Comments on: Post MLA Thoughts-Part 1 The Jobmarket

By: Professor Zero

Professor Zero — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:54:24 +0000

This is a good post. I am happy the MLA is moving its meeting time and look forward to going to it for fun (well, for research purposes) as soon as possible.

I am for the phone interviews. I thought I would be for the video interviews, but not after these comments. I have positive experience from the interviewer side of the phone interviews now, and I am for it for many reasons. Random observations:

1. When I used to go on the market I did not, as a rule, take people who didn’t go to the MLA, but only did phone interviews, seriously. I thought: if they can’t afford to go to the MLA, they won’t be able to fund me for conferences. I thought: the position isn’t real, they are interviewing but not authorized to hire. These interpretations were not necessarily wrong.

2. Yet that was a cocky attitude, since it is horrible and expensive to fly across the country at Christmas and spend all that money for just a few interview that you know are long shots.

3. I do like to see people in person and the MLA is fun, even the interviewing part is fun if neither side is too desperate / tired. But interviewing means you don’t see the conference. Seriously. If you have a lot of interviews there is no time for anything else. And if you already have a job and you are giving a paper, interviewing for your place, and being interviewed yourself, you can’t really see the conference. And if you’re an MLA delegate or something, or have to have dinner with your editor, or all these really fancy things people do, then you *truly* will not see the conference.

4. There are only two problems with phone interviews I’ve had: a) People can read from a script, because since questions are so standard they can pretty well anticipate them and write out answers ahead of time. If they can’t say anything that’s off the script, we tend to put it up to the nerves of a phone interview, and then only find out the truth later. b) Some people have an evil vibe and you can only see it in person.

5. These things having been said, I still favor the phone interview. Because people can be comfortable and concentrate on their words only. Because my department has successfully hired starting with these as opposed to going to the MLA lots of times now. Because there are fewer technology glitches than with all the video equipment. Because NOT having your first impression be visual can in fact aid objectivity.

By: Ink

Ink — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:02:30 +0000

Hear, hear. Enough with the interviewing at MLA requirement!

By: Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:56:40 +0000

My field (media studies) doesn’t do conference interviews, and thus I’ve been blessed to never attend an MLA. I think there’s nothing lost with phone interviews, or at least not enough to justify the costs for conference interviews. I don’t know whether the technological hurdles needed to upgrade to video interviews are justified over phone interviews – I guess you can see the candidate’s body language, but it’s also quite artificial to be sitting in front of a camera. When I’ve been interviewed on the phone, I could relax in my preferred wardrobe, comfortable room, and pace to my heart’s content! It yields good candidates, and I don’t really see what’s to be gained in person or via video.

By: Gideon Burton

Gideon Burton — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:42:42 +0000

Why haven’t I seen your blog before? So helpful! Thanks for the various links, which I’m digesting. I wish I’d been to MLA this year given the positive emphasis on digital humanities you mention. However, I fear that “digital MLA” will remain an oxymoron unless and until MLA gets behind Open Access publishing and its members can conceive of new modes of communication as more than flashy teaching enhancements (hence my irreverent mashup photo of PMLA on a Blackberry: http://tinyurl.com/8y4xq9). The digital media are not enhancing traditional teaching or publishing; they are transforming and transending them. See my posts on changes to humanities publishing (http://tinyurl.com/58nw83). As for interviewing, I don’t disagree that video interviews could provide some efficiencies, but the whole “tryout” for a job can and should move online as search committees peruse a candidate’s online presence that stretches out well before the week of the MLA convention. What I’ve argued separately about students credentialing themselves through online identity should be all the more true of potential faculty (http://tinyurl.com/7rq3c5)–but that will take another generation. It just seems to me that digital advocates within the MLA shouldn’t be tweaking the standard system incrementally with electronic enhancements; it’s time for a revolution. For more inflammatory rhetoric along these lines, visit my http://www.AcademicEvolution.com

By: Linda Wallace

Linda Wallace — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:32:52 +0000

Hello – I enjoy your blog very much! Since you mentioned Mark Bauerlein, you may be interested in his recent debate with Neil Howe broadcast on C-SPAN, if you haven’t seen it already:
http://www.booktv.org/watch.aspx?ProgramId=FV-9887

All the best to you in the New Year!

By: KF

KF — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:36:02 +0000

Okay, let me elaborate (my “amen” was directed at the post, rather than at Brian’s comment): having spent most of this year’s MLA trapped in my suite conducting interviews (happily, no one had to sit on the bed), and having participated in a search last year that used video conferencing for the initial round of interviews, I’m all in favor of divorcing the job market from the conference. I don’t have the feeling that I know much more about this year’s candidates than I did about last year’s. There were a few minor glitches in last year’s video interviews, yes, but there were a few glitches in this year’s hotel interviews as well (such as the candidate who was held downstairs for half an hour because my information had gotten lost during the shift change at the front desk). Given those outcomes, I’m not sure that in-person first round interviews provide enough value added to justify the expense.

And, darnit, I really wanted to get to more of the conference!

By: KF

KF — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:28:47 +0000

Amen.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:26:20 +0000

I think you’re making a compelling argument. But part of the appeal for the MLA as an interviewing venue is not only that it gives physical access to a person. In a profession where much of the job is teaching and based on person to person interaction, it makes sense–even if it shouldn’t–that people want to get in the same physical space as an interviewee. This is something that neither a video interview nor a teaching video cannot compensate for. Given the pace at which our profession moves and changes, it seems very unlikely that we will move away from this model any time soon.

I’m not entirely convinced that the interviewing process interferes with the exchange of academic ideas. I know that I left my interview with new ideas about my project and the larger field in which I see myself working. Sure, I missed seeing Howard Rheingold and Cathy Davidson that hour, but I had a group of people who were wanting to talk specifically about my project and my ideas. That’s stimulating to both prepare for and to engage in. Of course, if I’d had more interviews…perhaps it would have been much more problematic. Lucky me.

On the whole, however, I agree with you–especially about the opportunity for bringing an additional person to campus interviews.