unusual academic job interview request?
November 24, 2020 7:41 AM Subscribe
Hi academics of ask-me, how unusual would it be for a hiring panel to ask for your job-interview-presentation slides?
Haven't encountered this before, and my partner and I (both academics) find it slightly strange – our reasons below – but perhaps this is standard in your field?
Situation:
• hiring panel have been doing 'screening' interviews on Zoom of small handful of shortlisted candidates for a permanent (tenured) academic post, prior to 'proper' interviews and presentations in the future
• asked to make a presentation for the screening interview, to talk to specific components of the role (identify future grant opportunities etc)
• screening interview went well, but have now followed-up by asking for the slides used in the presentation
Context:
• Science
• Northern Europe
• post is a 'lectureship' or 'associate professorship'
Our thoughts:
• a significant hurdle: the slides include images relating to current work-in-progress, new ideas, and sketches for future research projects
• did they not take notes? why do they need the slides?
• unclear to us whether these 'screening' interviews are a weeding-out-opportunity for the panel to block candidate progression to next round of interviews (it would seem unlikely)
• items in the presentation were discussed in this interview, and will certainly be present and relevant in any subsequent interview / presentation
Have you encountered this kind of situation? What would you do?
Haven't encountered this before, and my partner and I (both academics) find it slightly strange – our reasons below – but perhaps this is standard in your field?
Situation:
• hiring panel have been doing 'screening' interviews on Zoom of small handful of shortlisted candidates for a permanent (tenured) academic post, prior to 'proper' interviews and presentations in the future
• asked to make a presentation for the screening interview, to talk to specific components of the role (identify future grant opportunities etc)
• screening interview went well, but have now followed-up by asking for the slides used in the presentation
Context:
• Science
• Northern Europe
• post is a 'lectureship' or 'associate professorship'
Our thoughts:
• a significant hurdle: the slides include images relating to current work-in-progress, new ideas, and sketches for future research projects
• did they not take notes? why do they need the slides?
• unclear to us whether these 'screening' interviews are a weeding-out-opportunity for the panel to block candidate progression to next round of interviews (it would seem unlikely)
• items in the presentation were discussed in this interview, and will certainly be present and relevant in any subsequent interview / presentation
Have you encountered this kind of situation? What would you do?
I've shared my slides in this situation without giving it a second thought.
I'll admit your arguments didn't occur to me, but if someone had said "Shouldn't they have taken notes?" my answer would have been "Yeah, but the slides that I personally checked and re-checked present my research in a better light than their hasty and probably error-filled notes."
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:03 AM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'll admit your arguments didn't occur to me, but if someone had said "Shouldn't they have taken notes?" my answer would have been "Yeah, but the slides that I personally checked and re-checked present my research in a better light than their hasty and probably error-filled notes."
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:03 AM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
I've not been in academia for a while (and I'm in the US) but this would not have stood out as usual to me a decade ago. If you've given a presentation online, they could have captured the whole thing if they wanted, so it's more of a matter of them asking to see the slides in a format that's convenient to them rather than you protecting trade secrets.
Have you encountered this kind of situation? What would you do?
Do you/your partner want the position? They have the power here.
a significant hurdle: the slides include images relating to current work-in-progress, new ideas, and sketches for future research projects
If a slide deck that they've already seen is enough to undercut the work behind it, you've either created an amazing slide deck or the work isn't that significant.
posted by Candleman at 8:06 AM on November 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
Have you encountered this kind of situation? What would you do?
Do you/your partner want the position? They have the power here.
a significant hurdle: the slides include images relating to current work-in-progress, new ideas, and sketches for future research projects
If a slide deck that they've already seen is enough to undercut the work behind it, you've either created an amazing slide deck or the work isn't that significant.
posted by Candleman at 8:06 AM on November 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
I'm not in Northern Europe (North America) and I'm a few years away from academia but this seems pretty normal to me? Having the slides available for reference seems like a reasonable ask - you already have the deck prepared and they've already seen it, so it's not much work for you and the cat is out of the bag.
I guess your concern is that the slides might be more widely distributed? It would be worth asking what they intend to use them for and making it clear that you wouldn't want anyone outside of the search committee (or the department, or whatever) to have access.
I would definitely assume that a "screening" interview *is* intended to weed candidates out (isn't this what all interviews are for?), but I wouldn't expect them to be asking for your slides if they already wanted to weed you out.
posted by mskyle at 8:07 AM on November 24, 2020
I guess your concern is that the slides might be more widely distributed? It would be worth asking what they intend to use them for and making it clear that you wouldn't want anyone outside of the search committee (or the department, or whatever) to have access.
