’t know…”

• Knowing your stuff

  is NOT the same as

  Knowing how to talk about the stuff you know…

Elevator speech activity

During the campus visit…more words of advice

• When gender matters and when it doesn’t…
• What to wear and how to wear it!
• When to ask questions and what questions to ask…
• Giving a technical presentation vs. teaching a class

Anatomy of a good technical presentation

Introduction - 10 minutes

• Get them excited
• Why is your work important?
• Background to understand it

The meat – 25 minutes

• What you did (OK to sacrifice detail for clarity, not too simplistic)
• What it means
• Summarize as you go
• Only the experts should follow the last 10 minutes of this part of the talk

The implications – 10 minutes

• What does this mean for the future of your field?
• What direction will you take the work?
• Leave everyone with a feeling of excitement about the future

Important details

• Clean slides, No typos, Large font
• Outline easy to follow – help people stay with your talk
• Rehearse for knowledgeable audience
• Not too long or too short
• Reference work of others in the field, especially if they will be in the audience
• Practice answering questions
• Don’t get defensive
• Check out the room and projector ahead of time
• Have a backup of your presentation!!
• Begin by saying, “Good Morning! It’s such a pleasure to be here.”
• At the end, say, “Thank You, I’d be happy to take any questions.”

Questioning activity

Expect the unexpected: “hard” questions

• I don't think you've accounted for the research of Barnes and Bailey. Aren't you familiar with their model? I think it invalidates your main hypothesis.
• Unpublished research in my lab shows exactly the opposite effect. You must not have done the proper controls.
• I believe a simple non linear equation explains all your data. Why have you wasted your time on such a complex model?
• (To the candidate) Well you didn't even account for phenomena x. (Aside to the audience) How can all this research be valid if she didn't account for x?
• How does this differ from the basic model that we teach in sophomore transport?
• It looks like you've done some interesting modeling. Is there an application of this work?
• What a wonderful little application. Is there any theoretical support?
• Those results are clearly unattainable. You must have falsified your data.
• You've done some interesting work, but I don't see how it could be considered engineering. Why do you think you are qualified to teach engineering?
• Your work appears to be a complete replication of Fujimoto's work. Just what is really new here?

Good responses to hard questions

• “That’s a really good question...thank you for asking it.”
• “You make a very good point…I have a couple responses…”
• “We’ve discussed this question a lot in our research group and here’s what I think…”

Final thoughts

Strategies for avoiding interviewing pitfalls

• Being too collaborative
• Being too “easy” (“Rice is my first choice!”)
• Failing to ask questions about the work of your host
• Focusing too much on social aspects of department/city

Preparing tuesday's talk

• Who’s your audience?
• How long?
• What’s the setting? (AV needs?)
• What kind of feedback will be given?
• What if you “bomb”?