Thanks for the sympathy, Eureka. Turns out I had a week and a half to prepare.
Substitutes arranged for Monday’s classes: Check.
New suit: Check.
Research talk: Coming together nicely.
Lecture: Um, yeah. That puking-on-shoes thing.
I wasn’t sweating the lecture . . . while I’ve never taught that course before, the subject is one of my areas of special interest, and I figured I’d be comfortable with the material, and (rightly or wrongly) I’m pretty confident of my mad teaching skillz. Then they sent me the topic. Hoo boy. Not only is it something I haven’t taught before, it’s something I’ve never learned before. So if anyone has any brilliant insights to share on the method of undetermined multipliers in Lagrangian mechanics . . . Yeah. So until Monday, I’m sleeping with a text on calculus of variations under my pillow.
Irishgirl - Are you going to take it, whether or not they give you the feedback?
Podkayne - Just remember - vomiting on your interviewers is never a good thing.
Khadaji - This first interview started out “You’re over-qualified, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing…” Apparently it’s not a good thing, either. I may have to dumb-down my resume a bit.
I often hear people, like StGermain say they’ve been told they’re overqualified (my mom for one). I think that’s so stupid! I hate it that people have to do things like dumb down their resumes. I mean, shouldn’t these potential employers be thrilled that someone who is overqualified applies, and could bring something really special to the job? Is the problem that they’re threatened by someone who might just be more qualified than they are? Do they think there must be something wrong with you if you’re applying for a job you’re overqualified for? I don’t get it, and it frustrates me to hear that people get put through that kind of stuff.
Then again, if I were ever interviewing someone, I’d try to mess with their heads by asking questions like, “Simon or Garfunkel?”
Holy fuck. The worst phone interview of all time has just yeilded an in-person interview!
This interview was a conference call with, like, 8 people. I’d printed out the department’s faculty web page and was able to match up four of the people on the call with people on the page . . . the other four people, I have no clue who they were. They introduced themselves by name, but didn’t say whether they were all physics faculty, or administration, or out-of-field comittee members, or what the hell. They then proceeded, in turn, to read from a list of prepared questions. There was NO DEVIATION from the list, even when I had clearly answered a question in my answer to the previous question, and many questions were in adminspeak, which shouldn’t have thrown me off, but it did. Example: “How would you teach a diverse student population?”
Uhhhhh . . .
What are you supposed to say to that?
Moreover, this is a small college in Minne-freakin’-sota. Their diverse student population is composed of Protestants of Scandinavian descent.
I know now exactly how I should have answered (blah blah blah modern interactive physics education techniques . . . blah blah gains in all parts of the bell curve, blah blah) but it completely threw me for a loop at the time.
Well, anyway, 'nother interview to look forward to. Happily, I can give the same research talk. Think I can just give the same lecture? “We’d like you to teach a class of Astronomy 101: Our Wonderous Universe.” “Sure thing! They’re familiar with the Hamiltonian principle and Euler equations with auxiliary constraints, right?”
Whenever I think about my past interviews, I feel nothing but horror.
During college, interviewed for a job which the interviewing manager told me I was “ahead of all the other candidates” in terms of skills. Problem was, I had two day classes but they said they would work around it. Weeks went by with no word. Left a message for the HR director with no return calls. Three months later I get a call asking if I am still interested in the job. I say yes and never hear back from the company again. Still find it all wierd. A friend said they probably hired someone else the first time who did not work out and dug up my file. Makes sense but no idea on the lack of a call back after they called me.
Again during college, waited all afternoon and into the night for a call from a company. Since it was before caller ID, each time the phone rang I thought it might be them. Problem is, my father kept calling me all night with amazingly stupid or petty stuff. Each time I explained that I was waiting on a call about an interview but it didn’t sink into his thick skull. Company called me back two days later(said he was sorry for forgetting to call me) but the interview was a joke. They were looking for an accounting major while I was an engineering major. Person who posted the job screwed it up.
Interviewed with a company post graduation. Had to interview with the company’s owner and two sons. I went to x college while they all went to y college so I knew right off the bat I was in trouble. While I interviewed with all three, they were not there at the same time so as people came in, I had to answer the same questions repeatedly. Really really painful interview.
Not too long ago I interviewed with a local company. I was overqualified for the position, having more experience than required and also much more education than required. I figured it to be a good fit since it was closer to home and gave me opportunity to move further faster than where I currently work. It was a better title, about the same pay and similar benefits. Interview lasted about 20 minutes. Didn’t get a job offer or any further comment, positive or negative, simply never heard from them. Worked out for the best because after speaking with a few of the company’s employees, I have not heard a single positive thing about the company. Strangly, shortly after that took place, my job sort of took off and I am happy as can be there.
My phone interview in December which yielded my campus interview next week included a couple of questions that I considered either designed to remove total idiots from the interview pool–or else statements in the form of questions.
“We are in the process of building a new building and it will be chaotic at times in the next couple of years, can you cope?” What was I going to say “Nope. I’m only interested in jobs in established buildings?”
