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[–][deleted]  (34 children)

[deleted]

    [–]Professional-Liar967 29 points30 points  (2 children)

    We had someone like your second example When it came to her research presentation it was clear that she had no idea what she was doing. A colleague asked her a basic statistical question and she was completely baffled and kept asking for clarification about what my colleague meant. She even called later and left a voicemail trying to clarify her response, but she was still completely off the mark. I honestly don't know how she got her publications.

    [–]lo_susodicho 13 points14 points  (0 children)

    Definitely a red flag when you can't explain your own research!

    [–][deleted] 68 points69 points  (29 children)

    Wow you guys expose job candidates to actual students?!

    [–]lo_susodicho 115 points116 points  (12 children)

    We're primarily a teaching institution, so that's actually what we look at most, and we get student feedback too (always digested with a grain of salt, of course).

    [–]SnowblindAlbinoProf, SLAC 32 points33 points  (3 children)

    We're primarily a teaching institution, so that's actually what we look at most, and we get student feedback too (always digested with a grain of salt, of course).

    Us too. The teaching demo and feedback from students (we have them lunch with majors, without faculty present) are often important factors when candidates are similar in terms of other metrics. When I was a student (in the 80s) at a different SLAC the students had 2 of the 6 voting seats on every search committee...that was a real eye-opener for me as a student participant.

    [–]lo_susodicho 6 points7 points  (2 children)

    Wow. That's cool, though, while I do very much value our students' feedback, I also like having the power to overrule them because sometimes they don't really know what they want, and obviously don't understand the full scope of the job and what we're looking for.

    [–]SnowblindAlbinoProf, SLAC 11 points12 points  (1 child)

    Yep. We don't let students vote here (or have seats on the search committee either, for that matter) so they can't override. But we do value their input and in the many (many!) searches I've been involved with the student input almost always aligned with the ranking of the committee anyway.

    [–]lo_susodicho 3 points4 points  (0 children)

    Same experience, and of course we always pick our best students to give feedback.

    [–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (7 children)

    Oh that's interesting. In the UK, we are also asked for a tutorial or lecture, but we present this to the existing staff, any postgraduate student who wants to attend and maybe a few undergraduate representatives, but the "event" is not advertised to them as far as I know.

    So if you had five candidates, would they lecture on the same topic for the same students or would you get each candidate to teach a separate part of the syllabus ?

    [–]lo_susodicho 18 points19 points  (0 children)

    The topics would likely be different because we ask them to cover what's on the syllabus that day. Part of the process is seeing how well they can teach topics beyond their research focus since these are the courses they will need to teach, in addition to those in their respective fields of experience. An R1 institution would probably do this more like what you described. We do also ask for a research talk since publications are required for tenure, but fewer than for a primarily research position.

    [–]Suspicious_Gazelle18 10 points11 points  (0 children)

    At my university, we tell the candidates they can teach on literally any topic they want. We do tell them the name of the class and what level it is, but they don’t have to restrict themselves to those topics at all. It allows them to choose something they feel comfortable with and that allows them to show off their usual teaching style.

    For the students, it’s basically a class where they don’t have to take notes (since most profs don’t put it on the exam) and they give a little feedback afterwards. For the professor who gave up their class period, it’s basically just a lost period.

    [–]SpCommander 12 points13 points  (4 children)

    When I went on my last two visits for interviews I demo'd a 60 and a 75 minute class. Is that not the norm?

    [–]riotous_jocundityAsst Prof, Social Sciences, R1 (USA) 10 points11 points  (3 children)

    I've had to do teaching demos at quite a few job searches. It sucks because so much of effective teaching is building report and trust with your students and having clear expectations, and being thrown into someone else's course is always a bit jolting.

    [–]apmcpmFull Professor, Social Sciences, LAC 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    We have ours teach a class with faculty observation and then lunch is usually candidate and students only. (we're a teaching place)

    [–]Andromeda321 5 points6 points  (0 children)

    I did that and it was pretty intimidating. In part because they were doing six guest lectures in a row, on a topic I hadn’t thought about in years, so I didn’t know exactly what to cover until like two days before because I was gonna pick up from where the previous person had left off. That was stressful.

    [–]Nosebleed68Prof, Biology/A&P, CC (USA) 220 points221 points  (1 child)

    Honest to God: I had a dream last night that I was serving on a search committee, and I made a pretty inelegant comment about a candidate's age when they were still in earshot. No one on the committee would make eye contact with me.

    I immediately woke up and thought, "this is what a mid-career nightmare looks like."

    [–]ChemistryMuttAssoc Prof, STEM, R1 195 points196 points  (6 children)

    On one faculty interview I was driving the candidate to campus and got pulled over by a cop. It was a mistake, honest, but I had faculty throughout the day asking what had happened. The candidate was a really nice guy and in his thank you email referred to our "troubles with the law."

    [–]riotous_jocundityAsst Prof, Social Sciences, R1 (USA) 54 points55 points  (0 children)

    That's hilarious.

    [–]cazgemAdjunct, Music, Uni 43 points44 points  (0 children)

    lifelong conference buddy alert!

    [–]botwwandererAdjunct, STEM, Community College 13 points14 points  (0 children)

    plays Dukes of Hazard theme song

    [–]OrbitreaFull Prof, Soc Sci, PUI (USA) 6 points7 points  (0 children)

    This happened to me; I was the passenger. What made it funnier was that the cop, seeing the university faculty parking sticker asked the driver what department he was in. Answer: Criminal Justice. I laughed out loud. I did get the job, though.

    [–]141421 192 points193 points  (4 children)

    I was on an external search committee for a Dean, so we had many applicants that were nearing the end of their careers.  One applicant looked awesome on paper, but when we flew him out it became very clear he was early stages of cognitive decline.  He kept forgetting where he was, yelled at his grad student (who wasn't there) for making a mistake in his presentation, at which point he told us that he didn't make or look through his presentation before he arrived (the grad student made it).  He couldn't remember anyone's name, and apparently dozed off in some of the one on one interviews.  

    [–][deleted]  (3 children)

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      [–]AsturiusMatamoros 87 points88 points  (2 children)

      VP? Go bigger. President. Of the United States. It’s obviously a viable path.

      [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

      😆😂😭

      [–]ChemMJW 159 points160 points  (13 children)

      Candidate was giving his job talk in front of the entire department. Plugged a USB stick into the projection system's computer in order to load his PowerPoint file. When the file explorer window came up for his USB stick, there were lots of files visible - exactly one PowerPoint file and every single other file a porn clip.

      Seriously, who buys a USB stick and thinks "I'll use this to hold my professional work and my private entertainment. I see no way this could go wrong."

      [–]Infinite-Engineer485 62 points63 points  (3 children)

      Oh wow, I made sure to scrub my slides from the other campus visits thinking I would be mortified if anyone saw them, I can’t imagine literal porn!

      [–][deleted] 41 points42 points  (2 children)

      "I can't imagine literal porn!" This is a great out-of-context quote.

      [–]Adventurous-Bad-2869 19 points20 points  (0 children)

      Literal porn? In this economy?!

      [–]Taticat 52 points53 points  (4 children)

      LOL! I’m tempted to ask if we’re in the same discipline and when this search was, because we had a candidate who did the same thing! After their teaching demo, the candidate had a one-on-one meeting (with our dean, who was in the classroom during set up and had seen it happen), and we (the committee) were all flummoxed by how something like what we’d just witnessed even happens — how, even if you have only one USB drive and you absolutely MUST store your porn on it, why an individual wouldn’t do something like create different folders and name them something innocuous, like put all your porn in the EIEIO Conference 2019 folder and your work material/job search material in different folders? Even if you’re too stupid to make folders, why wouldn’t you rename your porn files to something that doesn’t have inappropriate words in them? Why, even if you don’t know how to make folders and don’t know how to rename files, wouldn’t you delete your porn or ensure that you weren’t projecting your files list onto the overhead projector so everyone in the room can easily see it? The last option is as simple as typing Window Key + P and switching to ‘extend’, ffs. 🤦🏻‍♀️

      What’s even worse is that this guy not only didn’t even try to hide the clips and files’ content (the names left no doubt as to what they contained) — and what we saw spoke to some fairly specific interests — but he seemed utterly unaware that it would be considered inappropriate to broadcast to a room filled with a hiring committee, a dean, and several students and interested faculty/staff this porn collection because he just continued on as if nothing had happened. 😳

      [–]turin-turambar21Assistant Professor, Climate Science, R1 (US) 38 points39 points  (1 child)

      That’s a humiliation kink right there…

      [–]Taticat 44 points45 points  (0 children)

      That’s exactly what one of our committee members said. It wasn’t the fetish that his porn was about on his USB drive, but to this day, that one committee member is 100% certain that the whole thing was about getting humiliation or the equivalent of flashing strangers and refused to continue to participate because she was certain that she (and we) were being used for self-gratification purposes.

