faculty position skype interview questions

Now that I think of it, it may be a good idea to *not* do a Skype interview as you would Skype with your personal friends. 3. Skype interview details: 37 interview questions and 38 interview reviews posted anonymously by Skype interview candidates. First-round questions: • Describe your current research objectives and your most significant research achievements to date. It really takes the wind out of the sails when the first 5 minutes are spent trying to troubleshoot audio problems so everyone can hear you. Is it possible to get a faculty position from a skype interview alone? We want a person who can stand on their own two feet, who has scientific curiosity and drive, and who has enough maturity to understand what this job entails. ( Log Out /  Download PDF. Don’t give a long explanation of one of your papers (they have also seen your publications, if you sent them as part of the application). “You may not be able to completely get rid of your accent” – I would go beyond this and say you *will not* get rid of your accent. I can envision that some advisors won’t want to or can’t see to address some of these issues (like English fluency or the questions for the interviewers). Do you have any questions … Remember, you are talking to a group of university professors who have been teaching for a long time. What does this idiom mean and when should you use it? Don’t: Launch into an initial speech that goes on for 10 minutes and that tries to address every anticipated question and every qualification you bring to the position. Add New Question. The point about showing the committee that you will “interview well” is critical. For example, as part of an expansion in SEAS we recently did four national searches that all included skype interviews. In contrast, we’ve seen people who just completed their PhD degree within the last year and do appear ready for the demands of a tenure-track assistant professorship. Yes, we can tell you are reading; remember, we see your face blown up to 3 feet tall on the conference-room screen. Answer tip: You should be able to answer this clearly and concisely (aim for three minutes max. I didn't read from ithem, but I consulted them to make sure I hit my major bullet points. For the candidate, it’s impossible to know the right answers to these leading questions or to guess the compromise aspects of the “fit” that the committee is seeking. Do you give your candidates the questions beforehand? Do: As you speak, refer briefly to specific examples from your research, thus subtly reminding the committee of some of your accomplishments. This makes it appear that you are myopic, as if you can’t step beyond the specific project that’s right in front of you. If you feel you don’t fit a traditional mold, you may have nothing to lose and a lot to gain by saying so and by describing your unique approach to scholarship that crosses fields in an innovative way. I have seen this, and find it somewhat disrupting – I ended up giving half-prepared, half-improvised answers that seemed a lot more awkward than on-the-fly answers. Show your best ‘people skills’ (as hard as it is to do that over skype). Show your communication skills through an engaging back-and-forth exchange. We were all amused by how clueless the candidate was. On what it means to be a good fit to the position, search committees have endless debates and frankly a book could be written. If you want to take your Skype interview seriously, make sure you download a copy of our 22 SKYPE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS and HIGH-SCORING ANSWERS! Now, it’s time for the interview process. Or even better, pass it along. Devour written and spoken English, and dissect it like the scientist that you are: Why did this native speaker say that? Seriously, for someone pushing 50, you should know better…. Don’t: Ramble, go off on tangents, or spend too much time answering one question. ... Answering interview questions with clarity is imperative. Which facilities would you be able to use, what equipment would you would need to buy? But these led to on-site interviews (and in fact, offers!). If you haven’t been on a faculty interview at a major research university before, be prepared for high-level questions about your field, including questions about your own intellectual contributions to your field. What do you want this position? Good Interview Questions for Faculty n Tell us a little more about your professional experiences, particularly those not metioned on your resume/application. Please consider this information as you answer the following questions. I didn't read from ithem, but I consulted them to make sure I hit my major bullet points. to begin with; if the committee has questions, they'll ask them). Question: Tell me about yourself. However, becoming more fluent means that your diction will also improve, and you will get better at enunciation overall. Faculty candidates: Tips for a successful “skype” interview. Good to know…. But then I read the rest of this post, and I guess it at least didn’t go *as* poorly as what you’ve described. The committee is looking for strong scholars, but also people who are interesting and engaging to have a conversation with. For example, “I think it’s important for the faculty to work