Thoughts About On-Campus Interviews
posted by Dan Filler
As Dave’s post suggests, law schools are getting very competitve in seeking out the top entry-level faculty candidates. Some bring in these folks pre-AALS, with an eye to snatching them off the market before competition ripens. (Drexel followed this approach with great success last year.) And many schools followed up their DC interviews with insta-callbacks issued either on the spot or within days.
This is a heady time for a select group of candidates, and a sluggish moment for some others. Not surprisingly, the best advice for the red-hot folks is to avoid overconfidence. Each year, a flock of great people receive a quick run of on-campus interviews only to discover radio silence afterwards. Don’t feel bad if you’re in a holding pattern until January. The entire membership of the AALS can’t hire those same dozen candidates! And get used to the idea that your offers may all come from schools in states you can’t identify on a map. For those waiting for a first nibble, all you can do is relax. Some schools are more deliberate in their call back process and, in any case, there will inevitably be a second round of on-campus visits.
As for job-talks, I strongly urge folks to focus on two basics. First, make sure your presentation has a thesis and a clear progressive structure. Second, give a roadmap at the outset. This advice may sound pedestrian, but too few candidates follow it. Your talk should last no more than 30 minutes – and maybe a bit less – unless you get contrary instructions from the school. Nobody will be impressed that you can make your talk last 45 minutes. They’ll just start to fidget. Don’t be afraid to identify and confront problems with your claim during the talk. There is no need to wait until you’re outed during questioning. The question/answer period is intended to test both your smarts and your ability to recognize and shape the limits of your scholarly claim. For this reason, it is highly advisable to do a dry run in front of some smart people – they can help you figure out what a non-expert is likely to see as problematic. If possible, you should also run your talk by a faculty mentor or a friend in law teaching . That way he or she can flag other areas of legal scholarship that might speak to your themes. You don’t want to give a talk about the role of heuristics in jury decisionmaking but be unaware of the behavioral L&E literature!
November 10, 2006 at 12:15 am
Posted in: Law School (Hiring & Laterals)
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Responses (7)
Howard Wasserman - November 10, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Another suggestion: No PowerPoint. Unless you are doing a presentation requiring charts and graphs or, perhaps, comparing statutory provisions, just get up and talk. you are speaking well and intelligently, you will maintain the faculty’s attention. Do not bother w/ screen after screen of the bullet points of your outline and argument; they add nothing and actually look somewhat simplistic. This is especially true if you are speaking at a school where faculty members interrupt during the talk–then you end up going through slides on things you already talked about.
tim zinnecker - November 10, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Excellent post by Dan, and comment by Howard. I applaud Dan’s advice on providing a thesis statement and a roadmap of your talk early in the presentation. Most of the audience will have no clue what you’re talking about. Don’t lose them in the first five minutes. Also consider distributing an outline (and perhaps other materials that may be difficult to follow orally, such as particular statutes important to your arguments). Don’t forget that some schools will focus not only on your pedigree, smarts, and scholarship potential, but also your ability to teach. So don’t forget to ask yourself: What will my presentation say about my teaching talents?
Dan Markel - November 10, 2006 at 3:11 pm
With respect, I strenuously disagree with Howard’s reaction against powerpoint, but only under certain conditions. I think if you can use powerpoint slides to put up a few bulletpoint or questions that you’re addressing, I think it’s great–as long as it serves as a substitute, not a supplement, for being wedded to the podium and reading your paper. If on the other hand you can speak for 20 minutes coherently about your project using nothing or only an outline (ie, without notes or the paper to rely on,) then you should consider going without powerpoint. In sum: if powerpoint liberates you from your paper, and you don’t put up too much text on the slides, I think it can be effective for both presenter and audience.
Joshua Wright - November 10, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Great post Dan. Getting out a concise statement of the research question and your claims in the first minutes of the talk is a must, especially at a school that has a lively workshop atmosphere. You may never get a second chance to get your claim and analytical roadmap out uninterrupted and with the attention of the whole audience.
Also, let me second Dan’s limited powerpoint endorsement. There is a lot of bad powerpoint out there, and so I understand where Howard’s suggestion is coming from, but I really do believe it can provide some advantages even in talks that do not involve models, charts, graphs, statistical results, etc. In these cases, I think slides of some sort are a must.
on the market - November 10, 2006 at 7:40 pm
I have nothing against Powerpoint except for my inexperience with it, but I must report that when I scheduled one callback, the hiring chair asked if I planned to use Powerpoint for my job talk; when I said no, he replied enthusiastically, “Oh, thank you!”
Howard Wasserman - November 10, 2006 at 9:33 pm
I laughed at loud at on the market’s comment. And I wish him/her luck in the process. In response to Dan: I do not see the problem with staying at the podium or moving around and coming back to the podium to check on notes. But that might just be a matter of preference and style. But as an audience member, I find it distracting when a candidate puts up the outline/talking points (even if they do not contain too much text) and then recites what it is there. At the very least, there is (to my mind) no value added. And when you factor in the inevitable technical difficulties–the talk starts five minutes late because of set up problems, the candidate holds the button too long and jumps 4 slides ahead–it breaks the flow of the presentation.
Jim Milles - November 11, 2006 at 1:34 pm
It’s probably a good idea to try to get some sense of the faculty you’ll be presenting to. I’ve seen faculty react very negatively to s Powerpoint presentation; they’re expecting interaction and engagement with scholarly questions, not a lecture or a marketing address.
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