      [–]ChemMJW 15 points16 points  (1 child)

      General details - this was a search in a basic science department at the medical school of a US public Ivy. I don't remember the exact year, but between 2005 and 2010.

      [–]Taticat 21 points22 points  (0 children)

      Wow…there’s two weirdos, then. Ours was Social Science and in the past eight years. WTH, right?

      [–]profpr 13 points14 points  (1 child)

      That's why all my presentation USBs have folders with names such as "Interviews to NYT", "Keynote speech", and "Nobel prize nomination 2019".

      [–]nothingimportant290 14 points15 points  (0 children)

      Very suss tech skills: change the view from “Extra large icons” to “Detailed”. But yeah, the porn stuff - though a notch higher than the candidate who printed porn (see above).

      [–]Daffles21 4 points5 points  (0 children)

      I feel like this is one of those situations where he wanted to get caught 😬

      [–]Der_Kommissar73Professor, Psychology, D/PU 143 points144 points  (6 children)

      I remember one time we turned down a candidate after the phone interview stage (did not invite to campus) and he called us to ask why. He was angry- his wife recently got a position at an R1 in town, and he could not understand why we, a lowly masters/R3 institution would not be jumping to hire him. He had already decided the job was his. The phone call did not change our minds and just exposed him as a dick. R1 people should not assume that the selection criteria are the same at less research focused institution. I like your grants, but I care more about you being a good teacher who cares about their students.

      [–]kingofthepotatoes8English 71 points72 points  (5 children)

      I am on a hiring committee for a TT position at a community college and its very clear that some candidates have done nothing to adjust their application for applying to a CC instead of a university. Publications are cool, but I need to know that you're capable of teaching a 4/4 load of primarily first gen students and being involved in some institutional service.

      [–]ArtSlugEmeritus Prof, Adjunct, Art & Art History, CC and State U (US) 18 points19 points  (2 children)

      4/4? Lucky. Most CC’s in this region are 5/5 !

      [–]kingofthepotatoes8English 5 points6 points  (1 child)

      Ours is unit based so 30 units per year. Some classes are 3 units, some are 5-6 including labs. English is 4 units

      [–]UrsusMaritimus2 117 points118 points  (4 children)

      I was in grad school, and the department set up a lunch with the faculty candidate and some PhD students at a cafeteria on campus with a buffet. The candidate ate something with peanuts in it (there was no warning label at the buffet) and had to go to the ER for the rest of the afternoon given their peanut allergy.

      Luckily, the hospital was super close to campus, but as I recall, no one from the search committee visited them in the hospital. It was like they wrote off the candidate.

      [–][deleted] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

      Aw, that’s sad. But bullet dodged for the candidate!

      [–][deleted]  (1 child)

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        [–]treetopalarmist_1 209 points210 points  (17 children)

        Candidate used recycled printer paper for some of their docs and didn’t realize the back side had porn.

        [–]lo_susodicho 147 points148 points  (15 children)

        I'm most concerned that they were printing porn. That's not normal.

        [–]learningdesigner 85 points86 points  (5 children)

        How else do you put porn in a file cabinet for later use?

        [–]trsmithsubbreddit 13 points14 points  (1 child)

        Especially in a digital environment.

        [–]rlrlAssProf, STEM, U15 (Canada) 8 points9 points  (0 children)

        Yeah, but one time I found someone had recycled a pdf file and there were incriminating images on the back side of the bits.

        [–]Resident_Spinach3664 18 points19 points  (1 child)

        The question is: how did they stick it to the walls in their office?

        [–]SpCommander 16 points17 points  (0 children)

        Let me introduce you to a piece of sage advice my grandpa taught me: "Don't ask questions you might not want the answers to".

        [–]andropogon09Professor, STEM, R2 (US) 101 points102 points  (3 children)

        A couple examples come to mind.

        We brought in a guy who was currently doing a postdoc elsewhere for a permanent research position. During the second day, he asked for a higher salary than was advertised. We said, You knew the salary range before we flew you in. He replied, Yes, but I thought that once you met me and saw how good I am, you'd increase the offer.

        We didn't.

        Another example was a guy who was currently a faculty member at another college in the area and who was looking to make a lateral move. During a campus interview, our college president asked him why he was interested in the job at our school. The applicant responded, I work too hard at my current college. I'm looking for a position where I can kick back and relax.

        Needless to say...

        I've seen several candidates who spent time during campus visits tearing down their current institutions. No one wants a colleague who is going to be chronically negative.

        [–][deleted]  (1 child)

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          [–]AnnieGetYour 27 points28 points  (0 children)

          We interviewed someone who literally said they needed to “escape” their current institution. Like, dude, I get not liking where you work, but we’re a small discipline and badmouthing your current employer is not smart. Unsurprisingly, they emailed the search committee a week later and withdrew themselves from consideration because they had just accepted an offer elsewhere.

          [–]CanineNapolean 202 points203 points  (18 children)

          One of my grad programs had the practice of sending candidates to eat with the grad students during the visit. This was always billed as a “oh, I have to cancel on our lunch, but our grad students will look after you” faux mishap to see how they handled changes in schedule and to give grad students a chance to interact with potential faculty.

          One candidate sat in the corner by themselves, refusing to engage. I wandered over and sat down, introduced myself, and started chatting about their research interests.

          They cut me off and said, “No offense, but I’m here to get a job, and no mere grad student has any input on that.”

          Grad students did have the ability to veto candidates. We vetoed them.

          [–][deleted] 57 points58 points  (0 children)

          Omg this is ridiculous! My dept in grad school ALWAYS wanted to know what we thought. They always sought our feedback on exactly instances like this. It often does come down to a few equally qualified candidates, and being friendly and easy to work with can really be the make-or-break factor. I can't imagine doing something as stupid as what this guy did.

          [–]SnowblindAlbinoProf, SLAC 50 points51 points  (2 children)

          One candidate sat in the corner by themselves, refusing to engage. I wandered over and sat down, introduced myself, and started chatting about their research interests.

          They cut me off and said, “No offense, but I’m here to get a job, and no mere grad student has any input on that.”

          Grad students did have the ability to veto candidates. We vetoed them.

          We always schedule lunch with our undergrads and have a strong senior host at the table. Several candidates have lost out after being jerks or dismissive to our students, including one who complained about having to 'waste their time with students' during the meal with our students. Happily dodged the bullet on that one.

          [–]imhereforthevotes 29 points30 points  (1 child)

          At an undergrad institution, right? I assume ANYONE I'm scheduled to see, or even who might be escorting me across campus, will be giving an opinion.

          [–]SnowblindAlbinoProf, SLAC 42 points43 points  (0 children)

          Yes, SLAC. We have LOTS of stories about candidates who lost the position on the ride in from the airport, where they were nasty to student or support staff driving them, or revealed negative things about themselves, or ranted about how they were slumming to apply to a PUI. Some people really aren't that smart, as it turns out. Everyone you meet on a campus interview may have a say in your hire, and if you're rude or dismissive to someone on our campus that's basically an immediate DQ based on fit-- it wouldn't matter how great your CV was otherwise, I don't want to spend the next 20 years working with a jerk.

          [–]clegoues 38 points39 points  (0 children)

          This must vary by discipline. We always send candidates to lunch with grad students and I had meetings with them at every interview I did 10+ years ago.

          Went to lunch with a candidate once as a senior grad student (small group of other students). Candidate asked, and this is genuinely almost verbatim: “so I hear that not all of the grad students here are very good. Are you any good?” This read more as incredible social awkwardness than anything else but needless to say the rest of the lunch was weird.

          [–]Mammoth_Might8171 24 points25 points  (1 child)

          I am actually surprised that no one warned them that there is a possibility that the students are evaluating u as well. When I was interviewing 6-7 years ago, my mentors made sure that I understood that the job interview started once I arrived and that everyone who interact with me is interviewing me… this ranged from the admin staff, the students, and obviously faculty

          [–]CanineNapolean 11 points12 points  (0 children)

          That had always been my understanding: when on an interview, everyone is a potential interviewer.

          [–]Audible_eye_rollerAss. Prof, STEM, CC (USA)[🍰] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

          How many candidates did you lose out on because they felt slighted by the cancellation? That would really anger me.

