Not That Kind of Doctor - Remote Interview

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01/19/2023 Added

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Remote Interview - Ph.D. discussions with Nicholas Husbye and Guy Trainin. www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor and https://mediahub.unl.edu/channels/42980

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[00:00:00.160](bright music)
[00:00:09.158](laughing)
[00:00:10.110]Well, we'll talk about the therapy implications
[00:00:13.080]of that later.
[00:00:14.640]But right now, you know what we're gonna talk about?
[00:00:17.460]What are we gonna talk about?
[00:00:18.990]So we've already talked about navigating the job market
[00:00:20.743]because it is, as of recording this, it is January.
[00:00:25.080]We're about to start our semester,
[00:00:27.000]which means that the hiring season, part deux,
[00:00:30.930]is about to start. Yes.
[00:00:32.100]And so we've talked about how to navigate
[00:00:36.960]that system, looking for postings.
[00:00:39.690]Now we're gonna talk a little bit about what happens
[00:00:43.080]when you get some interest and you get a Zoom call
[00:00:46.050]or a phone interview as kind of a first way into it.
[00:00:50.400]So on this episode of "Not That Kind of Doctor,"
[00:00:54.630]we're gonna talk all about getting ready for that
[00:00:58.710]first bit of contact with the interview committee.
[00:01:01.448]And for me, also the terrifying part.
[00:01:05.490]As the somebody who's got to be on that call,
[00:01:09.270]as a young scholar, that was terrifying to me.
[00:01:12.330]I lost a lot of sleep over at my time.
[00:01:16.050]I did my big job search straight out of school
[00:01:21.660]over 20 years ago.
[00:01:22.500]It was a phone interview,
[00:01:24.420]and that was one of the scariest things
[00:01:26.653]I can think about, 'cause I couldn't see people
[00:01:29.580]and because my first language is not English.
[00:01:32.760]So just worried, "Am I going to actually understand
[00:01:36.150]what they're saying?" was a big, big worry for me.
[00:01:39.240]So that's really on the table, as well.
[00:01:41.730]So we're gonna talk all about that in this episode.
[00:01:43.980]I'm Nick Husbye.
[00:01:44.940]I'm an Associate Professor of Elementary Literacy Education
[00:01:47.610]here at UNL.
[00:01:49.320]I'm Guy Trainin, I'm a professor here at UNL,
[00:01:52.350]and I've been here for over 20 years.
[00:01:56.160]So I've seen a lot of junior faculty
[00:01:58.200]and a lot of graduate students that I've worked with.
[00:02:00.750]And a lot of the conversations we have
[00:02:03.300]is based on that experience.
[00:02:05.400]So we're gonna to dive right in because
[00:02:09.060]once you've started sending out your application materials
[00:02:12.900]to a variety of institutions,
[00:02:14.700]and you've really targeted them,
[00:02:15.990]chances are you're going to get some traction
[00:02:19.800]around interest in who you are, and what you do,
[00:02:22.770]and what you could be doing at that particular institution.
[00:02:25.830]And normally the way that the overarching
[00:02:30.330]academic job market works is there's
[00:02:34.110]an initial review of those materials by the committee,
[00:02:38.760]and then they winnow it down to a smaller pool,
[00:02:44.340]and they do some kind of filtering interview.
[00:02:50.670]It's normally either a phone interview or a Zoom interview.
[00:02:55.200]So it's about 20 to ish minutes, half an hour maybe.
[00:03:00.420]To give people a chance to talk through
[00:03:04.470]expanding some of the work that they've already done
[00:03:07.890]to get a bigger and better idea about who they are,
[00:03:12.510]what's going on, and what kind of fit might they be, right?
[00:03:20.340]And personally,
[00:03:21.300]I tend to think about these first conversations as
[00:03:26.520]exactly that, it's meant to be this filtering,
[00:03:28.987]"what kind of fit might they be" kind of conversation.
[00:03:33.180]Yeah.
[00:03:34.013]So it feels like they're interested in,
[00:03:37.230]fairly general like,
[00:03:40.237]"Who are you? Why this institution?
[00:03:44.370]Talk to us a little bit more about your teaching.
[00:03:46.650]Talk to us a little bit more about your research.
[00:03:50.100]What kind of strategies do you have for collaboration?"
[00:03:54.150]So those kinds of general questions.
[00:03:58.851]And I think that it all goes back
[00:04:01.440]to that call that you answered.
[00:04:04.620]So there was an ad and there were a lot of details,
[00:04:07.890]and we talked about this, so if you haven't heard it,
[00:04:10.200]go back and talk about going on a academic job hunt,
[00:04:15.690]parts one and two,
[00:04:16.523]because we talked about how do you read that?
[00:04:18.690]And really often this 20 to 30 minutes,
[00:04:22.140]besides getting a general sense,
[00:04:24.210]it's the opportunity for the committee to ask
[00:04:27.420]without asking directly about fit.
[00:04:29.880]So anything that isn't clear in your materials
[00:04:33.000]and they're like, because I've had this,
[00:04:34.740]you sit as a committee and you're like,
[00:04:35.947]"I think they've got this, but do they really?"
[00:04:39.630]And this is an opportunity to ask that more directly.
[00:04:43.980]So you still have to think about that ad,
[00:04:46.920]and what were the things that maybe
[00:04:50.070]they are not clearly seeing in your materials
[00:04:53.190]that you want to highlight.
