I applied for a job this year. (I applied for many, but leaving that aside...) Several days ago, I received an email about the progress of decision-making. It came from the head of the department, and listed every single applicant's name and email address in the "to" line.
Okay, maybe not every one. But a good 90 or so of us.
Ta for that, Department Head.
Is it just me, or does this disclosure seem like something a hiring committee chairperson should avoid?
It's a good thing he did that, because now you know you don't want to work there. Better to know it now than after you've moved there. Really.
ReplyDeleteIt's a disclosure everyone should avoid. Basic email etiquette: if you're going to do a mass mailing, use the BCC line for all recipients to avoid breaching their privacy, sharing their addresses without their permission, and exposing them to potential spammers. I always write and explain this when it happens. It's amazing how many people respond, "Oh, I always wondered what that line was for."
ReplyDeleteI doubt he did it himself. The department secretary probably did it and just forgot to bcc instead of cc.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of clerical incompetence happens more often than you think. Last year the exact same thing happened in a senior search in my field. People were fussed about it, but I thought it was pretty funny. This was a very desirable position to which almost anyone who was anyone was going to apply, so it wasn't like there were any surprise revelations in the list of addresses. Perhaps the only surprises were the people who hadn't bothered to apply.
Another version of this is the mis-stuffed envelope. I once got an acknowledgment of receipt letter with someone else's letter in the envelope addressed to me. Probably the work-study did it. And contrary to what Bubba says above, I not only got that job, but I took it, loved it, and still have nostalgia for it, now that I've moved on. This kind of thing tells you zippo about what it would be like to work there.
Most of all, I think that while there might be some mild privacy violation here, academics are wound way too fucking tight about the secrecy of the search process. Who gives a fuck if you know who the other applicants are? It isn't like you didn't know there were lots of other applicants, right? In fact, odds are you knew who some of those names were before you scanned the cc list. You probably even have talked to them about the search at conferences or over email. This just gives you something else to gossip about.
Anyway, I'm sure the fucking Wiki is all aflame over this. But you can't ever satisfy those idiots. Either they're mad because the committee really does keep it all secret, or they're mad because now they know something they didn't before.
I'd chalk it up to avoidable human error that doesn't mean much of anything or have any consequences either.
Definitely inappropriate. (S)he should, indeed, have bcc'd -- protects privacy, and also avoids annoying and/or embarrassing "reply to all" incidents (prevents the amusing ones, too, but so it goes).
ReplyDeleteWe're required to bcc on whole-class student communications, for all of the reasons above; I certainly assume that would go for hiring matters, too.
The above was cross-posted with Archie. Though I still think it was inappropriate, I also agree with him that it's not a particularly big deal in the larger scheme of things.
ReplyDeleteI'm also interested to see that both Archie and Bubba assumed the chair is a "he." I almost wrote "he," checked, and realized that you'd avoided any gender-specific description.
@Angry Archie: Ceteris paribus, I'd choose somewhere else to work. However, there are other factors. At a big community college, I wouldn't share all my students' email addresses with other students; at a SLAC, everybody already knows everybody else's email addresses, so it's a non-issue. Many variables. Basically, though, the chairperson (he, she, it) fucked up. If you were in his position, wouldn't you consider sending a second email apologizing for the mistake?
ReplyDeleteHmmm, right you are Cassandra. I read the OP very quickly, and may have picked the pronoun out of Bubba's comment, which was hovering above, as I wrote mine. But I wouldn't normally assume anything on that score. A quick count tells me that my career split on the gender of my chairs is exactly even. If anything, because of the Dog's discipline, I might have assumed the opposite in a knee-jerk, totally unsubstantiated way.
ReplyDelete@Bubba,
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming that the apology is forthcoming, if it hasn't already happened. It sometimes takes them a while to figure out what they did, especially if no one on the recipient list opts to tell them about it right away.
Again, all things being equal, as you say, I doubt this incident reveals anything of substance about the workplace. It was a particularly public kind of mistake, but one that many of us might plausibly make if we were rushed and not thinking about it too carefully.
