In this 48‑minute instructional video Dr. Steve Tippins, a veteran academic with 35 years of experience, demystifies the academic hiring process and explains why most candidates fail not because of a weak CV but because they misunderstand what search committees look for and how the interview stages work. He breaks the process into two main phases – the initial 30‑minute screening interview (often via Zoom or at a conference) and the multi‑day on‑campus visit – and provides concrete, step‑by‑step advice for each. For the screening interview he outlines the typical structure (7‑9 rotating questions from 2‑4 faculty members), the professional image required (dress, background, quiet environment), and the key topics committees probe (teaching experience, dissertation status, publication plans, service, and fit with the department’s research‑teaching balance). He stresses the importance of pre‑interview research on the department’s focus, course catalog, and institutional culture, and offers guidance on asking smart, purposeful questions that demonstrate fit rather than curiosity about logistics. For the on‑campus interview he describes the logistics (usually two full days, travel arrangements, hotel etiquette, and constant evaluation), the roster of meetings (one‑on‑one faculty chats, committee panels, dean/associate dean conversations), and the core performance components: a research presentation, a teaching demonstration, and informal interactions (e.g., meals, social moments). He highlights pitfalls such as making unnecessary requests, over‑indulging in alcohol, or choosing messy foods, and advises how to handle challenging questions (pause, ask for clarification, restate the answer). He also explains how to read signals from faculty (consistent negative feedback) and how to close the interview with a strong, open‑ended question (“Is there anything I haven’t asked that you think I should know?”). Finally, he stresses the importance of a professional follow‑up email that reiterates interest, asks about the timeline, and leaves a positive impression. The overall message is that success hinges on preparation, professionalism, and demonstrating that you fulfill the department’s specific needs, not merely on the strength of your CV.
Chapters
Most people do not lose out on academic jobs because their CV is set up poorly. Many times it's because they don't really understand the process or what schools are looking for. In this video, we'll talk about what schools are looking for and how to handle each stage of the process professionally. I'm Dr. Steve Tippins, Ph.D. I've been in academia for over 35 years and been on a number of interviews myself and been on committees where we've hired people. So let's start by understanding that the academic interview process is typically set up in a 2-interview process or 2 steps to the interview. The first interview in this process is typically the, what many people think of as the conference interview.. It doesn't always happen at a conference anymore, but it is the initial scanning interview. From the school's perspective, they're going to get 50, 70, 300 applications. They're going to review those applications and determine, oh, these are the 20 to 30 people I have interest, or we have interest in pursuing to see if they fit. Those people historically have been met at academic conferences. Now many times they just set up Zoom meetings, and that meeting many times is a 30-minute meeting. This 30-minute meeting is going to be you and typically 2 to 4 members of the faculty of the school with whom you're interviewing, and there are highly disciplined programs set up— structured, I guess, is the best word— where they are going to typically be 7 to 9 questions they're going to ask, and they're going to rotate those questions around the committee members. So they're going to ask you those questions in this 30 minutes. The goal for them is, are you who you represented in your CV? Is there a fit? Is there the professionalism that they're looking for? For their new colleague. First, dress professionally. Even on a Zoom call, at least dress professionally from the waist up so that that's where they can see. Second, make sure you're in a background that looks professional and is quiet. The cat's not walking across your screen. The dog's not barking. I've had clients in the past who've gone to hotels and rented a hotel room so that they know they could control everything. And in one case, that their 6 cats wouldn't be asking for attention during the process. If it is at a conference, you're gonna be running around the conference hotel or hotels, try to make sure you're there on time. And this is just a weird quirk of academia. You're gonna be going to someone's hotel room. Now, there's gonna be more than one person there.. But you also just have to walk in and, you know, hopefully they've put away dirty laundry or there's no mirror on the ceiling. I actually went into an interview once and there was a mirror on the ceiling. You just have to overlook some of those things and understand that the school has rented the space they could and they're processing this, this way. And expect that you're going to get questions from different people because you are. One of the things also is this is not typically where you're going to be able to gather a lot of information. They may ask you at the end, are there any questions you have? But you may only get to ask 1 or 2 questions because of the timing that they have set up. It's their interview and that's the process they're setting up. Many times you're going to be asked, what have you taught? What courses have you taught? Now, it's good to understand their catalog before you go into that meeting. I have taught BUS 220, which seems to line up with your Management 172. So it's helping them understand how you will fit into their system is what's going to give you a leg up on many people. You're going to be asked, especially if this is for an assistant professor or teaching professor position, have you finished your dissertation, or where are you in the process, and when do you expect to finish? They don't want to put all this time and effort and money into hiring someone who isn't finished with their dissertation and/or doesn't seem like they're going to finish their dissertation because that means when they show up on campus they're going to have divided interests. Once they start paying you, they want to be your only interest. They're going to ask you about publishing. Hey, where are you going to publish the results out of your dissertation? They want to know that you're going to be doing more research because they want their name on the research, and that's how you get tenure. They may talk to you a little bit about