Professional Interview Question - Skype/Attire?

[Jon Niednagel]

TP's all around. Thanks everyone. It seems like a pretty clear consensus to go with the full suit and tie.

Any other suggestions for the Skype interview are also welcomed from anyone with any input.

Okay on the plane. When you talk to the committee look into the camera NOT the screen. When you look at the screen you miss eye contact with them. 

And wear a good tie!

I can't agree enough with the advice from my fellow PhD.  Wear the suit. One poly com trick is to sit back away from the camera/computer a little . The further back you are, the easier it is to discretely look at them on screen while also looking at the camera. If you sit too close you have to ignore your view of them on screen to look at the camera and you lose your social cues. Don't sit too far back though, or it will look weird.

[Moranis]

I can't imagine that a professor position interview would be anything other than a suit and tie.  Now sure, you might not have to wear that once you get the job, but I can't really see how that isn't the way to go for the interview.

[hwangjini_1]

so jp, give us the low down on the interview please. what happened? did the committee fight with each other during the interview? (i once had that happen. it was hysterical.)

[kozlodoev]

so jp, give us the low down on the interview please. what happened? did the committee fight with each other during the interview? (i once had that happen. it was hysterical.)

I'm totally not shocked. I mean, academics were once grad students, and grad students (at least in my field) are a weird lot. I found www.econjobrumors.com at some point, and the world would never be the same after that...

Also curious on the fallout, although ten days are probably not enough for a turnaround at this time of the year. Will they be attending the annual meetings (Jan 7 for the APA)? If so, there probably will be little movement until then.

[jpotter33]

Update:

So I have still yet to hear back from the committee. They told me it would probably be early January before hearing from them, though I'm pretty much assuming that I won't make it to the campus visits with as good of a job as it was and as much competition that I was facing.

However, I have had some more success with several post-doc fellowship positions. Today I found out that I'm in the final two candidates for a post-doc fellowship at one of the larger private academic medical centers in the US, and in a couple of weeks I have to go there for a full-day interview process, including giving an hour long presentation and individually interviewing with the half dozen multidisciplinary members of the executive committee and staff.

So this then brings up a whole other host of issues that I have questions about lol

It seems this is pretty similar to many academic campus interviews. For those that have gone through these types of interviews, were they pretty formal or informal? Are the differing interviews pretty rigorous? Can I expect significantly different interview focuses from each of the multidisciplinary committee members?

Also, regarding the presentation, I am supposed to plan on speaking for around forty minutes with twenty minutes of questions. Should this time frame suggest that I'm going to get "grilled" on the subject with quite a few questions, similar to a dissertation defense?

Any other suggestions, tips, or helpful information regarding the campus visit interview would be very helpful! Please know that I greatly appreciate all the feedback and help that y'all have given. This can be a very nerve-wracking process when your future career depends so heavily on it!

[jpotter33]

so jp, give us the low down on the interview please. what happened? did the committee fight with each other during the interview? (i once had that happen. it was hysterical.)

Funnily enough, their Skype account ended up not working, so we just had a conference call interview. lol

I thought the interview went pretty well, though there were one or two things that I wish I would've phrased differently. I still kind of got the impression that they were looking for a candidate with a bit more experience. I'd be a fresh PhD when the job started this summer, and they were looking for particular skills that are acquired after one has been employed in that type of position for several years.

For example, though it was a "hard money" salary, they wanted an experienced grant writer to search for external funding projects. I've been involved with one such project, but I am nowhere near ready to undertake such a project as the lead or on my own. I believe that I got the interview because my CV is decently advanced for a scholar/teacher in my career stage, but I think I'm still lacking the career experience that they were looking for in this particular opening.

I was probably a bit too ambitious in some of the types of positions that I applied to for the upcoming academic year.  However, with the academic job market as it is, you kind of have to take those chances, right?