Thursday, April 10, 2008

Processing the interview

I am trying to let go and recover from my 1st faculty interview of any kind, which I experienced yesterday. It was a preliminary phone interview, and was pretty uncomfortable. I don't think I made a great impression. I prepared a lot for the interview. I made note cards of most of the faculty in the dept. so I could talk about who I would like to collaborate with, etc. I knew which classes I would want to teach. I knew what resources I would need to get started, and I had a clear, outlined 5 yr research plan, as well as longer term, 10 yr goals. I had practiced responses of why they should hire me, and why I would fit in to the department. I had questions prepared for them. So what went wrong? I think I was expecting a very hostile, "you must prove yourself and convince us that you are good enough" atmosphere, and I prepared with that expectation in mind. I was thrown off guard then, when the interviewers were actually friendly, and instead of being hostile, they just wanted to get a feel for who I am and how would I see myself fitting in, etc in a broad sense. I had a very hard time answering their questions, even though they were the ones I was prepared for, because the tone was so different than what I had prepared for. I found myself confused and stumbling, words would not come to my head. Worse yet, I very clear, excellent responses to their questions came to my head after my initial responses, and I was too shy to attempt to correct myself or go back to a previous question.
I think a very positive outcome of this experience is that I now have some frame of reference for what the experience will actually be like, so I won't make out to be so horrible in my head. This will make me much more relaxed and sure of myself for the next time around. I think I missed an opportunity to really communicate, but I have to look at it as a learning experience. I will do better next time for sure. I won't prepare for it like it is going to be a hostile investigation, but rather a friendly "get-to-know-you" Q&A among colleagues.
One really big difference in the tone was that I really expected to have to convince them that I would fit in and be valuable, but they asked me instead what they had to offer that I would not find elsewhere in another dept. that would compliment, add to my research. I was to taken off guard by how that question was phrased. I think it is a good lesson.. every "one" (in this case, every dept.) wants to be valued right? I was so focused on having to justify my own research value that I forgot consider the "value" of the dept.
Also, one more somewhat minor mistake. I should have posed a question to the students who were sitting in on the interview, rather I directed all my questions to the faculty. I know in person I would not have done that. It was hard to remember given the nature of the non-in-person interview.

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