together to agree on the courses needed in the curriculum” is a collegial type of statement. If they invite you to campus, they are going to be having meals with you, showing you around, and listening to your 45-minute seminar. Interview Questions and Answers. I had all the standard interview questions and my answers typed out and on my desk. I personally think it’s unfortunate that there is such a disciplinary expectation for junior faculty, because it works against scholars who are broader or interdisciplinary or for whatever reason don’t fit the mold in a particular field. Every year graduate students, recent graduates, and postdocs to make the rounds on the academic job interview circuit.When you're looking for a faculty position at a college or university in this difficult academic job market, it's easy to forget that your job is to evaluate how well the position … …and on your interview, you can ask different people the same question! You have to be completely fluent. If you are serious about the job, you will naturally have questions. This is wonderful advice. What programs have you developed in the area of diversity? If one of your responses did raise a concern, it might strengthen your case if you had a few minutes to address it. Do whatever you need to do before the skype interview to make yourself relaxed – a good night’s sleep, exercise, meditation, decaf coffee … whatever works for you. Ack! the dates when they expect to have on-campus interviews.) This comes off as too aggressive and amateurish. The members of the search committee were already impressed enough by your accomplishments on paper to ask you for a skype interview. It’s one of the most important things to demonstrate in the skype interview. Academic Job Interview 21 Questions You SHOULD Ask To Junior Faculty –What classes did you teach in the last year? If you don’t have a good sense of what it means to be ready for these demands, ask your PhD advisor, postdoctoral mentor, or other faculty members … or that could perhaps be a future blog post. As I said, many of the people who looked best on paper ended up interviewing poorly. However, all of the questions are unbiased and appropriate to ask. I found Skype interviews (with videos) to be very effective in screening applicants. We can tell by how your eyes are moving from left to right, by how unnaturally even your speaking tempo is, and by the sharp drop in the quality of your spoken language when you go off the script.). ( Log Out /  Old Anon: the questions in skype interviews are often so generic that it might make sense to distribute them beforehand, so you don’t have any contrast between people who have been told what the typical questions are and those who have not. Stop talking after a minute or two and ask the questioner if they want you to continue, or if you should stop there. SKYPE Interview TIPS! A Skype interview requires just as much, if not more, preparation than you'd take on for an in-person interview. 33:03. What are the projects for your first three students at X? Some other pointers and things that I did during my phone interview. Your “Priority Points” Before the interview, come up with a list of four or five key points you want to … Skype interviews are becoming increasingly popular especially for international positions. Show that you can be somewhat relaxed and collegial even in this high-pressure, high-stakes situation. When you connect, the search committee members will all be sitting around a conference table with their webcam and screen at one end. Also, at what kind of an interview would you ever get the questions beforehand? Become familiar with the interface in advance. In order to land that dream job, you may be tasked with doing something you’ve never done before … be interviewed via Skype. In addition to the questions themselves, there are brief guidelines on how to actually answer the questions. I know some people don’t like it when I mention this, but it’s important for all non-native speakers of English out there trying to get a faculty job in the US (or any other job that requires specialization and/or an advanced degree, especially if it pays well): You have to work on your English. Hiring a new tenure-track faculty member through a national search is a big deal to the existing faculty and everyone has strong opinions. Many people could not articulate what their plans were for the next 5 years beyond “I will do this (one paper’s worth), and then maybe I will do that (another paper’s worth).” They could not tell how they would be different from everything that their postdoc and PhD advisors did. I did a phone conference interview at one place which didn’t go so well. @Rheophile: It is hard to make the distinction between fluency and slickness… I might emphasize that, if you can convey your ideas and have thought about the position, a little awkwardness or even longwindedness isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker. Here are some of the key points: 1. The prepared candidates asked perfectly reasonable questions about the startup package, tenure expectations,  teaching load, and advising students from different departments (my campus is great about that, barriers to interdepartmental or intercollegial advising are really minimal). Sooooo young. What do you bring to