service. You may not have had a lot of exposure to it as a graduate student. Any exposure you've had is good. You just want to express willingness to be deeply involved with the school and to help the school move forward. They may ask you about your ideal balance of teaching, research, and service. It's best if you understand who you're talking to ahead of time. If you're talking to a school that is heavy in research, you probably don't want to be saying, you know, I want to have 60% of my job to be teaching because that's not what they're looking for. So you want to be able to answer and you want to be interviewing with schools that fit with your goals in life. So I've talked a little bit about this, but you want to do your research ahead of time. Are they a heavy research institution? Are they heavy on teaching? Do they have multiple campuses? What is it that the department is looking for? Have they had expansion? What type of courses are they teaching? You can find a lot of this with just a little bit of research, and if you're doing a dissertation, you got really good research skills. You want to know something about the school and where it sits. You know, I once went to an interview to a school, and this was the second interview, and they brought me in and they started asking me about like, oh, do you hunt? I said, no, I don't hunt. Well, how about fishing? I'm not a big fisher. Well, how about— and they went through 3 or 4 activities before they got one I was interested in. And I also found out that the closest Chinese restaurant was 50 miles away, and I didn't think there was anywhere in America that was 50 miles from a Chinese restaurant. So this is research I should have done ahead of time because I wouldn't have gone on the interview because it didn't match me. The other thing you need to think about is when the school, a school says to you, hey, We want to interview on Monday, but could you come in on Saturday so that we can save on the airfare? And if you're really interested, great. But if you're not really interested, that means you're spending days there doing nothing. I happened to do this at that campus. I found out pretty quickly I didn't want to be there. I could have found out ahead of time. What you want to do is avoid asking questions if you do get a chance to ask questions. And, you know, good questions are, where is the future? Where is your department going? You don't want to ask questions like, "Wow, are Kansas— are you in Kansas? Are you in Missouri?" You know, that are very obviously answered. And you don't want to try to bring humor in just to be humorous. Okay, they're not looking for a comedian. They're looking for a colleague. Another way to think about any questions that you may get to ask them is not so much about getting answers to certain things, but it's to show your abilities and to show how well you you would fit in the job. So ask probing questions that— oh, good, good question. Because ultimately, the real answers that you're going to get, the real questions you're going to want answered, your committee doesn't know. The salary, the benefits, they may be able to answer you teaching load type things, but it's when you get to the dean and offers are made, that's when you get to know all the, you know, deep information that may determine you wanting the job or not. So now let's talk about the big interview, the campus interview. Typically, schools are going to bring 3 people on campus for an interview. A number of institutions have rules that say there need to be 3 finalists and you need to bring them on campus. I've seen job searches fail because committee only came up with 2 candidates. That they thought were good, and the school said, well, then we're failing the search because we don't have 3 candidates. I also said on-campus interview. You're not going to see at many schools this preliminary 30-minute interview to be on campus, and the reason that is, schools also have rules saying you may only bring 3 people on campus, and if they bring you on campus for your 30-minute interview, then they've used up one of their 3 on-campus visits and you've also used it up. So, they can't bring you back for the full interview. I found that out once interviewing for a job that I eventually took. I was in the town nearby that the school was, and I said, "Oh, I'll just come to your office for this." And they said, "Oh no, we'll meet you at the local coffee shop," because they couldn't do it on campus because of the rules. So if you're brought on campus, first think this is pretty much going to be 2 days. Typically it's 2 days that are going to be long days, very long days. So rest beforehand. Stay with the dressing professionally, acting professionally. Here's an example of a story I've heard at a school. There was someone who was brought in for a campus visit, brought to the hotel where they were staying. Went up to their room, went back down to the front desk and said, oh, I don't like this room. Can I have one, a room that has a view of the lake, which was a more expensive room? And then they made the hotel, made the switch. They didn't care. But the school ended up having a higher cost because of this and because of the request. I also know of a candidate who came in for an interview. They went to lunch and then the candidate said, oh, can I order an extra lunch so I can bring it up to my room and have a snack later? And the university's paying for the lunch. It just doesn't make you look good in front of the committee. If you want more food later, order it on your own, but just try to be as professional and following the rules as much as possible. Typically, you're going to fly in. Even before that, you're going to get a phone call or an email saying, hey, we want to bring you in for an interview. When are you available? Now you get to figure out how you're going to fly there. If you have to pay, then? They reimburse you or do they arrange it? You get all those details ready. Now you fly in and somebody usually is going to pick you up. The interview starts then. It doesn't wait till you show up on campus. It's then. Even if it's a graduate student picking you up there, that graduate student is going to be probed. What was— what were they like? What did she ask? What was he looking for? What are your impressions of this person? They're gathering data from every the moment they can. So the moment you find the person you're meeting up with at the airport, your interview has started. Your day or days are going to have limited downtime. Just rest when you can and be aware of that. Be as professional and flexible as possible and try not to make unnecessary demands. If you go to lunch, go to dinner, I would suggest if they offer you an alcoholic They drink to