[00:04:55.710]And I think that idea of,
[00:04:59.310]what are the things that they might not be clearly seeing,
[00:05:01.650]it leads into something that,
[00:05:05.460]when I'm coaching grad students for
[00:05:08.820]a phone interview or a Zoom interview,
[00:05:11.880]I always remind them that,
[00:05:13.950]this is your opportunity not to reiterate
[00:05:16.830]what's already in your package.
[00:05:18.090]Like they have already read your application materials.
[00:05:21.390]This is a chance for you to expand upon them.
[00:05:24.150]And if they're asking questions that seem duplicative,
[00:05:28.500]like in your head you're like,
[00:05:29.347]"Oh, I've already addressed that."
[00:05:31.500]Obviously you didn't 'cause they're asking that again.
[00:05:34.170]But this is your opportunity to build on that
[00:05:38.910]and build kind of the story around your materials
[00:05:42.810]and who you are as a teacher and a researcher
[00:05:47.640]within that particular space.
[00:05:50.280]So like I know for me as someone who's
[00:05:54.510]been on search committees,
[00:05:58.260]the least effective initial interview
[00:06:03.000]is the one in which I learned nothing new
[00:06:05.580]about the candidate.
[00:06:07.350]You know, like part of,
[00:06:10.050]I think one of the most important things
[00:06:12.210]that any candidate can do is,
[00:06:17.100]build a story around who they are and think about how
[00:06:23.670]you're connecting with the people
[00:06:25.260]on that search committee.
[00:06:26.093]Because essentially you're looking for someone
[00:06:29.550]to fight to keep you in the pool.
[00:06:31.830]Yeah.
[00:06:32.663]Really is how that's working.
[00:06:33.960]So you're looking to
[00:06:36.990]really establish reasons to move you on to that next phase.
[00:06:42.690]And for me, and this is a refrain I have often
[00:06:46.020]about lots of ways we interact in academia, but
[00:06:51.540]you want to, this is the opportunity to talk about examples
[00:06:55.980]and excerpts, for example, from a study you've done
[00:06:58.920]or from your dissertation study,
[00:07:00.180]whatever you have going on that is relevant to this.
[00:07:03.420]But tell a story, tell a very specific story.
[00:07:07.020]So an interaction with a child and what did it look like.
[00:07:10.440]Because we read those articles
[00:07:12.180]and they tend to be very general,
[00:07:13.800]they tend to be descriptive in the,
[00:07:15.397]"This is what we did with all of the kids."
[00:07:17.310]But telling a story about an interaction with a child,
[00:07:19.830]or with a teacher, or whatever the format it is.
[00:07:23.190]This is your opportunity to tell us that your research,
[00:07:28.080]if that's what we're talking about,
[00:07:29.070]or your teaching, if the question is about teaching,
[00:07:31.290]an example from teaching, but hyper-specific contextualized
[00:07:35.670]is really an opportunity to say, and I feel it in all of,
[00:07:39.390]I mean the way I think about it is, I feel it in my bones.
[00:07:42.150]I live this.
[00:07:43.950]This is, I'm not just describing general things.
[00:07:46.440]I'm actually doing the thing that I'm talking about.
[00:07:49.471]And that's a really important piece.
[00:07:52.080]Like you have to ground that story making.
[00:07:55.260]It's that frustrating, an adage of like, "Show, don't tell."
[00:08:01.290]Yeah.
[00:08:02.123]But this is your opportunity to do exactly that.
[00:08:04.980]Yeah.
[00:08:05.813]And also to,
[00:08:09.047]and a caution on the flip side of that, right?
[00:08:11.250]Too, because my other pet peeve when I am in, on a committee
[00:08:17.520]and we're doing these initial screening interviews is
[00:08:21.180]there's a finite amount of time.
[00:08:22.620]Yes.
[00:08:23.453]Right? So be aware of the fact that like,
[00:08:25.860]they're probably a committee, any given committee,
[00:08:28.140]is probably talking with 12 other folks.
[00:08:33.030]And so it's always a red flag for me when it's,
[00:08:37.717]"Oh I don't, I don't watch my time."
[00:08:40.620]Yes.
[00:08:41.453]Like one of the things that, you know me.
[00:08:45.068](laughing) Yes.
[00:08:46.860]One of the things that I normally do on
[00:08:48.780]like a phone interview or a Zoom interview is I ask
[00:08:51.300]at the beginning, at the onset, even maybe in an email
[00:08:54.660]in the invite, "How long do we have?
[00:08:56.970]How many questions are you asking?"
[00:09:00.360]And I set my timer.
[00:09:02.160]I don't ask about like what the questions are,
[00:09:05.400]but I want to make sure that like.
[00:09:09.060]Yes.
[00:09:09.893]I personally can get through all of the questions,
[00:09:12.420]that they want to honor that committee's time.
[00:09:14.760]That's a demonstration of like my professionalism.
[00:09:19.410]Yes, and I've seen people in that interview
[00:09:23.517]lose a lot of respect by going,
[00:09:27.090]by answering for a really long time,
[00:09:29.010]forcing the committee to really tell them,
[00:09:30.847]"We need to move on to the next question."
[00:09:32.910]And my pet peeve, okay, if we're completely honest, is,
[00:09:37.800]I know some people process the question while talking.
[00:09:41.430]There are good ways to do that and sometimes it's effective.
[00:09:44.340]But if you've got a 20 minute phone interview,
[00:09:47.190]that is not the time to process
[00:09:49.110]by talking through the question.
[00:09:51.270]I really encourage, if this is your style,
[00:09:54.600]and I have no problem with that style,
[00:09:56.700]you have to do a lot more prep work.
