Tomorrow morning I have an interview for a staff position at a small-to-midsize university. Anyone been involved in a hiring process like that, and if you have, good advice or tips for the interview candidate? For example, any interview that you remember someone who stood out really well & what did they do?
I’ve worked in a similar position for several years at a small (about 2,000 students) institution, so I have a good idea of the basics, but I thought I’d ask about anyone’s memories of particularly good or particularly bad interviews in that context. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Without knowing anything about the position or institution, I’m afraid the only advice I have is stuff that seems pretty obvious – although I have seen candidates blow it on these points. Dress neatly and professionally, don’t swear or tell questionable jokes (especially not the “Ha ha, I’m saying something offensive!” type), and if there’s a meal involved remember that is still part of the interview and act accordingly.
You will probably have plenty of opportunity to ask questions, so have something in mind. If you haven’t already, look the organization’s website and think about what you might like to know more about. A decent generic question is “What do you like about working here?”
Do your research on the institution! Find out what they’re proud of, how they like to see their mission, what kind of stuff the office you’re interviewing with is already doing, what their student demographics are, etc., etc., etc. Most colleges and universities maintain some sort of fact book that is a gold mine of information (check the institutional research website). Knowing as much as you can, particularly about the population this institution serves, can save you a lot of grief.
Be specific in your answers; avoid generalizations and buzzwords, and cut as quickly as possible to examples of things you have done in your current position, or concrete ideas about what you might do in the new position.
Pay attention to institutional culture. This can be hard to gauge going in, unless you already know people who work there, but if you get to the on-campus interview stage, be on the lookout for little cues about the place’s quirks, who gets along with whom, and so forth, and try to avoid stepping on any mines.
Oh, and if anybody asks you to give a presentation on your vision and plans for the new position, DON’T spend the first ten minutes rambling about your life story and showing pictures of your kids :smack:
I work in administrative IT for a small-to-medium sized liberal arts college. I’ve participated in countless interviews. In addition to making sure you have the technical skills required for your position, I usually ask questions to find out what you find attractive about our institution, how prepared or frustrated you might be by the pace of a university’s bureaucracy, and how you see the role you are applying to fill in respect to the mission and operations of the school. Since you come from a similar background at another school, I would be keenly interested in your answers to the last question. While good candidates are all alike, bad candidates are bad in their own ways. One of the worst interviews in recent memory was of a candidate who had filled the role we were looking for, on the technology we were looking to use, at another university nearby, but couldn’t articulate anything about that role in the overall function of the university beyond “Someone tells me to push these buttons, so I do”.
I’ve been on plenty of hiring committees. One thing that always amazes me is the amount of folks that have no questions. This is the part of the interview that tells me that you care about how you will fit into the new role. Taking a new job is a major life change for most people and I want to know that you care about this. Are you going to like the group you work with? Are you going to like the work environment/culture? How many people are on the team and what are their roles?
I know some folks are so desperate for any job that they don’t care about any of that, but I do.
For an academic position, know what the institution’s priorities are for professors. For example, we interviewed a candidate for a position at my community college and she went on and on about what she’s published, what she’s working on, how important research is for her, what the load reduction would be to allow for publications work, and how much money she’d get per year to support her research travel.
It’s not that we don’t give a crap about academic publication (we do, and most everyone is accomplished in this area), but as do most CCs we put highest value on service to students and the institution. There are no teaching load reductions for research, and the research financing is laughable. Even a bit of research into our college or even a generic perusal of college’s with similar missions would have quite easy. Clearly, she thought she was slumming it interviewing with us and had an R1 job in mind. (Needless to say, we passed on this candidate).
Bearing in mind that I’m in English/humanities and we are a breed unto ourselves in sartorial choices . . .
Dress up! Men need to wear a suit and tie, women should aim for a nicely-tailored business suit or dress. Dress shoes are a must, as are a shower/shave/basic grooming before arriving at the interview. Yes, you may be a Post-Marxian vegan spotted owl worshipper who rejects the clothing of the patriarchy, but you need to play the dress-up game for just a day
Hie thee to the Chronicle of Higher Education Forums where they have entire topics devoted to applying for jobs and interviewing. Personally, I like the “In the Classroom” topics where professors say what they really think about their students. They have the same high-level of writing and posts that SDMB has, which is a pleasure.
I assume your interview is over by now, and I hope it went well, but I’ll chime in for posterity’s sake. I work at a small university and we are currently interviewing for several positions. One standard question we ask candidates is “why do you want to work here?” The best answer I ever heard was one candidate who rattled off a list of distinguished people who had worked here in the past, saying he wanted to be associated with such luminaries. I figure he probably just did some research on our history to prepare himself with a good answer, but I was still impressed!
Thanks all - the interview went OK. I’m a little unsure of how well, because it was split time between so many people - 7 in all, in 20/30 minute chunks.
I definitely used the research I did beforehand to refer to some of the programs they run, and I suspect that was helpful.
I also asked more questions than they did, which is a bit surprising - is that a new interview trend? I don’t feel like I’ve seen that happen before.
It means that, through collaboration with the NSA and Russia, they knew more about you than you do. In fact, you may want to ask them why you prefer blue to orange. I hear it’s a fascinating story.
I work in environmental sciences and in many cases I’ve found that the “older” faculty know they need to get more tech savvy but don’t really have a grasp on how to do it. They rely on new employees to bring in the enthusiasm and experience. In those situations it can be intimidating to even ask a lot of questions.
And here I thought I preferred orange to blue - I guess they really do know more about me than I do! :eek:
That is kinda funny - a little more than a year ago, I was working on a couple of environmental-related projects, doing the technical work for faculty who didn’t have a very hands-on approach. So I can kind of understand that.
Thanks monstro and Doctor Jackson and Tim R. Mortiss! It’s been a very relieving feeling - I’ve been employed, but in temporary positions for the last year, and it is such a great feeling to have a permanent position after such a long job search.
