MLA or Skype?

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Clarissa

January 6, 2014

I don’t even understand why we need to have a discussion about whether job interviews at the MLA make sense. The moment Skype was invented, the definitive answer to this question was given.

The MLA interviews inconvenience and disturb the lives of everybody except maybe a couple of exceptionally rich, lazy and completely lonely folks. Nobody else wants to sacrifice the last week before the beginning of a new semester to being stuck in a hotel room (even a really fantastic and free one) doing something completely useless. Several people who interviewed candidates at the MLA complained to me that there were conference talks they really wanted to attend but couldn’t do so because they had interviews scheduled back-to-back all day long. When scholars attend a scholarly conference and don’t get to engage in any scholarship, something has gone seriously wrong.

I have interviewed people through Skype as part of a search committee and at no point did I think, “Gosh, I so wish I were sitting in an enormous, loud ballroom somewhere in LA or Cincinnati surrounded by 100 tables with hundreds of interviewers and a crowd of terrified interviewees. I totally hate it that after this Skype interview is over I will go home to spend time with my husband, work on my new article, and sleep in my own bed.”

Notice that I have only addressed the suffering of the interviewers here without even touching on the much more major suffering of the interviewees.

Has anybody heard a single argument anywhere as to why interviewing cannot be conducted through Skype?

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34 responses to “MLA or Skype?”

Fie Upon This Quiet Life

January 6, 2014

The interview for my job was on Skype. It all worked out fine, despite some technical difficulties with sound. I used my cell phone. It was a little awkward, but when is an interview not somewhat awkward?

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 6, 2014
  
  Skype interviews didn’t exist when I was on the market (2007-9) and I didn’t even know what Skype was.
  
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  1. Fie Upon This Quiet Life
    
    January 7, 2014
    
    See what a difference just a couple of years make? My interview was in January of 2011!
    
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Evelina Anville

January 6, 2014

I actually prefer telephone interviews to Skype. But your point still stands and I agree 1000%. From a purely selfish standpoint, I have no desire to interview at MLA. It’s important to meet the candidates of course. But that’s what on campus interviews are for (and any decent university covers the expense of on campus interviews). So I want to hear the answer to this question too. Why interview at MLA?

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 6, 2014
  
  Yes, the campus interviews are crucial. People get a chance to teach, give a research talk, spend time with prospective colleagues in person, get a feel of the campus and the town. All this is very important.
  
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  1. Evelina Anville
    
    January 6, 2014
    
    Exactly. And one of those things can be accomplished at MLA. The initiall interviews (whether it’s conducted via Skype, telephone, or MLA) is always preliminary and a bit superficial. So the location of that interview does not matter. Is there a defense of hte MLA interview anywhere? I’m sincerely curious why people do it. 😉
    
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Evelina Anville

January 6, 2014

“none of those things” not “one of those things.” Sticky keyboard. 😉

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musteryou

January 6, 2014

Unrelated:

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Z

January 7, 2014

The thing is this: Skype interviews do improve matters, but are very far from being the whole solution.

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1. Evelina Anville
  
  January 7, 2014
  
  Not the whole solution to what problem? The grueling natue of the interview process for academic job seekers?
  
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  1. Z
    
    January 7, 2014
    
    The market situation. What irritated me about the whole Schuman song and dance about UC Riverside is that that issue is so minor compared to what the whole situation is, and I don’t find it interesting even as synecdoche.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 7, 2014
      
      It’s not in the least minor. It is out of these minor indignities that the general environment of disrespect at the academic job market is created. And if we don’t stop ourselves from mistreating candidates, we can’t expect anything better from administration.
      
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      1. Z
        
        January 7, 2014
        
        I’m far more worried about even having lines, and about what happens once people are hired, than these sorts of things. Or have seen so much true c***, that I hardly think the UCR thing qualifies for serious complaint, especially since they let people know what was going on, which many don’t even. The job market is so oddly set up, it is a wonder anyone ever gets hired or anyone ever manages to hire, but one interpretive error I find candidates make again and again, and that increases their stress and that of the people they talk to, is the idea that it can be controlled and they should be able to control it.
        
