Diggers

Job Application Guide

The Academic Job Interview 

During the job interview, you will be asked to give a seminar (plan on a 50 minute talk) and possibly a "chalk talk," and you will have many short 20-40 minute meetings with faculty in the department. You can easily meet with 8-12 people, sometimes over the period of a day and a half. During this process, you would like to accomplish several things.

First, and most importantly, you need to convince the department that your work is exciting and that you will be a leader in your field in the future. This is the function of the job talk (see below).

Second, convince the department that you will be a good colleague. An essential part of being a good colleague is showing interest and the ability to intelligently discuss the work of each member of the department. During the short meetings, faculty will usually give you a brief description of their work. Be alert and ask questions. It is useful to read in advance a few papers (or at least skim abstracts) from all faculty you are likely to meet. Along the same lines, be as outgoing as possible. If you are naturally shy, make a real effort to open up during the interview. Often, faculty will start the meeting by asking you something about your talk or making small talk. Don't ramble on forever about your own research. Make sure they tell you about their work, even if you have to ask.

Third, would you like to come to this department if offered a job? This means you should ask questions about the department and institution. What is the student faculty ratio? How many years of funding does the training grant supply for each student before you must pay for them with your grant? It is especially important to talk to the most recent recruits. Do they look happy? Have they been sponsored for Young Investigator Awards such as Pew, Searle etc? Have they been able to attract students and post-docs? What kind of track record does the department have for granting tenure to junior faculty. However, do not ask junior recruits about their start-up package. Don't be too pushy with questions during the first interview. For example, if the Chairperson does not discuss the start up package, don't ask. It means they will wait until the second interview. Asking lots of questions has the added benefit of showing that you are serious and that you have thought deeply about the complexities of running a lab.

Dress Code

Certainly a neat and clean appearance is important, but does an interview setting demand a suit? An important objective is that you appear confident and comfortable. If you will feel sweaty and foolish in a suit, try something more casual like a blazer, semi-formal jacket, or just a button-down shirt or blouse.

The Job Talk

Your job talk should be extremely well prepared. Plan carefully to make sure you do not speak longer than 50 minutes. It may be useful to write out the entire talk, word for word, and memorize it. But practice the talk until you feel very comfortable giving it, so you can deliver it in a relaxed way that it does not appear memorized! Practice in front of your lab and try to include some colleagues (faculty, if possible) who are not already familiar with your work. It is important to finish on time. Plan your talk so that you can eliminate a few nonessential slides in case of time troubles. Make simple, readable slides. A good rule of thumb is that any type face should be readable with the human eye when the slide is held at arm's length against the light. For PowerPoint presentations, this means 20 point or larger fonts. Do not overload slides with data. If you don't have time to let someone fully comprehend a complicated slide, you are probably better off not showing it. Give each slide a title which briefly states the conclusion. Make good use of the space on the slide; do not leave huge gaping white areas. Powerpoint encourages bulleted lists, resist. Avoid complete sentences and leave only 1-4 words per bullet point, let your talk fill in the details. If you must use bulleted lists try to sprinkle in some figure or color in each slide to keep the audience conscious. As with your cover letter and research proposal, make sure you get the audience interested. Spend enough time on the introduction to state the general area, what's known, and what are the outstanding questions. You must be able to get a general audience excited. Divide the talk into clear sections and tell the audience ahead of time what's coming, and why it's important. At the end, restate your major conclusions even if you think they must have gotten the message by now. After the summary, include a slide that outlines your future plans. This should be done even if you will give a chalk talk on future plans to the search committee later during the interview; you want to get the entire department excited about your future directions. Be confident. Don't use Ôwe' to describe work where ÔI' is more appropriate. At the end of your talk, be generous but brief in your acknowledgements.

Nervousness can make the questions after the talk challenging. Listen to the question carefully and ask for a repetition if you didn't get it. Asking for a repetition can buy you more mental time even if you heard it the first time! Then, repeat the question for the audience. Take a second or two to formulate a clear and concise response and then deliver it. Do not ramble on forever until you get a sign that the questioner is satisfied. That sign often will not come, and you will look insecure.

Some fraction of the audience is always asleep during any talk, no matter how exciting the subject. Do not let this bother you! Even if the chair of the search committee nods off, it just means they had a big lunch. Find a few people who are listening attentively and give your talk to them.

Relevant Links:

Writing Jobs

Student Employees

Writing Cover Letters

Applications and Forms

Freelance Writing Jobs

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