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Hi, I’m Will Coghill-Behrends. Welcome to Doc Talks. Today I’m joined by Dr. Chris
Morphew, DEO of EPLS and we’re going to talk about the job talk. Chris, almost every
campus visit has one. Talk to us a little bit about your take on the job talk. The job
talk is something, I think, that scares a lot of new PhD’s and people on the job search.
I don’t think it needs to though. I think it’s an opportunity for you to strut your
stuff and show what your research area is and your ability to convey and communicate
about that research. You know most, let’s say you’re on an interview at a research
university campus. They’re going to probably schedule an hour, hour and a half for this
sort of thing and a portion of that is going to be for question and answers. So the first
thing I would think about and I think one thing that I’ve seen people get wrong over
and over and over again, is timing. So, if they give you an hour and they tell you that
a portion of this hour is going to be for question and answers, then don’t have 25
slides that area going to take you an hour and fifteen minutes to get through. That will
be a, you know part of your job talk isn’t just about the substance of the job talk but
about, you know they’re hiring a teacher, they’re hiring a colleague and they want
to hire someone who has the ability to communicate information. And to organize that information
in a way so that someone can understand it. And if their first impression of you is that
you’ve gone over your allotted time by 15 minutes and you don’t leave any room for
questions one could infer some negative things about that. So I would encourage you first
and foremost to think about how am I going to best use this time and how do I make sure
and ask questions, ask what the job talk is about because it may be that your assumptions
about it are wrong. Maybe they want you to cover the whole, take the whole hour. Maybe
this is the kind of place where nobody asks any questions. That’s atypical but maybe
this is the place for that. Maybe they want you to, you know, talk more about your research
methods because they’re hiring a methodologist first and a substantive person second. Find
out what the emphasis of the job talk should be on what can you leave out, what can you
leave in and less is more. Is there a danger in, you bring up a really good point, is there
a danger of asking too many questions? So candidates are sent an itinerary, and they
see, hey at 1 PM I’m giving a job talk in building xyz. Is it perceived as naive if
candidates say, who will be in the audience, or how many people should I plan for? Are
these the kind of questions candidates should ask? No, I think that those are very reasonable
questions. I think, certainly, who is the audience. I mean, if the audience includes
both students and faculty members that changes the tone in what you’re doing a little bit.
If the audience includes people from outside the college and outside the department, then
that means that you need to spend a little more time on the front end talking about your
research and where it fits within a larger field and perhaps using less jargon in your
slides and in your presentation. I would certainly want to know who I’m talking to. I think
that’s a very reasonable question. I think there’s always the danger of asking too
many questions. I wouldn’t send the search committee chair my slides ahead of time and
ask for edits. That would be too much. But I certainly would say who am I going to speak
to, should I leave some time for questions. Is the committee more interested in the conceptual
framework that I’m using or the research methods that I’m using. So that’s fair.
I think that’s fair. I think that’s about as far as I would push it. I think if you
ask these questions tactfully, I think you’re going to be fine. I think the presentation
is yours, so I don’t think you should be asking them about your presentation in terms
of the substance of it. But I think asking them about their expectations and what they
want to hear and what kinds of information that will be most useful for them to make
their, on which to base their decision. I think those all very germane questions and
very appropriate. The campus visit is often followed, probably should be followed, with
a thank you email to the folks, letter in fact, maybe Hallmark card, with which you’ve
had some sort of interaction. Occasionally though there might be some follow-up as a
result of your job talk. How can a candidate kind of use that to their advantage. Should
they use that to their advantage until the dust has settled from the search? I mean do
you know what I mean, how much interaction should one have? So the faculty member or
a student emails you, asks you a question and you say, you know answer the question
but then perhaps, you know, indicate that you’ll, you know, get back to them. I mean
is that something that. I think that would be a very useful thing. I think it would be
a very strategic thing to do. I think if someone asks you a particular question at the job
talk and seems very interested in your response and your research, you know, even forgetting
the job for a second, connecting with colleagues who are interested in your research is always
a positive thing. I would get to my own campus and send an email saying thanks for attending,
thanks for the question. Here’s a couple of places you might want to look for the information.
Here’s an article I did three years ago that speaks to some of these questions. You
might also look at the work of John Smith and his most recent article in x journal.
Very good. When individuals give a job talk they will probably either do a narrative form,
you know, describing their research or they will do you know, perhaps a slightly looser
presentation. Should these forms be accompanied with the hand out? Do you pretty much think
that’s pretty much required? I think if your, I don’t’ think it’s required.
I’m not much of a hand-out guy. I always worry about the trees. I should probably worry
less about the trees and more about getting jobs. But I think if you’re going to do
a hand-out, don’t do a hand-out of every slide in your presentation. Where I’ve seen
hand-outs be useful in job talks sometimes is where there’s information that’s not
on the slide. You know, you hand out a table, you have a couple bullet points on the slide
and they say my research found xyz. You give them a table or you give them a regression,
something they can hold on to and sort of make sense of, and see what your results are
and you can be talking about your results. You know that’s a better idea, maybe than
putting up a regression or table on a slide and then saying, which I hate it and lots
of people hate it, when they hear this. You can’t read this but here’s the results.
If they can’t read it, then don’t put it up. OK. There’s nothing, or skipping
through things saying I have to skip this and this because I didn’t plan for using
my forty minutes effectively. So I think a hand-out, with information that’s too big
or voluminous to fit on the slide but is still necessary to understand what’s on the slides,
I think that would be useful. I wouldn’t hand out, you know they have the, you can
print out the smaller PowerPoint slides, I wouldn’t hand out a print out of all my
slides, but that may be more of an issue of style than anything else. Excellent. Chris,
it’s been great talking with you today about the job talk. Any final capstone advice for
us? Less is more. When we’re talking about a forty-five minute presentation which I think
is maybe a typical kind of amount of time to spend. Rather than having twenty slides,
try ten. Very good. All right, thanks Chris. Thanks.