This post is a continuation of my reflection on my experiences on the academic job market. If you haven’t already read Parts 1, 2, or 3 about the first three waves of the job cycle, feel free to check them out. I started writing these as a means of sorting through my advice for my graduate students, but they're really probably just a means of dealing with the emotional trauma of being on the market. It's worth mentioning that my story has a happy ending--I landed a great job at a well-established university and expect to earn tenure and promotion in the Spring. I'm lucky. None of that changes how horrible the academic job market is or the emotional distress we perpetuate through our hiring practices.
Although I was disappointed to see the search at the Midwestern University close after killing the phone interview, my post-phone interview experience with the University in the South was a little better. About a month (that felt like a year) after the screening interview, I was invited to campus in mid-March. My first campus interview! Winning!
For the interview, I flew into a smallish airport about 70 miles from the campuses (more on that in a minute). The airport was in the next state, which struck me as odd, but I was assured that it was the better choice even though it was about 30 miles further from the town than the closest airport (read: it was cheaper for the university). After arriving at the airport, I rented a car and drove myself the 70 miles from the airport to the bed and breakfast where they put me up. Although I can appreciate that it’s super inconvenient to schlep 150 miles each trip to pick up an interview candidate, I was surprised to be left more or less on my own for the travel portion of my campus visit. I was also really happy that my rental car included a GPS because I was still living the pre-smart phone life and I was driving to a small-ass town in the rural South.
The bed and breakfast I stayed in was nice—good food, nice hosts, easy access. Dear Search Committees, if you can get your candidates into a B&B instead of a hotel for this sort of thing, it’s worth doing. It added a nice welcoming touch to the trip. Maybe some people like staying in hotels, but I’m going for the human connection every time if I can get it. Arguably, the accommodations were the highlight of the trip. Okay, it’s not really an argument—the B&B was the only good thing about the trip. Dear Search Committees, if the accommodations outshine the visit, you’re doing it wrong.
After I arrived at the B&B and dumped my suitcase (I always check a bag on professional trips so that my shit—I mean, suit—doesn’t get wrinkled), I was picked up by a member of the search committee for an earlyish dinner at the local hotspot: Ruby Tuesdays. There were a few jokes made at the university’s expense about budgets and locations and the fact that Ruby Tuesday’s was probably actually the best restaurant in town, but this was not going to be the fancy wine-and-dine affair you find at other on-campus interviews. I picked at a cheeseburger while chatting with the search committee member and the department secretary while trying to get a feel for the people, the place, and the job.
Once the check had been paid and the burgers choked down, I was escorted back to the B&B and given a little more context about the search process. I was told that I was not the committee’s first choice. In fact, I was told that two weeks prior the committee’s top candidate visited and was offered the position, which she declined because, they alleged, she was displeased with the nightlife in the rural, blue-collar, small town.
On the one hand, I was grateful to have a clearer picture of the search process. On the other hand, learning that I was only offered the interview because someone else declined the job sent my imposter syndrome into hyperdrive. Note—if you’re ever on a search committee, do your level best to make every candidate feel like your top choice. After all, one of them will likely be your colleague in the not so distant future.
I spent the evening alternating between prepping for my teaching demo (which was a lesson I’d taught dozens of times), mindlessly watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs on the little TV in my room, and google-sleuthing the other finalists. I had three pieces of important information guiding my investigation. First, I knew that the candidate who turned down the position—the real top choice—was female. They let it slip at dinner that “she” wasn’t into the town. Second, the search committee member who I dined with also let slip what the candidate who they really wanted researched (with incredible specificity). And third, I had email addresses for all of the candidates screened by the search committee before campus visits. How did I get that, you ask? The search committee cc’d us all on the same email. I internet stalked everyone on the list and since only two of the candidates were female and their research interests were drastically different, I had a pretty good idea of the preferred candidate’s identity. Note to search committees: the seems obvious, but don’t ever send an email to more than one candidate, copy that shit into a new message and keep clean email threads… amateurs.
I should also say, props to the real top choice (and, eventually, me) for landing a better—much better—job later in the cycle.
My day on campus began with a member of search committee arriving fifteen minutes early while I was eating an awesome homemade breakfast in the B&B’s beautiful formal dining room. I slammed down one last bite, ran upstairs, strapped on my tie, brushed my teeth, and locked in for the day-long interview. I still wish I had more time to enjoy that breakfast.
