Summary Interviewing strategies for faculty roles on and off the tenure-track (Youtube) youtu.be
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Speaker 0 So let's start off by, you know, immediately jumping into the types of interviews that you're likely to face. During pandemic, everything was virtual. Now we are sort of returning back to the sort of the normal state of affairs where any first round interviews, which usually there are first round interviews are gonna be, virtual, gonna be on the video. I don't think anyone's doing phone calls anymore. That's so old school.
Speaker 0 And then we have the campus interviews, and and every discipline likes to call these different things as well, fly outs and so forth. They differ because of the length of time. Right? Some on campus interviews do span multiple days. I've seen it up to a 3 day campus interview, which is, terrifying, and also the the types of people that you're gonna be engaging with as part of this process.
Speaker 0 So the the first round may be a small subset of the search committee. In the campus interview, it's the whole search committee and then more people and administrators and students and all sorts of people that you might intersect with as part of that process. So you have to sort of be ready for that diversity of people. In each case, though, the types of questions that you're likely to get aren't going to differ widely, and they're not gonna be so, unusual because they're mainly focused on 3 main areas of of your scholarly abilities. Right?
Speaker 0 Your research, your teaching, and your service. It's very fundamental core aspects of being a, a PhD or post doc and then applying those to a faculty role. So the questions won't diverge too much from a standard set of questions. The challenging, aspects of the campus interview are not necessarily the questions, but the the entire sort of experience, the job talk, the teaching demonstration, the fact that you have multiple meals with faculty, and those are interviews too, and meetings with students. And, you know, they're they're scheduled so, specifically sometimes that you get, you know, scheduled bathroom breaks, which is not quite how humans work necessarily, but sort of being ready mentally, physically, and emotionally for that is is gonna be important.
Speaker 0 And I'll share a sample agenda that I've I always share when I talk about these things just to give you an example of of what that looks like. Every, interview type that I'm gonna be touching on or every type of interview that you're gonna go through, every aspect of the interview is gonna be covered in more detail in 1 of our resources that I really want to draw attention to. It's the PhD career training platform. You will have access to this 1, and so you can leverage this, as a as a great tool. And these are just then the examples of, you know, what are are covered in this.
Speaker 0 They've they've broken up these resources into stem and humanities and social sciences, but you can see in each of these lessons, they touch on and expand on some of the things that I'm gonna be talking, in brief about today. So really do take an the opportunity to, utilize this resource to get further insight into this process. And I'll share a couple of other resources related to this. So, you know, the the first round, the campus interview, the teaching demonstration, the job talk, each of these is covered for both of these disciplines, so that you can take advantage, of that. So what are you gonna, be faced with in terms of questions, especially in these first round interviews?
Speaker 0 And we'll sort of focus on those first before jumping into the campus ones. To a certain extent, these are generally the type of questions that you can fit into a a 30 to 45 to sometimes 60 minute interview, for a first round, interview. And they're not gonna be too, as I said, too divergent from this sort of categories. They can ask about your research fundamentally. They can ask about your teaching.
Speaker 0 They can ask about the impact of your research and what you're gonna bring to the institution. If it's a teaching focused position, they might ask about, you know, how you're gonna teach these classes or what classes you want to teach. They wanna get a sense that you understand them as an institution because every academic institution is different. So they might ask you about, you know, what you know about them or their department or their students. Right?
Speaker 0 So that background research is gonna be helpful too. Again, depending on the nature of the position, whether it's a tenure track or or or nontenured position, those questions can differ slightly. You're not gonna be asked about funding, for example, for a non tenure position. But but these things are the core elements that sort of help the search committee say, this person knows what they're doing. They have a very, clear idea about their teach their research goals and their impact of their research.
Speaker 0 They are excited to teach and to teach a diverse population of students, and they are engaging and and energized by being part of the faculty, and contributing to that. So, you know, these are questions, hopefully, that you've been thinking about in terms of, you know, how to prepare for interviews or what to be thinking about. I'll touch on a couple of these as we go through in terms of expanding on them, but I just wanna give you a sort of an an overall sense of those types of questions first. In the video interview scenario, I also wanna touch on some of the logistics of how to manage that that space as well. Right?
Speaker 0 So the everyone's been doing virtual stuff for a long time, so this should be second nature to you. But I I do like to remind you because your first impressions do matter as part of your engagement with a search committee. Right? The way that you present yourself and the the confidence and the sort of the the brand, your scholarly brand is a a key part of that. Now the 3 things that I tend to focus on for getting your video interviewing right are lighting, because lighting is the sort of a virtual handshake.
Speaker 0 It's what makes you immediately apparent and clear and obvious. And if you're shadowy and dark, you know, in shadows, that's gonna be challenging. So the 1 thing to remember with lighting is that it needs to be in front of you and hitting you in the face so that you get a nice, clear perspective there. You really don't wanna be in a shadowy environment because it really it changes the nature of that, the interview scenario. Number 2 is your chair, and I I am fooling on this 1 right now because I have a, a wheelie chair that rotates.
Speaker 0 But every interview that I've had, a mock interview where someone is on a a a swing chair, eventually, your body gets so energized that you start doing this, and it's very distracting. Right? So get rid of the the the wheelie swing chair right out the window and just have a fixed chair. You will be much more centered and focused. And then thirdly is the sort of you and how much of the screen that you you fill.