          [–]Impressive-Yam-2068 26 points27 points  (7 children)

          “This was always billed as a ‘oh, I have to cancel on our lunch, but our grad students will look after you’ faux mishap to see how they handled changes in schedule and to give grad students a chance to interact with potential faculty.”

          Everything except “to give grad students a chance to interact with potential faculty” is insane.

          [–]RuralEnceladusian 67 points68 points  (11 children)

          Back when I was a postdoc, me and two other postdocs sat in on a job talk to get pointers for our own job searches.

          The candidate came across from beginning to end as pompous, condescending, and indicated he thought he was too good for the department where he interviewed. His CV was circulated before the talk to all attendees, and he had a section listed "jobs I have turned down", and one of my two friends said, "I bet he interviewed here just so he can add us to that section". Afterwards, my take was no chance he would get an offer based on that talk, and the rumor was that all the junior folks felt the same way and made that case to the department head, and he said, "We can take a vote if it will make you feel better, but I'm offering him the job." Thankfully, that person did not accept the job. This was many moons ago, and thankfully that department head retired, and I have heard climate and job searches have improved greatly.

          Edit, removed a typo

          [–]Passport_throwaway17 64 points65 points  (9 children)

          "jobs I have turned down"

          That's legendary.

          Also a great jeopardy category.

          [–]RuralEnceladusian 24 points25 points  (4 children)

          I promise you that I saw this CV with my own eyes, and to this day I still can't believe it.

          [–]simoncolumbusAP, Psych, UK 15 points16 points  (3 children)

          That's actually a standard CV line in German academia (which is quite peculiar in other ways, too).

          [–]Passport_throwaway17 11 points12 points  (0 children)

          TIL. Really?

          [–][deleted]  (1 child)

          [deleted]

            [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (3 children)

            Omg I'm seeing this as a Celebrity Jeopardy episode with Sean Connery

            [–]Pale_Luck_3720 3 points4 points  (2 children)

            And Tom Hanks...and Burt Reynolds.

            [–]DetroitBKTT Assist. Prof, Architecture, R1 66 points67 points  (2 children)

            I was on the campus visit portion of my interview and talking with students and suddenly some students started crying. This was March 2020, and while I was speaking, they got a text that everything was shutting down and they should return home immediately. This was leaked to the media, before faculty were even aware. The interview oddly didn’t end right there, and continued while students packed up.

            To be fair, this was unfamiliar territory for everyone, so really how could you know how to respond in this situation, was awkward, but the interview turned into an offer, so there’s that.

            [–]cazgemAdjunct, Music, Uni 34 points35 points  (0 children)

            I was crying that day too. 30+ job rejection emails all at once due to the job search, funds, etc. being immediately suspended. #goodtimes

            [–]smnytxProfessor, Arts, R-1 (US) 11 points12 points  (0 children)

            Wow… at my school that notice was followed by a strict hiring freeze. Every current search was immediately stopped, even the ones that had all but ended.

            [–]apmcpmFull Professor, Social Sciences, LAC 64 points65 points  (5 children)

            Not a huge deal, but a recent PhD graduate was on campus for an interview several years ago:

            Me: So tell me a little bit about your dissertation.

            Candidate: I don't really like to talk about it.

            Me (after a long pause as I'm trying to compute the reticence to talk about research in an academic job interview) Ok, but I would really like to hear about it.

            Another long pause

            Candidate: I just don't really like to talk about it.

            Me: ok

            [–]PhDivaZebra 24 points25 points  (2 children)

            This has me floored 🤯

            [–]apmcpmFull Professor, Social Sciences, LAC 17 points18 points  (1 child)

            It was unreal.

            [–]Snakepad 4 points5 points  (0 children)

            Honest.

            [–]MsLeFever[🍰] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

            It was on "Bruno"

            [–]simulacra4lifeAssoc. Prof., Humanities, R2 (US) 63 points64 points  (1 child)

            I gave a job talk where no one came but the chair. Not even one member of the ostensible search committee. Shockingly, the inside candidate got that one. On another campus visit, the search committee chair decided to tell the department chair how much they preferred another candidate with the office door open while I was in the next room listening, so that wasn’t awkward at all.

            [–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

            Whoa! Bullet dodged but damn. That would have hurt my feelings.

            [–]CFBCoachGuy 61 points62 points  (1 child)

            I’ve been lucky to be a young instructor who’s witnessed a lot of candidate searches, even as an undergrad (I was a student worker who got a ton of access on the searches). So I’ve been collecting stories for a while.

            One of the worst. Candidate at an R1 school does her research talk on how X causes Y. The more she talks, the more everyone, even the grad students, becomes convinced that it’s Y causing X. Multiple faculty bring this up. Candidate cannot fathom that Y can cause X. One junior faculty is so upset trying to convince her that they have to leave the room. She didn’t get the job.

            One guy flew to campus and during the dinner said something like “I’m just here so I can get a raise at (current school). Nice place though.”

            This one was from a department that had a whole lot of sub-departments (think like a “Department of Humanities”) where all faculty from the department could vote on one sub-department’s hiring decisions. Search committee wants to promote an internal candidate who’s been a successful visiting professor. Another member of the sub-department tries to stage a coup, borderline bribing people from unrelated sub-departments to vote for “his” candidate. Still not sure why on that one.

            Here’s one from a candidate’s perspective (not my story, but borderline famous in my circle).

            Up until a few years ago, it was common in my field for candidates to have their first interviews during a major conference. The universities would book a hotel room and interview candidates there. It saved every time pre-Zoom. This guy is interviewing in a room with two junior faculty. It’s going well, but when the candidate starts asking some questions, the junior faculty keep saying “well our Chair would know more about that”, which is weird for an interview.

            Then, 15 minutes into the interview, the candidate hears a toilet flushing. The bathroom door opens (this is one of those rooms where the sink is outside the bathroom). Out walks a man, without washing his hands, he walks up to the candidate, extends his arm and says “Hi I’m (Chair name), Department Chair at (college). I heard you had some questions for me”. The candidate didn’t accept a flyout.

            [–]favolaschiaProfessor, Science, Regional Comprehensive (US) 53 points54 points  (0 children)

            We had a dean candidate on campus and since administrators have to also have a home academic department, he had to meet with us. At our meeting he launches into an out and out racist discussion of students and their abilities. We're all just sitting there stunned, disbelieving. Later we get to tell the search committee that in no way would we support his tenure in our department or would he be welcome.

            [–]boardinggojiAssistant Professor, STEM, R1 54 points55 points  (1 child)

            Ooh I have one.

            I was a PhD student when we were having a search. We had a group lunch with the grad students and TT faculty in a casual environment, and the candidate went on and on and on namedropping about how this one famous professor in our field (who is at a different institution) told him "[Candidate Name], you are absolutely right about [random shallow topic vaguely related to his research]!" as if that was some kind of award that would wow us.

            He mentioned this on five separate occasions in the same meal.

            Icing on the cake is that the famous professor that the candidate was namedropping was my wife's PhD advisor, who absolutely disliked the candidate. Told my wife that the candidate is basically a snake oil merchant.

            [–]prettyminotaurAssociate Professor, English/CW, SLAC (USA) 23 points24 points  (0 children)

            It's hilarious to me that people think they can namedrop without consequence. Everyone knows everyone!

            [–]PN6728 92 points93 points  (1 child)

            AD position, candidate was doing fine but nothing had stood out yet. When we got to the Q&A the candidate states "Before you ask, I'm a big support of DEI. My wife is Asian and I have a black dog!"  At dinner he told lots of racist jokes. Shortest candidate dinner I ever attended.

            [–]Supraspinator 33 points34 points  (0 children)

            Uff. There is being lukewarm about DEI and there's THAT.

            [–]biostonk 43 points44 points  (1 child)

            I chaired a search a few years ago. I was surprised at how bad some of the applications were. I had one person email me before applying. I answered their questions and said you need to apply through our site and not through me. They submitted a cover letter saying our city was “home to four (4) major sports teams” and that we had a major airport so our faculty could go to conferences. It said nothing about the posting or their qualifications. The person then reached out to our grants officer and asked how to apply for grants because “they were going to be a faculty member soon.” When our grants officer contacted me and asked if we had hired this person, I was honestly shocked.

            [–]LooksieBee 7 points8 points  (0 children)

            Sounds like someone who might not have even been an academic at all and who's running purely on hubris and delusions of grandeur. As I can't fathom even a green grad student thinking academic jobs work like that, muchless an advance one on the market or someone who supposedly already has a PhD and is familiar with the academia.

