You're on your on-campus interview and you're out to a nice dinner with two senior members of the department. All of the most important matters have been covered in the conversation: what it was like working with your supervisor, how you deal with a certain kind of objection to your view, what your next research project will be, etc. All in all, things are going well.
DO NOT neglect to ask about what your dinner hosts are working on.
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Also, when asked a ridiculously loaded question such as "Do you think God has a place in philosophy?" DO NOT respond with "God makes for lazy metaphysics". I learned the hard way that not everyone gets the joke.
This is good advice. On the other hand, it points out a real absurdity of the job market situation. Under normal circumstances, a person who goes through an entire dinner being asked questions about herself, without ever asking any questions in return, shows herself to be quite self-centered and probably not much fun to be around.
But, of course, a job interview is NOT NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES. The interviewee is nervous, and has probably spent the last three weeks endlessly rehearsing her response to every conceivable question about herself. She's essentially on autopilot, entirely in reactive mode. Under these conditions, her failure to ask questions about her hosts indicates only that she forgot to prepare that particular question ahead of time. It indicates absolutely nothing about her character, or what she would be like as a colleague.
Or, even if she does happen to think to ask, she might instantly have the following worry: 'these are senior philosophers, so I'm supposed to ALREADY KNOW their work. If I ask questions about it, then I suggest that either I am incompetent, or I did not think their work merited my attention up to this point. So safest to say nothing.' Of course, this is paranoid. In the present market, many candidates are paranoid. This says nothing about their characters, or what they would be like as colleagues.
Anyway, what Spiros said is good advice. You should memorize "And what are you working on?" as one of your ready-to-hand phrases before going to an on-campus. But the fact that this is necessary just shows how stupidly the job market indulges the Fundamental Attribution Error.
Insisting on the routinized "So, what are you working on?" is lame. Give the kid a break.
Agreeing with others, while this is good advice, even better advice would be not to let truly trivial bits of nonsense like this have any role in a decision as to whom to hire. Where there's good reason to think your own ego is involved, it's especially good to stop, think, and not let truly trivial bits of nonsense like this have any role in your hiring decisions.
Asking it that way sounds like you haven't prepared one bit. Take the time to find out what the faculty members have been working on most recently, and start from there.
Who could go to dinner with the faculty of a prospective employing department and NOT ask about their work, either with the basic "So, what do you work on?" or something like, "So, you work on [x], right? What's your current project?" I mean, you make it sound like philosophers are mostly introverts and monomaniacs who don't have any social skills and have to actively memorize bits of conversation to...
Oh. Oh, I get it.
Having served on several SC's, two at a SLAC and three at an R1, I can tell you that it is not that big of a faux pas for a candidate not to ask the faculty about their work.
I don't think it is the sort of thing that sinks a candidate but a candidate who does such things stands out impressively and positively. We had one stellar candidate this year (best candidate I have interviewed in 4 searches in the last 5 years) -- his attention to that kind of detail as well as knowledge of the school and area really made him stand out. Spiros offers wise advice to job candidates if those candidates want to stand out above the competition of course.
If I was good at selling myself to prospective employers over dinner, I wouldn't be in this line of work.
These posts about teaching philosophers about basic social skills are so precious
12:41's comment about preciousness reminds me of what a crush I still have on Chrissie Hynde.
Crap. That was supposed to link to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6-0ypKuwv8
"I shot my mouth off, and you showed me what that hole was for"
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