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        bloggerclarissa
        
        January 7, 2014
        
        It isn’t an error. It’s a consequence of their psychological health. These are the candidates who need to be sought out and hired.
        
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        Z
        
        January 7, 2014
        
        Part of what I am looking for at this point are people less neurotic than that and most of those I know who are this freaked on control, were that way before graduate school.
        
        I am perhaps laconic on the UCR thing because of money. It is insanely expensive to buy a plane ticket at the last minute, or get budget lodging at the MLA at the last minute. So either you are going, and you planned it months ahead, or you can’t go. So this idea of rushing there for one interview when you weren’t otherwise going, I don’t really buy. BUT this is why I don’t favor the conference interview, and I am also somewhat concerned about mixed formats (some at conference, some on Skype). I *know* I am prejudiced in favor of the conference interview. I also *know* I hired someone over the phone once that I might not have rated as highly in person … and who turned out to be great.
        
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2. Evelina Anville
  
  January 7, 2014
  
  But candidates DO have some control–not all the control but some. They can control their cover letters, their CVs, how many publications they have, what their project is. I know that the academic job market has a strong element of luck (I certainly had some luck in landing my job.) But it’s not roulette either. I think it’s a big mistake to tell prospective job seekers that they have no control whatsoever; it’s the surest way to make people give up completely and spiral into excessive anxiety and depression–which is conter produtive in my opinion.
  
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  1. Z
    
    January 7, 2014
    
    Yes, I agree completely. I am just tired of receiving letters with misspellings in them when the same candidates are gossiping on the wiki, trying to figure out how to psych out the committee. There is so much misplaced strategizing.
    
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  2. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 7, 2014
    
    “But candidates DO have some control–not all the control but some. They can control their cover letters, their CVs, how many publications they have, what their project is. I know that the academic job market has a strong element of luck (I certainly had some luck in landing my job.) But it’s not roulette either. I think it’s a big mistake to tell prospective job seekers that they have no control whatsoever; it’s the surest way to make people give up completely and spiral into excessive anxiety and depression–which is conter produtive in my opinion.”
    
    – EXACTLY. And this can be applied to many situations in life.
    
    I wrote about fatalism here: https://clarissasblog.com/2012/09/07/fatalism/
    And about fatalism and mental health here: https://clarissasblog.com/2013/04/03/the-biggest-gift/
    
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FD

January 7, 2014

I think skype interviews are sensible. This might sound controversial, but from the HR perspective, face to face interviews are mainly further chances for bias to creep into the process. There’s some pretty good research that shows that success at interview is actually a really bad predictor of the longterm success of of the candidate in the position; in fact, it’s worse than that of randomly selected candidates who were simply screened on past perfomance and qualifications.
However, this is pretty counter-intuitive and people strongly resist the notion that actually they are not finely tuned character detectors; this includes a lot of people in HR who pride themselves on their ‘people skills’.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 7, 2014
  
  “However, this is pretty counter-intuitive and people strongly resist the notion that actually they are not finely tuned character detectors; this includes a lot of people in HR who pride themselves on their ‘people skills’.”
  
  – You are so right!!! People routinely overestimate how well they can judge character based on the first visual impressions.
  
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Z

January 7, 2014

I have misjudged pretty badly a couple of times from phone interviews, though. Would rather just bring the whole short list to campus. At least 3 candidates but ideally more.

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1. Evelina Anville
  
  January 7, 2014
  
  But I think the overall point is that you can misjudge with ANY interview format. The on- campus interview does give the best insight because they are so lenthy and take the candidate to so many different venues. But campus interviews are expensive (if you do them correctly) and time consuming for the committee. I know I have cancelled classes when conducting on campus interviews. Also, my institution has some fairly limited resources and so we try to limit the initial campus interviews to two–more if the inital two candiates don’t work out for whatever reason. I think it’s reasonable to have either telephone or skype inital interviews for 8-12 candidates and then bring in 2-3 for on campus visists.
  
