People often say that every talk is a job talk. I think this is a reasonable approach. And to be clear, “job talk” refers to more than the presentation itself. It’s about the time spent at the host institution overall. You want to make a good impression when you go and visit a school. Making a good impression includes showing at least some level of interest in the department where you are giving a talk. I guess one could argue that in some cases a person can afford to be smug (e.g., seniority, fame, etc.), but personally, I see little reason for such behavior.
There are about a million ways in which one can show various levels of interest in a host. Here is one.
Departments often use seminar visits as an opportunity for faculty to engage with others in the discipline beyond the presentation itself. That is, people like to have one-on-one meetings or a meal. If when you get invited your main concern is getting out of there as soon as possible, it is a lack of respect to the hosts. This is especially the case if you are getting an honorarium, which is supposed to compensate for the time you are spending there.
Some may disagree with that point so I’ll add one more component to the hypothetical to strengthen the case: if you are being brought in as a job candidate it is in your best interest to be excited about the opportunity to spend some time with faculty (and students if that’s part of the local culture). One of the things departments look for is the likelihood of a person taking a job in case of an offer. Of course, there are all sorts of problematic considerations that may go into this and policy has followed making some of these illegal (e.g., asking about a spouse and using information about that in the decision). However, plenty of information is volunteered by the candidate that may well be brought up in discussions.
For example, if you are a job candidate and cannot wait to get out of the place, it does not send a good message. Having one dinner with faculty is pretty standard unless perhaps it is a school with minimum resources. I certainly don’t know of any research universities in our field where a job candidate would not be taken to dinner.
Such interactions are an opportunity for the hosts to get to know the candidate, but also for the candidate to get to know the hosts. If the candidate seems to show no interest in this, the message could well be: I have no interest in joining you for the next several years of my life anyway so I would rather get out of here as soon as possible.*
Familial obligations may make this more difficult for some than for others. Nonetheless, if you are considering a position for real, presumably that would have implications for your entire family so it seems like added incentive for learning about a possible new job and community.
* I would say this is especially the case with candidates who are not straight out of graduate school and so one cannot help, but wonder about the likelihood of the candidate leaving his or her current position for a new one.
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Is it correct to infer you have some counter-examples in mind? I’ve never ever seen a job candidate be unwilling to spend “social” time in the interview. (I have occasionally seen job candidates purposely insult people when they really did not want the job.) Being in town for a lecture/seminar is another more variable thing.
Funny, just as I was wrapping up the post I thought: are people going to wonder why I’m even bringing this up? Is this all too obvious? So just to clarify: this post was inspired by experiences of the sort mentioned above (candidate proposing a schedule that would not allow for a dinner). I figured if this happens then it is not completely taken-for-granted information and may be worth a mention.
I’m intrigued by your comment about the insult and a candidate who doesn’t want the job. Did the candidate figure this out during the visit? Because otherwise, why visit, just to have the opportunity to insult?
From a grad student’s perspective, I also find having a presenter spend time with us invaluable. Although a) we have no power in any hiring decisions and b) we are most likely, or at least hopefully, going to be leaving the institution in a couple of years, the benefits to the potential presenter are slim for that talk at that institution. On the other hand, if the presenter decides to stay at their current institution (or, the talk is just that in particular cases), it means that you can meet potential candidates early which will help from your own institution.
For my own part, I have found meeting with presenters, speakers and job candidates to be one of the best things that I have done over my career in grad school. I even went to one my first year to a grad student meeting with senior scholar who I knew very little about his work and his work was not in any way related to mine. Over the course of the conversation, he helped me think about how network analysis (that was his specialty) could actually be related to what I was interested in studying. Other times, I have taken the opportunity to find out how other departments work, ask productive scholars how they are so productive (yes, I asked it exactly like that) and advice for the job market for myself. While I fully trust the faculty in my department, we all know that departments have their own quirks and idiosyncrasies, so it is good to get an outside perspective.