I would definitely assume that a "screening" interview *is* intended to weed candidates out (isn't this what all interviews are for?), but I wouldn't expect them to be asking for your slides if they already wanted to weed you out.
posted by mskyle at 8:07 AM on November 24, 2020
I don't think this is super weird. With remote interviewing, the group may do all their interviews in one round, and then reconvene to discuss each candidate. Having your presentation available for everyone to review as they discuss you would benefit you.
I would furnish the slides, but: I would watermark them with your name and any important publication history and data at the bottom, and then PDF them. People can still steal or alter your shit in a PDF but it's harder and more time consuming, and most folks will not bother with this tiny barrier. I give presentations on a daily basis for my job and share slides with this method regularly.
posted by juniperesque at 8:07 AM on November 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
I would furnish the slides, but: I would watermark them with your name and any important publication history and data at the bottom, and then PDF them. People can still steal or alter your shit in a PDF but it's harder and more time consuming, and most folks will not bother with this tiny barrier. I give presentations on a daily basis for my job and share slides with this method regularly.
posted by juniperesque at 8:07 AM on November 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
(I guess my "this is fine" might be field-specific. In the field I was in, it was very common for researchers to share drafts and preprints publicly, and journals tolerated it as long as they got to control the final version. If journals in your field are so tightfisted about rights that they'd balk at publishing data that had been shared in any form, then maybe your answer should be different. But that never would have happened where I was.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:11 AM on November 24, 2020
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:11 AM on November 24, 2020
I've been on both sides of the academic interview process in the sciences (in the USA), and I've never heard of this request. That said, the request doesn't sound weird to me, especially for interviewing during covid when all the standard processes are getting adjusted.
My department is currently running searches and the search committee has had to make all types of changes. Candidates are interviewing and presenting on Zoom. The interviews are not recorded, but the presentations are, and of course candidates always screen share their slides during the presentation. What you're being asked is different, but not markedly.
By the way, the basic process you describe is very familiar to me: the search committee reads a mountain of applications, then the committee does preliminary interviews with a bunch of candidates (this used to be over the phone or Skype/Zoom/etc.), then the pool is weeded-down to a handful of candidates (3 or 4) who are invited for on-campus interviews with the whole department (this last stage is all done via Zoom in covid times in my experience). Sounds like you just finished up the second step and are still being considered to move on to the last step.
It's an odd request IMO but I would take it as a good sign! My inclination would be to send them the slide deck. I would NOT ask "why?", but I would request that the slides not be distributed outside the department or to parties not related to the search for the reasons you gave (preliminary work, yaddayadda).
Good luck! It's a terrible process, and the pandemic hasn't made it easier.
posted by cyclopticgaze at 8:35 AM on November 24, 2020
My department is currently running searches and the search committee has had to make all types of changes. Candidates are interviewing and presenting on Zoom. The interviews are not recorded, but the presentations are, and of course candidates always screen share their slides during the presentation. What you're being asked is different, but not markedly.
By the way, the basic process you describe is very familiar to me: the search committee reads a mountain of applications, then the committee does preliminary interviews with a bunch of candidates (this used to be over the phone or Skype/Zoom/etc.), then the pool is weeded-down to a handful of candidates (3 or 4) who are invited for on-campus interviews with the whole department (this last stage is all done via Zoom in covid times in my experience). Sounds like you just finished up the second step and are still being considered to move on to the last step.
It's an odd request IMO but I would take it as a good sign! My inclination would be to send them the slide deck. I would NOT ask "why?", but I would request that the slides not be distributed outside the department or to parties not related to the search for the reasons you gave (preliminary work, yaddayadda).
Good luck! It's a terrible process, and the pandemic hasn't made it easier.
posted by cyclopticgaze at 8:35 AM on November 24, 2020
From a UK computer science point of view: the only thing that sounds strange about your situation is that they asked for the slides after the presentation - in every remote interview I've done in the last few years, the interviewers ask for the slides by email before the presentation, so they're available for local viewing if the video quality's poor. (Maybe they forgot to ask, and another candidate sent theirs in anyway so they want to make sure they've got all of them?)
posted by offog at 8:49 AM on November 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by offog at 8:49 AM on November 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
Every academic job I've applied to involved a presentation of some sort. There are two reasons I have been asked to share my slides (and happily did so):
1) The presentation was given at a regular seminar in the department / institution, with a pedagogical goal. The slides were for students who wanted to revisit the topic / write summaries / etc. after-the-fact.
2) Members of the hiring committee, or just interested department members, were unable to attend but still wanted to have something they could use to compare candidates.
I'm sure there are other good reasons for the request that I haven't run across as well.
posted by dbx at 9:27 AM on November 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
1) The presentation was given at a regular seminar in the department / institution, with a pedagogical goal. The slides were for students who wanted to revisit the topic / write summaries / etc. after-the-fact.
2) Members of the hiring committee, or just interested department members, were unable to attend but still wanted to have something they could use to compare candidates.
