A mock interview goes horribly wrong:
Interviewer: As you know, we’re a small liberal arts college. Part of what keeps our philosophy department in business is our ability to offer six sections of “Critical Thinking” every semester. “Critical Thinking” is a required course in our General Education curriculum. So, each member of the Philosophy department offers at least one section of “Critical Thinking” every semester. Could you describe to us how you would teach such a course?
Candidate: Critical Thinking?… hmmmm… Well, that’s not my area.
Interviewer: Well, I realize that this is not your area. It’s not mine either. But, as I said, we all have to teach it. So, could you say something about how you would construct the course.
Candidate: Well… I’d rather not teach that kind of course. Couldn’t I just stick to “Intro” and upper-level courses?
Interviewer: Well… No. As I said… We all have to teach “Critical Thinking.” It sounds to me as if you’re saying that you’re unwilling to teach it. Is that right?
Candidate: Yeah.
A happy thought for candidates: some of the people you are competing against are this bad. Huzzah!
Another lesson: seriously, think about the needs of the department that is considering hiring you. My department is not in the same business as the department granting you a PhD, but we don’t think that’s our problem. A surprising number of people show up to interview knowing that we value teaching and research yet without having thought in any serious way about teaching. It’s lame.
Finally, when in doubt, just talk about the New Deal. We go nuts for that stuff.
31 comments
December 16, 2008 at 10:42 am
saintneko
It amazes me how people will act at job interviews. It amazes me even more that this stupidity will *still* rear it’s head at the height of a recession-heading-to-Depression-2.0. 500,000 jobs are being lost monthly and people in interviews still say “No, I wont do the job your trying to hire me for, but I am still generously willing to do the work you aren’t trying to hire me for.”
I guess people of that caliber are the same ones that got us into this mess in the first place.
December 16, 2008 at 11:05 am
bitchphd
Gosh, it would be nice if those of us who do actually like teaching could get jobs, wouldn’t it?
December 16, 2008 at 11:19 am
Buster
On the other hand, there are some serious candidates out there who are willing to stretch like crazy. From two of my friends on the market this year, I give you amazing examples of on-the-fly flexibility:
Scene One
Interviewer: So you’ve specialized in post-war Continental Philosophy.
Candidate: Yes, I’m just finishing my dissertation on French thought and theories of justice and my new project is looking at the interactions of American borderlands theorizing and post-structuralism.
Interviewer: Good, good. How do you feel about teaching Introduction to Business Ethics?
Candidate (not skipping a beat): You know, I’ve got a number of ideas about how I could provide a rigorous background for that course…
Scene Two
Interviewer: As a twentieth-century Americanist, do you feel prepared to teach Introduction to World Civilizations I, from pre-history to the Age of Exploration?
Candidate (who is actually a literary historian): I think that would be a great chance to put my work in perspective…
Meanwhile, the elderly guy next door to me offers five bucks to kids in the neighborhood to shovel his stoop and sidewalk. I might have to talk to him about how my work has given me a unique perspective on approaches to sleet and snow.
December 16, 2008 at 11:56 am
Matt W
on-the-fly flexibility
That doesn’t even sound that extraordinary to me — I’m an epistemologist whose first T-T job involved teaching business ethics (which admittedly I had already taught once in grad school, and it was in the job description so I had plenty to say about it).
One thing that I’ve heard is that it’s bad to bullshit in response to a question like this. It’s certainly bad to say “No” when asked “Would you be willing to teach X?” but if you actually have no clue how you’d teach something it may be bad to try to answer a question about it in too much detail; if it’s not in the job description or on your CV you may be entitled to say “I’d have to do some more preparation for that, but….” A dean once asked me something about teaching Dewey, and I had to try to let him down gently, saying “Well I’m always interested in new things but I really don’t know the first thing about Dewey” or something like that. Later I heard that he was testing to see if I’d try to fake it.
Of course, I didn’t get that job, and there was the interview where Weirdly Hostile Continental Dude kept asking me about a lot of stuff that was pretty far out of my field and, I heard, was complaining after the interview about how Shallow all the candidates for the analytic epistemology job were. (No animus against continental folk in general implied!) I have lots of experience of being on the market, but that makes taking advice from me like taking relationship advice from someone who’s been married nine times.
December 16, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Charlieford
It’s a little scary to realize how often the interview is actually an arena for the display of departmental conflicts.
December 16, 2008 at 12:23 pm
bitchphd
OMG, Charlieford, I had one interview where this was so *clearly* the case it was all I could do to sit still until the interview was over.
(All this advice to candidates is great, but let’s not forget that none of it really matters in the end, because all hiring committees do is throw darts at a chart.)
December 16, 2008 at 12:25 pm
bitchphd
testing to see if I’d try to fake it.
That seems like such a crappy thing to do to an interview candidate.
(Can you guys tell I’m “grading”?)
December 16, 2008 at 12:35 pm
kid bitzer
okay, directly refusing to teach a course is pretty good.
but even better, is to insult your interviewers because they offer such a course!
“…so your work on pre-revolutionary french economic history is very impressive. now, sometimes we’ll also need you to teach just a very general introduction to history. how would you do that?”
“you mean, an introduction to french economic history? all of it?”
“no, no–not limited to france.”
“what? an economic history of (snort!), what, the whole world?!?”
“well, like that, only with the economic issues as one theme among others–you know, social, political, cultural, even military….how would you do that?”
“do that? well; i simply wouldn’t do that! that’s outrageous! that’s the most intellectually bankrupt thing i’ve ever heard!”
ah, youth….
December 16, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Walt
Kid bitzer’s story is objectively awesome.