Speaker 0 Right? And and so these are, examples, I think, of of, things that you may have seen as you are engaging with video, chats with people. Right? There's a person who's way back and very small. There's possibly very close, and you're sort of, you know, looking up their nostrils, and there's there's sort of the the 1 in the middle that sort of works well.
Speaker 0 And in terms of how to think about that in your own screen, if you divide it into these quadrants, your eye should be along that top line there, that sort of middle line. So, hopefully, it looks like that way, and I'm I'm illustrating what that looks like. And all this does is it sort of equalizes the people on the screen so that you're all sort of on the same scale as it were, and it makes for an easier conversation than if you're too close or too far away or in the shadows or anything like that. If you can get all this right, then no one's gonna sort of say, oh, that was great. They had a great video back you know, a great video's presence, but they it's going to add value to the way that you talk about yourself, and it's going to increase the sort of the confidence of your narratives about your research.
Speaker 0 So it is worth investing a little bit of time, into, you know, that process. The other thing to think about is sort of, you know, the the the logistics around you. Right? So the the camera should be at eye level at all times. Right?
Speaker 0 I still meet with people who's who are on laptops just like this, and the camera's pointing out at the ceiling, and I can see the ceiling fan. Makes me feel like I'm talking to them lying on the floor. So it's a little bit disconcerting from my perspective. Your phone is a a key lifeline to everything, and as you're going to interviews, your friends and family may be texting you and wishing you luck. Every time your phone dings, you will unconsciously look at it.
Speaker 0 And in interview, if they hear that phone ding and they see you do that, it's a real turn off for, for interviewers to see you do that. Right? It really does not bode well in terms of your engagement with them, but it's an unconscious response that you have. Right? So it buzzes and you look at it.
Speaker 0 So like the swingy chair, take it and and toss it into the other room as far as away as you can. You just don't need it during the interview. I know, of course, if you have drinks, you're gonna spill them. It's just the way that the world works. The other aspect is, is your background.
Speaker 0 Right? Because the background says things about you in the background, but they they become part of your brand. And and so certainly, I've seen across this the the virtual world that we live in, different backgrounds, different versions. The blurry background, obviously, is gonna be your safest bet because it does keep your everything anonymous in terms of that background. So that's obviously your go to.
Speaker 0 If you don't like that because it's sort of bits of your body get lost, then you just need to sort of curate that background, effectively. Faculty, I think, would be very interested in books behind you. So if you have to go for the books background, you know, it's like, what are they reading? What's going on there? There's a great, Twitter channel talk called bookcase credibility where they critique the books behind people in the news when they have bookcases behind them, and they offer funny feedback on that process.
Speaker 0 So if you enjoy poking fun at people's book choices, then that's a good choice for you. But it sort of illustrates what people are doing. Right? Yes. You're there, but they're also looking into the background to see what you represent.
Speaker 0 So just make sure that that background matches, what you're trying to do. If you don't have a space that's quiet and and and tidy and or you have children running in the background or angry cats like I do who are locked out, we do have rooms that you can reserve at, at Penn Square Services in our interview suite. They're they're in the basement, subbasement, sub subbasement. I can't remember what level it is. So they're not rooms with nice bright windows, but they are very, clean and, in terms of just being absent of anything that's distracting.
Speaker 0 So you're welcome to reserve those rooms and, that link is in, the, the list of resources that I've shared just in case that you need that space. And, obviously, there are other spaces on campus where you can do that. But somewhere quiet, somewhere that you're comfortable, is obviously gonna be a better place to energize you as you are preparing for these, you know, somewhat stressful engagements. Let's jump over just to some of the logistics then of the campus interview because this is the the the sort of the biggest, sort of investment of your time as you're really trying to position yourself, to to demonstrate the scholarly value that you bring. Now, again, every position that you're applying for is gonna be subtly different based on the institution, based on the the weighting of research and teaching, based on whether it's tenure track or or off the tenure track or visiting position.
Speaker 0 So you sort of have to take those things into account as you are thinking about this advice. But these generally are the things that you would expect on an on campus visit. You would meet with the whole search committee as a group in most cases, And then you would probably meet with the majority of them 1 on 1, and you'd also meet 1 on 1 with faculty who are not part of the search committee, who might share an interest in your research or be in a department that you might be collaborating with or just be interested in in, contributing to that process. There are going to be multiple meals. And and although every meal is a social experience, it's still an interview.
Speaker 0 It's just not an interview where you're waiting for people to ask you questions. It's a it's an interview where you have to ask questions and share insights that are not necessarily personal insights. You have to share your personal stuff, but are not always sort of formal interview answers. Right? So you have to sort of lean into the idea that they're also looking for a colleague as they are trying to choose someone whose whose research is gonna be impactful for the department.
Speaker 0 And that sort of balance between not necessarily sharing, you know, too much personal information because it's none of their business in the interview, but also being open to, you know, being interested in the environment in which you're going into, I, you know, I think that's a that's a it's a key balance. Right? They should not ask you questions about your family, or or anything like that because, again, that's that's not those questions are are deemed discriminatory or or or that 1 can discriminate based on the answers. They're not illegal questions necessarily, but it's illegal to discriminate based on some of the, you know, the some of those types of probing personal questions. Screening interviews, so I just wanna jump back to this question here, when they tend to happen, and who they are often with.
