Request for Submissions: New Series, "Notes from search committee members"

The Cocoon's recent Job-Market Boot Camp aimed to give candidates on the academic job-candidates helpful information about how to put themselves in the best position to succeed on the market. That being said, all jobs--and search committees--are different, and so it struck me today that it might be helpful if members of recent search committees shared their experiences, particularly their decisionmaking process and the process of their committees in reaching an initial list of interviewees.

So, I'd like to invite people who have served on search committees to submit stories to me--either openly or pseudonymously--at [email protected] recounting their experience. Although submitters should feel free to tell whatever story they see fit [provided it conforms to the Cocoon's mission], potential things to share might include:

1. Which things did you prioritize as a search-committee member? [grad school pedigree?, number of publications?, writing sample?, letters of recommendations?]
2. Which things did you not prioritize?
   
3. Which sorts of things did you look upon unfavorably as a search committee member?
4. Which sorts of things did the committee focus on in arriving at a list of interviewees?
5. What what the actual process of whittling down the list?
6. Etc.

My hope is that, if we can get some members of search committees from different types of institutions to share their experiences--people from R1s, SLACs, community colleges, foreign universities, etc.--it will give candidates a better idea of what to shoot for at different kinds of schools [or, alternatively, how different different search committees are, and/or how random processes of candidate evaluation actually are].

Hopefully we'll get some good stories, and then continue the series at a later time focusing on on-campus interviews. In any case, if you've been on a search committee, please do submit a story; and if you've never been on one but know someone who has, please encourage them to submit a post. I suspect there are a lot of candidates out there who would appreciate the insight.

Comments

[Joe Campbell]

Two things to point out.

First, most philosophers would be ill-advised to contribute to this post since they'd be giving too much information to applicants. (It would be a clear advantage to folks who read your blog, for instance.) I'm in a special situation. Maybe you could figure out some other way of getting this information. It's a nice project.

Also, I'm at a state school with no grad program. This reflects my own personal views, not those of my department, school, or university.

1/ Writing sample, letters, publications, grad school; gender, in case of a tie

2/ Everything else

3/ Bad teaching record

4/ Letters, writing sample, publications, teaching evaluations, grad school

5/ Can she/he teach to our students? Is she/he capable of conveying information to folks at a state university? Will she/he get tenure (publications, writing sample, letters)?

[Anon Grad Student]

It might be true that this information would give an advantage to readers of this blog. But many (most?) people on the job market are aware of this blog, and in any case, given that it is already the case that some people have this advantage (viz. those people at departments with particularly thoughtful and helpful placement chairs), diversifying the sources of the advantage might be one way to work toward evening the playing field.