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This presentation was designed to assist and educate the interviewee regarding Campus Interviews, and was authored by Sherry Woods (UT Austin) and Rebecca Richards-Kortum (BIOE).

*(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

Continually ask yourself these two questions:
  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

Elevator Speech Activity module .

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”?

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Source:  OpenStax, 2008 nsf advance workshop: negotiating the ideal faculty position. OpenStax CNX. Feb 24, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10628/1.3
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