Over at Sciencewomen, they have a list of six things departments should do to make academic job interviews more comfortable. It’s excellent and reasonable advice.
Of course, while it is an excellent post, it also contains more words than it really needs to. In the spirit of physics, which always tries to boil things down to a single, unifying principle, here’s the rule for hiring committees from which all the other suggestions can be derived:
Remember that job candidates are people, too.
Think of things that annoyed you or made you uncomfortable when you were interviewing for jobs. Don’t do those things.
End of lesson.
Another brief statement of use:
Remember that you are a professional working for an organization with HR rules. Know the rules and follow them.
(Corollary: If you don’t know the rules, please don’t do the interview.)
I spent 2 years donating 10 hours per week at a one-stop Job Center in Pasadena. I was on the group of experts who coached unemployed scientists, engineers, lawyers, and other highly technical people on how to prepare for, and conduct themselves in, their interviews by panels of HR folks and those in their skill set.
We would conduct hour-long mock interviews, and the client would be videotaped. Then we’d give them our written evaluations and suggestions, plus the videotape, which they were asked to watch at home, in the context of our writings. Body language and clothing matters a great deal.
I’d say that the single most important tip (outside of advice on how to evade trick questions, questions about desired salary, and illegal questions) is this. Do LOTS of homework on your potential employer. At the end, they always ask if you have any questions. Take out your multi-page list of questions, and interview the panel.
I was a member of the PARW (Professional Association of Resume Writers) as well, because so many of my fellow scientists and ex-aerospace engineers asked me to do their resumes for them, and I figured I might as well be paid for that after all my friends got freebies.
Another rule for the interviewers: remember that YOU were once unemployed, and may be again in the future. In fact, the 21st century paradigm is that you will not only change jobs several times, but change industries altogether. You will accumulate a portfolio of careers. So those of us on each side of the interview table are actually in the same boat. Or spaceship.
Job candidates are commodities in gross oversupply. Will a candidate produce, is it tolerable, what happens at its sell-by date? What does government force you to voluntarily hire?
The Profoundly Gifted are unpleasant. Give us a cadre of well-dressed loyal sycophants marching shoulder to shoulder in step, lab benches polished, monthly reports filed, PowerPoint presentations immaculate. Bell Labs was a money-bleeding zoo. Penzias got a Nobel Prize for shoveling pigeon poop. Alcatel-Lucent enforced order, purpose, directed achievement, and Korporate Kulture. Res ipsa loquitur.
Think of things that annoyed you or made you uncomfortable when you were interviewing for jobs. Don’t do those things.
because Lord knows that the things that annoy or discomfit white male heteronormative individuals (or whatever might dominate your department) is an exhaustive list.
/eye roll
Laden has it right- know your HR rules and follow them. Don’t get cute. Don’t substitute your brilliant opinion. Don’t editorialize with your political positions. Just do it. It isn’t that difficult.
Yeah, I haven’t always noticed WMHI’s being totally discomfited by many illegal hiring practices. Or even just many boorish and annoying hiring practices.
Given the physics community’s track record with women, it seems unlikely that fewer, rather than more, words are needed for this situation.