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  1. Z
    
    January 7, 2014
    
    Yes, you are explaining the standard format. We only get to bring one to campus, at my current place. I still do better in person, would like at least 3 if cannot do initial interview in person. Have never regretted a hire made that way, but with the current Skype + 1 to campus it is really hit or miss, much harder to figure out who your absolute #1 is by Skype than in person, I have found.
    
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  2. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 7, 2014
    
    Phone interviews are a disaster. The last hiring process we conducted featured a candidate whose voice pitch makes it impossible to understand anything he says over the phone. Not a single member of the search committee had any idea what this guy said in the entire interview! The worst part was when we asked him if he had questions. None of us understood what he was trying to ask.
    
    It was all very unfortunate.
    
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  3. Evelina Anville
    
    January 7, 2014
    
    I guess I’m an odd ball here. I like phone interviews. And if the candidiate can’t be understood over the phone, chances are s/he will have some teaching limitations?
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 7, 2014
      
      I think it’s just his pitch that is incompatible with the phone.
      
      I remember the phone interviews – of which I had dozens – as absolute torture. But that’s autism.
      
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2. Evelina Anville
  
  January 7, 2014
  
  I think that skype, telephone, in person, all have their various advantages and disadvantages. So in the end it makes sense to go with the cheapest option–out of respect for candidates (I remember begging, borrowing, and stealing to get to MLA), and even to save institutional money (I would rather the school spend money on something else then sending various search committees to MLA just to conduct some interviews.) MLA is expensive all around. I think it’s great as a scholarly venue but silly as an interviewing venue.
  
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  1. Z
    
    January 7, 2014
    
    Yes, it is very expensive. I only did it once as a graduate student and it was somehow relatively cheap that time. And when I was doing it a lot, I had travel funding, and there is something about the excitement of having everything, the interviews, the interviewing, your paper, your friends, the book exhibit, all of it, together, when you are really working, it was fun. I am not saying that’s a reason it has to continue.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 7, 2014
      
      The book exhibit is one thing I always liked about the MLAs I have visited. It always has a soothing effect on me.
      
      But I always avoided people at the MLAs. All of that stress and competitiveness, and people asking you eagerly and pathetically, “So how many interviews have you got? And who with?” etc. Horrible.
      
      I also avoided the wiki completely during my job search for the same reason I avoid negative comments about me on blogs. And it really really bugged me when people tried to discuss the wiki with me. I still have no idea how all that info gets on the wiki.
      
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Z

January 7, 2014

I also like the convention for being interviewed, if I can be there. I like to see the people in person, and I like not having to be responsible for coming up with my Skype backdrop, making the technology work for sure, fitting the thing in between other daily activities. If the committee can’t make the convention, I prefer they phone me, not make me Skype, it is too much neither fish nor fowl.

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Z

January 7, 2014

****Interviewing by phone is a skill. All my phone interviews but one were bad, and the good one was led by someone skilled at radio interviews. It made a huge difference, huge. I like phone interviews better than Skype, it is too fuzzy and distracting and it can go out at any time, and you have to look at each other in this weird way, I do not like it.****

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Z

January 7, 2014

@Clarissa, above–yes, I like the book exhibit. And I like the fact that the convention takes place in a city, so one can get away just by walking, and usually in an interesting place,, at that. The people: well, the first time I went, I did not know many people, and after that I rarely said openly that I was a job seeker, because I was employed. I have seen those people get together and go on about interviews and yes, it looks awful. The wiki looks like pure Hell.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 7, 2014
  
  About the wiki: what I especially hated is when people would tell me, “Ah, so you’ve been to Middlebury for a campus visit. That job talk was a disaster, I hear. How funny is it that you thought you could get hired there when it has been posted on the wiki for a month that they were hiring that other person.” I HATED that.
  
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  1. Z
    
    January 7, 2014
    
    Oh, God, how utterly juvenile and destructive.
    
    Meanwhile the MLA is in Vancouver next year, and they were actually discussing San Juan for the following. They refuse outright to be economical.
    
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