Anyway, those Rutgers people apparently did a thorough background check on the person they hired, and yet they still got screwed. Even if the person they hired is actually wonderful (which could be true), that search committee is nevertheless in quite a pickle. A very awkward pickle.
So...
Finally, here's the thirsty-ish part: I was a member of a search committee last semester. We all agreed before interviews that we loved one of the applicants the best. It was not merely that there was a consensus about which candidate was least awful. Rather, we found ourselves in a strange kind of Utopia where even the completely asexual committee members had boners for this one candidate. There were issues with all the other candidates except this one.
And do you know what? All the other candidates' interviews went well, but Miss Wonderful-On-Paper-And-Plastic-And-Electrons completely flubbed.
Let's be clear. She didn't show up drunk. She didn't insult any of the committee members. She didn't use the n-word. She didn't smell like turnips. She didn't say this was her back-up school in case the other guys didn't hire her. She didn't lie, exaggerate, yawn, or roll her eyes. She didn't do anything wrong.
But she didn't do anything impressive at all. It was like Lisa Leslie was at the free-throw line, and the ball didn't hit the rim or the backboard. Complete airball.
There's been a strange kind of silence among the committee members since then. We're all still big Lisa Leslie fans. Just puzzled and deflated.
Q. Have you ever called your Lisa Leslie back and said, "Let's talk. What happened? Were you awake all night with your colicky baby before the interview? Can you help us understand what happened? Are you really all-hat and no-cattle?" What did you learn?
A. __________________________
Be honest, dammit.
Is it possible that she had... er.... excessive help writing her application. I've seen that at least once: said all the right things about teaching at a SLAC, but appearing clueless and bewildered when he arrived.
ReplyDeleteI was on an interview committee with similar circumstances to yours; we ended up hiring someone else. The CV gets you the interview, the interview gets you the job. It turned out that the star candidate was a real uninspiring bore because he was substantively lacking in social skills, including the ability to make conversation during an interview, he just happened to have the excellent skill of keeping a poker face and being succinct with his words, as opposed to falling apart in the social setting of a job interview. Turned out he doesn't play well with others on the playground once he gets down to business. He's now giving grief to others at another uni, and we're happy with the choice we've made.
ReplyDeleteNo, we didn't call her back. But we did end up hiring her despite everything, and it worked out fine.
ReplyDeleteσσσ, I thought the same thing. We recently dealt with an applicant who sent us a thoroughly engaging description of his research interests. We then asked him to write a short summary of lab equipment he would need. How to describe it? Let's say, "He no write english good." Lots of people still liked him because "current research funding = $1,000,000" requires no editing.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened? Our department debated the issue until the provost took away the funding for the faculty line. I guess that solved our problem.
BTW, I really enjoyed the phrase "all-hat and no-cattle".
Strangely enough, she seems to be the opposite: all cattle and no hat. Therein lies the rub. It's confusing to see evidence of a good product, but with zero salesmanship. I made phone calls to double-check on the veracity.
DeleteWe have had a similar situation at my school. We did not push that individual forward. We knew that if the candidate arrived at the Dean's interview and acted the same way, the Dean would say, "What is wrong with this committee?"
ReplyDeleteI participated in a particularly uncomfortable on-campus interview where the candidate (super on paper, absolutely glowing recommendations) came, gave an amazing presentation, was enthusiastic, well-spoken (if a little geeky), and then hit on one of the the other (junior) faculty members at dinner. And did so rather crudely.
ReplyDeleteI knew one of the 'recommenders' personally and had a heart-to-heart with hir a few months later asking did ze KNOW about Slimeball-candidate's sliminess? Well, yes, the candidate had screwed up a few OTHER interviews the same way, but Reviewer-person thought that Slimeball had 'gotten past it.'
I have nightmares imagining what could have happened if we had hired Slimeball and turned hir loose on our students.
At our school we would not have been able to consider such sliminess due to strict (over)interpretation of EEOC guidelines. The interviews are scripted; we must use the exact same wording for every candidate, with no followup questions. If a candidate brings handouts for the teaching demonstration, we are not to look at them. If we have any contact with a candidate outside the interview situation, we may not use that in the evaluation.
DeleteAt my old institution, one pathetic fellow showed up for an interview with an impressive pedigree, a much-needed specialty, and social skills charting in the negatives. He was surly and rude, but the best part came in the Q&A after the job talk.
ReplyDeleteHaving delivered a soporific talk about Dull Figure X in Dull Historical Period Y, the chair, a brilliant scholar and who was one of the few who had remained awake, asked a penetrating question that challenged the fellow's entire thesis. The candidate looked mulish and said something tangential. The chair pressed the question. Then, in my favorite job talk quote ever, the candidate said, "Well, I'm not answering that," and took a different question.
