Initial Report
Last Modified: 01/01/2011
1. Were you a job candidate this year, the member of a search committee, or a department chair of a hiring department?
# / Answer // Response / %
1 / Job Candidate /
/ 238 / 75%
2 / Search Committee Member /
/ 67 / 21%
3 / Hiring Department Chair /
/ 11 / 3%
Total / 316 / 100%
Statistic / Value
Min Value / 1
Max Value / 3
Mean / 1.28
Variance / 0.27
Standard Deviation / 0.52
Total Responses / 316
2. When you went on the market this year, which of the following best describes your professional status at the time?
# / Answer // Response / %
1 / Graduate Student ABD /
/ 108 / 46%
2 / Adjunct or Visiting Instructor/Professor (part-time) /
/ 20 / 8%
3 / Visiting Instructor/Professor (full-time) /
/ 35 / 15%
4 / Post-doctoral Fellow /
/ 39 / 16%
5 / TT Assistant Professor /
/ 29 / 12%
6 / Tenured Associate/Full Professor /
/ 6 / 3%
Total / 237 / 100%
Statistic / Value
Min Value / 1
Max Value / 6
Mean / 2.49
Variance / 2.54
Standard Deviation / 1.59
Total Responses / 237
3. If you were a job candidate this year and you attended the APA, how many interviews did you have?
# / Answer // Response / %
1 / 1 /
/ 52 / 23%
2 / 2 /
/ 53 / 24%
3 / 3 /
/ 28 / 12%
4 / 4 /
/ 11 / 5%
5 / 5 /
/ 17 / 8%
6 / 6 /
/ 8 / 4%
7 / 7 /
/ 2 / 1%
8 / 8 /
/ 2 / 1%
9 / 9 /
/ 1 / 0%
10 / 10+ /
/ 1 / 0%
11 / I was on the market but did not have any interviews /
/ 50 / 22%
Total / 225 / 100%
Statistic / Value
Min Value / 1
Max Value / 11
Mean / 4.52
Variance / 14.54
Standard Deviation / 3.81
Total Responses / 225
4. If you were a job candidate and you attended the APA, how much did you spend on travel expenses (e.g., plane tickets, train tickets, gas, etc.)?
