With campus interviews complete, two tasks remain in our job search: getting the search committee to say “yes” to a finalist, and getting that finalist to say “yes” to our offer. Sometimes this is easy. But don’t count on it.
In the best-case scenario, several hotshots are tied for first place, and we can’t go wrong hiring any of them. We may even seek authorization to hire two candidates instead of one. The success of such a request depends on my ability to persuade the dean that this is an opportunity not to be missed, and it is tempered by the degrees of freedom the dean has left at that stage of the college hiring season.
In the worst-case scenario, the list of finalists is empty. After all our recruiting efforts, and all the candidates who took their best shot, we draw a blank. For some time now, my college has allowed us to roll an unsuccessful search over to the following year. But that is small consolation to the search committee, which has worked long and hard to no effect. Considering their current state of exhaustion and frustration, searching again so soon is not an exciting prospect.
A search with no hire is no consolation at all for the unsuccessful job applicants. How is it, they must ask, that with all those unemployed English Ph.D.'s looking for work, we turn our backs on so many well-qualified job seekers? To answer that question I have to risk sounding arrogant and insensitive, but what happens is this: Illinois is a research-intensive institution with a strong emphasis on good teaching, and regardless of the number of applications we get, there is but a small pool of candidates who are right for any senior or tenure-track position we have available. We often find ourselves competing for the same two or three finalists sought by our peers, so in a typical search there is a clear first choice, and a couple of people in slots 2 and 3 who may already be accepting highly desirable jobs while we are still wooing our first choice. After the top few on our list, there’s a big gap in the rankings, followed by a group of candidates whom we cannot hire because we know that while they are talented and delightful people, they would not succeed in our environment.
Hiring such job seekers would not be good for them, or for us. It is a best-case scenario, too, when the search committee spontaneously gets behind a finalist with unanimity, and when that finalist generates energy and excitement throughout the department. Such searches are beautiful: A candidate, let’s call him or her “Mellish,” begins a job talk and everyone sighs, “You’re the one.” But sometimes each finalist has a subset of partisans and a subset of detractors. Passions may then run strong, and occasionally one hears, “It’s Mellish or nobody,” followed hard upon by, “I’d rather hire nobody than Mellish!” even though Mellish may have done nothing more egregious than fail to ask about the naysayer’s research. And then there are the cases where we unanimously agree that a candidate who looked good on paper, who even interviewed pretty well at the Modern Language Association conference, just doesn’t have the legs after all.
Here’s another scenario: Mellish may be very smart but may have a few rough edges or fail to cover the field we envisioned. Another candidate, “Nehamkin,” may seem a better fit socially or in terms of research area, but the magnitude of his work is lower on the Richter scale. If it’s a question of brains or the ability to make eye contact, I advise our search committee to go for the brains, the person most likely to make the earth move.
Having selected and ranked the finalists, I telephone our first choice -- again let’s say it’s Mellish -- with the good news that he or she is the one and then prepare a request to the dean, for only the dean can offer a tenure-track job. My request consists of a letter outlining the reasons why we chose Mellish, the candidate’s demonstrated strengths and future potential, and Mellish’s fit with the department’s research and teaching objectives. Along with that letter I send the Mellish vita and recommendations and an affirmative-action dossier that describes the conduct of the search; ranks the finalists in order; details how we will proceed in the event our offer is turned down; and explains why some of the candidates interviewed -- Nehamkin, Singer, Starkwell, and so on -- were not among the finalists for the job. In this dossier we are required to report, insofar as we can, the race and gender of all applicants; the total number of applicants for the position; the number of dossiers requested; and any additional information that may be relevant.
Once I know that the dean has approved my request and sent an offer to Mellish, I also send a letter to the candidate describing further details of the appointment: teaching load, committee service, annual reviews, research-leave policies, and anything else particular to that appointment. The dean has been known to turn around a job offer in 24 hours (senior hires take as little as two weeks once the nomination goes forward), and as soon as the offer is on its way, I begin serious discussions with the candidate. Here are some of the points typically open to negotiation:
Salary: Mellish may already earn a higher salary, or have a better offer somewhere else. If the other institution is a peer, we try to compete -- though I have to consult the dean before upping the stakes. We don’t want to lose our top candidate over a few $1,000, but Mellish has to fit into the departmental salary structure, and negotiated salaries tend to come in pretty close to the initial offer. Paying Mellish significantly more than faculty members who are already on staff, especially if the record is not demonstrably better, creates morale problems all around (our salaries are publicly available), and candidates usually understand that this constraint will affect just how high they can expect us to go.