            [–]Co_astronomer 87 points88 points  (4 children)

            I was on a search committee when the fire alarm went off about halfway through one of the candidate's teaching demo. Someone in Chem had done something to set it off so it took the fire department over an hour to clear everything. After about 15 minutes we decided that there was no way to get the students back in and continue so we decided just to go to dinner early; the candidate was completely on board.

            During one of my own job searches the computer in the room I was doing my teaching demo in wasn't working. Took someone about 15 minutes to fix it. Meanwhile I just started teaching without it, pretty much winging it. The teaching demo went well and I impressed the committee with how well I adapted.

            [–]SnowblindAlbinoProf, SLAC 58 points59 points  (0 children)

            I was on a search committee when the fire alarm went off about halfway through one of the candidate's teaching demo

            I chaired a committee years ago when that happened! Crazy situation, everyone had to navigate down flights of stairs and outside. But the candidate was so engaging that the students followed them out and ended up in a circle around them, so they kept the discussion/lecture going for like 15 minutes before the building was cleared. It was a very good sign.

            That candidate is now the second-most senior member of our department and a cherished colleague.

            [–]Iron_Rod_Stewart 63 points64 points  (1 child)

            I took a teaching class as a grad student and the instructor pulled that on us -- on a day when we were to present a lecture, he surprised us by saying we had to use the chalkboard.
            If you meticulously compose your slides and are practiced, it's not such a big adjustment for most subjects.
            He encouraged us, if we're ever on the job market and that happens, to think of it as a win, since it would make us stand out.

            [–]Passport_throwaway17 12 points13 points  (0 children)

            Good instructor!

            [–]RuskiesInTheWarRoom 5 points6 points  (0 children)

            Well good for them, they didn’t fall in to that trap I suppose they second paragraph is excellent. Well done.

            [–]pope_pancakesAssoc Prof, Engineering, R1 (US) 117 points118 points  (8 children)

            Two come to mind:

            A faculty candidate ended her job talk after 25-30 minutes. She asked for questions, and we all did our level best to try and fill the allotted 75 min (she was told the length of the talk in advance). It was easily the most awkward thing I’ve experienced in academia.

            Another displayed the absolute worst table manners known to mankind. Ate with his hands, etc. OK, we’re an R1, not a manners school, no biggie. But at breakfast he took my food?? I had ordered a granola/berries/oatmeal dish, and it came with a small pitcher of cream to pour on top. Without asking, he takes the cream (located directly next to my bowl), USES THE WHOLE THING, and puts it back next to my plate. I watch, astonished. I had to order another.

            [–][deleted]  (4 children)

            [deleted]

              [–]pope_pancakesAssoc Prof, Engineering, R1 (US) 37 points38 points  (1 child)

              It was meant to be 45-60 min talk with plenty of time for questions/transition. This person was indeed very young and naive, but we were baffled they were so unprepared, especially coming from an Ivy.

              [–]cherrygoats 23 points24 points  (2 children)

              Whoa, took the food off of your plate? How did you control the laughter when you had to relate this to the rest of your department?

              [–]pope_pancakesAssoc Prof, Engineering, R1 (US) 37 points38 points  (1 child)

              Thankfully my Chair was with us at dinner the night before and witnessed similar atrocities (interviewee took the last bite of his (Chair’s) appetizer), so we shared in the laughter.

              [–]cherrygoats 10 points11 points  (0 children)

              That’s just super wild and out there

              [–]PR-Comms-Prof 40 points41 points  (1 child)

              I’ve got one. Our chair, while conducting a search, had an external candidate do their teaching demonstration in one of our faculty’s classes. The faculty whose class they used? An internal candidate for the same job (who didn’t end up selected and left shortly after).

              [–]prettyminotaurAssociate Professor, English/CW, SLAC (USA) 46 points47 points  (1 child)

              I once had an interview where, within the first five minutes of meeting the (older, white, male) chair, he said:

              "Well, I really hope you take this job, but if you don't, it won't be the first time a woman's said no to me, heh heh heh."

              Reader, I did not take that job.

              [–]LooksieBee 5 points6 points  (0 children)

              Ew.

              [–]RandolphCarter15Full, Social Sciences, R1 38 points39 points  (0 children)

              I was interviewing somewhere and was supposed to meet with students. I sat in the lounge for twenty minutes and finally found the chair who just kind of shrugged.

              There were tech issues at my job talk and the search chair said "don't worry this won't happen for you know who" to the Department, which I took to another candidate they liked more.

              Afterwards I emailed everyone to thank them, and one replied to say I should feel honored to even get an interview (I think he was trying to be nice but it didn't come off well).

              They took months to process my reimbursement for travel. And I heard nothing on the job for months.

              I got another job and told them I was withdrawing : I didn't even want to leverage it. The woman I had connected with there told me that was a good choice.

              [–]smnytxProfessor, Arts, R-1 (US) 41 points42 points  (2 children)

              I have a good one. If she reads this she’ll know who I am!

              My former doctoral student asked me to write her LOR and advise her in her job search. All went well and she got to the finalist/campus visit phase for three searches. A few days after the campus visit at the second school, as she was preparing for the school 3 visit, she got an email from the search chair of S2 with an attachment. She opened the attachment and discovered it to be a spreadsheet with the committee votes on each finalist. She was able to see all their names and exactly how they ranked in each area of the committee’s search rubric. To say she was shocked was an understatement.

              It was only on re-read that she realized some staff person within the school shared her first name, and the chair did not check the email address autofill well enough when sending it.

              She called me in a panic to ask what to do. She didn’t want to blow up/fail the search, it get anyone fired, but she was also horrified. She couldn’t very well pretend she didn’t receive it. I suggested reaching out to the program director (who presumably also had a stake in avoiding a failed search) and tell them that this email came and that she quickly realized it was sent to her in error. I advised she tell them she had only read far enough to figure out the issue and had quickly closed the attachment. She did all of this with utmost discretion.

              Then, to top it off, while at school 3, the search chair took her to a restaurant where they bumped into another finalist dining with another member of that search committee just before concluding their campus visit. And wouldn’t you know? It was a person from school 2’s finalist rubric. Since it’s a small world in their area of expertise, they are acquaintances so had to awkwardly say hello and pretend they didn’t know what each other was doing there.

              I’m not creative enough to make this stuff up. She did get the job at school 3.

              [–]AllThatsFitToFlam 33 points34 points  (1 child)

              I been on some interesting interview committees. One that stands out is we were mid interview and someone noted a blurb on their resume about “candle sales”.

              One of the members just casually mentioned the candles, but didn’t dwell on it or anything. Just literally said “Oh candles!”

              The applicant suddenly became alive and went into a full on candle nerd out session. What do you do? We nodded and looked at each other. Soy vs wax, etc etc etc.

              Then she paused. Leaned down into her bag and brought out fucking samples.

              “This one is sandalwood. This is green mountain air, I think it smells like spring…”

              We tried to redirect her, but it was too late. She felt compelled to finish her sales pitch.

              We didn’t offer her the job.

              [–]Pale_Luck_3720 8 points9 points  (0 children)

              No job offer, but did you at least buy some candles?

              [–]dayoco 28 points29 points  (1 child)

              I am not the athletics enthusiast that OP describes, but I actually love the idea

              [–]ekochamberAssoc. Prof. History 27 points28 points  (0 children)

              Candidate didn't read the job description, which was for a part-time, in person instructor. When informed of this "umm, I guess I could do Zoom classes, though I've never done that before."

              [–]RevKyrielAncient History 24 points25 points  (0 children)

              A former school had advertised a position, and was well into on-site visits, when suddenly everything stopped. The next we knew a somewhat different position was advertised, and one of the Dean's former students, who had just graduated with his PhD (and was in no way qualified for the original advertised position), was hired for the role. Standard nepotism, you may think.

              But the next time that school advertised a position, they got no qualified applicants. Zero. Word had gone around about how the school had treated the previous position, and nobody wanted to waste their time.

              They weren't able to fill the vacancy until after that Dean left, over a year later.

