Job market - from the search side

In five days, we're having our department meeting to vote on our new hire in Y-ology. I went to the trouble of reading both candidates files, attending both teaching sessions and the department interviews. Since I'm in my first year on the tenure-track, this has all be very eye opening to me. I don't know how other schools do it - or even other departments - but my department has a search committee of four people who will recommend one person over the other and then the entire department gets to vote on whether or not we approve of the selection. There will be a discussion about the candidate the SC has chosen, with rationale about why they have chosen this particular candidate. Those of us who have attended all the sessions and read all the files might have a few thoughts to add as well. Then, we'll vote.

Being curious and wanting to be a responsible member of the department, even though we're not hiring in my field, I figured I should participate as much as possible. The first thing I did was I went to the provost's office and read the files. Person A's file was much more appealing than Person B's. The letter was 2 pages in a reasonable sized font with normal margins. The letter was clear, concise, professional, and said things like, "As my CV will show," and let the reviewer actually look at the CV as a meaningful document, instead of a redundant addition to the letter. Person B's letter was in tiny font, with tiny margins, and explained the CV to death, including every class ever taught by the candidate and every conference, etc. In my mind, Person A's concise letter won. Plus, there were ZERO comma errors in that letter. Person B's letter? Comma errors were all over the place. That annoyed me, even if the person wasn't an English major. Shouldn't an academic be able to punctuate? (Or at least find someone to edit that important letter?)

Next, I saw both candidates teach. Person A was far and away the better teacher: passionate, intelligent, and did a fun activity that was relevant to the topic and furthered understanding. Person B was a fairly ho-hum teacher and didn't use the board at all, despite the fact that new concepts were being introduced, defined, and the students were asked to comment on them. I found B's teaching hard to follow. It was also clear that the person was nervous. I totally get that. I was nervous during my Romeo and Juliet debacle, too. The Person B did an activity, too, but it was hard to follow and had no actual instructions on the handout. To me, that's a teaching fail.

Finally, I went to both candidates' department interviews. Person A, again, was winning, charming, and smart. Person B, finally, lit up and was a real gem. I liked both of them. Under normal circumstances, Person A would win the race by a long shot, though, because everything Person A did was great. The letter, the teaching, the interview all were consistently fantastic, and I was leaning toward that person, mightily. But then, one of my colleagues - the only one I really don't think I gel with - asked a question that Person A handled in a way that offended me. To be fair to Person A, the question was wildly inappropriate, misogynistic, and when the question was asked, my chair and I make eye contact with each other, and both our faces displayed horror. But Person A didn't handle the question well, in my opinion, and came off as misogynistic himself.

Then, after the interview, a group of us, including Person A, went out for a cigarette. I was the only woman in the group. One of my part-time colleagues told an inappropriate hotel room story about himself and Person A about throwing underpants around. (They were friends in college. 'Nuff said.) Under different circumstances, maybe I wouldn't have felt uncomfortable. I like the part-time guy, but he's the guy who has hit on me almost every day since August 15th. So there's a little angst there anyway. But then, the way that Person A handled that story, too, made me feel like I was suddenly witnessing a moment in the future -- a good ol' boys club that would form in our department and threaten to undermine the professional atmosphere that I have truly come to value at my school. I felt like I was in the middle of a group of adolescent boys who couldn't resist telling dick and fart jokes.

It was really disappointing.

But then - should that experience and the misguided question of the one weirdo colleague really mean that I don't vote for the person who, to that point, I'd thought had blown away the other candidate? Is it fair to not support Person A's candidacy because of the fact that my current colleagues acted like idiots?

The whole thing bothered me for 24 hours. When I got to the point where I was so upset that I could no longer grade papers, I slammed down my pen and marched down to my chair's office. I said, "Got a minute?" as I shut the door behind me. "I know I don't have any influence on this search, but I wanted to let you know what I've been thinking about for the last 24 hours."

My chair had witnessed the cigarette incident, but didn't participate, and in fact, again, looked at me in horror during the story telling. We talked about the inappropriate behavior of our current colleagues -- neither of whom are tenure-track, and I don't know why we keep them around with all the stories of inappropriate behavior that I've heard, witnessed, and been the B-side to. I said that I didn't think it was fair to have these feelings reflect negatively on the candidate but that that exchange with the cigarettes made me feel like the future could include a lack of professionalism if we hired Person A. Person B, on the other hand, was nothing but professional. Perhaps a bit uninspiring, but definitely crossed no lines, handled questions well, and maintained a feeling that Person B would be a good colleague.

My chair and I puzzled over these things for a while, and Chair said, "I'm so glad you came and talked to me about this. You gave me a lot to think about." I feel really bad though, all around. I think the teacher we'd want would be Person A. I think the teacher that the students would vote for would be Person A. But I don't know what's going to happen. I will be surprised as anyone when we have the department meeting and hear the search committee's recommendation.

The reason I'm telling this story, though, is that I felt like the job market was such a mystery when I was on it. And the thing that we're considering right now is the overall picture and how adding one person or another into the mix of our lovely (mostly) department is going to have lasting implications. This is a cautionary tale. You can hit all the right notes on the letter, the teaching, and the interview, but if you're a threat to the peace and balance of the department, then you might not get a job based on how your future colleagues would react and/or interact with you.

Doesn't that suck??

It does. But it's the truth. Honestly, if my colleagues had acted like mature professionals, I wouldn't be telling this story. And maybe if Person A had been a shade less eager to please my weirdo colleague and not gone down that subtly misogynistic road with him, then he would have had my admiration and respect for handling that asshat question with aplomb. But he didn't.

I guess the moral of the story is this: when you're interviewing, maybe the right thing to do is just be as true to your real beliefs and self as you can be if some asshat asks you a really bad question. And if someone asks if they can tell a story about a hotel room in college, you say, "No, I prefer you didn't," instead of, "Oh... okay." Eagerness to please may cost Person A the job. Unless, as I fear, Person A really is that clueless about professionalism, and so insecure and desperate that principles are sidelined for the purposes of edging into a job. Person A picked the wrong person to try to impress, methinks.

The problem at this point is that I don't know what the priorities of the search committee are. We'll find that out on Tuesday. Then, we'll get a recommendation. Then, we'll vote. No matter how it goes, I'm not sure I'm going to be happy with the decision. At least not initially.

I hope that I'm wrong about my misgivings about both candidates. I hope that whomever we hire will be as wonderful an addition to the department as we could wish for. The ironic thing to me is that I never thought, as I was filling out all those job applications, that the search committee's job could be more complicated than the nuisances I had to deal with every day. How wrong, very wrong, I was.