[00:09:58.500]So that happens a little bit less,
[00:10:00.480]and you take a little bit more time to think,
[00:10:02.640]maybe about the answer, at the beginning of answering
[00:10:04.920]and then have two or three points you want to deliver.
[00:10:07.560]Because if you meander, what we get at the end is
[00:10:11.430]you're a little bit unfocused and
[00:10:14.070]you haven't thought about this problem really
[00:10:16.980]in an organized way.
[00:10:18.330]We're likely to ask things that are at least adjacent
[00:10:21.000]to what's on the ad.
[00:10:23.340]So we expect you to be ready, and that's part of that.
[00:10:26.790]That is though the scary part.
[00:10:28.860]For me, again, as I said at the top of the show,
[00:10:33.390]you're not seeing body language.
[00:10:34.890]Zoom is a little bit better, but zoom is uneven.
[00:10:37.290]You can be asked for a Zoom,
[00:10:38.640]and then everybody's got their cameras turned off.
[00:10:40.860]So this is no added information.
[00:10:43.500]And that's not helping.
[00:10:45.000]But even so all you're seeing is usually faces,
[00:10:48.360]and so you are not sure how people are responding.
[00:10:51.240]And that's really hard to read the room.
[00:10:53.100]And for us as, especially as teachers,
[00:10:55.470]most of us are educators.
[00:10:56.700]Most of the people that are looking for a job in our area
[00:10:59.910]are educators.
[00:11:00.840]They've taught in Higher Ed, usually in K-12.
[00:11:03.840]We are used to reading the room
[00:11:05.550]and suddenly there's no room to read.
[00:11:07.170]And that's really, really difficult.
[00:11:08.700]And that's why thinking about time is really important,
[00:11:11.550]because you can't read the impatience
[00:11:14.400]that you do if you're sitting in a room and you're like,
[00:11:16.627]"It's time for me to shut up
[00:11:17.940]because everybody has moved on."
[00:11:19.950]Right.
[00:11:20.910]And so I think that brings me to another
[00:11:22.980]like tip that I personally find useful,
[00:11:25.470]but is kind of counterintuitive is,
[00:11:28.740]so you've done your prep.
[00:11:30.060]You know that there's going to be general questions
[00:11:32.310]that they're gonna ask.
[00:11:33.277]"Why this institution? What's your research agenda?
[00:11:36.000]How do you see it evolving?
[00:11:37.140]How do you teach students with diverse needs?
[00:11:39.270]Talk about your research and teaching,
[00:11:41.280]strategies for collaboration, courses you might teach."
[00:11:43.230]Like those are pretty general questions.
[00:11:44.940]So once you have those kind of mapped out,
[00:11:47.430]before you move into that Zoom or phone interview,
[00:11:53.970]after a question is asked, write that question down
[00:11:58.770]and really quickly jot down what your like,
[00:12:02.010]your three big things that you want to talk about are.
[00:12:05.070]'Cause I find that that helps me.
[00:12:07.440]Stay focused. Stay focused.
[00:12:09.930]And that along with my timer,
[00:12:12.690]I know I have this amount of time to talk about
[00:12:14.610]these three specific things that are really important
[00:12:18.090]to who I think I am as a teacher and a researcher
[00:12:20.790]and I want to convey to that committee.
[00:12:24.330]And so it seems counterintuitive 'cause you're quiet
[00:12:27.720]for a minute or two.
[00:12:29.130]Yeah.
[00:12:29.963]With each question.
[00:12:31.530]Or maybe 30 seconds, it's probably not even a minute.
[00:12:34.020]But like I feel like that results in me being able to
[00:12:38.700]respond more qualitatively than I would if
[00:12:44.700]I just did, if I just went off the cuff, right?
[00:12:49.050]Yep. Absolutely
[00:12:50.340]It also allows me to track like
[00:12:52.350]what all is in this question.
[00:12:55.560]If I'm writing it down to make sure that I've answered
[00:12:57.930]Yeah. Everything.
[00:12:59.040]And my strategy is a little bit different and that is
[00:13:01.920]I quickly write three points I wanna make
[00:13:04.560]while I'm thinking.
[00:13:06.390]And I do pause for about 15 seconds or so.
[00:13:09.660]And I know for some people it's awkward.
[00:13:11.820]I, maybe because I grew up in a different culture,
[00:13:14.490]I don't find that awkward.
[00:13:16.500]And so I just wait and write a few things down.
[00:13:21.240]And that allows you not just to stay focused,
[00:13:23.130]but it also allows you, when you get to the end
[00:13:25.470]of your two, three minutes for each question,
[00:13:28.080]probably not more,
[00:13:29.610]to go back, look at this quickly as you are summarizing
[00:13:33.300]and say, "Here are the three things or the two things
[00:13:35.460]that I really want you to take away from my answer."
[00:13:37.740]So even if you meandered a little bit,
[00:13:39.570]there's a way to pull everybody and give them a solid,
[00:13:42.367]"This is what I really care about."
[00:13:44.730]But you've gotta be ready for that,
[00:13:46.710]and you've gotta really think about the strategy.
[00:13:50.220]And I want to add two more strategies really quickly.
[00:13:53.460]I dunno if it belongs here or not, but I think one is,
[00:13:55.950]as a non-English speaker, or if you have a disability,
[00:14:00.810]especially around hearing,
[00:14:02.250]and I have a few colleagues that are like that
[00:14:04.557]and graduate students,
[00:14:06.540]I activate the closed captioning,
[00:14:09.750]and I tell the committee that I'm going to do that
[00:14:12.090]because it asks whoever initiated it if they can.