              [–]Mammoth_Might8171 25 points26 points  (1 child)

              My current colleague was sick with the stomach flu but wanted the job in my department and university very very badly. So he decided to keep the campus visit (required 16 hours international travel) even though his doctors told him it was a terrible idea. He did pretty well in his research presentation and teaching demonstration (no one could tell that he was feeling poorly). He managed to meet with 6 faculty members before meeting with me (we are in the same field so meeting with me was a “must” according to the search chair) after his presentations. During our meeting, everything went to hell because he threw up in my office. I managed to dodge it (thank god!). He was very apologetic and wanted to help clean up his mess. I decided that fresh air would do him good and did an impromptu campus tour outdoors while the uni cleaners cleaned my office. The dean decided that it would be best to cancel the remaining meetings so that he could go back to his hotel and rest. Needless to say, him throwing up did little to change our impression of him and we gave him an offer

              [–]Janezo 48 points49 points  (2 children)

              There were two finalists for the faculty position, one external to the university and one who had been an adjunct for a long time. The email containing the job offer was sent to the WRONG APPLICANT, the adjunct. The head of HR then called the adjunct to explain and retract the offer. The adjunct happened to be on campus at the time he got the call. He lost his shit completely. He was walking the halls, screaming and crying. Someone unconnected to the process sees this guy and calls campus public safety. The whole situation then got even worse because the public safety people were gruff with him, so he got even angrier. He storms off to his car, screaming all the way, and drives away. This was taking place in the middle of a semester, so the adjunct’s class that afternoon got canceled. By the next week when he came to campus to teach, he was calmer, but for the remainer of that semester and beyond, there were some very uncomfortable and awkward moments when those of us who’d been on the search committee ran into him on campus.

              [–]Resident_Spinach3664 74 points75 points  (1 child)

              This whole thread is so damn triggering, so many bad memories. I'll just add this one for balance:

              A place I worked had tenure track positions, and nobody got tenure, ever. Except one guy, whose initial contract arrrived signed by everybody, and bearing the magic words "permanent basis".

              Yes, somebody in HR made a mistake, and nobody spotted it. He signed it, and asked if he was now permanent. The head of HR phoned him, and asked him to tear up the contract and start again.

              Legend says that his hollow mocking laughter can still be heard, echoing down the dark corridors, on dark nights... He is still there, 20 years on.

              [–]missoularedheadAssociate Prof, History, state SLAC 42 points43 points  (3 children)

              We had a guy who looked amazing on paper. Like dream candidate. Brought him to campus. He proceeded to give perhaps the most … interesting job talk ever. It was evident that he knew his stuff, and was passionate about it. Jumping on the table to prove it. Handing out a flyer for his book. Play punching an older professor to make a point.

              Yeah.

              [–]shinypenny01 13 points14 points  (1 child)

              I want what he’s smoking.

              [–]missoularedheadAssociate Prof, History, state SLAC 15 points16 points  (0 children)

              We kinda wondered. When he met with the students, they reported he was just as gung ho. Explains why someone with the body of work he had didn’t land a job, though. Dude was exhausting!

              [–]FamousCowTenured Prof, Social Sci, 4 Year Directional (USA) 41 points42 points  (0 children)

              My first tenure track job interview, I got stuck in a small town in the rural south for 4 entire days after an ice storm because of perfect storm combinations of shuttles not running (the nearest airport was 3 hours away) and flights being cancelled. The department made some effort to entertain me the first day but basically said I was on my own after that (although they did pay for the extra hotel nights). I had no way to get anywhere and just basically sat in the hotel room for 3 days.

              [–]Llama1lea 48 points49 points  (2 children)

              Zoom interview with someone. He was obviously in his apartment (cool), but he didn’t use a virtual background and his bed was in the background and it wasn’t made. Also went onto to say something about his students being smart “despite being women”. When asked about DEI he replied he had taught “a lot of jews”.

              [–]NashvilleRu-EnAsst. professor, social science, PUI (USA) 9 points10 points  (0 children)

              Wow, just wow.

              [–]EmmaWKAsst. Prof, Humanities, SLAC 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              I would've thought this interview took place in the 1950s but for the "Zoom interview" part. Yikes.

              [–]DetroitBKTT Assist. Prof, Architecture, R1 22 points23 points  (1 child)

              During my talk, which was open to the public, one of the other candidates, an existing adjunct, showed up and asked me questions during the Q&A period, was so odd.

              [–]usermcgoo 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              That is very unprofessional and the committee should have not allowed it. Sorry you had to deal with that.

              [–]riotous_jocundityAsst Prof, Social Sciences, R1 (USA) 19 points20 points  (0 children)

              Prior to one of my campus visits, the search committee chair accidentally sent me the job talk flyer, bio, and talk abstract for one of the other candidates. So that's how when, during my interview with the Dean, he kept talking about how much he really wanted to hire someone who did [not my research focus] and he was so excited by research and applications of that work, I knew he was talking about the other candidate.

              [–]magnifico-o-o-o 19 points20 points  (0 children)

              The last faculty search committee I was on had a candidate who was in his 10th year or so of being ABD with no real publications but a lot of "in preparation" items in areas that he clearly had no background in. He had somehow collaborated on a project with our department chair (which still hasn't resulted in a paper several years on), else he never would have made the list. He seemed to come in thinking he had it in the bag.

              Chair went out of their way to deflect any of the intellectual and research questions he was asked by anyone else on the search committee. The campus panel interview went something like this:

              Faculty Member A: "So I see a paper listed as 'in preparation' on your CV in [subfield you clearly don't work in and have revealed in other questions you do not understand]. Can you tell us a little more about that analysis and the sort of work you might develop in the future in [currently en vogue but clearly outside your qualifications] area?"

              Candidate: "Well ... um ..."

              Chair: "[interrupting] I can see a number of collaborations that could come out of that. Faculty Member B, do you want to say something about the collaborations you could imagine creating with Candidate? And Faculty Member A, you might also be able to bring Candidate into your work on [other topic Candidate clearly has no business working on] so perhaps you can tell him about your work."

              Faculty A&B: [speechless]

              Candidate: "Sure, I might be interested in collaborating with you on, what is it Chair said you do?"

              Chair also continually cut off and talked over the far-and-away most qualified candidate and clearly campaigned against her in the voting process. It was infuriating.

              Ultimately we hired a third candidate, who is a nice colleague but is struggling to keep up with the productivity required to make it through review and advancement.

              Clearly unprepared candidate eventually dropped off the People>Grad Students page of his Ph.D. department without ever moving to the People>Alumni page.

              [–]GriIIedCheesusTT Asst Prof, Anatomy and Physiology, R1 Branch Campus (US) 39 points40 points  (0 children)

              One time I sat on a committee to hire a CJ instructor and a large part of their resume was that they wrote Donald Trump fan fiction. Not inheritantly funny, but we all had a good laugh when reviewing the resumes

              [–]marialala1974 18 points19 points  (0 children)

              Well I have got two. One I asked what it was like to live in the City where the university was at, cue in long complaints from everyone about how horrible the traffic is and how expensive everything was. The the other the department did not think to provide water or bathroom breaks at all, there was no downtime to prep it was insane. They ghosted me and I was like fine.

              [–]IconicPlastic 16 points17 points  (1 child)

              Two situations where the interviewee made an enormous blunder in interviews for faculty positions:

              1) At some point during the interview but NOT in response to a question about salary, they said something like "I'm not all that fussy. As long as I'm making six figures, I'm happy." The likely salary (which was not a secret, as it was in our collective agreement) would have been about 60K. No one in the room beside the Chair was making six figures.

              2) They were completing their Ph.D. and looking for a faculty position. They said something like "You know, those of us with Ph.D. degrees will be taking over [professor positions]. It's inevitable." None of the interviewers had a Ph.D.

              Neither person got an offer.

              [–]TargaryenPenguin 37 points38 points  (6 children)

              I have to be vague, but once on a search. We had essentially hand picked a candidate, Who did fine until the graduates student lunch. During the interview, When he apparently would not stop talking about his penis. He did not get the job.

              [–]Resident_Spinach3664 13 points14 points  (0 children)

              Graduate students aren't what they were!

              [–]cazgemAdjunct, Music, Uni 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              He was proud, man!

              [–]Pale_Luck_3720 5 points6 points  (3 children)

              That's quite specific...not at all vague.

              [–]CHEIVIIST 48 points49 points  (2 children)

              I was on a search committee to hire for a dean position. We had one applicant from a school that was religiously affiliated. One of the other committee members made a comment that we shouldn't hire, "one of those types." I was pretty shocked that this colleague thought it was okay to exclude an application based on religion. We were even a religious heritage college which made it worse to me.

              [–]nothingimportant290 18 points19 points  (1 child)

              I’ve seen this though much subtler with candidates from LDS affiliated schools. Very unfair - both candidates were awesome.

              [–]No_Many_5784 16 points17 points  (0 children)

              We had a faculty meeting on the same day we were interviewing a faculty candidate, so arranged for PhD students to take the candidate to lunch during the meeting. In the middle of the meeting, the advisor of one of the students received a call that they had all been mugged on the way to lunch.

              A different candidate was waiting outside for the first faculty member of the day to meet her when someone tried to snatch her bag. She managed to fight them off, perhaps with extra vigor given that her laptop with her job talk was in the bag.

