Academic Job Talks Are NOT The Most Important Part of the Process

From coaching doctoral students, faculty and academic leaders

for the last 17 years, my experience is that many scholars see “the job talk”

as the most important part of the academic job interview. It is not. Period.

Full stop. It is important, for sure, and you should spend time developing

and practicing it, but if your preparation stops there,

you are not giving yourself your best shot at getting a position. 

Note: If you want to work on your actual job talk, check out the work of Tiffany Green--she is awesome. Click here to find her on LinkedIn.

The most important part(s) of the interview are everything else, but in particular, your ability to connect, listen, validate and share with everyone you come into contact with. Your capacity to demonstrate that you want to join them, that they are special--their community, their university, their department, their curriculum, who they are as humans--that is key!

So many people do good job talks (and many do bad ones), so the scholars and leaders who get the jobs are often the ones who are able to manage the other parts of the dog-and-pony show that is an academic interview. 

To prepare, you need to really drill responses to questions about your vision, your teaching, your research, who you are as a university citizen.  You need feedback from someone who will be honest with you about how you are coming across, and you need a process for maximizing your strengths and working on some of your barriers. You need to work on your “stuff.”

Too frequently I have worked with people who come to me frustrated that they have had several interviews (zoom or campus) but no offers. At some point you have to ask the hard question: Is it only the academic job market or perhaps do I have things I need to work on? If you are willing to ask this question, you may wish to seek some coaching! If you are not, you may wish to seek some coaching.

Healthy, Sustainable Salsa Dancing....And Writing too!

I should know better, we (I) don’t always do what is best for us (myself). Approaching my 17th year coaching academics, I know the importance of knowing our limits, of not burning yourself out, mentally or physically. 

But..... this was my salsa dancing adventure to Medellin, Colombia--my third. I wanted to really take advantage of my two week vacation, of really leaning into it. I am right at the precipice of being an advanced salsa dancer, and really wanted to make that mythical leap to salsero avanzado!!

For those that don’t know me well, salsa dancing, and salsa music, have become more than just a hobby to me--I sometimes refer to it, half  jokingly, as “my strange addiction.” Well, my joke became something of a self- fulfilling prophecy as I way overdid it during my recent two weeks. During that time, I danced a total of over 60 hours, including up to 4 dance lessons a day during a several day period.

And this totally overwhelmed me. I took in so much information and new moves that I literally feel like I learned nothing, and lost a great deal of what I knew before. It will, I hope, come back once my brain refreshes and it all settles into something fun and healthy again. Fun and healthy.....ugg..

But wow, lesson learned. No matter how quickly I wish to learn, to accomplish some “goal”, all I get to do is stay in process, and preferable in a healthy, sustainable way. 

The consequences of binge dancing have become apparent. Just as I see on a daily basis the deleterious effects of unhealthy writing practices on my clients. Practice what you preach coach Rich!