[00:14:15.510]It is, you know, maybe 80% accurate.
[00:14:18.990]So sometimes it's really funky,
[00:14:20.370]especially talking about scholars
[00:14:22.020]or really long academic words
[00:14:25.500]that don't always get captioned correctly, but it is support
[00:14:30.120]that allows you to track a little bit better
[00:14:32.520]and gives you something else to focus on.
[00:14:35.700]Especially again, right now,
[00:14:39.120]I do phone interviews and I'm fine.
[00:14:41.220]But when I just came
[00:14:43.020]and I was four years in the United States,
[00:14:46.080]I was petrified by it.
[00:14:47.430]I don't know that I wasn't able to do it,
[00:14:50.250]but just the fear that I will miss something
[00:14:52.830]and misinterpret the question is really, really large.
[00:14:58.020]The second strategy, and that's a postmortem almost,
[00:15:03.780]but post interview kind of thing, and that is
[00:15:07.890]after that, debrief with somebody really quickly.
[00:15:12.570]Because you can learn,
[00:15:13.530]you're probably gonna have more than one of that
[00:15:15.450]and some of them are going to hit the mark
[00:15:17.190]and some of them not.
[00:15:18.510]But you want to debrief quickly to think
[00:15:20.970]before you lose what has happened during that interview.
[00:15:24.930]What are the things I can do better?
[00:15:26.640]Where are the things that I wasn't ready
[00:15:28.530]and I could have done better?
[00:15:29.610]What are the strategies that will help me do better
[00:15:32.100]next time?
[00:15:32.933]And I think that's critically important because
[00:15:35.160]when I was going out into the work world
[00:15:36.810]about twenty, twenty five years ago,
[00:15:38.460]phone interviews were kind of rare.
[00:15:40.650]There were no Zoom interviews.
[00:15:41.820]Now with Zoom, it's everybody go to, to sort a mid-level.
[00:15:47.400]So in most of the searchers more than 15, 10, 15 years ago,
[00:15:51.930]we had a list of three coming out of the pool
[00:15:55.080]with no intermediate often.
[00:15:57.690]And now it's almost ubiquitous
[00:16:00.660]that you have that middle group that has, you know,
[00:16:03.900]9 to 12 candidates and you're choosing 3 out of those,
[00:16:06.810]which is usually what gets back to campus,
[00:16:09.330]with a campus visit,
[00:16:10.290]which we're gonna talk about at another time.
[00:16:11.910]So you're going to most likely have multiple of those
[00:16:15.720]and you want to learn from each and every one.
[00:16:17.370]Right.
[00:16:18.390]And deliberately learn
[00:16:20.340]because there are things we learn just by doing
[00:16:22.290]and we're like, "I'm never gonna do that again."
[00:16:23.970]But you actually want to debrief.
[00:16:26.070]Yes and you want to have some kind of tracking
[00:16:30.360]if you are, if have multiple phone interviews,
[00:16:33.840]track kind of the questions that get asked
[00:16:38.010]because they do fall into kind of these common piles, right?
[00:16:42.030]And so you can think through how you've
[00:16:45.630]differentiated for different universities,
[00:16:50.010]which is always helpful.
[00:16:53.730]But yeah, the,
[00:16:55.950]it's really a place for them to get a sense of you,
[00:16:59.610]what kind of colleague you would be.
[00:17:02.310]What kind of additional skills would you bring
[00:17:04.230]that aren't necessarily as elevated
[00:17:07.080]in the materials that you've submitted.
[00:17:09.060]But it's also this opportunity
[00:17:11.910]for you to get some information about the department itself
[00:17:15.179]Absolutely.
[00:17:16.230]And that's one of the reasons why
[00:17:17.430]the time management piece is so important because
[00:17:21.180]you want there to be time to ask some questions
[00:17:26.910]about that particular space,
[00:17:29.130]that particular university or college,
[00:17:31.620]and that particular faculty, right?
[00:17:34.290]So, and this first it's a bit like dating.
[00:17:37.800]Yes. Right?
[00:17:39.279]Very much like dating.
[00:17:40.112]This is like you have your dating profile
[00:17:43.260]and those are all your materials,
[00:17:44.093]and this is like the first meetup.
[00:17:45.990]So there's certain things that you wanna avoid.
[00:17:48.570]Like you don't wanna walk in being like,
[00:17:50.557]"So how much do I make?"
[00:17:52.171](laughing)
[00:17:53.190]That's essentially like, "So hey, what's your retirement?"
[00:17:55.920]Yeah.
[00:17:56.760]Like, you don't say that on the first date, I mean.
[00:17:58.980]Probably not.
[00:18:00.180]I have not dated in a while.
[00:18:01.980]Right, I mean, and when you date in your forties
[00:18:04.080]it's a little different
[00:18:05.610]because you are like, "What's the situation?"
[00:18:08.640]But that's not where this goes
[00:18:11.880]in this particular situation.
[00:18:13.440]It's thinking about like positive interactions
[00:18:18.480]because again, you wanna build up those like relationships.
[00:18:24.030]Yeah.
[00:18:25.020]Even if they're,
[00:18:26.400]I like to call 'em like skinny relationships.
[00:18:28.620]You want to ensure that you're having positive interactions.