I spent my sabbatical in a Northern European Country in which all applications for positions are open. They send the documentation about all the applicants and reasons for their continued consideration or not to *all* of the applicants. So you only apply for jobs you think you have a good shot at, and you get a very fair assessment of your merits back.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that they did it this way and was very shocked to see it the first time. But it makes life easy for the Equal Opportunity folks, as they can easily see if women are being excluded for having squeaky voices (actual case in our faculty).
It was also kind of fun in NEC, as it turned out that one of the applicants rather exaggerated his CV. Co-competitors were quick to point out that he was just a work-study and not an adjunct.....
I can imagine situations in which a candidate who was already inhabiting one job would really prefer that his/her self-appointed nemesis didn't make sure to inform the current-job of the candidate's pending applications.
ReplyDeleteWhere I work, this wouldn't happen for just the reason Dr. Lemurpants cites, because we are all litigation-shy.
ReplyDeleteDr. Lemurpants, why only a headshot of the lemur? We need to see its pants to be sure it's you. If it's wearing teeny shorts we'll know it's Darla.
Hey! It's snowing in Santa Fe...I have pajamas on, footies.
ReplyDelete@ Angry Archie
ReplyDeleteThe "fucking Wiki" has already reported this happening, but not in the present job search; allegedly John Jay College at CUNY did this, but to candidates for conference interviews back in 2007. Mostly what you get at "Universities to fear" are people who went to College X, went through the interview process, then never heard from CX again, or got a lame email anywhere from one to five years later. They've rearranged that part of the site into "current issues", "chronic issues", and "old issues" - there are no complaints yet in current issues.
Suzy - the openness and transparency goes even further (is it any wonder that Wikileaks was originally hosted on Swedish servers?) - you can look on publicly available lists and see what every single person's salary is - not just where you work, but for EVERYONE in your city. I imagine faculty salary anomaly exercises there involve a lot less guesswork on the part of the applicant.
ReplyDeleteI agree it was likely a mistake. In a couple searches in my department one applicant happened to know the identity of another (being in the same subfield, having gone to school together, etc.). I've always found this embarrassing, since some of my current colleagues can deduce how the search committee ranked them, but it seems to bother me more than it bothers them.
ReplyDeleteI think there's a case to be made for using snail mail for sensitive and important communications.
BlackDog, I wish you success in your job search!
This was gauche, and probably a mistake that should have been followed by an apology, but I don't think it was actionable or illegal, such as asking about a job candidate's religion or marital status. (I've been asked both: good thing I didn't get those jobs.) Best of luck in your job search!
ReplyDelete@ Strelnikov,
ReplyDeleteYou'd need to go look at the Wiki for Dog's discipline. If it is organized anything like the one for mine, there is probably a lot of squawking about this under the link for the job in question. The gnashing of teeth for the search I mentioned that made this mistake last year was amusing.
@Pants
Sure, people might not want their colleagues to know that they are on the market, but these things have a way of getting out, email snafu or not. I've moved a couple of times, and as hard as I tried to keep it quiet that I was on the market, it always leaked back to at least a couple of my colleagues. Academia is a tiny world. An amusing story: At the AHA many schools interview at one of a hundred folding tables in a giant room affectionately referred to as "the pit." A friend of mine who was surreptitiously on the market had an interview scheduled in the pit. When he was summoned from the waiting area and began walking towards the waiting committee he suddenly saw that his own colleagues were sitting at the table right next to the one to which he was being directed conducting their own search. He turned on his heel and walked out before anyone saw him.
And I'll join the chorus of well-wishers for the Dog's job hunt.
Archie, I've had an experience like your friend's AHA experience, but it was a bit more "Baptists at the liquor store" and in my favor: walking into the meat market at the conference for an interview I ran into one of the members of a search committee I'd had an on-campus interview with the prior week, just about to sit down to be interviewed herself. "Oh, hi. Let us never speak of this." (And given my on-campus experience, I couldn't blame her for shopping around)
ReplyDeletePants,
ReplyDeleteThat's a good one, and a perfect illustration of the point. It isn't the search committee's problem if applicants are trying to keep it on the down low. The committee has its own problems to worry about.
