For starters, I want to thank Brian for the opportunity to once again guest blog here at Leiter Reports. When I was last blogging here back in 2006, my goal was to satirically rant about the dangerous political state of affairs at the time. For this upcoming week, however, I will try to be a bit more serious. Rather than stirring the political pot (and trying to get a few laughs along the way), my goal instead will be to highlight some issues within the profession that I feel deserve attention and to generate some discussion about what, if anything, can and should be done about these issues. Given that it’s presently job market season, I thought one issue that merits discussion is the interviewing process—especially people’s experiences with video conferencing.
Three years ago, there was a series of posts here on Leiter Reports about whether departments should forgo using the Eastern APA for the purposes of first round interviews when video conferencing technology was both widely available and largely free (see here, here, and here). Before I say more, I should confess that I was the “young[ish]” philosopher who originally emailed Brian in the wake of the debacle in Boston at the Eastern APA. So, it’s unsurprising that I think departments should use video conferencing for first round interviews (which has been the practice of my own department here at College of Charleston since last year). And while I am happy to rehash some of those arguments in the present discussion thread, I think it would be more helpful to hear about people’s actual experiences with video conferencing, both good and bad, since it's been a while since we've discussed this issue.
Given that more people have now had the chance to navigate job interviews via video conferencing, it would be helpful to hear not only from those who have been interviewed but also from those who have been doing the interviewing. It would be just as illustrative to hear from those of you who belong to departments that choose instead to continue interviewing at the Eastern APA. If you think your department should make the switch, let us know why. If you think instead that your department should stick with interviews at the APA, it would be helpful to hear from you as well.In the meantime, you can read more about the supposed trend towards video conference interviews here, here, here, and here (although you can read a more recent cautionary tale here). You can also get some advice concerning how to prepare and what to avoid during video conference interviews here, here, here, here, here, and here. If some of you have found any additional helpful articles, please post the links in the discussion thread.
p.s. I will be moderating comments, so please be patient. Also, as always, signed comments are preferred (although I appreciate the importance of anonymity for those of you presently on the market--which is why I needed to remain anonymous three years ago!)