I'm sure there are other good reasons for the request that I haven't run across as well.
posted by dbx at 9:27 AM on November 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
UK, been on both sides of the table, more Arts and Hums than STEM, and this would seem like a totally normal request to me. I would assume that they probably meant to ask for the slides in advance and/or forgot to record it or didn't think to do so because in my experience search panels aren't always very organised, and in the current climate no one is very organised. I would definitely not assume this is in any way malicious or intended to harm your partner's chances.
posted by AFII at 9:28 AM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by AFII at 9:28 AM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Social science/humanities, and not common but definitely not weird--if I had gotten this request when I was on the market a few years ago, I wouldn't have blinked an eye. "Slide available upon request" is the standard for all talks/presentations in my field, and some folks even preemptively will embed a QR code on the last slide.
posted by damayanti at 9:28 AM on November 24, 2020
posted by damayanti at 9:28 AM on November 24, 2020
US social science.
This strikes me as maybe inefficient management (hardly unusual in academia) but not weird. My own expectation is that either this is for committee/department members who aren't going to sit through a full presentation but still want to see something, or that you're doing well and they want it in front of the dean or equiv.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:48 AM on November 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
This strikes me as maybe inefficient management (hardly unusual in academia) but not weird. My own expectation is that either this is for committee/department members who aren't going to sit through a full presentation but still want to see something, or that you're doing well and they want it in front of the dean or equiv.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:48 AM on November 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I would be a bit surprised but would share and wouldn't think about it again, most likely. Are you concerned there will be idea theft here? I would probably clean them up (especially if I had notes in them).
Also...
unclear to us whether these 'screening' interviews are a weeding-out-opportunity for the panel to block candidate progression to next round of interviews (it would seem unlikely)
I'm a bit confused by this because of course these screening interviews are a way to narrow down the field. That's exactly why they're doing them. But, I don't think you'd get this request from them if they were absolutely not interested in you.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:56 AM on November 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Also...
unclear to us whether these 'screening' interviews are a weeding-out-opportunity for the panel to block candidate progression to next round of interviews (it would seem unlikely)
I'm a bit confused by this because of course these screening interviews are a way to narrow down the field. That's exactly why they're doing them. But, I don't think you'd get this request from them if they were absolutely not interested in you.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:56 AM on November 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I would recommend sharing the slide deck. You don't really have much to lose by doing so and you could lose a lot by not doing so.
Why I say this: academic ideas are not as valuable as people think, getting from idea to publication is the hard part, and you have already exposed these ideas to this audience anyway. Indeed your main purpose behind sharing these ideas was getting the job, so get the job.
For future reference: an academic job presentation is sort of public-domain: usually anyone from the institution is welcome to attend, including students and so forth, hypothetically even writers for the college newspaper. So expect that anything you share in your job talk is now public. If you really want to keep something secret, don't include it in the presentation. (But again, keeping ideas secret is not as useful to your career as talking them up and getting the job.)
posted by splitpeasoup at 10:13 AM on November 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
Why I say this: academic ideas are not as valuable as people think, getting from idea to publication is the hard part, and you have already exposed these ideas to this audience anyway. Indeed your main purpose behind sharing these ideas was getting the job, so get the job.
For future reference: an academic job presentation is sort of public-domain: usually anyone from the institution is welcome to attend, including students and so forth, hypothetically even writers for the college newspaper. So expect that anything you share in your job talk is now public. If you really want to keep something secret, don't include it in the presentation. (But again, keeping ideas secret is not as useful to your career as talking them up and getting the job.)
posted by splitpeasoup at 10:13 AM on November 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
US academic STEM here. I have not experienced this personally, but I don't find it weird, especially in times of search by zoom. As a candidate I would assume good faith in terms of treating the slides as semi-confidential. As a search committee member I'd have no problem with a request to keep it within the committee or institution.
Congrats on getting short-listed in this very limited market.
posted by Dashy at 11:52 AM on November 24, 2020
Congrats on getting short-listed in this very limited market.
posted by Dashy at 11:52 AM on November 24, 2020
Response by poster: Thanks everyone for your answers! It's been really helpful to see the responses here, and it's clarified a few things for us.
I think we've arrived here:
1. it was a little odd to get the request for the slides a day after the screening interview had taken place, because
a) we'd assumed that this screening-stage was done with, over, and that attention would now be on focussing on the next stage of job-talk and interview, so the slides from this presentation were essentially redundant information at this point – at least so far as decision-making's concerned
b) that they could've asked for the slides prior to the presentation (noted above) or on the day
so it felt like a weird follow-up. But as many of you have pointed out, on (b) it's not a surprise if things are a bit haphazard right now (or in general, in universities), and on (a) the slides do contain information that's informative for the overall decision being made (even if it's information that's already served its purpose at this round, and information that's likely to be shared again at the next round).