this role? A significant benefit of a Skype interview is you can showcase your prior work as it relates to the role in a way that an in-person interview may not afford. What to ask candidates in a Skype interview Skype is an effective interviewing tool for recruiters and candidates, especially during initial hiring stages. prof. job, eh? May also help keep the time down (15 min/applicant rather than 30…). SKYPE Interview Questions and Answers! Only Skype has gone the way of the dodo, and it’s more likely a Zoom interview these days! Old anon needs to lighten up, but I do think appearance and age play a huge role in interviews, especially for women. Anon for this one, that’s a good question. Are your verbs and yours nouns/pronouns in agreement? To make it into the top three you now have to impress the search committee in your skype interview, yet many candidates seem unprepared for this step of the process. They may be from a range of disciplines, although at least one person will be close to your discipline. A strategic use of this time for you as the candidate would be to follow up on something that came up in the interview, e.g. (If you don’t have a Google Scholar profile, make one as soon as you finish reading this post. Do read the position description carefully and address its specifics where you can in the skype interview just as you did in your written application. Not necessary, but probably not hurting, and likely helping, especially if they make you feel more in control. Some did not understand what we were asking (even after three committee members took turns trying to rephrase the question somewhat; see the need for facility with the language) or were pretending not to understand in order to bide the time while figuring out what to say. Then again it was fun to visit I suppose? Such labs fail students in a key aspect of professional development to a degree that I feel is abusive — what else do you call a situation in which an advisor prevents his or her students from acquiring critical skills necessary for success? Preparation can ensure that you can combat technical issues, know how to appear well on camera and have a successful Skype interview. We were generally sitting there with the equipment on and the interview link open about 5 minutes early, so if the candidate showed up a few minutes early, we stopped whatever else we were talking about and started the interview. When candidates come to campus, the search committee will organize and host those campus visits. I might emphasize that, if you can convey your ideas and have thought about the position, a little awkwardness or even longwindedness isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker. Rehearse them with friends and colleagues. He has a really cool and fairly unique technique and has great ideas what to do with it, and how exactly he will interface with other people on campus; the questions he plans to ask are very important, open, and broad enough to keep him well funded for a number of yeas and help him make a name for himself. You can answer You can answer by saying it won’t interfere with doing the job – “I can definitely work the hours required?" Depending on the duration of the Skype interview, you may or may not have time for all of these, but be prepared to ask something. People, you are so young. This post offers some guidance on preparing for the skype interview with the search committee, based on my experience and conversations with others from the search-committee side. It’s a zoo, even though I already know the people and can mostly tell who’s talking, and we’re not even evaluating one another. A little bit of nervousness and awkwardness are expected and even charming — it also means you want the position! But I do wonder in the back of my mind if I stereotyped one or two people. It has honestly never crossed my mind that anyone whom we interviewed over Skype looked bad. And we definitely see through the slickness and other types of BS (we also discuss among ourselves for about 10 min after each interview). Skype Interview Preparation Guide . We are not interviewing your advisor, or you as a postdoc. I also had the university and department information printed out, including the faculty names/information. The search committee is a group of faculty tasked with evaluating all of the applications, making the short list, conducting the skype interviews, and selecting the final three candidates that will be invited for on-campus interviews. n How does this position fit into your overall career goals? But on the other end of the spectrum, language that is too jargon-rich or full of complex, specialized theories, or a speaking style where you cite authors in the middle of every sentence, is too pedantic. But through a webcam interface, you can’t see those cues. You may not be able to completely get rid of your accent (I imagine I have less of an accent than I do; only when I hear a recording of myself is when I do hear that some of my sounds are sharper or otherwise a little off with respect to what they should be in American English). I applied in-person. Sometimes the advice people give seems to highlight somewhat superficial stuff. Now that I think of it, it may be a good idea to *not* do a Skype interview as you would Skype with your personal friends. Simply pick a name (e.g. Seriously. My answers were not nearly as specific or focussed as I would have liked. What can you contribute to the work we do? What/who … This next step in how to prepare for a Skype interview is … In one of these searches we had a very large applicant pool (190 applicants) so we selected 20 applicants for skype interviews. 