Speaker 0 So the the screening interviews really do happen on, different timelines for different disciplines. Right? So there are gonna be some conference interviews that are sort of feel like these video interviews or or other they sort of transition to these more video style interviews that is gonna happen in in, late December over the the the break early January. I've seen, screening interviews happen in November December for some positions. And, typically, it's always with the search committee, but not always all the search committee.
Speaker 0 Right? And there's usually no 1 else who's not part of that search committee. So it's just a smaller subset of people who might be involved in conversation, but they are all part of the main committee. So you would you would be engaging with them again on the campus interview as well. So good question here.
Speaker 0 What should you do when people probe, you know, where else are you interviewing with? I I just wanna touch on some of these things before I jump back in. So the the way to think about this question is is to sort of, you know, demonstrate that you are very intentional. Right? And so they say, are you interviewing other institutions?
Speaker 0 And you might say, you know what? I've been very intentional about where I've been looking, because my research, you know, my research is this, and I'm excited about doing teaching. And the types of institutions that I'm most excited by are the ones that, you know, I I would have a the biggest contribution to the departments where I I know that my teaching approaches would have value to the students that are there. And so what you're doing is you're elevating that institution and the other ones that you're applying to into the category of you are a good fit for my my research and my teaching. I've been very intentional about where I've been looking.
Speaker 0 You still don't have to tell them necessarily, but you can give them an example of the type of institutions that you'll be looking for, and you include them in that so that they feel like they are important too, which is kind of your goal when you're interviewing. The teaching demonstration, that's gonna be covered in, well, a little bit more in in some of the other sessions today, and meeting with, administrators could be HR people. It could be deans. It could be presidents. It all depends on the the size of the institution itself.
Speaker 0 This is an example of a, campus interview schedule. This was shared with me pre pandemic by a by a probably postdoc, based on the the discipline here. And it's, you know, it's just overwhelming to look at just as an interview schedule. I find when we interview for positions at career services, we do, you know, a half day affair or a 3 quarters day, and that's tiring for everyone. But this is, you know, this is certainly a a lot going on here because there are there's there's 3 dinners and or 2 dinners and a breakfast and driving in the car with a faculty member, and that can be challenging.
Speaker 0 And then all of these 1 on ones with faculty, some of whom will be part of the panel, you know, the the bigger panel, some of whom won't. So this this is 1 day. I've seen 2 days like this, as well. So I'm not trying to say that just to to to, as a negative, but just to sort of give you a sense that you do have to be prepared. It's like you have to train for this.
Speaker 0 So you have to be ready to sort of have that energy throughout 1 and a half days and still manage to, you know, give a a dynamic job talk or teaching demonstration even though, you know, you've just come back from your scheduled 3 minute bathroom break. We have a list of questions that have been shared with us by PhD students and postdocs who've gone on faculty, who have been interviewing for faculty positions both first round and campus interviews. You can access these, on our website, and I'll just give you a sample of of what these can look like because, again, they all follow a similar theme. Right? So we've we've broken them down into sort of, you know, research and and teaching and services, the main categories.
Speaker 0 And then there's a general category that sort of doesn't fit into any of these. But each of these questions isn't too different from 1 another. They're just variations of a theme, and it's not as if you should go through this and come up with a written answer for everything and then say, well, I'm ready because you don't you don't need to do that because 1 1 solid answer should answer the majority of these questions more or less. You can tweak it as you're giving it, but you should be ready for these questions in terms of saying, oh, I've never thought about that. I've never thought about how, you know, research or my funding my plan for funding or whatever that's gonna look like.
Speaker 0 So just be aware that, you know, you wanna you wanna look for the gaps in your thinking. Right? I I'm gonna talk about this. I'm excited to talk about this, but I've never thought of this. And then those things that you've never thought of, you want to start sort of cultivating some ideas so that should a question like that come up, you're you're ready to go.
Speaker 0 So this is your research areas. In terms of advice to give you around research. Right? So every time that you talk about research, you wanna talk about the impact of your research. It doesn't really matter what discipline you're in as you're doing this because impact looks different in different fields.
Speaker 0 But you want to be able to say, you know, not just I'm working on or I'm focusing on this area, but you wanna be able to say I found this. You know, this was really interesting interesting or in this you know, in my in my particular subfield, this was actually really helpful because right? So you you wanna upsell the impact that that your research has. Fundamentally, the 2 questions that faculty are gonna be interested in is your research if it's a research position rather, is your research fundable and is publishable? Right?
Speaker 0 Those are things that contribute to your likely success on the tenure track if it's a tenured role or contribute to the department success even if you're not on a tenured role. And so thinking about your research form, who would like you to who's likely to publish it and who's likely to fund it always demonstrates the impact of your research because if people are likely to find or publish it, then they find it impactful. You need to obviously make sure that there's a narrative that connects the research that you have done to what you want to do. And usually there's a a very clear thread in that. A lot of what they want to hear about isn't the things that you've done in chapter 1 of your dissertation necessarily, but how you're gonna leverage that to come up with a research plan that takes you for the next, you know, 6 to 10 years.