[00:18:33.060]So,
[00:18:34.200]thinking about like
[00:18:37.200]the department and ending on that quality note,
[00:18:41.190]I always like to, if there's a student on the call,
[00:18:44.970]and I normally ask when I'm invited via email,
[00:18:49.680]like one, can you tell me how many questions,
[00:18:52.470]how long do we have, and who's going to be on the call?
[00:18:56.160]And I do a little bit of digging.
[00:18:58.200]Yeah.
[00:18:59.033]Who are they? Who are the faculty?
[00:19:01.890]Who is the student, yada, yada?
[00:19:04.050]And if I only have time for one question,
[00:19:06.660]I usually direct it to the student.
[00:19:09.900]And that's. Okay.
[00:19:11.730]Well and that's specific, because I
[00:19:14.850]normally the student
[00:19:17.640]is going to give me some really good information
[00:19:21.060]about how that department works
[00:19:23.370]because they're not necessarily, they're of the department,
[00:19:26.010]but they're not faculty within the department.
[00:19:30.630]Yeah.
[00:19:31.500]And so it also recognizes that I'm aware of
[00:19:36.090]as a candidate,
[00:19:38.220]the important role of that student on that committee.
[00:19:41.160]Right? So like, if I have time for one,
[00:19:42.630]that's normally where I'd go.
[00:19:44.190]If they're there.
[00:19:45.060]If they're there.
[00:19:46.080]The other thing I want to grab that metaphor of a date
[00:19:51.120]because that whole job search is like dating,
[00:19:54.660]and whether you're going to make a commitment or not.
[00:19:57.930]And you have to remember that the committee
[00:20:00.210]is also trying to accommodate you.
[00:20:04.137]And the message that the committee is going to send
[00:20:07.020]is about who we are, right?
[00:20:08.580]Who the committee and who the department are, is.
[00:20:11.790]And they want to attract you because if they want you,
[00:20:14.400]they want you to want them.
[00:20:15.810]It's exactly the same thing as dating.
[00:20:18.810]I mean, sometimes it's like,
[00:20:19.807]"I don't like you, you don't like me.
[00:20:21.360]We all go our separate ways."
[00:20:22.860]But their goal in that same interview
[00:20:25.020]is to find out a few things about you,
[00:20:26.760]but also to send that positive message.
[00:20:28.500]So ask the kind of questions that would invite that.
[00:20:32.160]And this is where you've got to think
[00:20:34.950]and you've got to get some advice about
[00:20:37.200]how do you walk that line of, "I know about you,"
[00:20:41.070]but not cross that line to making assumptions about
[00:20:46.830]who I'm gonna work with.
[00:20:48.000]And I've talked about this before, or that,
[00:20:52.140]I can call it the cringey space,
[00:20:54.030]but it's really an intercultural space where
[00:20:58.440]at least we're talking about getting a job
[00:21:00.480]in the United States.
[00:21:01.380]And that is very different than other countries.
[00:21:03.900]In the conversations you're gonna have,
[00:21:06.300]in the kind of questions you're going to ask,
[00:21:09.060]and things that you can and can't discuss.
[00:21:12.060]And that is a really important piece that is not out there.
[00:21:17.670]And you want to find out about it.
[00:21:19.890]So for example, not asking about retirement.
[00:21:23.220]Not necessarily discussing salary or anything like that.
[00:21:27.360]A, it's early.
[00:21:28.350]B, in American society,
[00:21:29.940]that's not something we put on the table.
[00:21:31.710]That's a secret negotiation.
[00:21:33.240]Whereas in other countries, I come from Israel.
[00:21:36.090]For example, in Israel, there's a salary,
[00:21:38.790]there's a salary ranking that is published.
[00:21:41.820]Anybody can have access to it.
[00:21:43.380]It's the same for everybody
[00:21:45.510]with few exceptions for private institutions,
[00:21:47.910]but most universities are public universities
[00:21:50.070]and they have a scale.
[00:21:50.910]And everything goes on that scale regardless of who you are
[00:21:54.000]or how good you are or how bad you are.
[00:21:56.250]So these are, you can ask that question
[00:21:59.280]without it being out of place.
[00:22:01.470]And I know that again, the way you interact,
[00:22:04.590]and the language you use
[00:22:05.700]are very, very different across cultures.
[00:22:08.250]So if you do come from another culture,
[00:22:10.208]try to get as much experience as you can.
[00:22:13.020]Being on a committee is another one of those,
[00:22:15.150]as a student, is another one of those.
[00:22:17.280]To hear that, get a lot of advice,
[00:22:19.320]and do a little bit of practice
[00:22:20.760]so it doesn't register wrong.
[00:22:25.110]Obviously, the committee on the other side
[00:22:27.240]has to make allowances for that intercultural exchanges,
[00:22:30.510]but they don't always.
[00:22:31.500]I don't know that they always do.
[00:22:33.150]And so there's a lot of things there has to be about
[00:22:37.710]how you interact and how much you talk about.
[00:22:41.220]And again, you want to clearly communicate,
[00:22:44.107]"I've looked up what you're doing.
[00:22:45.780]I know who this department is, I know where you are.
[00:22:48.930]I know what you're interested in
[00:22:50.430]and what the strengths are."
[00:22:51.570]At least based, and this is where it gets a little mushy
[00:22:54.690]it's based on your website
[00:22:56.490]and based on a few of the profiles.
[00:22:58.620]This has gotten better over time, but you're still lagging.
[00:23:01.560]So people might be doing something else.
[00:23:03.270]And this is a way to ask a question.
[00:23:05.790]What else are you doing? Where is the department going?