I'm glad to hear that it's not just us; that other people have also been in the situation of not-having-encountered-this-particular-thing-before. But yes, I agree that on reflection it's not really that surprising that this request might be made, and we'll certainly send the materials. Thanks for the friendly encouragement.
posted by Joeruckus at 2:53 PM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
I think we've arrived here:
1. it was a little odd to get the request for the slides a day after the screening interview had taken place, because
a) we'd assumed that this screening-stage was done with, over, and that attention would now be on focussing on the next stage of job-talk and interview, so the slides from this presentation were essentially redundant information at this point – at least so far as decision-making's concerned
b) that they could've asked for the slides prior to the presentation (noted above) or on the day
so it felt like a weird follow-up. But as many of you have pointed out, on (b) it's not a surprise if things are a bit haphazard right now (or in general, in universities), and on (a) the slides do contain information that's informative for the overall decision being made (even if it's information that's already served its purpose at this round, and information that's likely to be shared again at the next round).
I'm glad to hear that it's not just us; that other people have also been in the situation of not-having-encountered-this-particular-thing-before. But yes, I agree that on reflection it's not really that surprising that this request might be made, and we'll certainly send the materials. Thanks for the friendly encouragement.
posted by Joeruckus at 2:53 PM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
But unless they’d already made their decisions to select/eliminate candidates from this round, it is not done with/over for them, only for you. They still have to discuss and reflect on them after all the presentations are over, so they want the slides to help in that process, they’re not at all redundant.
(Unless I’ve misunderstood the process.)
posted by penguin pie at 4:40 AM on November 25, 2020
(Unless I’ve misunderstood the process.)
posted by penguin pie at 4:40 AM on November 25, 2020
I think you *should* share the slides, but I also think this is symptomatic of the bureaucratization of academia, and the ignorance of academic freedom and propriety; sounds like they haven't thought through (and/or don't care) about appropriating your research for their needs, whatever they may be. The same way universities are using the pandemic to record professors' lectures for future use. Austerity sucks.
So anyway its bullshit, and I'd consider that this is culturally acceptable in this department, if you happen to have other opportunities.
posted by RajahKing at 8:27 AM on November 25, 2020
So anyway its bullshit, and I'd consider that this is culturally acceptable in this department, if you happen to have other opportunities.
posted by RajahKing at 8:27 AM on November 25, 2020
US trained academic in an Australian university here. I have been on hiring panels and I’m 99% sure this is to either cover for a recording issue or perhaps to give to someone who wasn’t on that presentation call who might need to weigh in, maybe the person closest to your area.
I think you should PDF your slides and send them along. I wouldn’t send my hidden speaker notes, but less due to worry than because it would be too much of an effort to clean up my random bullet points.
I wouldn’t worry too much about them stealing your ideas. I mean, you could just as easily get your ideas stolen when presenting at a conference, assuming your field does conference presentation of early work prior to journal publication like mine, (i.e. not the conference = publication model of CS). If you are worried, maybe slightly modify key points or delete a few slides.
Possibly this is even a good sign of interest? Or maybe someone else sent their slides and they want to now ask everyone to keep it fair?
Best of luck! For more academic job information, the Chronicle of Higher Ed Fora used to be good. I think they got moved to something like “the fora” due to spam but not sure what the state of things is now... seemed a bit overrun with unhappy adjuncts last time I looked? This is also a great question for any friends who have been on search committees and can give you more specific advice.
posted by ec2y at 7:34 PM on November 26, 2020
I think you should PDF your slides and send them along. I wouldn’t send my hidden speaker notes, but less due to worry than because it would be too much of an effort to clean up my random bullet points.
I wouldn’t worry too much about them stealing your ideas. I mean, you could just as easily get your ideas stolen when presenting at a conference, assuming your field does conference presentation of early work prior to journal publication like mine, (i.e. not the conference = publication model of CS). If you are worried, maybe slightly modify key points or delete a few slides.
Possibly this is even a good sign of interest? Or maybe someone else sent their slides and they want to now ask everyone to keep it fair?
Best of luck! For more academic job information, the Chronicle of Higher Ed Fora used to be good. I think they got moved to something like “the fora” due to spam but not sure what the state of things is now... seemed a bit overrun with unhappy adjuncts last time I looked? This is also a great question for any friends who have been on search committees and can give you more specific advice.
posted by ec2y at 7:34 PM on November 26, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
Personally, I'd give it to them, with a note mentioning that it includes unpublished data and a request that it shouldn't be shared beyond the local faculty. If the committee wanted to steal your data or ideas, they could have screen-capped your talk already. "Don't make the weird, annoying people on the committee angry unless there's a very good reason to do so" isn't a bad strategy. Best of luck, whatever you choose!
posted by eotvos at 8:00 AM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]