A new spring semester is about to grind into gear... and along with that there will be on-campus interviews for (the very few) jobs in philosophy. Here are a few things not to do on your on-campus interview. And, yes, I've personally witnessed most of these acts of awesome stupidity...
1. Do not lick your plate at dinner with the department.
2. Do not order a tequila shot at lunch with the Dean.
3. Do not comment to the effect that the women graduate students are "hotties."
4. Do not boast in your meeting with graduate students that you've "never read a word of Hume"; especially when you're up for a job in ethics.
5. Do not order-- rather than, say, politely ask-- the department's administrative assistant to make photocopies of your handout. And when the assistant makes the copies, do not forget to express thanks.
6. Do not at any time, in any conversation, with any person, say something like, "In my view your department is pretty rinky-dink, but it has potential, especially if you make the right hire this year."
Good luck to all.
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19 comments:
7. Don't text someone else while being interviewed. Really. . . . seriously . ..
Do not:
Not bother to prepare a real paper for your job talk, 'cause you're so hot, and you're sure to get better offers.
Keep everyone waiting to go to dinner after the job talk, while you play pool. Then spend the entire dinner telling everyone why you should have won that game.
On the other hand, apparently it's fine (at my Leiter-ranked department) to:
Give a talk that lacks an argument but demonstrates how many urban myths about masturbation you believe. Bonus points if you fail to answer a single question in the discussion after the paper.
Some serious ones...
Don't ask questions you could have easily answered yourself from our webpage.
Don't ask a question you could have answered by looking around campus.
Don't let your obvious disdain for our college/campus/region show -- even if you could "do better", you haven't so far.. thus, you applied to us.
Wait, I know I shouldn't lick the plates of others, but I can't even lick my own? Man, this is a conservative discipline.
Is sleeping with a search committee member a "do" or a "don't"?
"Anonymous said...
Is sleeping with a search committee member a "do" or a "don't"?"
In other words, should you do or not do a search committee member?
How many urban myths about masturbation are there, anyway? I'm imagining some paper about growing hair on one's hands or something...
Here's a don't for interviewers:
Don't forget to pick up a candidate up at the airport when s/he arrives for the interview.
Corollary: don't fail to realize that the candidate you neglected to pick up at the airport is in town until the next day.
[Spoiler alert: surprisingly, the lost candidate was offered the job ... and took it.]
Don't mix up your host campus with another school where you'd rather be hired.
True story: When asked why a finalist wanted to teach at our school, X State University, the candidate replied: because University of X (an entirely different university in the state) is a great institution and it would be an honor to teach here.
I'm intrigued by the urban myths about masturbation, too...
I’m the 6:22 poster. An example. A central claim of the job talk concerned the ‘war on masturbation’ in the unenlightened ‘70s: mothers coming into the bedrooms at night to sniff their daughter’s fingers and so on. Speaking as someone who fought in that war in that decade (on the winning side I think), I believe this is not only a false urban myth, but a misrepresented one; the candidate surely meant the ‘50s or early '60s. The talk went downhill from there.
Dear 6:22/11:38,
And how did he handle himself during the question period?
Well put, Crito, though perhaps the salient question is, "Did he handle himself during the Q&A?" A job talk or teaching demonstration about masturbation wouldn't go over well here, but I suspect that handling oneself during either would be the kiss (or wank) of death. But then again, this may be a regional thing (I'm in the upper Midwest). Spiros, the lucky bastard, claims to have had handlers -- sounds like a very progressive (and sassy) grad program...
Did the candidate demonstrate a firm grasp of the matter at hand?
(rimshot; audience silently trickles out of venue)
Don't check out of the hotel your host department booked for you because it fails to meet your standards and then check into another one without telling anybody.
A central claim of the job talk concerned the ‘war on masturbation’ in the unenlightened ‘70s: mothers coming into the bedrooms at night to sniff their daughter’s fingers and so on. Speaking as someone who fought in that war in that decade (on the winning side I think), I believe this is not only a false urban myth, but a misrepresented one; the candidate surely meant the ‘50s or early '60s.
Now I'm totally lost: did the candidate just get the decade wrong?
And, combining this thread with the one on Leiter -- if I google "war on masturbation", will I find the candidate? Let's see...
Don't mention masturbation at all during a campus interview unless it pertains directly to the advertised AOS. Even though it may be important for some religiously oriented departments to determine whether candidates actually indulge in the objectively disordered sexual behavior of masturbation, it is simply not polite to ask candidates whether they masturbate.
Well, a few years ago I was in charge of picking up a job candidate at the airport and take him to dinner. This was an assistant professor position and the candidate a newly minted PhD. The next day, while waiting for the candidate to come around the department, we learned that he had checked out of the hotel and left town, apparently because the welcoming committee that took him to dinner (composed by me -- an assistant professor at the time -- and a few graduate students) was not distinguished enough. Much to my amazement, he did get a job somewhere else (I assume they gave him the royal treatment there).
Someone I know, applying for her first job, was on a campus tour. By chance there was a Philosophy Society debate taking place, about masturbation. She was invited, and attended. The faculty were apologetic. She got the job.
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