[00:23:09.270]Is one of those questions, because that may not be visible
[00:23:12.510]on the department's website, for example,
[00:23:14.220]because it was last updated a year and a half ago, whenever.
[00:23:17.880]Right.
[00:23:18.713]And so as you're
[00:23:21.720]balancing out that kind of
[00:23:24.696]♪ Getting to know you ♪
[00:23:25.950]Like moment, right?
[00:23:27.240]Like you can ask about things around like,
[00:23:29.400]what do you enjoy about working in this department?
[00:23:32.100]Like what is it, what is that you want for?
[00:23:34.680]What sets your department culture apart from others?
[00:23:38.220]Where do you forecast the department heading
[00:23:40.830]in a year or so?
[00:23:41.663]Like what are, what's your vision statement?
[00:23:45.660]What are you working toward?
[00:23:46.890]What are your strategies and tactics to get there?
[00:23:49.770]And then what do you enjoy most about teaching students
[00:23:52.050]in your particular department?
[00:23:53.340]Are all kind of
[00:23:55.650]generalized questions
[00:23:58.830]that I think end on a really good positive note.
[00:24:03.780]Yeah.
[00:24:04.613]That allow you to get some information about
[00:24:08.520]kind of what you're walking into.
[00:24:11.250]And of course like,
[00:24:14.760]just like any, just like dating, like,
[00:24:18.750]sometimes these things might not be true.
[00:24:21.060]Yes, I mean.
[00:24:22.080]Right? Like there is the like, "Oh, we want you.
[00:24:26.790]So we're gonna say what we need to,
[00:24:28.380]in order to make that happen." Right?
[00:24:29.700]We're trying to paint ourselves in the best light.
[00:24:32.340]Yes.
[00:24:33.173]And so sometimes there is a mismatch, but I find in,
[00:24:39.360]I was counting up how many phone interviews
[00:24:40.890]or Zoom interviews I've been on since graduating with my PhD
[00:24:43.500]and it's like 28.
[00:24:45.000]Oh.
[00:24:45.833]Which is a lot.
[00:24:46.666]Yes, it is.
[00:24:47.499]I am old. We're not gonna talk about it.
[00:24:49.873](laughing)
[00:24:51.840]And like I could tell,
[00:24:53.670]I could tell which departments I was like,
[00:24:57.007]"Nope, that's not gonna work.
[00:24:59.580]That's not gonna work."
[00:25:01.230]And part of it is,
[00:25:02.700]I think there were a couple where there were,
[00:25:04.110]there was literally like sniping at each other.
[00:25:06.930]Oh wow. Yeah.
[00:25:08.460]On the phone interview.
[00:25:11.070]And then others where like you hear
[00:25:14.940]like one faculty member would say one thing,
[00:25:17.100]another faculty member would say something else.
[00:25:19.350]And when you read between the lines and you infer,
[00:25:22.680]you get a sense that the dynamics aren't great
[00:25:26.580]or delightful.
[00:25:27.570]Yeah.
[00:25:28.403]Right, and that's,
[00:25:30.240]there's a difference between
[00:25:34.410]reading, I'm fine with tension.
[00:25:38.520]Yeah. Tension could be positive.
[00:25:40.020]I mean we are intellectuals.
[00:25:41.850]Exactly. I'm fine with tension.
[00:25:44.100]I'm not fine with dysfunction.
[00:25:47.280]That's hard, I think.
[00:25:49.680]I'm trying to think if I'm a graduate student
[00:25:53.430]who's on the job market,
[00:25:54.840]I've been in graduate school for three or four years.
[00:25:57.330]Maybe, like some of our students, like I was,
[00:26:00.030]you come from a different setting.
[00:26:02.130]Reading that is really difficult.
[00:26:04.620]So pay attention to like, so having said that,
[00:26:07.770]here's what I think you need to pay attention to if you can.
[00:26:11.280]Pay attention to where there's slippage
[00:26:14.340]between how faculty members are addressing the questions
[00:26:17.670]that you're asking.
[00:26:19.410]Are there differences? How does that function?
[00:26:22.110]If you can pay attention to tone of voice
[00:26:26.310]and you've got that, like that sometimes is helpful.
[00:26:29.250]Like these are the kind of
[00:26:33.690]like meta information that you can get
[00:26:37.170]from these phone conversations because just as
[00:26:40.680]you are trying to make them want you,
[00:26:42.720]you're also trying to evaluate like,
[00:26:45.150]is this a place where you could be successful?
[00:26:47.340]Yeah.
[00:26:48.270]And you, as the candidate,
[00:26:50.160]you only have a question or two to make that happen.
[00:26:53.940]So you have the quality of the answer to the question,
[00:26:57.570]but you also have the qualities
[00:26:59.580]of how the questions answered, if that makes sense.
[00:27:02.790]And that's a higher,
[00:27:06.660]that's a higher level of like analysis
[00:27:09.780]keeping in mind that like
[00:27:11.160]language analysis is the whole bedrock of
[00:27:15.270]how I operate as a researcher.
[00:27:16.620]So that comes a little bit more naturally to me, I think.
[00:27:19.230]Yeah.
[00:27:20.190]But thinking about,
[00:27:23.160]I always look at how faculty
[00:27:24.270]are interacting with each other.
[00:27:26.340]I always look at, like I said,
[00:27:28.560]the slippage between how things are answered.
[00:27:32.580]I look at how faculty either build or fail to build
[00:27:37.050]on each other's responses.
