A reader wrote in asking me the following question:
[Y]ou got a job at a place where you'd hung around for quite a while. I imagine that all aspects of that felt different, and that much of the advice given to job hunters should be modified for that type of situation. In particular, I imagine that
(a) the interview and
(b) negotiating
were both quite different. Any advice for people in similar positions?
I will say that, for obvious reasons, it felt different interviewing for a job at a place where I was already working. It's one thing to interview with people one has never met before--and quite another to do so with people one already knows quite well. However, I will also say that I tried very hard not to treat the two types of interviews--and contract negotiations--any differently. Although I can only speculate--and would be very interested to hear from other 'inside candidates' or search committee members who have interviewed or hired them--my sense is that there are some real dangers to approaching interviews or negotiations differently as an 'inside candidate.' I have heard of more than a few inside candidates who were given the impression that they were front-runners for a job, only to have the committee ultimately choose an outside candidate. Consequently, I think it may be a bad idea as an inside candidate are to have or demonstrate any kind of attitude that one deserves the job because one already works there, or otherwise treat the interview(s) or negotiations differently.
But this is just my sense. What do other past or present inside candidates think? And what do search committee members who have interviewed or hired inside candidates think?
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