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Involving Graduate Students in Job Searches and Interviews

Brian Leiter

A philosopher at a ranked PhD program writes:

Here’s a question that came up in a departmental meeting today; it might be an apt discussion question for your blog.  Is there a norm in the profession about allowing  graduate students to sit in on interviews conducted by their departments at the APA?  In particular, is it good/bad policy to allow students that are not members of the search committee to sit in on interviews in order to become familiar with the interview process?  Subsidiary questions are these:  If it is good policy, is it only good policy for students not on the market? And if students do sit in, is it better if they do or do not participate in the discussion?  Are there legal issues involved (particularly privacy issues)?  And what do job candidates think about coming to an interview and finding graduate students there as observers and/or participants?

I suppose we might also ask whether it is appropriate to have graduate students on the search committee.

Graduate students/job seekers may post anonymously (please indicate your e-mail address, though–it won’t appear); I hope faculty will post under their own names.  Post only once, comments may take awhile to appear.

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8 responses to “Involving Graduate Students in Job Searches and Interviews”

  1. David Yamanishi

    Not being a philosopher, I can only comment on the general case. My graduate program (top ten in political science by most measures — alas, no PGR analogue) routinely placed graduate students on search committees. We did not typically interview candidates at the annual conference as our annual conference is often shunned by top programs due to its early schedule (in September). I am not aware that the program intentionally kept students off hiring committees when they themselves were on the market, but on the other hand, I'm not aware of any such examples.

    I should note that at many small liberal arts colleges like the one that I'm at now, you'll meet undergraduates on search committees (probably not at the conference) and their input is often taken very seriously. So don't just pump them for information about what you should ask the faculty (the mistake of a recent candidate here).

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  2. David Velleman

    It is not uncommon for graduate students to participate in interviews for the purpose of providing input to their departments' recruitment decisions. Graduate students can learn a tremendous amount by serving on their departments' recruitment committees

    However, I doubt whether students can learn from sitting in on convention interviews in particular. After all, a department's convention interviews are likely to be well simulated in that department's mock interviews for job candidates. If job candidates want to view an interview from the "other side", they might sit in on one another's mock interviews.

    The main benefits of serving on a recruitment committee are (1) learning that letters of recommendation are largely evidence-based, not exercises in empty praise; and (2) learning that the hiring process, however flawed, is usually an honest attempt to find the best candidate on the basis of the evidence. In other words, the experience tends to de-mystify the hiring process and focus students' attention on the best strategy for success, which is to do good work.

    Sitting in on interviews doesn't add much to these benefits. And I have never heard of students' being allowed to sit in on interviews solely for the purpose of learning about the process. There should be a legitimate reason for their presence.

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  3. Steven Gross

    A question sparked by David Velleman's post: Should graduate students be allowed to see confidential parts of candidates' dossiers, such as letters? I take it that these are confidential up to the "need to know." That participating on a recruitment committee helps prepare grad students for the process doesn't seem sufficient for grad students to meet the "need to know" standard. How about if they are participating in order to supply input (as representatives of the grad students, or as providers of a graduate student perspective)? Still, they might be able to do that by having access only to non-confidential material (CV, writing sample, interview performance). It seems to me preferable to err on the side of confidentiality here. David?

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  4. anon job seeker

    Although there's obviously a place for graduate students in the hiring process (e.g., an opportunity to meet with them during a campus interview), from the perspective of this job seeker, the notion of inviting them to sit in on an interview (presumably at the APA) strikes me as very odd (and even a little inconsiderate). I show up at an interview having done my homework and learn the names and research of all the interviewers. Am I also supposed to research the grad students attending or will they be "sprung" upon me at the last minute? Will it be explained to the job candidate beforehand what role (if any) they play in the interview? I'm not asking to be pampered during my job interview–but can't it please be about me rather than a learning moment for the department's graduate students?

