As search consultants, we frequently have the best seat in the house for the conversations that shape, and sometimes radically change, people’s lives: job interviews.
Our focus here is on interviews for administrative appointments—not the top leadership jobs, but the more common ones: deans, general counsels, executive directors. The atmosphere in those interviews is always cordial but charged beyond belief. Members of the search committee have thoughtfully crafted questions, so as to ensure softballs, hardballs, theoreticals, and a sprinkling of feel-goods. The interview must take no longer than the prescribed time, cover roughly the same territory for each of the candidates, and help the committee arrive at an understanding of how to feel about each one.
We have watched perfectly reasonable candidates with terrific credentials and experience walk in like ambassadors from another world, offering a regal, modest hand wave to the assembled committee as they try to figure out whether to shake everyone’s hand individually or just slip into the one vacant seat and meet their fate.
We are prevented by our roles from intervening on the candidates’ behalf. Other than basic advice regarding how to prepare for the interview, we cannot possibly tell them everything they might need to know. Some candidates will discover many of the issues, criticisms, and triumphs the institution is facing; those with less initiative will not. You’d better believe that if we were in their shoes, we would learn as much as we possibly could about the place. No investigatory holds would be barred.
But what else do we, as search consultants, think job candidates should do in advance of the interview ritual?
Internal preparation. Aka headwork. Try to figure out in advance how interested you are in the job, and why. Your level of interest, or lack thereof, will become glaringly obvious, especially to those committee members who are not asking the questions and are observing you closely. They will watch you like a hawk for signs of ambivalence, which is probably not fatal early on, but can be if it carries over to the final interview.
Our preliminary conversations often weed out people who are just kicking tires, but sometimes they slip through because they are really well qualified and the employer is flattered by their apparent interest.
Here are some of the mental calculations you should be making at this stage: Think about the changes the job would require in your personal life, and whether everyone in your household would be on board with a move.
You would be surprised by the number of candidates who secretly interview for jobs hundreds of miles from where they live when their kids are juniors in high school. They suddenly remember, once they become finalists, that their son Horace, the tennis ace who might get a scholarship if he can sustain his athletics and academic record during his senior year, might not want to move. Did Horace just appear on the scene wielding a golden tennis racket, or might the candidate have known about him for 16 or 17 years?
If candidates don’t have the courage to discuss tough stuff with their families, how can they be expected to deal with tough stuff on the job?
Then there is the job that would not require relocation but would involve logistical challenges. Two-hour commutes are fine several times a month, but most people become unglued with a steady diet of NPR. And what about the after-hours committee meetings? What about the required professional conferences? How will all of that play at home?
It’s not just personal issues you have to consider. What about the new professional skills you will need to master if you land the job? You have never dealt with budgets before; just thinking about them gives you hives. What made you think you could address the state Legislature with graphs, flow charts, and 25-year debt projections? Sit and think: “I want my career challenges to grow with time, but am I really ready for this one? At this time?”
It is likely you will run into people on the hiring committee again. The judgments they make about your candidacy and your readiness for the job will stay fixed in their minds. You might grow and change, but their impression of you will remain fixed until they acquire new information about you.
External preparation. When people haven’t been on the job market recently, they relax. They may forget that they haven’t interviewed in five years. They haven’t put on that navy pinstripe suit in a while. Does it still fit? What about the shoes?
Take the time to spruce yourself up. If your clothes don’t fit, get them altered or buy some new ones. Now is not the time to arrive with your shirt creeping out of the waistband, buttons pulling, or wrinkles and stains on your dress. Committee members will notice, no matter how robust your presentation.
It doesn’t take much to make a negative impression. One candidate arrived late, breathless and flustered. Her cab driver had feigned familiarity with the destination, only to admit that he was lost and clueless about how to find his way. She was forced to set off on foot—in heels. She eventually made it, but the fiasco could have been avoided had she used the driver we recommended. Another candidate arrived on St. Patrick’s Day sporting a green suit, shirt, tie, hankie, and socks.
Substantive preparation. No matter how hard you prepare, you will seldom know more than the internal candidates do. They have an ear to the ground, they are privy to gossip that never makes the blogs (which you should read, by the way, both general academic blogs and ones relating to the institution in question), and they have internal sources with whom they exchange information. Gossip is the coin of the realm. If you learn nothing else from this article, please remember that.
Searches at academic institutions are often leaky vessels. People blog about the finalist lists, they speculate, they gossip. They shouldn’t, because spectacular candidates might well be willing to surface if they thought their identity would remain confidential. Occasionally even the most private of candidates can be lured into interviewing for a golden opportunity. They simply can’t help themselves. Then, in their exuberance, after swearing the committee members and the consultants to secrecy, they pick up the phone, call a buddy at the hiring institution, reveal their candidacy, swear that colleague to secrecy, and then ask for the scoop about the place.
The minute they hang up the phone, the confidentiality is breached. Trust us, in the majority of cases, word escapes slowly, like a leak in a balloon. Sooner or later, the news reaches someone who will use it to entertain his friends at lunch. From then on, you are a dead duck.
Interestingly, that seldom happens in the private sector, where people seem to understand and respect a job candidate’s need for privacy. They realize that jobs, promotions, entire careers are at stake. So next time, resist the temptation to share the news of your candidacy just to get some inside information. Do your own research, using Web sites, newspapers, and the myriad other sources available.
Don’t look at just the specific circumstances of the college. Look into the trends that are affecting all of higher education. Strive to place the institution, and its future, within the context of those trends. How will the challenges faced by public institutions change in the next 10 years? How will private institutions be impacted?
Try to imagine the future, because the position you are interviewing for is likely to require that you be an active participant in its shaping. The more broadly you educate yourself about the issues on the horizon, including the ever-present money issues, the more you will be able to contribute to the dialogue, and to the interviews, as committee members search for meaningful ways to interact with you.
We applaud those search-committeemembers who struggle to get it right, who put countless hours into the selection of candidates, who use all their antennae to help them understand the humans in front of them, warts and all. We are mindful of the fellow who describes a beautiful woman in glowing terms, and the friend who wants to know more about the mole on her neck.
Unfortunately, sometimes that’s how it feels inside a committee’s deliberations. We all have a mole somewhere, and most of us are forgiven for it as we roll through life. But the search-committee process is, by its nature, a deliberate and careful one. The human under consideration should be prepared to be examined in full. The search committee has been given a task, will be judged on the results, and wants desperately to succeed.