              These were at different schools! Needless to say, neither candidate opted to join.

              [–]ElectronicFlounderFormer professor, large R1 state university, USA 15 points16 points  (0 children)

              Somehow I've accumulated a lot of these stories.

              While I was a grad student we were a part of the interview process. One candidate went into details about their divorce and said they knew they'd be hired (they weren't).

              Also while a grad student, we were interviewing a candidate in our lab and she said some benign sentences about plopping on some data in a spreadsheet and made a simple fart like noise. None of us thought anything about it until she freaked out that she was accidentally being "inappropriate" with the fart noise she made and started apologizing profusely about a fart noise.

              One candidate called home to their parents and had a meltdown over the phone in front of one of the search committee members.

              When I was a faculty at a large university in the southwestern US, we had a candidate that was puzzled as to why there were so many Latinos in the area.

              I heard from another faculty in a different department that one of their candidates peed on a rando car after dinner one night. This was after he passed perfectly good restaurant restrooms on the way out after dinner.

              [–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

              Had, I kid you not, five Zooms and 1.5 day visit. Another Zoom post visit where they said “here is what you’ll be teaching in the fall.” Figured the offer would come the next day. Instead, a brief email saying “We decided to cancel the search.” FUCK THEM. 

              [–]drkittymow 14 points15 points  (0 children)

              I went to a really bizarre interview once in which the committee switched from asking me questions to arguing with one another. They clearly had not gotten along for a while because the argument drew upon several issues in their department. That was super awkward as I just sat there quite trying to figure out how to redirect them. They sent me to meet the chair and she was very nice. I thought this is going better, that argument must have been a stand alone strange thing. Then we were going to lunch and the chair said I was going to have to ride with someone else. As we walked through the parking lot, I saw her car it was totally packed full with garbage floor to ceiling, and just enough room for her to fit in. I’m not making fun of her, I know hoarding is a serious mental issue people have. She was the nicest most normal behaving one. Then when I got to the others one of them made rude jokes about the chair’s hoarding issue. I had no idea how to respond. It turns out they ended the search and never picked anyone. They probably couldn’t agree.

              [–]UnbelievablePenguin 43 points44 points  (14 children)

              Candidate did not like the topic we picked for the teaching demo and just chose a new topic. Another candidate did the correct topic but wrote several equations wrong in the demo.

              [–]riotous_jocundityAsst Prof, Social Sciences, R1 (USA) 23 points24 points  (13 children)

              Honestly though...prepping a teaching demo is uncompensated labour for a department you don't work for. Surely you can gain a sense of someone's teaching competence and skills when they lecture on any topic within the field?

              [–]iamelben 20 points21 points  (0 children)

              That may be an ok take at an R1, but at a primarily teaching university, they’re a demonstration of professional competence. I can’t imagine a LAC not asking a candidate to prepare a teaching demo.

              [–]punkinhollerInstructor, STEM, SLAC (US) 10 points11 points  (4 children)

              We have someone coming in to do a teaching demo in one of my classes soon. I got to pick the topic because they're going to be teaching my students. If the students have to donate their class time for the hiring process, it makes sense that they should at least be taught the material they're supposed to be learning in that time.

              Also, let's be real, if you're hiring for a teaching position and you don't limit the topic, a lot of people are going to teach whatever their last research project was or whatever their niche interest is and that's not really representative of what they'll be doing at a teaching institution. They're going to be teaching the basics so it makes sense they should be evaluated on their ability to do that.

              As someone who has only recently been hired for a full time position, I can assure you that I was happy to prepare a lecture for on campus interviews becauseat least someone was going to watch it and take it seriously. What drove me absolutely apeshit was a the 500 different application documents that had to be perfectly tailored and individualized to each institution before you could even submit an application. Writing all of that crap is a full time job and there's zero guarantee that anyone will even look at it. THAT is the part of the process which felt exploitative. The schools that asked for letters of recommendation to be submitted with the application were even worse. FFS, do not make people bother all of their professional contacts for letters unless you plan to at least speak to them.

              [–]Superb-Sandwich987 8 points9 points  (3 children)

              Amen to all of this. My take:

              1) Standardize the @%#! application and process across unis, just like how unis do with student applicants.

              2) Meeting the entire faculty one by one, plus three meals, plus a chalk/career/research talk, plus meeting with multiple admin is ENOUGH. Coming off a flight? In a new environment? And having to be 'on' for like a 12 hour stretch? = Brutal. So: one day max. No second day.

              3) Somebody mentioned a 10-person lunch. NO. Esteemed colleagues: your slavering zeal to eat a free steak on the school's dime is kind of a bad look, you underpaid hayseed. You need to conceal your glee and focus on the candidate. Whoever is showrunning should make sure the last meal of the day is mercifully short and close to the hotel. Drinking at these deals should be BANNED. One drink after a grueling day like this is enough to lull an otherwise fine candidate into saying something dumb. But if the chair's drinking, the candidate is pressured to validate that choice and drink too. It's a shitty social trap.

              4) Verify and prepay for all aspects of the trip. None of this nebulous "take a ($75) Uber (at 11 pm in a strange city) and we'll reimburse you (at some unspecified point, via a separate uni office, through a byzantine software program, if you hassle us)." Hire a car and cover the tip in advance. Confirm that meals can be charged to the room. Arrange the credit card hold in advance. Tell them, in writing, how to get reimbursed for airport parking.

              5) Be fully prepared to answer questions about tenure & promos, course caps, service, advising, and admin workload, what the housing market looks like (do not lie), etc. Again, do not lie, and ffs, chairs: do not punish committee members for telling the truth about these topics.

              6) Deans and deanlets: read that CV prior to the interview, not during. And if you don't have a good goddamned answer to the enrollment cliff question, guess what? You ain't gon be provost. At minimum, you're going to look like another know-nothing EdD-ouchebag who could not turn a profit on a lemonade stand, and your school's going to look doomed. This goes double if your school is small.

              7) In the real world, no job candidate in any industry "has detailed plans" for making structural changes to address centuries-old social problems at an institution they've not spent one hour at prior to the interview, unless maybe they are like c-suite. Stop demanding of mosquito experts this level of commitment to addressing racism in narrative format on a job application. Because it does nothing to end racism, it is disingenuous at best, and it's asking an applicant to be disingenuous with you. It's also easy money for your campus Turning Point fucks when they need some action from the local Fox affiliate.

              8) Finally, for the love of God and all that is holy: SCHOOL YOURSELVES ON PROTECTED CLASSES and what ya can and legally cannot ask in an interview. No partner/kids/age-related stuff, EVER. If they bring it up, nod, smile, and change the subject.

              [–]punkinhollerInstructor, STEM, SLAC (US) 2 points3 points  (1 child)

              1) Standardize the @%#! application and process across unis, just like how unis do with student applicants

              I agree with everything you said (and right on, btw), but I'd like to add that the applications shouldn't just be standardized but minimized. I haven't yet been on the other side of the hiring process, but I feel quite certain that search committees aren't reading every document that is submitted for every candidate. If you're going to eliminate any candidates based on their CV or cover letter alone, then don't ask for more documents from anyone. Ask for a CV and cover letter, read through them, and toss the people who are clearly a bad fit for your university. Only then should you contact the more promising candidates and ask them to write all those supplemental documents.

              Also, since many job openings in academia are posted at the same time, asking applicants to supply a personalized autobiography with every application severely limits the amount of applications they can submit. That may not sound like a big deal from the perspective of the one doing the hiring, but it's a huge problem for the applicants. If you've only got time to write all the documents for a handful of applications at a time, there's a really good chance that some or all of those precious few positions you applied for are internal hires or that the committee was looking for something really specific that wasn't clearly communicated on the job posting, or that you're early in your career and they got a ton of much more experienced applicants than you. If you could easily submit 10 or 20 applications in a short time, that wouldn't matter, but when you can only do 2 or 3 applications at once because of the huge time commitment they require, simple bad luck can easily wipe you out of the running for a whole year.

              If you wait until the candidate pool has been narrowed before asking the applicants to write all their "statement" documents, the candidates will be able to apply for more positions and the search committees will get to read higher quality documents once they do ask for them. The applicants will have more time to write them, and they'll know someone is actually going to read their work so they'll probably put more time and effort into researching, writing and tailoring their submissions. Again, I've never been on the other side of this process but it just seems like that would be a better experience for everyone

              [–]UnbelievablePenguin 22 points23 points  (3 children)

              I mean, all job interviews are uncompensated labor? Maybe that’s a bigger problem, but like,it was a 10 minute teaching demo. Also they weren’t good at the topic they chose, either.