December 16, 2008 at 12:52 pm
bitchphd
I feel like I’ve heard it before, though. It has the whiff of academic urban legend.
December 16, 2008 at 1:20 pm
kid bitzer
fie on thy doubting, b: does thou not suspect my place? does thou not suspect my years?
though i will confess that, urban or not, i am an academic legend.
December 16, 2008 at 1:25 pm
kid bitzer
and i do have a noticeable whiff about me. i confess that, too.
December 16, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Charlieford
I’m going to pretend I didn’t see what may be the first use of “OMG” on this blog.
December 16, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Barry
Eric: “Finally, when in doubt, just talk about the New Deal. We go nuts for that stuff. ”
Just don’t ask about what’s a good book to start on, to learn about the New Deal. You might run into a ‘just Google it!’ :)
December 16, 2008 at 5:09 pm
bitchphd
I’d be surprised if that was the first time I’d used OMG on this blog.
In any case, I’m enough of a contrarian that, knowing it offends, I might start using all sorts of other acronyms too. I might even throw in some smileys just to make Eric especially happy.
December 16, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Charlieford
;-)
December 17, 2008 at 12:16 pm
davenoon
Great story. Ordinarily, you’d expect these folks to weed themselves out of contention during the 20-30 minute conference interviews. For schools like mine, though — where resources are too withered to actually send search faculty reps to association meeting — the fail rate for on-campus interviews is, I think, much higher than it would be if we were able to see people in person before bringing them to Juneau. Instead, we’re forced to conduct phone interviews, a format that can allow some candidates to mask a whole array of traits that would probably kill them in face-to-face situations.
December 17, 2008 at 12:17 pm
davenoon
Traits like, say, not closing your fucking tags.
December 17, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Vance
So maybe you should be conducting blog interviews.
December 17, 2008 at 12:26 pm
eric
you should be conducting blog interviews.
This sounds objectively awesome. No; troll. No; self-linker. No; lol-er.
December 17, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Timothy Burke
I’ve seen things not wildly far off from this in real academic interviews, actually. I agree you don’t want to just bullshit enthusiastically at any stretch proferred, but there are gracious ways to stall and think about how to answer: “That sounds interesting. Could you tell me more about how you generally approach ‘Critical Thinking’? How flexible is the course design?” etc.
December 17, 2008 at 1:58 pm
mathpants
Phone Interview Story:
my old advisor tells of begin in on a phone interview and hearing the distinct sound of a flushing toilet. He decided that this was awesome, but was not able to convince another member of the committee.
My (successful, in that I eventually got offered the job) phone interview was certainly helped by a glass of rye.
December 17, 2008 at 1:59 pm
mathpants
“being” in on a phone interview, that is. I have the job now and you can’t take it away cuz por spling.
December 17, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Adam Kotsko
I’m not sure how to feel about the information disclosed in this post and thread, as one “on the market” in this most dire of years.
December 17, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Ken Houghton
“You want me to teach Critical Thinking, even though my specialty is Jacobean drama? Uh, sure. (I can use Webster and Beaumont & Fletcher, and just leave out Philip Massinger, right?)
“By the way, I was just reading this great book about the New Deal by a hot young scholar. Shlaes, I think his name is…”
December 17, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Fats Durston
Phone Interview Story:
my old advisor tells of begin in on a phone interview and hearing the distinct sound of a flushing toilet. He decided that this was awesome, but was not able to convince another member of the committee.
I received a call at home for a phone-interview–the first attempt had been botched–on two hours’ sleep after an over-night fifteen hour drive. The house I lived in at the time had only one reliable phone, curiously anchored right next to the upstairs toilet by the previous family. My three-year-old–who I was minding–of course needed to pee during the interview. I had to insist that she not flush it.
I actually got the campus interview (close enough to drive, half-way back the way I had recently come) after this, where a professor who had had at least one drink backed his car into mine, luckily bending only the license plate. I did not get the job, nor did I press charges.
During my final defense I swear that the remote participant audibly pissed near the end. (It was kind of long.)
December 17, 2008 at 5:12 pm
ari
I had an AHA interview where one of the interviewers had to excuse himself rather suddenly to use the bathroom. The proceedings were very noisy. It was a challenge for which I hadn’t prepared.
December 17, 2008 at 5:27 pm
kid bitzer
i hope you’ve incorporated this experience into the mock interviews you give your grad students.
at our department, we assign the interviewing faculty to specific roles, in order to simulate real conditions–one of us makes sure to come into the mock interview late and force the candidate to repeat everything said up to that time. one persistently forgets the candidates name and keeps asking about writing samples by other people. one tries to make the candidate talk about the interviewer’s work.
i was reminded by ari’s story, because i’m usually assigned the role of producing hard-to-ignore intestinal noises. that and dozing off. our students are well-prepared.
December 17, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Galvinji
at our department, we assign the interviewing faculty to specific roles, in order to simulate real conditions
Now I know why I never got a tenure-track job. My mock interviews were much more straightforward and collegial.
December 19, 2008 at 8:51 am
Mr. Upright
I went on 9 interviews in 2000. I obviously learned a lot during the process — the first few were disasters. Once I got an offer, the confidence that I knew I had secured a job relaxed me so much that I got offers at the three other interviews I went on after that!
I can still remember the first really good answer I gave. I think I was a little out of it and my defenses were down. During the dept. grilling someone asked what single upper-level physics class I would most like to teach. Without really thinking, I answered thermodynamics/statistical mechanics. When asked why, I replied, “because I never really felt like I learned the subject and I want another chance.” I have never seen so many smiles and nods at one time!
December 19, 2008 at 4:04 pm
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