[00:27:38.730]I look at how they include,
[00:27:39.810]if there's a student on the committee,
[00:27:42.030]how they include that student in that process.
[00:27:46.260]And I think those are things
[00:27:48.450]that can give you some indicators into
[00:27:51.480]like, "This is what we say we do,
[00:27:53.340]but this is how we actually do."
[00:27:55.890]Yeah.
[00:27:56.723]Which is interesting.
[00:27:57.556]And I think that what's important in this context
[00:28:00.810]is again, that idea of debriefing with somebody else,
[00:28:03.360]whether it's a mentor, another graduate student,
[00:28:05.280]whoever you've got around you who's being supportive
[00:28:08.010]and really is willing to listen.
[00:28:10.020]That's where that debriefing goes.
[00:28:11.790]Because I'll be honest, I have an enormous positive bias.
[00:28:17.250]I'm always happy about the people I meet.
[00:28:18.960]You really are.
[00:28:19.793]I'm always excited about what they can do.
[00:28:21.990]We just had a series of interviews and I'm like,
[00:28:23.887]"I want all of you."
[00:28:25.380]And I need to ask you.
[00:28:27.104]And then he meets me and I'm like.
[00:28:29.018](laughing)
[00:28:30.690]And so I actually need a time to step away
[00:28:35.940]and debrief about them and think about,
[00:28:37.770]okay, so I know I'm generally positive
[00:28:40.020]and I can see how we can support them
[00:28:42.060]and how can they be successful.
[00:28:43.410]But out of those 3 or 4
[00:28:46.200]or 12 in the case of a phone interview,
[00:28:48.480]which are the ones who rise to the top
[00:28:50.520]and would actually be able to be successful
[00:28:52.470]without us investing an enormous amount of effort
[00:28:55.500]into making them so.
[00:28:56.460]And I really do believe we can help almost everybody
[00:28:59.040]and who would be the best fit for who we are.
[00:29:02.340]Right, so I have to kind of debrief back to
[00:29:04.770]who are we and what would be the best fit for us
[00:29:08.100]with our culture.
[00:29:09.660]And I've learned throughout the years
[00:29:11.640]that I've got to actually physically stop and debrief.
[00:29:14.610]Otherwise I'm like, let's have them all,
[00:29:17.280]which is not helpful to them or to us, right.
[00:29:19.830]And can set people for not being successful.
[00:29:21.960]Not necessarily because they're not gonna be good scholars,
[00:29:24.360]but because we are the wrong place for them.
[00:29:26.370]Right.
[00:29:27.291]And there are institutions that are very, very different.
[00:29:28.920]And that's part of the thinking.
[00:29:30.480]So when you are on the other side and you're thinking,
[00:29:32.707]"Do I want to go there?
[00:29:33.690]I mean there's that drive of, "I need to get a job
[00:29:36.330]because I've gotta feed my kids, or my cats,
[00:29:39.480]or my dogs, or myself." Right.
[00:29:42.030]But there's the,
[00:29:43.207]"Can I be successful in this kind of place?"
[00:29:45.750]It doesn't mean it's a bad place necessarily.
[00:29:47.430]It's just not the best fit for you.
[00:29:50.100]So that's also on the table.
[00:29:52.740]Right, and I think that's important
[00:29:54.480]when thinking about the job market writ large is
[00:29:59.370]it's kind of this like secret like,
[00:30:01.687]"Oh who's going to this job?" Like everyone actually knows.
[00:30:05.220]Yeah.
[00:30:06.053]Right, it's like just approaching it that way.
[00:30:07.200]And I was thinking about debriefs.
[00:30:09.060]One of my friends and I, we interviewed for the same jobs.
[00:30:12.270]And so.
[00:30:13.560]That's great.
[00:30:14.393]After every phone interview we'd be like,
[00:30:16.087]"Oh my gosh, what was that question?
[00:30:18.900]Like why did that happen?
[00:30:21.930]Neither of us can go there." Right?
[00:30:24.000]So like, or "Oh my gosh, that was amazing.
[00:30:26.880]I really loved how they responded to that.
[00:30:28.290]How did they respond to you when, da, da, da?"
[00:30:30.570]So it's nice to have someone to compare notes with.
[00:30:33.510]But that also feels kind of antithetical 'cause
[00:30:38.010]here's why, 'cause the job market.
[00:30:41.460]Is finite.
[00:30:42.293]Is finite and so therefore it's like competitive.
[00:30:45.787]"I can't let you know! I can't!"
[00:30:47.700]No.
[00:30:48.533]No, no.
[00:30:50.760]Like it's going, like conversation is helpful, right?
[00:30:55.590]And I do wanna say the teacher education,
[00:30:59.730]and education in general, higher education market,
[00:31:03.660]is considerably, I don't want to say less competitive,
[00:31:08.520]but there are less candidates for each job
[00:31:10.800]than many other realms
[00:31:13.560]where there are 400, 500 candidates for each job.
[00:31:17.910]For us, at least at where I've been,
[00:31:23.040]there are 30 or less for each job.
[00:31:27.450]There are actually relevant candidates.
[00:31:29.340]There might be more files, but most of them are not.
[00:31:32.809]If it's over 30 there there's a good number of them
[00:31:36.240]that are not a good fit or not even an approximate fit
[00:31:39.510]to the job.
[00:31:40.530]Whereas for example, in history in other realms,
[00:31:44.100]there are often hundreds of applicants.
[00:31:46.440]So your odds are pretty good in this job market.