Speaker 0 So you really wanna make sure that you're translating the impact that your past and current research has and transition that to a and this is how it's gonna inform my my future research. Right? They they really want to hire you not because of what you've done, but because of the potential of what you will be doing. Again, from a from a research perspective. Talking about research as a a mentoring tool.
Speaker 0 Talking about research as a way to promote diversity and equity and inclusion as part of an institution. These are all things that are worth sort of investing in as you create a research narrative. It's not always just about the research topic. It's about the impact that the research can have on the community, as a whole. And if you're in a stem field, you might eventually have to talk about a start up package and what that looks like and how much that is.
Speaker 0 Not necessarily to volunteer that information, but I certainly had a lot of postdocs say, you know, they asked me what I was looking for in terms of a start up package. And, you know, although the the general negotiation approach is not to put a number on the table and but rather to say, well, what do you offer? That still is valuable, but you you kind of need to have an answer in mind. And this is a question that really your you and your adviser and your PI need to work on together. It's not something that Accurate Services that we can say we definitely need this amount of money for your start up because it's very research, centric.
Speaker 0 Teaching, as a focus. Right? So, again, these are all different types of questions that that relate to teaching in different ways, and and the 1 I've arrowed here arrowed, signed, arrowed, is that a word? What experience do you have teaching diverse populations? It's a very it's a very common question.
Speaker 0 Right? And so understanding who that population is and, you know, what that looks like, in terms of different teaching approaches is gonna be key, and important. And our colleagues at the Center of Teaching and Learning are wonderful people to sort of obviously, talk to about teaching approaches and and and how to frame that up as you are talking about your experiences. But, again, just examples of what that looks like. Here are the sort of the my my broad advice for answering some of these questions.
Speaker 0 Give examples. Right? You can't just say, oh, yes. I you know, I've taken a very inclusive approach to my teaching. Find a a thing that you wanna sort of tell a story about.
Speaker 0 We'll talk about stories, and telling stories later on in this workshop as well. But, you know, here's an example of me using this approach, and here's why I think it was helpful. And here's what the students said, you know, at the end of that that course. Right? So the examples make your teaching come to life, and and teaching itself is about telling stories, stories about research, stories about themes.
Speaker 0 Right? So it's an illustration of your teaching approach to tell stories. You obviously have submitted in many cases the teaching philosophy with examples in as well. You can expand on that. Right?
Speaker 0 You just you never wanna say the same things that you said in your materials. You always wanna add a layer onto that process. Being ready to walk through a syllabus or a course book, you know, textbook that you might use, those are things that often come up as well. You know? Walk me through how you would teach this course.
Speaker 0 And if you can sort of say, yes. I'd love to. And then, you know, because you've you've thought about a sample syllabus before, then you can do that. And we have, we have a workshop on creating sample syllabi from, earlier, in the prep camp that you can take a look at on our YouTube channel as well. And then our last category of questions are the service ones.
Speaker 0 And and, obviously, the in the hierarchy of academia, it's usually research teaching service. Right? If the institution is teaching focus, it'll be teaching research service. But service will always fall somewhere, on the bottom. But you still we need to be ready for it.
Speaker 0 You still need to think about the contribution to the institution, to the department, to the student body, to the faculty body. Right? All these things are worth thinking about. You know, it's easy to sort of say, yes. I'll volunteer for any any committees that you have.
Speaker 0 You know, that's sort of a a stock answer as it were, but, you know, do some ex exploration into what they do do and what committees they do have and why you might be able to add value to those. Some of that background research, I think, is gonna be helpful to tell more of an authentic story about why service matters to you. But, again, in terms of highlighting service experience, look to things that you've done in the past, and make sure that you're giving examples of how that's been impactful, not only to your community, but to you. And then say, this is the type of thing that I would like to do, you know, for your stream body or for your as part of your faculty. I did it before.
Speaker 0 I had an impact. I'm really excited about doing it again, moving forward. Now as part of your trying to understand their culture around service or even their culture around research and teaching, you can do a little bit of background research. And so although this is about interviewing, I am going to jump back to this concept of networking because it really does help make your interviewing process much easier if you have more knowledge about an institution, about their faculty, about the things that they're doing. Right?
Speaker 0 So 1 of the things I would do is I would always jump over to, LinkedIn, the University of Pennsylvania School page on LinkedIn. I did a keyword search for for professor, and this pulled out, 14,000 alumni who have the the the title professor in their profile. Doesn't mean that they're all professors right now, but the majority of these people will be in an academic setting. And that 14,000 people you can break down in different ways and explore it based based on discipline. So on the left, it's just broad people.
Speaker 0 There's just, you know, part of that 14,000. On the right, I chose people from Penn State. Right? And you can see what they graduated in and when they graduated and what their role is right now. So if you're applying to a Penn State position, you might be able to find Penn alumni in faculty roles, maybe not in your department, but it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 0 But who can give you insight into the culture, the student body, the faculty, the politics, the you know, whatever is gonna be helpful to you as you are thinking about the this process. So that networking aspect is actually really helpful because then especially when it comes to interviews when they say, do you have any questions? You can say, yes. You know, I know that you do this or I know that you have this or I know your students are like this. Can you tell me a bit more about it, or can you tell me how you have worked with that?
