Ph.D. job interviews on campus mean back-to-back meetings with faculty, some of whom haven't read your materials or are distracted. Research each person's work beforehand and ask informed questions to make those conversations count. The Scholar Career Network helps candidates prepare for these moments.
What happens during the on-campus interview, or what are the components of it? Usually you're gonna have a number of one-on-one meetings with the faculty, all of the members of the committee, and maybe other faculty who aren't on the search committee. You may get paraded around to offices on different floors and say, "Oh, Fred, here's our candidate now for you to talk to." Unfortunately, Fred may not have read anything of yours, may not know anything about you, and might be in the middle of other things and have forgotten, so your 20 minutes 30 minutes may not be incredibly valuable for you, but you still have to be on guard. This has gotten a lot better over time because universities and their HR departments have gotten better. I've seen in the past where I've shown up at campus visits and had gone in and people say, "Oh, are you married?" Not a legal question. "What church would you be going to? Where would your kids attend school?" Because they don't know. They're just sitting in their office and somebody shows up. They need to make conversation. So you can be— help them by preparing ahead of time, finding out who the faculty are, finding out what their research is. And ask them about it. Anytime you make someone aware that you know who they are and that they're important and they've done a lot of good research, that makes you a genius. So you look good when you're prepared. The Scholar Career Network exists specifically to support Ph.D.s through moments like this and help them find meaningful careers.