pass on it, even if they're getting one, because you just don't know what— how they're testing you. Okay. And look, they're getting a free dinner on their school. They might want to drink as well. You're in an interview. So anything that can make you act differently or be off of your game, you want to avoid. Also, there are certain foods I wouldn't order. I wouldn't order ribs that I've got to dig into with my fingers and can create a mess. So just think about the foods that you're ordering as well as part of this process. So now what happens during the on-campus interview, or what are the components of it? Usually you're going to 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 the 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. But you have, 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 help them by preparing ahead of time, finding out who the faculty are, finding out what their research is, and ask them about it so that you— look, 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. It's also good to ask consistent questions of everybody you're meeting with. You know, you might get different takes on things. I went to a campus visit at a university once, and 3 different people said, "You don't want to work." You know, if one person says that, you know, they could be the outlier, the grump, whatever. But When 3 people tell you, you know, you really don't want to come to work here, that's a message that you should hear. And I didn't go to work there. One question I find pretty powerful when you get to the end of whether it's in one-on-one or in groups, you know, is there anything I haven't asked you that you think I should know? And this gives them opportunity to open up and tell you something that, you know, you may not get otherwise. You may have to put on a research presentation, which is going to be like going to a conference. You're going to be given a certain time period, 15 minutes, 40 minutes, depending on the school, where you get to do a research presentation. Here's my research, here's what I'm doing, here's what I'm thinking about. And you may have 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15 people there, and it's going to be like a conference where they're going to ask you questions. You know, wow, why'd you approach it this way? Or why didn't you do this type of methodology. It's kind of like a defense where you get to acknowledge they've asked an interesting question, answer your question, defend why you've done something, and maybe even engage them in, well, that's an interesting approach. I hadn't thought of doing it that way. I did it this way because, but let's go back to your question. You know, where do you think it would go? And open up a conversation with them that brings them into you. It also could open up joint publication. Publishing opportunities for you in the future. Just like in a defense, you're going to get questions that may stump you momentarily. It may cause an internal panic of, "Oh my God, I don't know what they're asking. What do I do? I don't know. I don't want to—" Pause for a moment. Ask them to restate the question. "Wow, can you restate that question for me?" Or, "If I understand what you're asking, is this where you're looking for me to go with this?" Just that pause allows our brains slow down and the answers to come forward more easily for you. And then when you get to the end of the answer, you can say, "Now, is that what you're looking for? Did I fully answer your question? Because I want to make sure I've done so." It shows also that you think that they're important. Depending on the school, you may also be asked to do a teaching demonstration. Typically, they're going to say, "We want to bring you into a class on a certain topic, and we We want you to talk about one of these 6 topics. You get to choose, and you will be brought into a class, or they will bring a number of volunteers there. They want to see how you engage with students. They want to see how interested you are in the students and how you involve them, as well as how you relay information to them. So don't just blow this off because students are going to be asked for their feedback as well. And negative student feedback can shoot people down. If you're on the edge, negative student feedback can say, "Well, we don't want this person. Students hate them." Typically, when you get all done or somewhere in the day, you're going to meet with the dean or the associate dean, and they're going to talk to you about bigger pictures where you're going to get to ask questions like, "Where do you see the college going in the next 5 years? Are there major plans for expansion? Or, you know, what do you think are the biggest challenges your school faces? And you're going to get answers from a totally different perspective. In an academic interview, it's not about perfection. It's showing you understand the role. It's showing you understand the school that you're talking to and showing that you can fit in there and solve their problems. And let me talk about that for a minute. I've been on too many committees where there's a job posting and people send back letters that say, ultimately, if you boil it all down, I'm really great, hire me. Think of it from the school's perspective. They don't just advertise for the heck of it. They advertise because they have a need. They need to have someone teach Intro to Art History or they need to have someone teach Molecular Biology. Whatever it is that they're asking for, you want to show them that you fill their need, that talking to you, hiring you is going to help them as opposed to you just saying, I'm wonderful, you should hire me. No, I fill your needs. That moves you forward and up the ladder of all the people who are applying. Be prepared. It's not like being a Boy Scout, but it is. Be prepared for what you can determine are the questions they would ask. Be prepared to ask good thoughtful questions. Be professional with your answers. Be professional with what you're wearing. They may wear jeans and a t-shirt. That doesn't mean you're wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Business casual is the lowest level that you want to be dressed as. And remember, this 2-day interview is a 48-hour interview. Means you're being evaluated every moment that you're with someone. Finally, when you get all done with either an intro interview and/or a campus interview, send a follow-up email. "For taking the time to meet with me, I'm excited about this opportunity and look forward to hearing from you." One of the questions you can be asking is, "What is the process? What is the time frame for you to move forward?" And ultimately, I wish you luck in this process and hope you find the ideal position for you.