The search member and I walked over to the dilapidated campus, which was across the street from the B&B, and into the chancellor’s office for my first thirty-minute interview of the day. Even though the search chair had warned me before my interview that the chancellor was a “real steel magnolia,”[1] our conversation was pretty superficial. A few questions about my background, my teaching interests, and why I wanted to work in the middle of goddamn nowhere (note, the “why do you want to work here” question is the question that really matters with administrators) and I was off and running.
I took a brief campus tour. I feigned interest as the poor search committee member explained that the campus had both classrooms and offices. They even had a library! I’ve been on stunning campuses and blasé campuses, the tour is basically the same everywhere you go unless you are a researcher who needs a lab or any special equipment—which I’m not. The tour ended with a short conversation with my tour guide in his office during which I learned that most of the faculty live about an hour away from campus and that the sign on his door that said “What Have You Done to Leave This Place Today?” was really a personal mantra and not a commentary on the shitty job for which I was being interviewed.
After our chat about why the search committee member really did like his job, he led me to the newly installed Dean’s office for the next phase of my interview. The conversation with the Dean was more nuts and bolts than the conversation with the chancellor. He was mostly concerned with how many sections of public speaking I could teach and when I could teach them than anything else. My primary question (for the duration of the interview) was how I could teach literally anything else. I’d been teaching public speaking for nearly a decade and wanted to be sure that I could build my teaching portfolio for the next run at the market. Pretty much everyone I asked, the dean included, evaded the question like it was the harbinger of the zombie apocalypse.
By midday, I was pretty sure that they were really only interested in hiring someone to teach public speaking. This was a service burden hire, and, as I found out later, the only fulltime Communication professorship on campus. In hindsight, this should have been clear, because the search committee was comprised of two historians, one literature scholar, and a guy from business.
The next big event on the campus interview was my teaching demonstration. The search committee tour-guide led me to a classroom and gave me a few minutes to get set for my hour-long display of pedagogical prestidigitation. As I set up, it became abundantly clear that my audience would be meager. When the teaching demo began, there were three students and three members of the search committee in attendance. Note to Search Committees: make sure your candidates have audiences; give extra credit to your students and, most importantly, get your ass to the talk. Nothing makes reveals the campus complete lack of investment in the hiring process more than giving a painstakingly prepared talk to an empty room.
I’d taught the lesson in my teaching demo dozens of times, so I was confident in my mastery of the material and the examples. It went well enough.
Things got weird(er) after the teaching demo. The three members of the search committee escorted me across campus to a university owned sedan and let me know that we’d be traveling to another campus for the remainder of the interview. We piled into the car and drove, for more than an hour, as we made awkward small talk about how great it was to get to drive yourself and your colleagues across the state everyday so that you could teach on both campuses (read: this was an unstated job requirement).
When we arrived at the extension campus, I was scooped up by another associate vice something or other taken to lunch at a roadside BBQ joint. If not for the awesome B&B, the lunch would’ve been the highlight of the visit (and it wasn’t even good BBQ…). After lunch, I was given another tour of buildings and classrooms and deposited back in the search chair’s office. We chatted for a bit before piling back into the car to return to my accommodations for a little downtime before dinner.
Unlike my previous meals, I drove myself to dinner at the Greek restaurant in town. The dinner included three of the four search committee members (all the men) and was a pretty relaxed affair. A beer and a plateful of moussaka—everyone ordered literally the same thing—ensured that we were all in good spirits as the interview drew to a close. The dinner was awkward insider conversation about office politics and small town life in the rural South, but otherwise ordinary.
As with any meeting though, things got interesting right before we parted ways. After settling up, we made our way to the parking lot and the search chair pulled me aside.
In our brief, and exceptionally awkward conversation, he indicated that “we’d like to get this done quickly” and made clear that I would be getting a job offer soon after returning to Ohio. He also pressed me more than I was comfortable to ensure him that I would accept the offer. He didn’t come out and say, “if we offer the position, will you take it?” (which I’ve heard on interviews before), but he did his level best to talk me out of negotiating. I smiled and did my best to deflect. I didn’t think I wanted the job by about midday… and as soon as it became clear to me that I would be getting the offer, I knew I didn’t want it. Interviewees are interviewing campuses, too, and desperation doesn’t look good on anyone.
[1] I’m still not sure what this means, other than that the search chair is more than a little sexist.
