We hire on CV, but we fire on fit. So goes a saying meant to emphasize that successful leadership on campus, whether for a chair, assistant dean of students, or president, is not necessarily guaranteed by a strong set of paper qualifications for the position. Situational and self awareness, sensitivity to native manners and style, understanding of how the sausage is made in the local culture, and an overall sympathetic connection between character and campus often prove the determining factors on whether the leader will be effective.
The issue of fit is also important when hiring for regular academic positions. For search committees, gauging fit may mean asking questions like:
- Does the candidate’s area of research or teaching align with our needs?
- Will the candidate get along as a colleague in our particular academic culture — that is, our way of working together, solving problems, and making decisions?
- Will the candidate connect meaningfully with and respect our students?
- Is the candidate eager to become part of our community, or is this a short-term stepping stone?
Not sure if your job finalists are a good fit? Bring them to campus as a group and see how they gel with your college’s culture.
Unfortunately, the typical academic job search, even with in-person campus visits, poorly vets candidates for fit. Many of the settings and situations are artificial. A judiciously prepared one-off teaching presentation directed not only to students but to dozens of tenured faculty is hardly an in situ simulation of how somebody will perform on Week 13 of the fall semester. The formal interview with the search committee can feel like a scripted play with standard questions met with canned replies.
So how do you get to really know candidates and get them to really know you? I’m always intrigued when I hear about educational institutions trying something atypical, such as Olin College of Engineering and its group-interview process. The intention is to engage candidates in a true collaboration that mimics Olin’s workplace culture and allows all parties to get to know each other better.
But what other ideas could we less radical innovators consider that might help us achieve a better sense of fit? Here are some venues and processes to consider. What they all have in common is that they focus more on gauging interaction skills than presentation and script-memorization skills.
The mentoring session. A sine qua non of almost every job ad for a tenure-line faculty member at a research university is an exhortation: “The ideal candidate will be eager to work with our graduate students and mentor them to success.” In the case of a department or unit with a doctoral program, the need for an engaged scholar is especially acute. Certainly, most campus visits involve a meet-and-greet with doctoral students. There will also most likely be a representative of the doctoral students on the search committee, but the stilted “what are you working on?” banter of the formal meeting or even the more informal chitchat during a lunch doesn’t really get to the issue that concerns everyone.
Instead, why not have an actual mentoring session? Solicit doctoral students who find themselves at a particular decision point in their studies — say, picking a topic for the dissertation, preparing for the qualifying exams, or even going on the job market. The candidate sits with them and they all kibbutz back and forth, letting everyone share experiences and allowing the doctoral students to get a real sense of whether this is someone who is willing to go beyond talking about her own research to show genuine interest, offer useful ideas, and truly engage. The doctoral students report back to the committee on a one-to-five scale with the top ranking being, “I would love to have her here as a resource for us!”
The research planning meeting. This intimate venue, with its small group, no formal agenda, and an emphasis on creative interaction, can be used to evaluate whether a candidate will be a good colleague to faculty members at the same rank. In the case of an assistant-professor hire, you might invite a few of your most successful new faculty members who are collaborating on a big project, perhaps for a federal grant. No PowerPoint, no handouts; let the discussion and the probing reveal another key indicator: Is this someone I’d like to have down the hallway to work with or at least to get reaction to my own work?
The faculty meeting. Here is another site where people tend to reveal their true character and make a positive (or negative) impact on their unit. From an outsider’s perspective, the faculty meeting is also one of the best vantage points to answer the question: “Do I really want to be working with these people, perhaps for decades to come?” Why not invite a job candidate, if not to a full meeting of the faculty, at least to some committee session that deals with major issues, such as curriculum innovation, changes in the faculty handbook, and so on? The candidate would not be expected to chime in on every item, but how he interacts with prospective colleagues cannot help but be a crucial indicator of his future fit.
We live in an era of high-stakes hiring — for candidates and hiring units — yet, ultimately, no matter how interactive you invite a candidate to be with you, the job-interview process will always have a tincture of unreality. You never really know people until you have taken the time to get to know them. The suggested innovations in the hiring process at Olin College are a reminder to all of us that we should at least try to find new ways to get to know candidates better, and for them to get to know us.
David D. Perlmutter is a professor and dean of the College of Media & Communication at Texas Tech University. He writes the Career Confidential advice column for The Chronicle.
Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.