What is surprising is that very few grad students go to these “meet-and-greet” sessions. I don’t know if this is unique to my department or whether students are, by default, scheduled in the least convenient time slot (because the more convenient ones are taken by the one-on-one meetings with faculty). In line with Colonel Density’s comments, I wonder what kind of message that sends to a presenter (whether officially giving a job talk or not) about a department. And, like the case of the presenters, it really costs nothing to get huge potential benefits for grad students.
Perhaps if a candidate is top notch these things will matter less, but overall, I would agree that these are relevant issues.
Mike, you seem to be doing a great job with taking advantage of professionalization opportunities, good for you!
You bring up several very good points, relevant from various perspectives.
1. It is not a good message when grad students don’t show up to meetings with visitors. If this is with a job candidate, especially one who tends to work with students, the person will want to know about them. While it is hard to argue that any one factor will make or break a deal, seeing apathetic grad students can be a considerable turn-off.
2. Any savvy visitor uses the opportunity to meet with grad students as an opportunity to learn about the up-and-coming young scholars in the field.
3. In addition to the benefit coming from #2 to grad students, as you note, grad students can learn quite a bit from such meetings. If it’s not a savvy visitor (as per the type mentioned in the above post) then grad students can learn about what not to do!
Note also that in addition to any specific job that may be on the table, there will be other future interactions with colleagues (and the students will be colleagues in not too long as well) that also suggest taking advantage of opportunities to get to know people.
Eszter, thank you! I am really lucky to have great mentors, but I honestly think that being part of Socioblogpia (GIANT h/t to anomie for that) has also helped a whole lot. Between dispelling myths, to knowing the rulz, and learning skills I probably should already have, it has been a great asset being part of the community. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone in person at ASA.
By the way, if there is still interest in doing the weekly grad-school myth-dispelling sessions on scatterplot, how about calling it “Line of Best Fit.” Kind of cheezy, but I think that it works.
For the record, we take the feedback from the grad students about the candidate very seriously. We don’t always go with what the students want, of course, but their opinions are usually very thoughtful and well-grounded.
I didn’t mean to imply that our comments are not taken seriously or that they are not valued. I just meant that we actually have no power in the actual decision because we are not in the room when the final decision is made.
For any new job seekers, I wanted to add that if you are serious about a job, you should not only show interest in the department but in each of the faculty you meet. All those office visits are opportunities to connect, and at the end of the day each of these people will vote one (equal) vote.
Political psychologists say that when voting, we decide who we like and then find justifications for why they are a better candidate (even if we don’t realize we are doing this). I think this happens in academic hiring too. Chances are in a pool of 3 or 4 interviewees there will be one who is out of the question and then a couple who are equally promising, if in different ways. Connecting with indididuals can help you stand out and showing interest in their work, teaching, activism, whatever… can do that.
I see this more clearly from the other side of the desk (having now been through 5 searches) than I did as a candidate.
mike: I meant my comment more to potential job candidates, not to blow off the grad students. Some people have lost jobs because of how they treated the grad students, and some people have gotten jobs (when the faculty were uncertain or divided) because of positive reports from the grad students.
This conversation is very interesting to me. There are people who really, truly want a job at X University, but can’t wait to get out of there - and worse yet, are all smug and watch-looking and etc? It strikes me as odd that it would have to be mentioned at all as a job market ‘don’t.’
“However, plenty of information is volunteered by the candidate that may well be brought up in discussions.”
For example, if you are asked over lunch what it is about [a-large-coastal-metropolitan-area-that-is-not-my-current-hometown] that makes it particularly interesting to you or possibly a good place for you to do your research, and you answer, “have you SEEN the women in this city? I’d be an idiot not to try to move here while I’m still young!”…well, then, people will bring this up in discussions (and it’s the folks who try to connect the comment to your CV who will have the biggest smirks on their faces).
olderwoman: thank you for clarifying. it is nice to know that our thoughts are considered. To me the whole hiring decision is a giant mystery so it is helpful to know how things are taken into account.