Graduate Program: Going on the Market

The Hiring Process

We have been asked to respond to the articles about looking for a job in Political Science. The process of getting a job is sufficiently idiosyncratic and coincidental that it would be pretentious to claim to know how to get a job simply because we have done it (once). Our response, therefore, will be based on some observations from our experiences interviewing for a job. Thus, the advice assumes that you have already been asked to interview. After a great deal of discussion based on our experiences on search committees at our respective graduate institutions and feedback about why we were asked to interview in various departments, we feel confident in saying that being asked to interview depends upon some combination of how your vita looks, who is backing you and how vigorously, the reputation of your graduate institution, and the quality of your written work. Lack of data and lack of homogeneity in our experience prevents us from saying more about this part of the process.

Our response, therefore, will consist of some observations about the interviewing process, followed by some advice about preparing for the interviews. This advice will be primarily aimed at making the interviewing process more comfortable rather than more successful. The observations are, or course, influenced by our personalities and the characteristics of the interviewing departments.

First, the interviewing process can frequently be grueling. For example,one of us remembers flying in to an interview site well after midnight and going to sleep only to arise within hours for a seven o'clock appointment. Another person remembers one interview at which there was a dinner and a gathering afterwards which broke up near midnight. The next scheduled event in the morning was breakfast at 7:00. At first this does not seem so bad. Remember, however, that one is often anxious on a job interview and it may take some time to wind down before going to sleep. Also, remember that in the morning one has to prepare to be on the spot for the rest of the day, to give a talk, and to answer dozen of probing questions.

Second, the interviewing process is an exercise in information overload. You are not only in a completely new environment, but are also introduced to many people in a short period, told many facts about the department, and given many descriptions of the local area. You feel pressure, whether real or imagined, to remember not only the names of faculty members, but also what field they work in and, sometimes what they have written All of this is going on at the same time that you are answering many questions, some of them new. Some people have no problem with this quantity of information. Others do.

Third, it is easy to be fairly passive in the interviewing process. While the applicant has generally interviewed only a few times at most, the department that is interviewing has taken part in this process dozens of times. The presumption is that the department knows what it is doing and knows how to do it. This may or may not be true. Even if the department does know what it is doing. It will not always know what the interests of the applicant are. It is up to the applicant to ask to meet specific people, to see certain parts of the community, or to discuss specific issues.

Fourth, the most frequently asked question in a job interview is, "Is there anything I can tell you about this department? This city? This university? This faculty?" and so forth. Sometimes this question is asked out of genuine concern that your questions be answered. Other times this question is asked because the interviewer has no other question to ask. Sometimes one meets with people who have not heard the talk and did not find out much all; out one prior to the interview. Without some known, common ground between two people, half an hour can seem like an awfully long time.

Fifth, the interviewing process is time consuming. It is easy to think of the interview as taking only the time from departure to return. That, however, is only the beginning. Preparation time will vary according to the number of times you have interviewed, now comfortable you are with the presentation, how well you know the interview department; and a number of other factors.

Preparation time, however, may be more easily foreseen than recovery time. While some people may be able to work immediately after arriving home or even on the airplane, our experiences indicate a recovery time of about two days.

The five observations lead to five pieces of advice for the person preparing for the interview:

1. Protect yourself. Make sure that you have time to sleep as much as you need to plus an hour or two for winding up and down. Generally there is some sort of lunch in the midst of the interview day. Make sure that you eat if you are the type of person who does not fast well. (It is easy to feel as if you have been had for lunch.) Also if you don't digest food as well when you are anxious, make sure that there is something available that you can eat. Tell the department in advance so you know it will be there.
2. .Gain as much information as you can about the department before going there. Information that you have before going on the interview is information that you will not have to process when you are there. Talk to people on your campus about the department you are going to visit. Find out whom you should talk to, and who are the people in your field. You may even want to talk to some of those people before you go on the interview. If you have already started a dialogue with some people, you will already have processed the relevant information about them and, probably, other people as well.
3. Think about the people you want to talk to, the things you want to see, and the issues you want to discuss when you go. You may want to mention some of these before you leave your home campus so that the interviewing department can plan. If you do not call beforehand, be sure to look at your schedule when you arrive and mention anything that you want to add or delete at that time. The department has no way to know what you want unless you tell it. Remember that you will be living in this place if you accept the job. The short interview doesn't give you much time to assess the area, and you need to make the most of it.
4. When you go into an interview session with a small group of faculty, have some questions to ask. Even a question that you have already asked several times is better than no question at all. Your questions indicate your interest That the person you had breakfast with already answered all of your questions is unknown to the person to whom you are currently speaking. It you have no questions to ask, you appear to be uninterested. Also, different people might not answer the same question in the same way. Efficiency here does not necessarily pay.
5. Think of interviewing for a job as one of the tasks to which you have to allot time during the year you are "on the market." It is not something you can do in your spare time.

Martha S. Feldman
Don Herzog
Walter R. Mebane, Jr.
University of Michigan, Information published in an article from American Political Science Association Review, 1986