Speaker 0 Right? So if you can demonstrate a knowledge of an institution, that's gonna be helpful. Especially so for institutions that might, you know, not might think that they are less familiar to you based on your background. You know, their their question will be, do do you really wanna work here? Is this the right fit for you?
Speaker 0 And so if you can demonstrate that you've engaged with them and understand them, that's gonna go a long way to making them feel like, you know, you've been intentional and thoughtful about that. So LinkedIn is a great place to look for faculty. We pull a lot of our faculty panelists when we're doing programs from LinkedIn, so they are very much active on that. MyPenn is the Penn alumni database. Right?
Speaker 0 So LinkedIn has about a 185,000 alumni and current students. Mypen has about 400,000 alumni on it, and you can do a much narrower search on Mypen by actual degree type and discipline and department. So I did a search for job title, professor assistant associate, and for the graduate you know, graduate level, undergraduate, graduate, graduate, and then you can see the types of faculty here based on the different schools out there. Right? And so all of these people can be can give you insight potentially into a department or even their process of getting the faculty role.
Speaker 0 Right? So this networking is helpful. All of that can, cheer up to you being more confident about presenting yourself, presenting yourself and your research in an interview setting. And the the last category on the my pen is worth noticing is that some of these people would have checked off the I'm available for mentorship. I'm available to provide mentorship tag on their on their profile, which means that they're more likely to say, yes.
Speaker 0 I'm happy to chat with you. Right? So look for that as an example. So on this 1, we'll take Erin here, associate professor, University of Hartford. If I look at her profile on my pen right at the bottom, you can see an email address there.
Speaker 0 It's easy to find emails to people in academia. That's not so hard, but you can see a little bit more information about her, and then I can take this, information and I can double check that she's still there. And, you know, there she is, associate professor from the University of Hartford, faculty pages, and you can learn a little bit more about her from that perspective. So a great way to get in contact with, with that. You say more about making general statements about students.
Speaker 0 I've always felt uncomfortable generalizing about a group of 100 or 1000 of people who I don't know. So it's a good question, and I think 1 way to do it is to is to leverage the information that they are they are sharing about their students. Right? So if you're engaging with the social media of, you know, of an organization, the sort of the the the equivalent of Penn today. Right?
Speaker 0 Penn today publishes all sorts of things about initiatives and faculty and students and so forth. So if you're just, you know, reading into that, then you don't have to say, I know that your students are x or I, you know, I assume that y. You can say, you know, I was reading this, and I saw that, you know, this initiative was highlighted or the students, you know, were were talking about in this way. You know, that's really interesting. Can you tell me more?
Speaker 0 Or that's great for me because I've had experience doing that? So I'd always I'd always demonstrate that you have found this information, in a more sort of research oriented way. Right? You haven't just made an assumption, but you've you've you've looked into their their resources to be able to make to use their perspectives to talk about their institution, which you may not know about, that much about or as much about as your current institution. So that that's the way I would do it.
Speaker 0 I'd leverage the what they say about that. And social media is a great way of of of highlighting that, or, you know, the the the Penn today style thing, which I think anyone could probably sign up for at Penn even even if they're not a faculty or student as well because it's meant to be, outward looking. 1 of the, most challenging questions that when when postdocs or students come back from an interview, campus interview, and I say, you know, what what was 1 of the most challenging questions? It's always, along the same theme, which is, so what can I tell you? And the reason this is challenging is because this is sometimes asked at the beginning of 1 of these 30 minute sessions with a faculty member.
Speaker 0 You come in, sit down, and, you know, expecting to be asked 10 questions or ready to be answer the questions that you get. And the first question that they ask you is, so what can I tell you? Right? And that's challenging because it means that you are now in control of leading the narrative, through the interview. You can ask them a bunch of questions, which you should because you need some of the information that they have.
Speaker 0 But if you only ask them questions, then all they get all they remember from the interview is that you were very engaging, but they did all the talking. Right? They they're taking up all the space in terms of sharing information. So they may not be able to advocate for you to the search committee if all they've done is talked at you. They could say you ask good questions, but they don't have anything to take away from that.
Speaker 0 So you need a little bit of a a slightly different strategy, in the scenario where no 1 has specific questions for you. And the the general strategy that I highlight is, you know, ask a question that prompts a response to which then you can respond to with something that you would have said had they actually asked you a question, you know, in a more interview style. So that way, you know, you you might ask about you know, tell me about some of the collaborations you've had with other faculty, and they say, sure. In my research, I've done this, this, and this. And you you listen to that, and you say, that's really interesting.
Speaker 0 It sounds very similar to what I've been doing as a postdoc where I've had, you know, research collaboration across 2 institutions, and, you know, that was very successful. So it it all feels slightly artificial, but it always means that you are not only asking smart questions, but you're leaving something behind with the interviewer so that they can take that with them as they advocate for you. So it's it's the easiest way to fill that space productively while still having those key takeaways. And these are, you know, the examples of questions, not questions that you need to ask, but examples of the types of questions that might prompt a response that you can respond to. You know, what types of innovative teaching approaches have you seen here that work well?