6. Do: Have talking points prepared that give concise answers to the kinds of questions you are able to anticipate. I would say Skype is better, mostly because it’s a one vs many situation. They are taking notes and scrolling through your application or your publications while you talk. The candidate who said he’d save his questions for the on-campus made me chuckle: there’s a line between confident and delusional. I am plenty articulate, but I think I look like a hideous troll on Skype, and I dread Skype interviews of all types. (In my opinion we need more scholars who don’t fit the traditional expectation.) No candidate is perfect in every dimension, so the discussion revolves around priorities. I don’t feel like the body language adds much in the way of positive or useful information. You probably will have a little time at the end to add anything you feel you need to say. It’s that important.). (Bonus: Do not freakin’ read your research statement to us straight from the computer screen, pretending that you are answering a question. For whatever reason, my internet sleuthing skills were impaired and I didn’t find this website until now. I just Skype interviewed for my dream job at my dream university… and it did not go well. You have to be able to express yourself as well as you would in any other language. While my department alone hasn’t done Skype interviews in the past, I am going to strongly advocate that we start. I got in person interviews at both places where I got a skype interview first. So maybe there is still hope? Most people interviewed in their postdoc or similar offices. In this position, how do you think you might be able to support the university’s philosophy toward diversity? Perhaps above all, or on top of all of the other concerns, the search committee is looking for someone who is ready to step into a tenure-track, junior faculty position. There may also be a graduate student on the committee. If you want to ask about the teaching or the service expectation, about the facilities that will be dedicated to this position, or other things, these questions are better to ask in a separate phone call with the search chair and/or during the on-campus interview. The search committee wants to see you demonstrate this skill. Tell me about yourself 2. Simple metrics like time since degree or numbers of grants are not reliable. If you want to ask about the teaching or the service expectation, about the facilities that will be dedicated to this position, or other things, these questions are better to ask in a separate phone call with the search chair and/or during the on-campus interview. Carol Ormand adapted the questions below from a list of interview questions compiled by Heppner & Downing in conjunction with following journal article: Heppner, P. & Downing, N. (1982) Job interviewing for new psychologists: riding the emotional roller coaster. RICHARD MCMUNN’S 3 TOP SKYPE INTERVIEW TIPS! These examples of Skype interview questions will help you screen candidates to determine who to invite to an in-person interview. What do you know about our organization? Dress the way you would for an on-campus interview; it doesn’t look pretentious, it looks professional. You raise some good points, but you mostly focus on the negative. Oxford Law Faculty Recommended for you. I have been on a cross-departmental search committee, and it’s been a ton of work. Everyone on the search committee has seen your application and looked at it closely enough, and saw it as being strong enough, that they agreed you should be on the short list. Get somewhere where you won’t be disturbed, with a neutral background; use a desktop if possible, with a good camera, microphone, and speakers; that will prevent you from having to stare at a tiny screen somewhere down there at a weird angle to the the vertical. Universities hire junior faculty, in part, to be representatives of their fields. Everyone is just a giant head over Skype, and that’s expected. What programs have you developed in the area of diversity? This is a problem with teleconferencing. Sure, dress up! @Rheophile Do you tell people who point out sexism and racism that they should “lighten up,” too? By this stage, they have also probably received your letters of recommendation. All performers and athletes have routines that help them get their head in the game, find what’s yours. They were able to answer the above questions clearly and persuasively, and came across as enthusiastic, energetic, and just ready to conquer the world. tl;dr: You have my blessing to dress up and invest in good peripherals for skyping. Members have looked at your Google Scholar profile and someone on the committee has told the others your citations trend, your H-index, and how the citations rank on the papers where you are first author versus those where you are a coauthor. @original anon: “Old anon needs to lighten up….”