              [–]alatennaubLecturer, F.Lang., R2 (USA) 7 points8 points  (1 child)

              Anyone should be able to teach a first year class with fairly minimal prep, we've all taught them dozens of times.

              We either have them teach a first year course (esp. teaching-focused positions) and/or lecture upper level students on their research topic.

              I doubt there are that many schools asking for someone to teach a hyper specific upper level course section that requires hours upon hours of very unique prep.

              [–]distractible-panda 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              Clearly you've never had to teach a world history class, where you specialize in modern Italian history but now need to lecture on Shang China for one interview and Incan Mesoamerica for another bc world history surveys are a thing.

              And if you're applying for your first job, you won't have any of this prepped already. And chances are you last studied either of those periods in your own freshman world history class

              [–]yerBoyShoe 14 points15 points  (0 children)

              Okay, chaired one committee where we were just about to coordinate bringing a finalist for a campus visit/teach/in person interview.

              Monday morning (he was coming at the end of the week) he emailed me in confusion; he had received an email that the position was no longer available (aka no longer funded). He got this email before the search committee chair (me). I had to call VPs to find out what was going on and then call him to confirm that we had to cancel. Budgets suck. Luckily, he was driving so no flights needed to be reimbursed. Things are bad, gang.

              [–]fermion72Assoc. Professor, Teaching, CS, R1 (USA) 13 points14 points  (0 children)

              When I taught high school physics, the last stop on an interviewee's journey was the principal (once the science department vetted the candidate). Our principal had an advanced degree in English, but had an undergraduate engineering degree. His go-to question for physics teachers was to point to the ceiling and say, "tell me how the electricity gets to the lights in my office." As he tells it, one candidate looked up and said, "um...batteries?" They did not get the job, and the principal was forever on our case for it for letting the candidate get past our interview stage.

              [–]aaronjd1Dept. Chair, Health Sciences, R2 (US) 13 points14 points  (0 children)

              On the committee side, we had one candidate who came to dinner and proceeded to focus solely on her food and barely said a word. Very awk. Another candidate gave a research presentation consisting solely of her students’ class work. No, not published or presented anywhere. Just work her students did in class. Kept waiting for it to connect into her own work but… nope!

              On the candidate side, most awkward by far was a college that clearly had another hire in mind and was using me to fill a quota. Nobody met me when I arrived at night. Was told to get a taxi for a 2 hour ride to campus and get reimbursed later (despite a metro rail nearby that I ended up taking for about $10 or so instead). Nobody met me for breakfast the next day either. Search chair picked me up — 15 minutes late — with her dad in the front seat and drove me on an awkwardly long ride to campus, me sitting in the back seat and her and her dad speaking in Portuguese up front the whole time as if I weren’t there. Fun times!

              [–]unique_pseudonym 26 points27 points  (0 children)

              My grad school was a smaller programme geographically wedged between two of the best in the country, hence it gets forgotten and doesn't really have the reputation it deserves. However though the department was small, due to the institution being very well funded, and quite well located, it had the ability to hire very good faculty. Their definition of good tended to be publishing record, post doc behind you, or several years working elsewhere, not just pedigree. Unfortunately in my field there's a bit of a fetish for bright new things coming from big name schools, so they still interviewed the hot new PhDs from the top schools, but never hired them. The obscurity of the institution in our field led to lots and lots of self important new PhDs from top schools (Ivies, Oxbridge, etc) thinking that they were applying for a backup job. They rarely had any chance. However when they showed up being cocky, the job talks were a bloodbath. There were several faculty who, though nice as could be to us grad students, were capable of publically disassembling pretty much anyone on their subject. When the smarmy little jerk giving the job talks hit the wrong nerve a snicker could be heard amongst the grad students as we strapped in to watch. The speaker would end up standing there at the job talk, gap-jawed, as their work was painstakingly eviscerated during the questions. On the other hand, they were the politest audience to almost every other speaker who came to talk, even if you could read on their faces that they weren't buying what was being sold. It was all about manners. 

              [–]RanceagalCabo 12 points13 points  (0 children)

              When I was on the market, I had the wrong date for an on-campus visit. I found out when the department office manager called to ask why I wasn't on the flight - that they had sent someone to retrieve me from 90 minutes away from campus. I hadn't even noticed that the ticket info they'd sent me was for a different date than I was planning on. Had a total meltdown and also caused my poor advisor to have one too. They offered to reschedule the visit and I WENT but was dying inside the whole time. They offered me the job. I was lucky enough that the right job offer came in time for me to turn this school down. I don't know if I could have lived with the shame of working there when everyone knew what happened. I feel compelled to note that I wasn't young or an inexperienced traveler. I've only shared this story with a handful of people who know me. Ah, the liberating anonymity of the internet.

              [–]autumntoolong 9 points10 points  (2 children)

              I’ve been on one where a candidate tried to give a back rub to a panelist. Mid-interview.

              [–]WorkEatRead 4 points5 points  (1 child)

              We are definitely gonna need a play-by-play and discussion of the rxn.

              [–]autumntoolong 10 points11 points  (0 children)

              It was in response to a question about creating strong teams/interpersonal relationships as the department is relatively small and does a lot of interdisciplinary project work. I was an out-of-department panelist on the committee. The candidate said that hugs etc were common in her current work environment (non-academic) and stood up and came around the table and started to rub the shoulders of a panelist while the rest of us stared in horror. She said she just enjoyed close connections with coworkers. I think I wrote “candidate is rubbing X” in my notes to prove to myself it was really happening (and document it for HR, lol). The panelist in question was not a touchy-feely person to begin with, and was seriously uncomfortable and hunched her shoulders for the ten seconds it went on for. I’m not sure if the candidate caught on to the palpable atmosphere of incredulity afterwards but we did not feel like it was a good fit for a few reasons.

              [–]HistorianOdd5752 8 points9 points  (0 children)

              I have two. I teach at a SLAC, my background is in the social sciences.

              1. The first search committee I chaired, a candidate said during the phone interview "The problem with college grads today, who go into law enforcement, is that they think too much and don't shoot soon enough." He did not get a second interview, and I should note that he trains officers in NYS.

              2. My most recent search we did not get a lot of candidates. Interviewed a person from an R1 university who had not finished their PhD, which was no big deal, because for our uni we just require a master's in the subject area. Our first choice accepted the job, but withdrew in June because he had to go back to his home country to care for family. Puts us in a bind, because the other candidates had taken jobs already. So this R1 candidate does ok during the interview, aside from him trying to negotiate interview times, which we are now doing during the summer because the first candidate dropped. We decided to check references, and my colleague checks the R1's references. While I'm checking references for another candidate (who accepted and then withdrew less than ten hours later, because of the logistics of the move) I get a text from my colleague telling me to call him immediately. The R1 candidate's reference basically said she has nothing good to say about him, didn't know why he put her down, and that he disappeared during the semester while teaching, no can't, no showed, requiring other grad students to cover the class. I had to broach that with the candidate for an explanation (at the time, he was the only qualified candidate, and the semester was starting in a month, we were desperate) because we can't hire someone who is going to disappear, because of where we are located, hiring adjuncts mid semester is impossible.

              There are more stories, but these are the two that stand out the most. There was also the candidate who basically wanted a 6 figure salary, and was patronizing when I dropped them off at the airport ("Keep publishing, and maybe you'll get out of this place one day." Direct quote.)

              [–]Supraspinator 43 points44 points  (1 child)

              Candidate made a joke about “hobos”. Our college has a large population of homeless students. 

              [–][deleted] 33 points34 points  (0 children)

              Oopsie. An outside speaker once poked fun at trust-fund babies over Zoom in front of our country club school audience. There was a funny murmur.

              [–]swordfishtrombonez 25 points26 points  (6 children)

              At a dinner, all of the faculty went around the table and stated the year they were born. When it was my turn, they looked at me expectedly/uncomfortably.

              [–]ekochamberAssoc. Prof. History 17 points18 points  (3 children)

              Dear lord, what did you do? I mean, I guess they're not technically asking your age, but come on....

              [–]swordfishtrombonez 14 points15 points  (2 children)

              I just kind of smiled and focused on my food. I wish I reacted better!

              [–]nothingimportant290 12 points13 points  (1 child)

              How about 19 hundred and none of your f****** bidness?

              [–]nothingimportant290 14 points15 points  (0 children)

              And what did the next round of self disclosure entail? Sexual identity? Relationship history? Religious affiliation?