Speaker 0 Oh, we do this. And then I, oh, that's great because I was trained in that or whatever that is. Professional development, DEI approaches. Right? So anything that sort of allows you to not only learn about the institution and the faculty colleagues that you might have, but then gives you that opportunity to respond with something tangible.
Speaker 0 And and that's that's my advice for that. It's not the only approach you can take, obviously. A good engaging conversation is is a great thing to have. If someone leaves saying, I enjoyed that conversation, then that's great. But if they can also enjoy the conversation and also in a, you know, meeting with a search maybe say, and I really like this person because they talked about this or they have this example, then, obviously, that's gonna be a a stronger, approach to take.
Speaker 0 Now the stories that you tell about yourself need to be structured. Right? And and this is where we come to the idea of the STAR format when it comes to answering questions that that integrate examples into it. So the STAR format is just situation, task, action results, and it creates a structure around your narrative. So it's not a meandering monologue of I don't know quite what I'm saying, but I'm gonna keep talking and hopefully it will coalesce into something tangible.
Speaker 0 This is a much more structured way that you can use ahead of time to think about the stories that you want to tell and keep them structured. Now task, I feel like, is the wrong word. It feels like you have to do it. I have to do this task. I prefer challenge because it it sets up the drama in the story, and the drama is good because it makes the story interesting if there's an element of drama.
Speaker 0 I understand why they chose TAS because the scar approach is sounds terrifying, whereas a STAR approach sounds uplifting. Right? But SCAR, I think, is a better illustration of what you're trying to do. You're trying to highlight the challenge of teaching or research and then demonstrate how you've overcome that in different situations. Now the the, the approach to telling these stories with the drama is sort of this this narrative story arc.
Speaker 0 Right? Because stories are how we transmit information effectively. If you just tell people, I did this, that's great. But if you can tell the story and weave that skill or experience or impact into that sort of a drama filled story, you're you're gonna have gonna be stickier. People are gonna remember stories more than they remember just a list of facts.
Speaker 0 So that's what we're trying to do with a style format. It also helps people, have all the information that they need. Right? So if you're if someone says, tell me about a teaching experience that went well, and you say, well, we were working together on a course. You know, the first questions that anyone would have is like, well, who's we and what course and where was this and what's going on?
Speaker 0 Right? So the situation allows you to to get all all the information across in the way that you need to get across, so that there's no questions that the interviewers have. The challenge then is the the thing that sets up the drama. Right? This was no 1 had taught this course before or in my research, we didn't have the data that we needed to make progress or whatever the the the challenges, you know, based on the question that allows you to set up the thing that you did.
Speaker 0 Right? So I connected with colleagues in the set of teaching learning, and we developed a a novel approach to communicating this this topic to the students. Or I collaborated with someone in the lab who had this skill set, and I was able to learn that quickly and apply that to my research. So, I mean, these are more skills based experiences as opposed to a theoretical research, you know, conversations about the the nature of your research, but those skills are still important. And and the action is what you do to address the challenge.
Speaker 0 Right? And that's what makes it sticky. Now the results can be, you know, the more traditional. I got funding. I published a paper.
Speaker 0 I presented at a conference. Right? You can you can definitely lean into those as as results. But every story that you want to tell about teaching, about service, about research to a certain extent can follow the structure so that it again, it's not a meandering monologue. It's a very focused approach to getting information across, but making it sticky information.
Speaker 0 Throughout the day, you're also gonna have opportunities to ask lots of different questions. Now in that sched schedule that I shared where there's, like, 15 1 on 1 meetings, it's okay to ask the same question to the same type of people. Right? If they're all faculty members, you might ask the same question, 5 times. In fact, you might answer the same question 5 times.
Speaker 0 Tell me about yourself. Right? And you have to remember to give as much of a positive excited answer on the 5th time as the first time because, obviously, they weren't in the room when he gave it the first time. But questions aren't gonna be important, and they're gonna sort of vary depending on who the the audience is. Are they faculty?
Speaker 0 Are they new faculty? Are they established faculty? Are they administrators and deans and high level people who don't know about the nuts and bolts of the department, but know their vision for the institution. Right? So your questions need to adapt.
Speaker 0 And once you have a schedule in front of you, you'll be able to think about, well, what can I ask this person that sort of aligns with their role? That schedule should be shared with you ahead of time, and it should have a list of people that you're meeting with. And if it's not, it's okay to ask for that ahead of time to say, hey. Could you share do you have confirmations for who I'll be meeting with, of course, you know, over the days? That would be wonderful.
Speaker 0 Right? So you you definitely want not to be surprised. You definitely don't want to be surprised by meeting people that you weren't expecting. So the the schedule should be shared with you ahead of time. All of these are just some examples of the types of questions that you you might touch on there.
Speaker 0 You may have specific ones to your interests or your values, and and those are gonna be important too. Just some, question. There's note taking appropriate during on campus meetings. So, ideally, what you're doing in an interview is you're engaging very directly with the people. Right?