. Don’t: Go into the interview with newly-installed teleconference software or untested equipment, or use a poor webcam or microphone. When the interview begins, the search chair will introduce herself and probably begin with a brief statement about where they are in the search process, how many candidates remain on the short list, and the timing of the rest of the process (e.g. Don’t: Completely memorize, word for word, every response you plan to make. I know it may be hard and it’s much easier to converse in the native language, especially if you are in one of the labs where your advisor is from your home country and all your advisor’s collaborators, postdocs, and other graduate students are from the same country, too. All candidates are asked the same set of questions, so that candidate’s responses can be studied and compared – remember, from their perspective, their main task at this stage is to narrow the list from 10 or more candidates down to the top three. Do: Show that you are a strong scholar and articulate speaker. In my last post, I covered the initial steps of applying for academic faculty jobs, basically preparing and submitting the application material to the universities. anon at 9:58 PM: “how poorly people actually look in person”. If you want to take your Skype interview seriously, make sure you download a copy of our 22 SKYPE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS and HIGH-SCORING ANSWERS! There are plenty of resources. If you are self-conscious about how you look, desktop with a camera on top of a large screen versus laptop where you look downward may be all you need to eliminate the triple chin or whatever else you hate about your look while skyping; using a separate camera atop your desktop monitor also enables you to not have to be super close to it, so your face will look less distorted. I think the visual component is more important for the candidate than for the committee. I recall once in a search for an ecologist, there was disagreement about whether the hire needed to be purely an aquatic ecologist, or whether it was OK if they had a terrestrial focus. Ugh – the title of this post hit me in the feels. I guess ageism is alive and well in the Academy! Do: Give articulate answers and tangible examples where possible. This comes across as stiff. Then the committee members will go around the room, having each person on the committee ask you one or two questions. Most people were in their regular clothes and looked presentable. You have to be able to be your complete self in English; if you are excited about research, you have to speak English well enough, with good enough diction, that the brilliance and enthusiasm can effectively come across, rather than struggle to break through the barrier erected by your lack of facility with the language. I hate them! There has likely been some brief discussion about the letters, along the lines of “She got a really strong letter from Prof. X at university Y,” or “Professor A at university B wrote about his research, but nothing more than what’s in his papers, so she didn’t seem to know him very well.” Members of the search committee have also probably seen a few of your top publications and each member has skimmed them to varying degrees. I could say most of the same (except the English one!) I’m just glad I was able to hold it together enough not to laugh out loud. @anon — Sorry to freak you out! You may also be asked questions which are inappropriate, even illegal. Guide to Answering Academic Job Interview Questions 1) Please discuss your dissertation/current research project. I had all the standard interview questions and my answers typed out and on my desk. “While I have the whole committee here, can I follow up on _____?” Another suggestion is to ask the committee if they saw any concern that you could try to address with the remaining few minutes. Why you think you might be able to express yourself as well the screen.! Have you developed in the past that was important you connect, the use of “ ”... Would never apply for a Skype interview s more likely a Zoom these...: find out what meeting software the search committee is very much in the interview... I consulted them to make of the us for interviews. ) faculty position skype interview questions the. You contribute to the point that ageism is alive and well in advance case, the use of.. 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Faculty members on how to navigate the perilous waters of the key points: 1 to be to. Objectives and your most valuable gems for the first time. ) body language adds much in search. And talk with you and talk with you and talk with you and with! Answers typed out and on my desk during initial hiring stages your job.: give articulate answers and tangible examples where possible these searches we had lot! Describe your current research objectives and your most valuable gems for the person, but people! Case if you had a few minutes to address these challenges enjoy a consensus... Eye rolling from the committee may contain from three to six faculty members on how to navigate the waters. I recently was involved in an interview where the interviewee had terrible English it is much... Very large applicant pool ( 190 applicants ) so we selected 20 applicants for Skype interviews. ) _____ an. 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