# / Answer // Response / %
1 / 0-$150 /
/ 27 / 14%
2 / $151-$300 /
/ 31 / 16%
3 / $301-$450 /
/ 48 / 24%
4 / $451-$600 /
/ 32 / 16%
5 / $601-$750 /
/ 14 / 7%
6 / $751-$900 /
/ 16 / 8%
7 / $901-$1050 /
/ 7 / 4%
8 / $1050-$1300 /
/ 15 / 8%
9 / $1301-1450 /
/ 2 / 1%
10 / $1451+ /
/ 8 / 4%
Total / 200 / 100%
Statistic / Value
Min Value / 1
Max Value / 10
Mean / 3.97
Variance / 5.70
Standard Deviation / 2.39
Total Responses / 200
5. If you were a job candidate and you attended the APA, how much did you spend on your hotel?
# / Answer // Response / %
1 / 0-$150 /
/ 33 / 17%
2 / $151-$300 /
/ 37 / 19%
3 / $301-$450 /
/ 57 / 29%
4 / $451-$600 /
/ 43 / 22%
5 / $601-$750 /
/ 17 / 9%
6 / $751-$900 /
/ 12 / 6%
7 / $901-$1050 /
/ 0 / 0%
8 / $1050-$1300 /
/ 0 / 0%
9 / $1301-1450 /
/ 0 / 0%
10 / $1451+ /
/ 0 / 0%
Total / 199 / 100%
Statistic / Value
Min Value / 1
Max Value / 6
Mean / 3.05
Variance / 1.96
Standard Deviation / 1.40
Total Responses / 199
6. If you were a job candidate and you attended the APA, how would you rate your overall experience?
# / Question / Very unsatisfied / Unsatisfied / Satisfied / Very satisfied / Responses / Mean1 / The Timing of the Eastern APA / 99 / 55 / 36 / 6 / 196 / 1.74
2 / The Location of the Eastern APA / 55 / 52 / 74 / 15 / 196 / 2.25
3 / The Expenses of Attending the APA / 98 / 63 / 31 / 4 / 196 / 1.70
4 / Your Experiences with the Interviews Themselves / 10 / 28 / 92 / 54 / 184 / 3.03
5 / Your Experiences at the Smoker / 40 / 66 / 66 / 12 / 184 / 2.27
6 / Your Non-Job Market Related Experiences at the APA / 14 / 54 / 103 / 18 / 189 / 2.66
Statistic / The Timing of the Eastern APA / The Location of the Eastern APA / The Expenses of Attending the APA / Your Experiences with the Interviews Themselves / Your Experiences at the Smoker / Your Non-Job Market Related Experiences at the APA
Min Value / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1
Max Value / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4
Mean / 1.74 / 2.25 / 1.70 / 3.03 / 2.27 / 2.66
Variance / 0.75 / 0.91 / 0.65 / 0.67 / 0.77 / 0.57
Standard Deviation / 0.86 / 0.95 / 0.81 / 0.82 / 0.88 / 0.75
Total Responses / 196 / 196 / 196 / 184 / 184 / 189
7. If you were a job candidate and you attended the APA, would you have preferred to have been interviewed instead using video-conferencing such as Skype?
# / Answer // Response / %
1 / Yes, I would have preferred to have been interviewed via Skype /
/ 107 / 54%
2 / No, I prefer APA interviewing to video-interviewing. /
/ 53 / 27%
3 / I don't have a strong preference either way. /
/ 37 / 19%
Total / 197 / 100%
Statistic / Value
Min Value / 1
Max Value / 3
Mean / 1.64
Variance / 0.61
Standard Deviation / 0.78
Total Responses / 197
8. If you are ajob candidate who has been interviewed using web-conferencing technology this year, how would you rate your overall experience?
# / Answer / Min Value / Max Value / Average Value / Standard Deviation / Responses1 / Video-interviewing Experience / 0 / 7 / 4.95 / 1.55 / 96
9. If you were a job candidate who had one or more APA interviews, how would you rate your overall experience?
# / Answer / Min Value / Max Value / Average Value / Standard Deviation / Responses1 / APA interviewing / 1 / 7 / 4.20 / 1.63 / 166
10. If there was a movement to decouple the Eastern APA conference and the job market by adopting video-interviewing for the first round interviews, which of the following best describes your position?
# / Answer // Response / %
1 / I would be in favor of transitioning from APA interviewing to video-interviewing for first round interviews. /
/ 174 / 75%
2 / I would not be in favor of transitioning from APA interviewing to video-interviewing for first round interviews. /
/ 32 / 14%
3 / I don't have a preference either way. /
/ 25 / 11%
Total / 231 / 100%
Statistic / Value
Min Value / 1
Max Value / 3
Mean / 1.35
Variance / 0.45
Standard Deviation / 0.67
Total Responses / 231
11. If you are not in favor of decoupling the Eastern APA and the job market by adopting video-interviewing for the first round interviews, what are your primary concerns?
Text ResponseIn-person trumps technological interaction. Period.
I did several Skype and APA interviews. The APA interviews were, by far, more conversational and ranging. We got into some serious philosophy and there was a give-and-take. The video interviews were much stiffer.
The APA was a very rewarding experience; I enjoyed meeting my potential future colleagues personally, and having everything taken care of all at once, rather than scheduling numerous interviews at different times, dragging out the relevant stress. I find Skype interactions more artificial than in-person interviews.
Video conferencing is awkward and less natural than in person.
Not getting a sense of my future colleagues during the interview and during the smoker.
I'm a bit hard of hearing, and I usually rely on watching people's lips as they speak. Additionally, I depend on my ability to read people's reactions (expressions, posture, breathing, movement) in order to produce the best conversation.
I have no experience with Skype interviews. But the few times I've tried to attend group meetings through Skype, it has been very difficult to hear anything.
Video-conferencing doesn't replicate the experience of an in-person interview. (Eye-contact is difficult to maintain, technical difficulties interrupt the flow of conversation, etc.) As an interviewee, I don't learn nearly as much about the hiring department, and find it more difficult to establish professional connections that may last beyond the interviewing process. (I still maintain contact with members of committees that have interviewed me in the past.) All that said, while I believe the conference interview to have a number of advantages over video interviews, I suspect these advantages are not sufficient to justify the added cost, especially in a market where it is very common to have only 1-2 interviews. If things return to the days where 8-10 interviews were common, I might rethink my ambivalence.
I don't want to give up the chance to catch up with old friends at the APA, and I believe that I benefit from face to face interviews.
Money.
Face-to-face interview is important to see how the candidate performs under stress.
Technical Difficulties; Cannot see the facial expressions of the interviewers.
I feel a good deal more comfortable in a face-to-face settings than in videoconferencing settings and there is enough about which to be uncomfortable already! But I realize that not everyone feels that way and I recognize that the common good may not coincide with my good. I am, incidentally, firmly in favour of getting rid of first-round interviews altogether and moving immediately from looking at written applications to on-campus interviews, so I am in favour of decoupling the Eastern APA and the job market, just via a different route.