Speaker 0 The benefit of being there in person is that you're you're gonna make a much bigger impact by engaging, you know, 1 on 1 and being present in the room. And sometimes if you're you're you're taking too many notes, every time they say something, like, can't write that down, it it almost feels like you're interviewing them or you're sort of you're you're doing a report on them. And so I do think jotting down people's names or jotting down a question that you really wanna get answered later on is fine. I probably wouldn't take extensive notes as if you're sort of doing research because it sort of takes you away from the the connection that you're making with people in the in in the space. Sometimes, you know, jotting something down gives you time to think.
Speaker 0 It's like, oh, that's a great question, you say, as you sort of, you know, scribble random stuff on a piece of paper in front of you, and then you can give your your mind some time to think about that. So, you know, I I wouldn't overdo that, but I would I would always have stuff with you in case, you know, you need to something jot something down. You don't get much time to write things down in between meetings in most schedules, but you could also use that time to sort of remind yourself what you covered or something that you wanted to highlight in the next meeting. In a panel meeting, when you're having a conversation, just a a best practice. So there might be 5 people.
Speaker 0 Oftentimes, you know, in these situations, people take turns asking questions. The person who asks the the question, you direct your attention to that person first and you listen to that question, then you answer to that person first for the first part of your answer because you're you're engaging in a sort of a, you know, a conversation with them. But then you want to expand your answer to include everyone, and so you'll be looking around the room and you're getting eye contact with everyone as you continue to answer, including the person who answers it. Right? You don't wanna leave them out.
Speaker 0 And then as you wrap up your question, you return to the person who answers the question, and you finish your answer to that person, and then they know that the the answer is finished. So just a sort of a etiquette when you're talking with lots of people is to sort of to make sure that you are engaging everyone, but you're very intentional about, first of all, responding to the person who asked and then ending up with them, as well. Job talks, I I wanna touch on this quickly because not everyone will have 1 of these or have them in the same way and disciplines that they they do look different. The best way to practice for a job talk is to listen to as many job talks in your department as possible and then reflect on that with your with your adviser, your PI, or other faculty members that you have. You know, what did you think about that?
Speaker 0 What did you like about it? What was confusing to you? And then, you know, do your own check too. What did I like about it? What made me go to sleep?
Speaker 0 What would I have done differently? Certainly, there is a structure that you can apply, and I'll talk about a few, you know, steps to that. But this is fundamentally the best way of doing it because you're listening to people who would be the decision makers at other institutions. Right? The faculty members are the ones who judge these.
Speaker 0 And so getting their thoughts about what is a good talk and what is a, you know, not so good talk is is helpful early on. Now there may not be many of these before your next interview, but as a general best practice, this is a great way of doing that. Job talks tend to be scheduled, I think, at the time where everyone is sleepiest, and so I don't know why that is, but just make sure that, you know, you are bringing the energy to that conversation. This is an opportunity for you to talk about all these things that you've been doing over the last few years, and some of those things may be, you know, negative from your experience and and, you know, have been challenges and and frustrations. In this moment in time, you wanna sort of bring all the positive that you can to talk about your research and and sort of put those frustrations to the side just for that moment in time.
Speaker 0 When you're giving a job talk, you're gonna pull up a presentation. You may have sent it ahead of time. You may have it on a key. You may be putting it from your box file. You're gonna put your phone away, and then you're gonna get up to the podium and pull up your presentation, and then it's gonna ask for a 2 step verification.
Speaker 0 So I always find this when I'm presenting that, you know, I'm very intentional about making sure I don't have my phone with me, and then all of a sudden I need it. So I just wanna put this out there because it's tripping up more than once where I've suddenly needed to do that, and then I'd run around like a crazy thing. If you are in a room where there is a microphone, obviously, leverage your communication skills. Right? So at at a podium, you're gonna need to be near that podium.
Speaker 0 You don't wanna turn around away from the microphone and point at the slide. Right? So you need to be intentional about it. If it's a a handheld mic, you wanna use it. You wanna talk into the top of it as a best practice.
Speaker 0 You don't wanna talk over it as a best practice. Different microphones have different sensitivities around that, so I appreciate that. But do not say, I don't think I need a microphone. I can talk loudly because there will be someone at the back who cannot hear you. Right?
Speaker 0 So just this is something that I actually everyone needs to practice more of in terms of just being comfortable with the the microphones and the technologies in a different space. You know, every time I get a microphone, I forget that you you sort of you talk quieter instead of just talking at the same volume because otherwise it's, you know, too expansive and and and scary sounding if you start talking at the same volume. So it's worth practicing in a space where these technologies exist. The job talk is gonna look different, as I said, with different fields. But generally speaking, there's gonna be an introduction that lays the groundwork for what you're gonna be talking about, much like the situation part of the star story.
Speaker 0 You're gonna talk a little bit about past research to give some context. You're gonna spend most of your time talking about your present research because that's exciting and that's what you're doing now. And you're gonna spend enough time talking about future research so they can believe with confidence that you have a plan for your research moving forward. Again, for research centric positions we're talking about here. And then there's gonna be time for questions.
Speaker 0 And you always want time for questions because it's the way that people get to see how you think on your feet. It's the way that they get to engage. It's the way that they feel part of the process and not just on the receiving end of of your information. So as a general, category, you know, general overview or general schedule, this is the sort of the way I would generally wait the the topics that you're talking about. Some of the challenges that I think come across from job talks are, you know, trying to cover too many of your experiments or research areas.