My first job was in the UK, and there they do the campus visits en masse. Usually five finalists are invited on the same day. In the morning they wait together to take their turn giving a 10-15 minute presentation of their work. Then they all go to lunch with department members. In the afternoon they wait together to have a longer individual interview with the hiring committee. That evening the committee communicates its decision to the candidates. No bullshit about secrecy or anonymity. The presumption being that if you are a finalist you probably know all the other finalists anyway.
When I went to campus for my job there, three of the other four finalists were friends of mine. None of us had a job. The other finalist was at a different uni looking t make a move. The night before the interviews we all went out to the pub together and had a great time. That's how it should be done.
Personally, I think the American emphasis on confidentiality and privacy has a lot to do with the self-defeating climate of angst that you see manifested on the fucking Wiki. Knowing is better than not knowing, and acknowledging that you know most of your competitors and that it isn't personal is healthy. Instead everyone wants to be anonymous, and the Wiki just adds another layer of rumor and innuendo to a process that has already been rendered so fraught as to be harmful.
"Usually five finalists are invited on the same day. In the morning they wait together to take their turn giving a 10-15 minute presentation of their work. Then they all go to lunch with department members. In the afternoon they wait together to have a longer individual interview with the hiring committee."
ReplyDeleteI'd really like that! If you don't already know them, it'd be a wonderful way to meet people with fairly similar interests.
So far the weirdest thing I've gotten this term is a virus forwarded to me from a search committee member, but I have a Mac so it didn't really bother me.
I think the secrecy in the search process is nuts. My school knows I'm looking, and being smaller, are fairly supportive. If I go out into the greater world and say "yeah, the rules for faculty are nuts but what they're doing for students is really great," and the second part outweighs the former, all the better for them.
I have several good friends on the market. We know who has interviews where, the few places we're in competition, and are helping each other out anywhere we aren't. Could it lead to massive backstabbing? Well, sure. But it's not *as* likely as it might be if we found out about each other and were purely competitive about it. (Case in point: had interview at place my friend would be great at. School rejected all first round candidates. I told her to apply. She now has an interview. I'm really hoping they feel the same way about it as I do!)
And don't worry, I don't have a sunshiney view of academia in general. I know it can be a horrible backstabbing place. But christ, if you can find a little sanity in it do so...
I know not of the Angry Wiki, but I know of my discipline's wiki. I followed the discipline wiki for approximately a month during my first job search and it gave me horrid nightmares -- first I was anxious about jobs, and second my discipline-mates appeared to be homicidal crackpots! So, no more Wiki for me.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I assume a fatalistic approach to the job market -- either I get hired or I don't. I've been on the market in the shittiest period our discipline has 'enjoyed' in about 40 years. So...yeah. I've lived through some bad stuff, and, uh, given my teensy mental illness problem the "lived" part is quite literal.
There has been no apology, incidentally. I'd love to say more, but, yeah. I think Social Science and Starvistan is about all I can say.
The sole bad personal fallout was that a colleague of mine applied for the same job and I had not told her. She is extremely competitive, and is one of those folks who takes "anxiety" up many, many notches. She called me and ripped me a new one for not telling her I'd applied.
My response? "I'm sorry you feel that way. It was a last-minute application. I have been rather quiet about my job search this year generally."
Such calm is from a combination of factors -- nia, experience on the job market previously, and fantastic freaking medication. Oh, and the cognitive dulling of grading.
Thanks for the well-wishes. Things will do what they do, as usual. And there's always my cardboard shack down by the river. (I'm actually thinking of starting a University of Cardboard Shacks Down By the River with some of my colleagues. It will be like the New School, but, uh...draftier. And cardboard.)
@MyLittleProffie: You might want to tell that search committee member about the virus. His or her computer has probably been hijacked by a botnet.
ReplyDelete