Monday, July 13, 2009

I'm sitting in the airport terminal on my way back from my interview here today. The process was very traditional on the British model of academic interviews - presentation, lunch with other candidates, and panel interview. The American model has no panel interview and involves many one on one meetings with faculty or groups of graduate students over a two day period. My previous interview in Canberra was a hybrid of the two models. Those guys recruit heavily on the American market. I met a new faculty member at lunch who just completed a PhD at a US university, but the department can't be systematically trying to recruit new PhDs from the US. Three candidates were interviewed today. The other two both came from New Zealand. As they told me they will complete the interview process today that probably means, given how fast this process has moved, that there are only three candidates for two positions, unless there are also internal candidates. The reason for the huge rush is that they have two more searches to conduct this semester.

My presentation was OK-ish - I tried to cover too much stuff and due to a misunderstanding on the timing we ran out of time for questions at the end. There were questions along the way though, as is usual for economics seminars. People seemed skeptical which wasn't surprising as I tend to do unorthodox things. And I had maybe the top guy in the field in Australia sitting in the front row and a specialist in some of the techniques I use in the back row (and on the selection panel). The panel interview went better. I didn't have any problems answering their questions or asking them questions.

I should hear today or tomorrow. If I get an offer we'll have to figure out how to move Snork Maiden workwise. I didn't raise that at the interview because I don't want to put any obstacles in their way before they make a decision.

4 comments:

Revanche said...

All of those interview options sound a bit grueling, to me. Obviously, I'm a lightweight and no academic, but it'd make me hate interviewing just that much more. :)

Good luck!

mOOm said...

I didn't get the job. The chairman phoned me today. Partly I screwed up the presentation which he admitted after I said so and then they decide to go with the fields they really need teachers for urgently.

Revanche said...

I'm sorry to hear that. Does a miscommunication about the timing really count as a flub on your part, though?

mOOm said...

I made a point of saying at the end "I thought there was still ten minutes for questions". But the bottom line is that they didn't get as good an understanding of what I was doing and good enough impression of how I would perform as a teacher as they needed to offer me a job.