Research support: Mellish was offered a hefty package at a liberal-arts college. As a public research institution we offer a small, one-time research package that often does not compete with what the privates can provide. In a good budget year I may have some extra money to put into faculty research as a recruiting incentive. But except for endowed chairs, we can’t offer recurring research money: I have to tell Mellish, Once you spend those initial dollars, you’re on your own.
Research leave: As an assistant professor, Mellish gets one semester of research leave, usually in the third year on campus. But our goal is for junior faculty members to take the leave when it will best fit with their research schedule, in order to best position them for a tenure bid, so Mellish can choose year 2 or 4 for the semester off.
Teaching reductions: We don’t negotiate reduced teaching loads, since the department is severely understaffed and there is strong pressure from the campus to make sure all faculty members not on leave are in the classroom. Mellish can apply for time off for research through internally-financed university competitions, as well as for the competitive external fellowships.
Partners: It turns out that Mellish has a partner looking for work. That’s the case with most of our hires. If Mellish’s partner is not an academic, I can distribute the partner’s résumé to appropriate employers in the community. Our campus supports the hiring of academic couples as a retention and recruiting tool, but the money is not always available for such hires, and partners seeking tenured or tenure-track positions must meet the same hiring standards as faculty members hired through national searches. When the partner is in a field outside English, I make an introduction to the appropriate department and encourage that department to consider the hire. My success rate on this is good but far from perfect, and our department has lost some significant recruits because a cooperating department did not, in fact, cooperate. But I have to admit that when it’s our turn, we also look very critically at partners that other departments propose to us.
Once I know that an offer from the dean is going out, I encourage members of the search committee, as well as any interested professors and students, to contact Mellish. Unless candidates express a strong preference to be left alone while deciding, we bombard them with friendly overtures. While we evince enthusiasm, we don’t require gushing in return. Some candidates are cool and reserved, either shy or not willing to show their cards, and that is just fine. In fact, we are unmoved -- and sometimes even put off -- by nonspecific overeagerness: the multiple thank-you notes and post-interview e-mails from “Krebs” did nothing to improve her ranking in our search.
Once we have determined our finalists, I also write to those applicants who did not make the cut. For those who weren’t interviewed, I send a form letter trying to let them down easily, though I can’t go into specific details about why the fit wasn’t right. I do sign each of these letters personally, and in the cases where I have met the applicant, I add a personal note. I send each candidate who was interviewed a personal letter in which I try to explain our decision, comment on what we perceived to be their strengths, and express my confidence in their talents and my wish that they find a suitable position. Then I wait to hear from our finalist.
Sometimes a candidate accepts right away. At other times, the decision takes some thought. Perhaps Mellish is torn between two offers, or between the pulls of job and family. Mellish has two weeks from the date of the dean’s letter to accept the offer. Sometimes candidates ask for more time, usually because they are waiting for more offers to come in. I don’t want anybody feeling pressured to accept our job, but if there is a strong second choice in our search who may go elsewhere if we wait too long, I will consult with the search committee and refuse to extend the deadline, or do so by only a couple of days. On the other hand, I’ve told some candidates who were our first and only choice to take whatever time they needed, just to make sure the fit is right. I try to make it clear to candidates who are in this position that I want their best interests to coincide with ours, but I know that they will make the best decision for them, whatever that decision happens to be.
There is some poetic justice at the end of the job search. Applicants for jobs spend a lot of time watching the mailbox, waiting for the phone to ring, wondering if they’re the one. Now the roles are reversed and I’m left sitting by the telephone, wondering if we’re the one. When that phone finally does ring, I am delighted if Mellish says, “Yes,” sorely disappointed to hear, “No.” But life goes on, and it is always best to come away from a search thinking positively about our finalist, and about the other applicants for our positions. Mellish and I -- not to mention Nehamkin, Singer, Starkwell, and poor Krebs -- will be colleagues for many years to come, whether at the same institution or not, and I think it is vital that the job search confirm, not imperil, that collegiality.
Dennis Baron is chairman of the English department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is writing a regular column this academic year on how the academic job search process works from the hiring side of the table.