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November 06, 2009

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anon

Glad I didn't have any interviews in the Wardman Tower yesterday.

I also want to chime in an confirm an urban legend: it is possible to score an extra interview by chatting with faculty at the reception/mixer. So next year, go and be your charming self - you never know what will happen!

anon candidate

Interviewed with Florida International...easily the best looking faculty appointments committee in D.C. Like the cast of CSI Miami.

Eric Muller

This image sends chills down my spine.

I went through the meat market twice -- two consecutive years. Not sure how I found the strength to try a second time after crashing and burning the first. If I never have to go through a process like that again, it'll be way too soon.

Dr. K

Anybody ever hear of the STAIRS?

aggggh

Funny. I took the same hallway photo, but thought better of making it my Facebook profile picture.

blistered feet

Dr. K - When you only have about two minutes between interviews, and are wearing high heels, and have to go down 8 flights in one tower and up 8 flights in the other, the stairs don't really feel like an option!!

anon

Overall, the conference was much more fun than I thought it would be. Exhausting, but fun. The vast majority of my interviews were great. The committee members were interesting, engaging people who treated me with respect and listened to my ideas. I obviously won't get a callback from each of those schools, but I left those interviews feeling good about myself and the school!

But more than a handful of the interviews were simply painful. A little advice to law schools -- don't send faculty members to the conference who (a) fight with each other during the interview, (b) ignore the candidate and laugh at their own jokes the entire time, or (c) treat the candidates like ignorant little children. Two interviews began with open hostility from at least one committee member and went downhill from there. No clue why they wasted their slot interviewing me when they had already decided that I was unqualified for the job!

But all in all, a much better experience than I had anticipated.

anon

I agree with anon above - it was mostly fun and I enjoyed the interviews a lot more than I was expecting. So now what? Is next week pretty much the week the callbacks happen? When do references get called usually, before or after a callback?
By the way, I also enjoyed meeting the other candidates - good luck everyone!

anon

Yes, another tip for committees: Having one person ask all of the questions, from a list of stock questions, and a handful of questions seemingly tailored to the candidate, while the rest of the committee sits silently for most of the interview is unbelievably awkward and signals a lack of interest.

Maybe that's your goal, but at some point we as candidates switch from selling to buying mode, two schools followed this approach in my interviews and they hurt themselves. Even if I don't hear back from those two schools, I'm hopeful to land a job somewhere, and those interviews colored my judgment about those schools. We may only have 20 minutes to make an impression, but it's a two way street.

Anonymous

And be glad you weren't one of the 5 people stuck in that elevator for half an hour on Friday evening!

Jacqui Lipton

With respect to the "what happens next" question (anon on Nov 8), it will vary from school to school. Some schools will be very aggressive with their initial round of callbacks and will already have called people. This doesn't mean they won't call more people later, of course, if they find that the initial group of people are not a good fit. Some schools will wait on callbacks, particularly if they are busy with lateral hiring, or if they feel they are in a strong enough position to take their time for whatever reason (or if they are generally disorganized I suppose).

Bear in mind that if you are not called (or if you are called late), that doesn't necessarily reflect badly on you. Schools are looking for curricular fit and focusing on a variety of other things. Additionally, if schools are hiring for more than one slot, they may have to put a package of candidates together with complementary interests and talents and this may limit who they look at or make offers to.

If you do get callbacks from some schools, but not the schools you were the most interested in, it may not be a bad idea to check in with the appointments chairs of the schools you were really interested in to update them on your progress and let them know you are already interviewing at other schools. Some schools who are taking their time might be spurred to act more quickly if they know they will be competing with other schools over you.

big boy

Do schools call all their top candidates back at the same time? or do they fill in slots by area?

Jacqueline Lipton

Some schools call all candidates back at the same time, while others do it in tiers. If schools are filling different slots, they may prioritize one slot first and then move to another depending on other things they may be doing (eg trying to put a "package" together and balancing curricular needs with entry level versus lateral prospects, for example). Some schools don't do any callbacks until the new year.

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