The new questioner said, "I had my own question, but now I'd just like to re-iterate [chair's]."
At which point, I kid you not, the entire devolved into a test of wills. The candidate stubbornly refused to address the question asked, and no one was willing to ask a new one. So we ran out the clock on his job talk staring at each other in stony silence. It was, honest to god, one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
This is hilarious! I wish I had been there to see it myself. Once, we were interviewing a fellow who did not want to do the teaching demo. He said it was dumb, and he was not going to do it. We told him he needed to do it. He then lectured us (as his teaching demo) on why teaching demos were stupid. It was pretty funny.
DeleteWe did not even consider him.
It never fails to amaze me how many candidates for academic jobs sabotage themselves in the most bone-headed ways. I used to wonder more about why they did this until a junior colleague once mentioned that his first job interview just before defending his dissertation was the first job interview for ANY job, ever. A lot of these kids on the job market have never worked in a professional environment, never had more than a handful of interviews... nothing. It's astonishing. They know nothing.
DeleteWe've never called someone and said "what happened?" but we did hire someone that seemed unimpressive in person, and that the students kind of hated when she gave her teaching presentation. She's wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAs for references, these days it's a good idea to quote the referent back to themselves. As in, "You cite John Smith as the best example of X you have ever worked with, and that his abilities in Y are unmatched. Can you talk a bit more about that?"
What's become painfully evident to me is that many recommenders don't even write or read their own recs. They have the students write them and then sign them. I am absolutely sure this is the case with one of my colleagues. So, you quote their own words back to them. And if the examples and support are vague and don't match anything in the rec provided, that's a warning sign.
What I might also suggest is thinking about the possibility that you'd built up kind of a rock star ideal in your heads about this candidate that couldn't possibly be met by her in real life.
To figure out whether or not this is the case, after the rec-check, look at two things: the work and the teaching evaluations. One cannot truly fake stellar research. If she did not impress in person but her work, collectively, is excellent, she is impressive whether she impressed or not. There are plenty of more introverted people in academia, who don't have strong personalities, and don't seem to amount to much in person. But give them some room and care and they open up and bloom out nicely.
Teaching excellence is a bit easier to fake (don't know how much you consider teaching), but if you find gaps or cracks in the narrative, those gaps will tell you things. If the recs spend time praising the teaching but there are no specifics that reveal the recommender has actually visited a class (which is a great thing to question when doing the rec-check), that's a problem. There should be detailed verifiable evidence.
If nothing "smells" and it's just that she's not the sparkler you thought she was, maybe think about how you would have reacted if you hadn't had much of an opinion of her in the first place, and then reconfigure from there.
This is essentially what we did. Even if she had shown up smelling like vinegar, had a booger hanging from her nose, and was awkwardly shy, I would have chosen her. She had the history, the chops--and there was no evidence that she'd lied about anything in person or on paper. She had demonstrated that she could perform. Fuck the goddamned interview. Maybe she was just having a really bad day. No doubt a psychopath would have turned in a stellar performance for us that day. I'd rather have this woman than a psychopath.
DeleteStill, I look forward to having a cup of coffee with her in a few years and saying, "Hey, what was going on with you that day? You seemed kind of odd." I'm hoping she'll turn the tables and say, "Me?! You people absolutely freaked me out! You should have seen yourselves."
This was me once. I interviewed horribly because I wasn't culturally attuned to how to sell myself in person. Several schools offered me the job despite my lackluster interview and I grew and learned and learned and now I can sell myself both in writing and in person. And none of the places that gave me a chance regretted it (as far as I know).
ReplyDeleteOne thing to note (not that this was your experience as a committee): several times (especially at the cattle-call community college interviews), the committee didn't seem interested in even finishing their questions, as if they'd already found their ideal candidate and were just going through the motions with me. That certainly put a damper on my attempts to win them over...
I heard about a guy that fell asleep during one of the one-on-one interviews with faculty after being invited on campus ... he was passed over, applied again a few years later, got the job, and NEVER SHOWED UP. The powers that be finally called him shortly before the semester started and he simply said he had changed his mind. He looked awesome on paper, but turned out to be a tad bit jerky in real life.
ReplyDeleteI swear, when applying to various places (I don't plan on staying at my present job forever, or even for very long, if I can help it), I sometimes feel better knowing what my fellow academics are like.
DeleteBefore I did my teaching demo I was told that it would be the key portion of the process. Apparently the previous year another search had the same issues mentioned in the OP. The best candidates on paper were duds in person and in the classroom.
ReplyDelete