Speaker 0 If you have multiple things and you try to talk about everything, you're not gonna be able to do that. You're gonna have to have a subset of information that's gonna be helpful. The the the sort of the the impact of your research and how that, you know, has impacted your field of research or how that has impacted your decisions about your future research, that's key too. So the outcomes are gonna be important too. Not again, we're move moving away from my work focuses on or I've been looking at, but thinking about, you know, that that particular context.
Speaker 0 People who don't talk about the what that future research looks like, you know, can oftentimes fail to get the the search committee excited about the potential that you bring. So you do have to have enough time, to to lay out that. So let's talk about this, the the general shape then of the job talk. And I think an hourglass is a great way of sort of thinking about it, starting broad so that you can bring everyone in. There may be students in your job talk.
Speaker 0 There may be people from different departments in your job talk, people outside of your subfield. So you need to sort of help connect your research to a broader set of themes that people go, oh, I understand. I understand why this is situated in this area. I understand where you're coming from. I understand why this is interesting to you, because that's important too.
Speaker 0 Right? Why did you do this? Why did you choose this? Why did you want to invest in your time? That personalizes your research and makes it sort of engaging from a slightly different level.
Speaker 0 But the idea is to sort of not necessarily hook people with a, you know, a fancy hook as it were like a you might do it a 3 minute thesis, but to integrate those types of concepts into it so that everyone, no matter their background, understands what you're trying to answer. What are the broad questions that this research is trying to address, and why are those questions important? That's how I sort of would frame some of that the the introductory period. In terms of the middle part, that's really where you focus in on the specifics of your research based on your discipline and your subfield. Right?
Speaker 0 So you go into the details that are specific to those people and will be understood most by the people in your field. And other people will be like, oh, this is complicated and and yet interesting at the same time. Right? So you you're still gonna talk about you're still gonna make it accessible, but people in your field want to know how you approach this and why is this important and and what why is novel and why it's, you know, pushing the boundaries of your your research field. So you're gonna have to go into some details, to really address that.
Speaker 0 Again, your findings and illustrating those findings, whatever those might be, you know, those are gonna be important, to sort of highlight. And then as you go through the the the this talk, you wanna broaden it out at the end. Right? And broadening it out often means, as part of your future research, explaining why the institution that you're interviewing at is a great place to continue this research. What resources and, what resources and institutions and support systems do they have in place that that would make this research even better that you're proposing?
Speaker 0 How will your research be impactful to the students that you'll be working with? You know, how can that, you know, support institutional goals itself? Right? So you you wanna make it feel customized to the institution that you're at. I wouldn't jump in and say, and you, professor so and so, we can collaborate together.
Speaker 0 It's gonna be great because you're not there yet. So you can certainly hint at future collaborations, but those future collaborations need to be in the future. Right? You need to, first of all, demonstrate that for the first, you know, 4 years, let's say, you're gonna be doing independent, strong research that doesn't require anyone else's help. But you can certainly say, you know, I see in the future opportunities for intersecting my research with other departments or other, you know, research areas here.
Speaker 0 You know, I looked at your institution, and I know you you know, you're very strong in these areas. So, again, you can hint at that, but you you don't really wanna call someone out and, make them put them on the spot as it were. Being cognizant of time, I'm gonna jump to the resources. Again, all of these topics, the job talk, the teaching demonstration, which I haven't covered, are expanded on, in that PhD, creative training platform. So that's gonna be more information there.
Speaker 0 But here's some other resources. Well, first of all, here are those resources. Here are these resources that you wanna take advantage of to expand your knowledge on some of these things. Right? So definitely take a look at some of the programs on the PhD training platform.
Speaker 0 Big interview is our interview prep platform, and you can certainly play around with this to do sample mock interviews at your home. So you create a set of questions, you respond to those questions, it's all recorded, and then you can look at your questions and give yourself a self critique. Or you can even share your video with your peers and say, what do you think? You know, how would you adapt this? They have a whole bunch of videos on answering questions, not necessarily on answering questions that are coming in a faculty path, interview, but still some of those questions are are transferable across fields.
Speaker 0 Right? So you can look at the video curricula as well to get you comfortable. We set up a a sort of a interview set that you can use as 1 of the assignments. So these are just sort of 8 questions, that are commonly asked as oftentimes in first round interviews. If you want to practice those, you can certainly do that.
Speaker 0 You just need to use this assignment code, which is in the links that I'm sharing. I'm going to begin to view and and play around with that. And and I just grouped together some questions that you can practice, if that's helpful. I share this all the time because it's calling from a different institution who pulled together all these resources on the academic job search, and I think any resources are good resources. They don't have to be Penn specific, resources.
Speaker 0 I just wanna make sure that you have those. The National Center For Faculty Development Diversity is a subscription that Penn as an institution has as part of their, as part of this platform. Karen Kelsky has done a whole bunch of webinars. They're fairly old now, but they're still important and relevant. So you can look through her 3 part series there and get her best practices and advice on those things.
Speaker 0 And then all of our the sessions from the prep camp on this year and last year are all on our YouTube channel. So do make sure to follow, subscribe, and take a look at those videos, there as well.