[00:31:49.020]And that's why you can be and should be more selective.
[00:31:51.690]And we've had this conversation before
[00:31:53.250]and I'm gonna throw this in here,
[00:31:55.080]that in this job market, there's actually a decline
[00:31:57.840]in the number of doctoral students
[00:32:00.120]that are going out into the world.
[00:32:01.410]That's been going on for the past five, six years.
[00:32:03.840]Maybe some of it is connected to the pandemic,
[00:32:05.820]but I'm not sure.
[00:32:06.990]But it's definitely
[00:32:10.230]it's definitely not a market that's saturated.
[00:32:13.020]So you're not as much in competition I think.
[00:32:15.750]And the amount of learning and becoming wiser
[00:32:18.900]out of that debrief outweighs any competitive advantage
[00:32:22.800]you would have to keeping your questions to yourself
[00:32:25.260]or whatever it is that
[00:32:27.210]you can imagine.
[00:32:28.410]So we've been talking about,
[00:32:30.120]you've got this Zoom or phone interview
[00:32:32.670]and we hope that this general kind of talk has been helpful
[00:32:37.230]in making that process a little bit more transparent.
[00:32:39.690]We'll have a list of some general questions
[00:32:42.527]'cause we talked about some of them in the program notes.
[00:32:47.760]But as we're rolling on out,
[00:32:50.220]what's your like final piece of advice
[00:32:52.440]for people moving into a Zoom or phone interview?
[00:32:58.110]Well the balance, don't freak out,
[00:33:01.560]especially the first few times.
[00:33:03.090]You'll be fine if you are prepared.
[00:33:05.670]So you've got to be prepared. And that's the balance.
[00:33:09.090]Don't freak out, but also don't be blase about it.
[00:33:11.760]The fact that you've sent your materials
[00:33:13.800]does not mean that you're ready for that interview
[00:33:16.230]and you really, your materials are great,
[00:33:19.500]but you've really got to do a most up to date,
[00:33:23.730]remind yourself who the department is
[00:33:25.650]and do all of your research so you're not coming in blind.
[00:33:28.380]Because the committee will immediately know
[00:33:30.660]if you have not bothered to find out
[00:33:32.610]anything about the institution
[00:33:33.990]and you don't know who is around the table
[00:33:36.750]and what are they interested in,
[00:33:39.240]and what the institution is doing.
[00:33:42.030]That sends a very clear message.
[00:33:43.290]I'm not that interested, right?
[00:33:44.730]Going back to dating.
[00:33:45.990]It's like you want to know something about that person,
[00:33:48.390]but you don't want to get to the point
[00:33:51.450]where you are actually wearing yourself down.
[00:33:53.910]That's the balance.
[00:33:55.560]And I think if I were to leave all you
[00:33:57.480]with one piece advice is,
[00:34:00.300]you are the best person for that job.
[00:34:03.120]Yes.
[00:34:03.953]If you don't believe that, why did you apply? Right?
[00:34:07.890]And I find that when I work with grad students,
[00:34:11.940]that's the thing.
[00:34:13.320]That's why full on, camera, eyes, right here,
[00:34:16.350]you are the best person for that job
[00:34:18.810]because that's the thing I have to coach around the most.
[00:34:21.660]Yes.
[00:34:22.493]I find that, "Oh, I just want them to have
[00:34:24.810]the person who's gonna be best for that job."
[00:34:26.460]That's you.
[00:34:28.200]At least when you are talking to them, it has to be you
[00:34:31.050]because you're not getting that job if it's not you.
[00:34:33.240]Right.
[00:34:34.073]So if you're, so just keep that mindset like in that moment,
[00:34:37.890]you are the Beyonce for that job, right?
[00:34:41.451]Damn right.
[00:34:42.284]So keep in mind when you have this initial interview
[00:34:47.700]that you wanna be somewhat prepared,
[00:34:50.160]but you wanna be flexible
[00:34:51.780]in your ability to answer those questions.
[00:34:53.640]You wanna make sure you're collecting some information
[00:34:55.710]about who that faculty is
[00:34:57.447]and you always wanna be foregrounding
[00:35:00.690]the materials that you've already submitted.
[00:35:02.310]But building on that story
[00:35:04.290]to think about why you're the best person for that position.
[00:35:10.590]I think we're good.
[00:35:11.850]We are good.
[00:35:12.683]That feels like a lot.
[00:35:14.580]It was a lot.
[00:35:15.540]But it's an important step because
[00:35:17.850]this is where we are narrowing down from 12,
[00:35:20.700]10 or 12 to 3.
[00:35:22.920]This is one of those thresholds where you actually have
[00:35:26.580]an input, a real input on what's being discussed
[00:35:30.180]with your personality, with your knowledge,
[00:35:32.220]with everything else.
[00:35:33.060]Up until that point, it's all paper, it's all materials
[00:35:36.750]and they have to speak for you better or worse.
[00:35:38.790]But here it's your voice.
[00:35:40.290]You get to speak for you.
[00:35:41.123]You get to speak for you.
[00:35:42.330]You can fix things, you can make things better,
[00:35:45.540]or not so good.
[00:35:47.010]So it's kind of like, may the odds be ever in your favor.
[00:35:50.070]But hopefully with some of these tips and tricks,
[00:35:52.590]you can shift some those odds.
[00:35:54.720]And that's "Not That Kind of Doctor" for this time.
[00:35:59.790]We gotta work on that.
[00:36:01.007](bright music)

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Not That Kind of Doctor - Remote Interview

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