The interviewing at the APA is fine with me, but the timing of the Eastern APA is terrible. I am married and have two kids (I am 32 years old), and this is the second year in a row that the Eastern APA interviews have basically ruined my family's Christmas. I have never done a skype interview (or even used skype at all), so my knowledge of skype is not good. But, for some reason (perhaps a bad reason), I think I prefer face-to-face interviews over video interviews. So, if it is possile to move the APA to a different time of year (a time when it doesn't ruin my family's Christmas) and do the interviews at the APA then, that is what I would favor. For example, doing the APA in early January in a warm-weather location (so not in the DC to Boston eastern corridor) would be good with me. The costs of attending the conference do hurt me quite a bit, but, all things considered, I think I like face-to-face more than video (even though, as I said, I have never done a video interview). That is my position.
I think that these "preliminary" interviews are a waste of resources in general. Plenty of schools either go directly to campus or (like Princeton) just hire off of paper. I would be in favor of doing away with preliminary interviews altogether.
Costs to personal interaction from switching to Skype. Also, value of attending conference in general. Also, value of having my advisor at the conference. Also, value of being in it together with my fellow job-seekers. Lots of support for one another over coffees, dinners, and drinks.
In nearly every field without a central hiring conference, hiring is done in an ad-hoc and spread out way. This makes things much harder on candidates over-all (I have talked to people in fields like this and none like it) and much more stressful. It inevitably leads to more exploding offers and other problems. This will happen without an anchoring conference, dreams of "requiring" a time-line notwithstanding. (Compare the unraveling of the "hiring plan" for law clerks for a clear example.) I think people are greatly underestimating the increased stress and difficulty that will certainly result if there is not a centralized hiring conference.
I think that both APA interviews and video interviews provide quite a lot of unhelpful "noise" (as opposed to information that should be relevant to hiring) and wish departments would abolish first-round interviews of both kinds. That said, there are a few reasons that I prefer APA interviews to video interviews. I think that having several interviews in just a few days is less stressful than having the interviews spread out over several days or weeks, which is what I believe would happen if we moved away from APA interviews. Additionally, I have done both types of interviews, and I find it more difficult to interpret social cues (body language, facial expressions, etc.) over video conference (when, depending on one's set up, one must look into the camera--and slightly away from the interviewers on screen--to appear to be making eye contact, and is thereby distracted from observing the demeanor of one's interviewers). I also prefer the relative neutrality of the APA rooms. With respect to each department, each candidate is interviewed in the same setting at the APA; in video interviews, various items (or even the color of the wall) shown in the background may add to the unhelpful "noise" present in the interview.
They won't be able to see my pretty face clearly enough.
I seem to have more success at in-person interviews than phone or skype interviews. Over several years, I've had many of both (for academic jobs in both law and philosophy, and previously for clerkships). Maybe there's no causal relation, but there's strong correlation.
Problems with the technology, logistical issues, inability to interact personally with committee.
I am an overseas candidate seeking a job in the U.S. During my two years on the job market, I have found that I get the most interest from schools who interview at the APA. I always point out in my cover letter that I will be at the conference, and my experience is that this information places me on a much more even footing with U.S. based candidates. If schools moved to Skype interviews as a rule, I fear I would make the all-important first cut less often, as schools would be less inclined to interview someone geographically very distant. Under the current arrangement, schools who do conference interviews seem to say, "Well she's going to be at the APA anyway, so we might as well interview her." Schools who mention in their ads that they are doing phone or Skype interviews, by contract, have contacted me only once. The second reason I prefer APA interviews is the time difference. I recently did a Skype interview with a U.S. department and the time difference was a killer. I wound up doing the interview late at night my time, the only time the committee could accommodate me, and was so exhausted it contributed to me bombing the interview. With APA interviews, by contrast, because I organize my trip around the interviews, I have always been fresh by the time they occur. The fact that the interviews take place at a conference where I can present papers has also allowed me to obtain travel funding from my university to get there. This is a third positive feature of the status quo in my view.
Impersonal nature of video conferencing; audio imprecision; no looking people in the eye and shaking their hands
I'm concerned that in-person interviews are simply a more meaningful and effective practice for vetting candidates than internet-mediated interviews. The APA is expensive, especially if you have only one interview, but I'm skeptical that it isn't worth it for job candidates to shell out, even for just that one interview.
I prefer face-to-face interactions.