“You are aware that our housing costs are rather high in the area?” “well, duh, It’s California!”
Some of the others were “We are asking all persons interviewed the same questions to eliminate bias”
“So tell us about your experience with (something I don’t have experience with)”
Repeat 3 more times with other things I don’t have experience with.
There is a reason I was shocked to get the e-mail setting up this interview.
– “Fuck research. That shit is hard. I didn’t apply at Caltech for a reason, m’kay?”
– “Teaching? snort Yeah, right! Screw undergrads. They just get in the way when there’s real work to be done.”
Seriously. HOW DO YOU ANSWER THAT? I babbled on about time-management techniques and evaluating whether one was spending one’s time in a balanced manner. Afterwards, I felt like a freakin’ idiot. I guess I should have gushed about including undergraduates in research or something, but I’d already expressed enthusiasm on that topic before. Maybe I should have stayed “on message” and not felt so self-conscious about repeating myself.
I’m starting to wonder why I agreed to come out for an interview. That was the most annoying phone call of my life. Are they going to be that much better in person?
If nothing else, going through with the campus visit gives you a chance to practice the whole on campus interview process. I’ll admit-- I’m not at all sure that I want this job in California, assuming that they offer it to me-- and I’m not entirely sure that they aren’t bringing me out for an interview solely so that they have 3 or 4 candidates to choose from. (I also suspect that the fact that they are moving so slowly contributes. I bet some better candidates have already accepted jobs elsewhere.) But hey, interviewing is good practice for other interviews, and I’ve never been to California, so why not take a free (albeit short) trip.
And besides, maybe they will be better in person. After all, if they go to the effort to bring you out there, they now have more invested in you and are (maybe) going to make some effort to persuade you that life on their campus, interacting with that highly diverse population of Protestents of Scandinavian Descent, in what I assume is the middle of nowhere (Western Minnesota doesn’t have much population that I know of) is what you really want to do with the rest of your life-- or at least enough of it to make it worth their time to hire you. Or maybe you will get a chance to talk to people beyond those whom you had the phone interview with.
I got a letter about six weeks ago from my last place of employment, asking if I was interested in returning to work there. It wasn’t sent just to me - it was obviously part of a mail out.
I rang them, because I was thinking about returning to work (left in 2000) and set up an interview. The interview went well and I was left with the distinct impression that it was just a formality anyhow. Waited three weeks before phoning to find out the situation and was told that the Staff Services person was on leave. Waited another two weeks and phoned again yesterday. Left a message for her to ring back. Still waiting.
I’m at the point where I expect a "We regret … " in the post. I just can’t work out why they invited me back in the first place. It’s not as if my police check will exclude me; I haven’t had so much as a parking ticket.
You are right, of course. It’s hard not to sound like an idiot in an eight-way conference call, so I really should give them the benefit of the doubt. And it’s also true every interview is a chance to practice.
And, truly, I have great affection for Minnesota, Norwegians, or Lutherans—as long as they do not take their delusions of diversity too seriously. And the nice thing about low population is low light pollution, and they have a sweet little on-campus observatory . . .
The other thing I keep reminding myself is that there’s a big demographic shift going on in physics right now. All the guys that were hired in the Sputnik era are retiring, so it’s important to consider not just the impression I have of the current faculty, but the department as it will be: who are the youngsters and what’s the direction they’re going in.
Gah! Interviewing for tenure-track jobs is the worst. You’re basically choosing the people you’re going to be spending the rest of your life with. It’s like chosing your spouse based on knowing them for a day and a half.
The first one I am over qualified for. The newly promoted manager, when I asked her the attributes of a successful supervisor in her department retorted without missing a beat " humility"
Fuck-
Ok this has to be a bad sign- please let me know what you think-
My second interviewer ( last night) didnt even take notes!! :eek: I felt so confident with him, I honestly thought he was just going to say, “ok here’s the job, Its demanding and underpaying, but I know you can do it…” I dont know if it was because the interview was so late in the day (started at 4:45pm) but the manager just disclosed so much frustration with the team he was hiring the manager for. I think I may have mistaken his fatigue and informality with being in his confidence. Honestly, I think he was on the verge of saying, “here you go, good luck”
Also- any truth (supposedly statistics have proven…) interviewing first is not as good as interviewing last??
I’m mostly curious if it’s the same college I went to. It’s a small state college, southwest Minnesota. If that’s the one, I’d be happy to tell you anything you want to know about the area/school, or even show you around when you’re here (I live about 20 miles from there).
And actually, considering where the college is located, they did have a pretty diverse student population. The college I went to also has a reputation for being very handicapped-accessible, having a successful wheelchair basketball team, etc.
I have a meeting with a career counseler next Thursday. The company that laid me off is paying for it. My former director has been to see him twice and raves about him. I’m unconvinced, but what the heck, it is free to me…
And the nice thing about low population is low light pollution, and they have a sweet little on-campus observatory . . .