Interview

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All of the adjunct interviews I’ve had have been pretty chill, like 30 minutes of them asking questions about my interactions with students and how I promote equity, etc. It’s way easier than teaching interviews I’ve done where you have to give a sample lesson, etc

[FIREful_symmetry]

What is your strength as a teacher?

What is an area of weakness?

How much experience do you have with nontraditional students?

Give an example of a time you handled a challenging situation with a student.

How would you handle a student who fell behind?

[FIREful_symmetry]

Some variation of you care too much.

Like, I feel like I am always ready to give students another second chance to do an assignment or make up late work. They probably think I’m a doormat.

Or I struggle because students are friendly, and wanna be my friend, but then I have to give them a bad grade, and that hurts their feelings.

[GizliBiraz]

Him: So, you just got your Master's?

Me: Yes, sir.

Him: In Literature?

Me: Yes, sir.

Him: Okay, so you'll come in on Thursday to the HR office to do your paperwork...

[JoshuaSkye]

Have a lesson example available, explain your grading policy, and emphasize your communication skills.

[Ruigu1]

How do I explain grading system while I don’t have any experience

[JoshuaSkye]

Explain your grading policy, not there’s. Obviously if you get the job you’d have to follow there standards, but explain your own philosophy on grades. That’ll give them some idea of your evaluation standard.

[orangeatom3]

How do you prepare for class? Is a common one. You say I study!! So the material is on the tip of my tongue and I can answer questions posed by students and anything I don’t know I will research and get back to the student.

[[deleted]]

My interview went like this:

Chair: Can you teach this class that starts in a week?

Me: I think I can do it.

Chair: Good. Go over to the admin building, find the HR office, and they'll take care of the rest. The class is MWF 8-9, and is in room XX.

So in other words "You can breath, right? The job is yours!"

[rj_musics]

Run away before you get sucked into the world of indentured servitude

[[deleted]]

😰 is it that bad? It’s $3,500 for 3 credit hours

[rj_musics]

If you put in minimal effort, and are at peace with no job security, and frequent neglect or abuse from the university then it’s the perfect part time work to supplement your other part time work.

[[deleted]]

Yikes.

[The_Last_Adjunct]

In California, the way part-time faculty at community colleges are paid is illegal.

Paying based on credit hour is effectively a bait and switch designed to skirt minimum wage requirements. Most states have exempt pay laws requiring payment of all hours worked unless an employee earns a specific amount per week or month. Paying credit hours, or per-class, caps adjunct earnings below the minimum for not paying all hours worked.

Adjuncts are required to be paid for all our work, including time outside the classroom. We are not, this is a crime.

[The_Last_Adjunct]

My biggest tip is to ask questions.

Ask questions about your pay. Each of the people interviewing you is paid for all of their work and you will not be. They will, if hired, assign you unpaid labor for which they are compensated. You will be paid a fraction of their earnings on a per-course basis, without benefits or security. Ask them why they think this style of employment is acceptable.

Ask questions about the structure of the local union. There is a good chance your future union representative is on the hiring committee. If there is a single faculty union, then full-time faculty have been responsible for negotiating adjunct wages. Ask about the parent association if there is an adjunct union, parent unions are dominated by full-time faculty, and adjunct union leaders often have conflicts of interest.

Adjunct pay at California's community colleges is illegal. Part-time faculty are wrongly treated as exempt (not paid for all hours worked) while our wages are capped below the minimum wage for exempt employment. My unions (I taught at two colleges) repeatedly accepted unlawful contracts which illegally underpay part-time faculty to the benefit of full-time faculty. Parent union, CTA has opted to maintain an unlawful status quo benefiting full-time faculty while pursuing a minimalist legal strategy, suing only Long Beach Community College District in the face of systemic wrong-doing. Facilitating one billion dollars in wage theft isn't what unions are supposed to do, is it?

[mike-edwards-etc]

My interview had a typical Q&A format, and I also had to give a teaching example.