There is a sense of 'getting to know' both from the candidate perspective as well as the search committee that cannot be adequately captured via skype interview. There is a sense in which as a candidate I wanted to get a feeling for how I felt when in the same room as my interviewers just as I imagine they want to also get a sense for how they feel about me in the room as well as how they feel about one another when I am in the room.
The Skype interview that I had was very awkward. I could barely hear the questions asked me. I could only vaguely make out the images of the people on the committee; I couldn't tell who was speaking, and I couldn't see any of their facial expressions. I found it difficult to try to look at the camera rather than the image of the committee members. In my in-person interviews at the APA, however, all of these problems vanished, and I felt I was able to make a personal connection with my interviewers that would have been impossible over Skype. While I agree that the APA is extremely expensive and that this year's conference was a disaster, I would not be in favor of replacing in-person interviews with Skype interviews. Rather, I think schools should skip the interviews altogether and go straight to fly-outs.
With my one skype interview, I found it hard to hear, hard to read facial expressions, hard to know where to look, and hard to know when to stop talking without the relevant social cues. Why not just jump straight to fly-outs though? A number of schools I am auditioning for went that route, and it certainly seems efficient. I don't know what it's like on the other side, of course, but from my perspective it seems pretty sweet. Cuts down the pain of interviewing, and I doubt I can say much in an interview that will improve my chances of getting a job, given that I've sent them carefully edited and maximally thoughtful versions of my best material. And anything I could do in an interview would be hard to convey in a skype interview - e.g., positive body language, spontaneous thoughtfulness (like I said, I kept not knowing when to stop talking without being able to read my interviewer's faces properly over skype), an authentic smile, a GSOH, lack of BO.
I feel very comfortable interviewing in person, and I know others do not. I consider this an advantage that I would not happily give up. Moreover, by meeting face-to-face with my interviewers, I realized my initial assessments of which jobs I would most enjoy were probably wrong. The interviewers I was most eager to meet were disappointing in person, and those whose work I was skeptical of were much more impressive than their CVs would have suggested. Surely, this information could have been garnered at an on-campus interview, but equally as surely, interviewing departments have had similar experiences. If initial interviews had been conducted via Skype, I very much doubt the same interpersonal experience would have been available. As such, if initial interviews had been conducted via Skype, I wonder whether such missed opportunities might result in missing an on-campus interview request.
In general, I prefer to interview in person. I can use more of my non-verbal communication skills and demonstrate to interviewers how well I can handle both the stress of a large national conference and the pressures of giving a good interview.
The APA helps keep interviews in a banded time-frame. Disciplines without a hiring conference have interviews strung out all year, to no one's benefit (except sometimes individual departments.) Without the conference, this will happen to philosophy, too, and it will generally be worse for job candidates, not better.
My main concern would be technical glitches that might become like the weather in Boston of 2010. That would be my fear, but it would certainly be more controllable.
Video-conferencing, no matter how advanced the technology may be, doesn't permit the same level of interaction between interviewer(s) and interviewee.
Loss of some extra information. e.g. i had some very good interactions with one SC at the Smoker (I know, it's crazy). Compared to an interview I had via Skype, I feel I have a better sense of what that department may be like - and they have a better sense of me - than the 40 minute Skype interview could convey. (That said, all told, I'm still in favor of Skype).
I did interviews both ways, and it was way more informative to do in-person interviews. I had a better sense of how the interview went, and of the personalities of the various interviewers. Plus, I like that the bulk of my interviews were held over two days - there was a definite event to prepare for, and then it would be over (except I had two interviews that need to be rescheduled because of weather).
Costs, croneyism.
I prefer in person interviews -- its a reasonable process - as would be video interviewing - the attempt to try to cajole departments who would prefer in person interviews into some other method seems to me (as an ethicist) inappropriate.
Preliminary interviews are unnecessary. If departments want to have them, they should have phone interviews or video interviews.
I got a much better impression of the people I interviewed with during the APA interviews. In at least one case I found it extremely helpful to talk to the search committees at the smoker.
I feel like if there were reliable video-conferencing technology this might work. As it now stands, the lag time with a skype conversation makes it unpleasant and difficult to put your best foot forward. I also actually like talking with hiring committees at the smokers. I feel that people routinely over-blow the awkwardness of this situation. I don't necessarily think interviewing should be stress free. And, in fact, I kind of enjoy the thrill of face-to-face interviews.
Statistic / Value
Total Responses / 41
12. If you are in favor of decoupling the Eastern APA and the job market by adopting video-interviewing for the first round interviews, what do you think could be done by hiring departments to make the video-interviews as beneficial and stress-free as possible?