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  5. Anon Please

    One must also keep in mind, when discussing this issue, that there are relevant university-wide policies in place at some institutions. My institution used to place a graduate student as a full member of the search committee (read dossiers, travel to APA for interviews, etc.), but this practice was recently banned by the university due to abuses in the policy by other departments.
    In lieu of that issue, we've struck what I take to be a rather nice balance. There is no graduate student involvement at the dossier/APA interview stage, but the graduate students (all of them) are given access to the CVs of all candidates invited to campus for a job talk. We also have specific events with the candidates and are asked to rank the job talk candidates both individually (through a survey) and collectively (through our representative at faculty meetings). This sort of policy seems best to me.

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  6. Jonathan D. Jacobs

    I sat in on an APA interview for the purpose of gaining information about the process. I did not ask questions, and I had not seen the candidate's dossier. (I also had a mock interview, and I've now been the interviewee several times. My institution also had a graduate student representative on the hiring committee, but I did not serve in that capacity.) So I can confirm what David Velleman said: I did not learn much from sitting in on the APA interview. I learned much more from the mock interview—and even more from just talking in depth with our placement directors about what to expect.

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  7. Mohan Matthen

    At more than one university I have been (though not at my present university), it is not just permitted, but obligatory to have a graduate student representative on selection committees. This is meant to recognize the considerable interest that graduate students have in who is hired. It is not aimed at giving graduate students experience of the hiring process, though this might be a collateral benefit. In fact, it is often thought of as laudable service on the part of the grad student, not a privilege. And these grad students are asked, just as faculty members are, to keep proceedings of the committee and contents of files confidential. Generally, in my experience, they are more conscientious in this regard than faculty members.

    As for students not on the committee — and remember that the APA interviewing team might not be the same as the selection committee — I wouldn't think that it is appropriate for them to kibbitz. But then I wouldn't think it was appropriate for faculty members who are not on the committee to do so either.

    As for anon job seeker's concern about boning up on grad student interviewers, if a list of interviewers is provided in advance, and if the grad students' interests are as easily accessed as those of faculty members (as often they are), why wouldn't you look them up?

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  8. Matt

    Pitt, where I began my graduate career a decade ago, always had a grad student or two on the hiring committee, who had full access to dossiers and the responsibility of going through them, meeting with the hiring committee, going to the APA, asking questions during interviews, etc. At least at the time I was there, the grad students collectively got one vote for or against a candidate.

    I transferred to Chicago after a couple of years, and there was some debate there about whether grad students should be involved. It was resolved thus: we could have reps on the hiring committee who would read short-listed dossiers minus the letters, attend faculty meetings, stepping out of the room when the letters were being discussed, attend the APA interviews, survey grad student opinions about candidates and report back to the faculty. We didn't get an official vote, and we were expected to keep quiet about anything confidential we heard in the meetings. As one of the first to serve as a grad student rep in this process, I found it illuminating in a number of ways, and I believe it was good for the grad students to feel like they had some voice in the hiring process. Little was lost, I think, in not getting an official vote for or against.

    I have no idea whether grad student opinion ultimately affected faculty views about whom to hire, but I'm not sure it needs to. The main benefit, it seems to me, was that we grad students got to learn more about this part of our profession. It's part of the apprenticeship aspect of grad school — good for the apprentices, even if not particularly helpful for the (so to speak) masters.

    As for actually being in the interviews, given that schools with graduate programs will be hiring people to interact with graduate students, having the latter present seems perfectly reasonable. Candidates will have to talk to them eventually, and it might prove useful to see how they handle questions from them in interviews.

    And regarding the issue of preparing for interviews by researching those interviewing you, having been on both sides of the table, that seems to me largely a waste of time. You of course want to know a little about the individuals in the department interviewing you, but the interview is mostly about you, not them — one of the few pleasures of the job market is the fact that a lot of smart people are focused on your work — and you should just plan on being prepared to talk about your work to any intelligent, interested, non-specialist. So if there's some variation in who shows up to interview you from what you're initially told, it shouldn't matter. Campus visits are a different story, of course.

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