There’s a lot of advice out there for prospective applicants for academic faculty positions [1], so you don’t really need mine. However, some advice is outdated and some is incomplete, so I thought it would be worthwhile to add a small bit of information based on experiences from my department’s search last year (Physics, University of Oregon, U.S.A.). There are details regarding how applicants are evaluated that are not widely known, even by existing faculty, involving for example Zoom interviews and DEI statements; perhaps cataloging this will be of use to people on the U.S. STEM academic job market now or in the near future.
Background: My department is, I think, fairly typical of STEM departments at mid-sized not-top-tier US universities. We ran a faculty search last year (2022-2023). I was not part of the committee. (I’ve been on several faculty search committees in Physics and other departments, by the way.) It was a broad search, open to applicants in any area of physics. Applicants submitted a CV, a Research Statement, a Teaching Statement, and a Diversity Statement, and they arranged for reference letters.
There were 356 applications for the position. Of these, approximately half were culled due to obvious inappropriateness for the position or based on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) assessments. From the remainder, 25 were selected for Zoom (video) interviews. Of these, 7 were brought in for in-person interviews. All 7 were female. (The fraction of U.S. Physics Ph.D.s awarded to women is about 20%, by the way.) Then one offer was made, as planned, and not long after, an additional offer was made. The search ended with two hires. The resulting future colleagues of mine seem excellent.
Zoom interview questions
I was surprised to find that the Zoom interview questions were only given to the candidates the day before, and were not shared with the faculty, beyond the committee, at all. This isn’t an exam, and I find the lack of transparency about what we want to discuss with candidates bizarre. In case it’s useful for others, here are the questions that were asked:
1 Research presentation: Please give a brief (8 minute maximum) description of the most exciting research you have done and your future plans. Please consider addressing the ‘big picture’ and the scientific questions you will address, how your past research enables you to execute your plan, potential synergies with faculty and/or facilities in UO Physics. You are welcome to prepare presentation slides and share those via Zoom. [8 min]
2 Tell us about a challenge you encountered in your work. How did you address it? [3 min]
3 How have you demonstrated leadership so far and how will you position yourself to be a leader in your field? [3 min]
4 How would you advocate for DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] with colleagues who do not understand its importance? Please give us some examples from your experience. [3 min]
5 Classroom culture and instructor interactions play a big role in students leaving physics, especially those from under-represented groups. How will you create a classroom environment that allows these students to persist in the major? [3 min]
Commentary
I’m largely omitting commentary from this post, but I can’t help but note a few things:
It’s amusing to imagine asking these questions of the interviewers, though I don’t recommend that applicants try it. For #3: Can the interviewers make a strong case that they’re leaders in their fields? If not, would they like to comment on where their careers took a wrong turn? What does “leader” mean, anyway? More constructively, Question 3 tries to get at two important tasks for the applicant: Convince us that what you’re working on is something that people care about, and convince us that you’re energetic and can guide other people.
Question 4 I find disconcerting, and I complained about this when I learned of it during the search. DEI criteria for hiring are of course controversial. This question hides an opinion under a veneer of objectivity. It is of course true that one could describe how to “advocate for DEI” without stating that one believes in such advocacy, and so the question doesn’t screen for particular viewpoints, but it’s a less tortuous path from one starting point than another. One would never ask, “How would you persuade a colleague that teaching well is unimportant, and that we should do the most minimal job we can consistent with getting paid?” even though answering this also doesn’t actually require holding that (awful) belief.
As mentioned, DEI statements are controversial in society at large. It is a mistake to think that working towards inclusivity and other non-technical goals is irrelevant to a STEM faculty position, and I think activities like this that I work on are an important part of my professional life. It is also, however, appalling to assess faculty candidates on perceived fealty to implicit beliefs, especially when there is little transparency regarding criteria, little correlation between words and actions, and little opportunity for discussion.
To those of you on the academic job market: good luck!
Today’s illustration…
A lily that I painted in few minute blocks over several days, barely finishing before it decayed.
— Raghuveer Parthasarathy Oct. 3, 2023
[1] For example:
- This article on research statements is good: https://grad.ncsu.edu/news/2020/04/how-to-construct-a-compelling-research-statement/
- This article is by a physicist. (I agree with most of it.) https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/73/10/30/853135/Reflections-on-an-academic-job-searchThe-road-from
- A brief summary of the components of a faculty application: https://capd.mit.edu/resources/application-materials-for-a-faculty-job-search/
- There’s a lot of stuff here that I haven’t read: https://www.christophertsmith.com/reflections/resources-for-the-academic-job-search
- I also haven’t read this: https://bmcproc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12919-021-00210-x
The Eighteenth Elephant 