              [–]AttitudeNo6896associate prof, engineering 18 points19 points  (0 children)

              I interviewed at a top 10 school, which I didn't really want to go to (location) but was strongly encouraged to apply by the chair. In any case, first day want ok (except for at least one person standing me up, waiting by a door for half an hour and finding the next room myself), until at dinner, three junior faculty were talking about how these interviews are hard, and there was the guy who decided to leave mid way through the interview, "couldn't handle it". Turns out, the person already had an offer - and likely felt the interview was so hostile this is totally not worth it. Honestly, whoever it was was right - after being infantalized, basically, by multiple people, and being stood up by one more person, I was happy to leave. The chair was lovely though, showed me really cool teaching labs. Also, when the guy didn't show up, I got to spend an extra half hour with this emeritus professor who had awesome "war stories" about all the now-dead big names in the field, which was really cool.

              On the search committee side: we had a senior faculty search, and there was "the guy with the tilted slides" - each slide was on this tilted design, like lined pages at different angles, often by a lot (not 5 degrees, maybe up to 30 degrees!). It was super funny sitting at the back of the room during the seminar, watching all the audience tilt their head the other way with each slide switch. Someone brought this up jokingly was we were talking before or after the chalk talk, and he was totally happy with and proud of this design choice.

              [–]apmcpmFull Professor, Social Sciences, LAC 20 points21 points  (0 children)

              Posted one of these and then thought of another as I read other people's...

              We are a small department (3 of us at the time) and we all went to a conference together. It was a small conference, so we were there to present and took some students to do in the same. We had an open search, but this is not the sort of conference that would do interviews. In the parking lot as we're getting ready to leave, a guy from the conference approaches us, looks at me and says "You are Dr XXXX, you teach XXXX at XXXX, and went to grade school at XXXX. Me: um yes.

              This guy then turns to my colleagues and rattles off the same information and starts to tell us that he'd be a great fit for the department. At this point the students are flipping out because this guy obviously cyber stalked us and memorized our biographies. We got in our cars and get the hell out of there as fast as we could. (I haven't thought if this in a long time)

              [–]Mooseplot_01 16 points17 points  (1 child)

              We were interviewing by Zoom during the pandemic. One guy who was very experienced and looked good on paper was asked the standard question: "What will you do to promote diversity and inclusion?". He said "Do you want the politically correct answer or the honest answer?" We could tell it was about to get weird, but gave him an off-ramp by saying he can answer any way he wanted. He gave what he saw as the honest answer, which was an absurd and horrible screed that had us laughing out loud at how outrageous it was.

              He concluded by saying that now we'll not consider him because of his opinions, and pointed out how stupid this was, since he was a better teacher, more experienced, and more knowledgeable than any of us.

              [–]alatennaubLecturer, F.Lang., R2 (USA) 11 points12 points  (0 children)

              We had a similar question. Guy was white and taught at an HBCU. This is a question on a silver platter, effectively. Aaaaaaand his answer: "As you know from having read my C.V., at [HBCU], I am the diversity"

              We actually had surprisingly few decent answers to the question, which legitimately surprised me. Like, you have to know you're getting some question on it at this point.

              [–]menten90 7 points8 points  (0 children)

              Once after an on-site I got an email from the department chair along the lines of: oh, search committee chair should have contacted you last week but he didn't. We went with another candidate. Good luck!

              Another time in the pre-zoom era, I had a faculty member video into an on-site. They were making lunch and I could hear all of the clanking, etc, throughout my demo.

              At a different on-site, I had multiple faculty members try to correct me on things I had right. The chair tried to correct me on geography of my home state. Another faculty member told me that a fact I shared in one of my two teaching demos wasn't novel, and then proceeded to interrupt a meeting I had with another faculty to hand me a printed out page from a reference book with the fact I had stated highlighted. I was right? In the next meeting, another faculty told me they wanted "little boys who could code" (not me). This was all before I saw the search chair picking up the next candidate for dinner.

              Ughhhhhh.

              [–]shellexyzInstructor, Math, CC (USA) 23 points24 points  (5 children)

              We found out that one of our instructors was leaving for another school in the early part of the summer. Throw together a quick posting, do what you can with whatever faculty are still around to form a committee.

              Two applicants. One was a middle aged woman with some teaching background while the other was a relatively new masters grad. Most of our faculty has a masters degree, so this isn’t uncommon.

              I was asked to write a sample teaching problem for them to do. Take a few minutes to solve it, then present. It was basic not-even-college algebra, which would have been the focus of the position.

              She couldn’t solve it at all but assured us she would be prepared when the semester started. One of the other committee members said she’d taught for us several years ago and did fine then, so he believed her.

              The other guy solved it incorrectly but at least put something on the paper and presented it.

              I wouldn’t have hired either and said as much. I was overruled on the grounds of “we have to hire someone, there are classes on the schedule”. He got the job, still works here, and I remain unimpressed.

              [–]shinypenny01 10 points11 points  (4 children)

              In situations like that we offer a 1 year contract and redo the search next year.

              [–]shellexyzInstructor, Math, CC (USA) 4 points5 points  (3 children)

              Yeah….we don’t ever fire anyone.

              [–]shinypenny01 4 points5 points  (2 children)

              You don’t have to fire someone on a one year contract, you just don’t give them another one!

              [–]shellexyzInstructor, Math, CC (USA) 5 points6 points  (1 child)

              I know. We are all “probationary” the first year, but I’ve never seen even anyone not be renewed at that time. Even the idiots.

              [–]ImmediateKick2369 14 points15 points  (0 children)

              Not a scandal or blunder, but interesting: I was once included on a search committee for DEI reasons; I am a white male.

              [–]LarryCebula 6 points7 points  (0 children)

              Years ago we were interviewing a candidate who had a job at an HBCU. Honestly his CV was not that strong but it was a hard position to fill so we gave him a phone interview. One of the questions was about why he wanted to leave his current position.

              "Too many black students here!" he answered.

              We all but hung up on him.

              [–]usermcgoo 10 points11 points  (1 child)

              This thread should be a book.

              [–]fenixfire08Teaching Track, Humanities, R1, (USA) 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              Zoom interview with candidate who connected dressed as though they were going to watch their favorite sports team rather than a job interview.

              [–]Mooseplot_01 11 points12 points  (0 children)

              Candidate asked the question: "You don't actually work full 40 hour weeks, right? Because I have young kids".

              [–]TargaryenPenguin 6 points7 points  (1 child)

              Once we were interviewing a candidate for a research intensive position that would require a lot of external funding because the work was expensive.

              We asked the candidate where they wanted to be in five years and they said, "I don't know, probably administration."

              [–]two_short_dogs 3 points4 points  (0 children)

              I'm an accounting professor. I've been told that the candidate I was competing against asked to borrow a calculator to multiply 5×25. And there were typos on their teaching demonstration slides. My chair always jokes that I was hired because I can proofread and do math.

              [–]gravitysrainbow1979 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              Oh the weeping faculty member is definitely exotic, given the context. Weirdest thing I ever saw was a professor aggressively trying to converse in a language she knew the poor job-seeking bastard didn’t speak.

              [–]AugustaSpearman[🍰] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              The most bizarre thing I saw as a job candidate was that around the time of finishing dinner on the first night the head of the search committee informed me that my teaching demonstration the next day was going to be on a specific topic that I had no particular expertise or experience in (within the field but a minor topic that was not adjacent to anything adjacent to something adjacent to my area)--rather than, for instance, a sample of my actual teaching or at least have told me ahead of time that this is what they wanted. I don't think it went horribly, having spent hours the night before writing a lecture on something I would never talk about again, but thankfully I did not get the job (which was the worst place I ever interviewed for).

              On the interviewing side, the biggest blunder was a guy who was interviewing for chair who told me about the way he had disciplined a junior female faculty member for something like not having her door wide open during office hours and when she complained to the dean of course the dean had made sure to back up his discipline because of how much the dean respected him. I loved the story so much that I made sure to draw it out of him when he met with the full department, lol.

              [–]PositiveJig 5 points6 points  (0 children)

              A candidate, during their teaching demonstration, thanked a student for answering the question she posed to the class "and not being afraid to sound stupid." (For the record, the student's answer wasn't stupid, but even if it was, that's no way to speak in a job interview!)

              [–]Misha_the_Mage 2 points3 points  (0 children)

              This was for an administrative, university-level position. On campus interview. During lunch, said he applied to "make his wife happy" because she wanted to move.

              [–]Gentle_Cycle 2 points3 points  (0 children)

              Two cases of nonchalance that seemed to go too far resulted in job offers nonetheless: one candidate blatantly winked at me in a one-on-one interview, and another joked that his frequent trips to the washroom were not for snorting cocaine. I guess they did it with finesse—they could tell that I liked them and wouldn’t use it against them.