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Farewell to the Eastern APA, Hello to Skype!

Brian Leiter

A young philosopher writes:

Given the on-going disaster at the Eastern APA, both in terms of the punishing weather and in terms of the brutal job market, I thought I would share my thoughts about a Skype interview I recently did.  As someone who is fortunate enough to have a tenure track job that I like very much, I am writing not out of bitterness or frustration but rather in the hopes that I might encourage others in my position to rethink the inexcusable circus that is the Eastern APA job market.   

Despite being happy with my present job, where I have served on a few search committees of my own, I applied for a position this year that would put me closer to extended family.  Given the sad state of the job market, I was very pleased and thankful to get a Skype interview.  Now that I have done the interview, I just wanted to point out that I know of no justification or excuse that would merit the continuation of the current practice of forcing graduate students, visiting and adjunct instructors, and untenured junior professors to endure the cost, stress, and humiliation that have become hallmarks of the job market circus at the APA.  Free technology has finally revealed that the emperor that is the job market simply has no clothes.  At this point, the *only* thing that speaks in favor of the APA facilitating the present practice is the inertia of tradition. 

The purpose of my note to you is to place the burden on the readers of your blog who would continue with the status quo.  Given the hardships caused by forcing job candidates to go to the APA, the burden is easy enough to shift to the interviewing departments as well as the APA policies that facilitate the decisions of these departments.   Keep in mind that the issue is not the old debate about the empirical data on face to face interviews and whether they introduce unwarranted biases into the hiring process or add any useful information.  Nor is the debate about whether phone interviews are adequate substitutes for traditional face to face interviews.  For present purposes, we can set those debates to one side.  The key issue I am highlighting is:  Given that every hiring department can simply use Skype to do video interviews at no cost to either themselves or the candidates, why would any departments continue to participate in the insanity that is the APA job market? 

Here are just some of the myriad benefits of Skype interviews over “face to face” APA interviews: (a) they are free for both the departments and the candidates (who often don’t have the money to attend conferences over the holidays in some of the country’s most expensive cities), (b) they are markedly less stressful for the candidates, who are able to do the interviews from the comfort of their homes or offices rather than having to navigate the stress-filled ballrooms, lobbies, hallways, and suites of hotels, (c) they enable both candidates and hiring committees to spend time with their families over the holidays rather than braving the cold and expense of compulsory mid-holiday “vacations” in the north east, (d) they can be scheduled much more flexibly, which not only benefits candidates but also makes it less stressful for the hiring committees themselves, (e) they minimize stress and fatigue as factors that influence hiring decisions by ensuring that candidates and search committees are much more at ease than they would otherwise be, (f) they save money for the departments so that departments have more funding to bring additional candidates to campus, (g) they make it possible for departments to spread out their interviews over a few weeks, making it possible for them to actually interview more candidates under more favorable conditions, and finally, (h) they send a welcomed message to candidates that the hiring department has the good practical and moral sense to set aside the irrational practices of tradition and embrace new methods and ideas that make life easier on everyone involved.  That is precisely the kind of department for which I would like to work.  So, regardless of whether I am lucky enough to get the job this year, I am committed to ensuring that whenever I serve on hiring committees in the future, I take a stand for progress and against the siren song of tradition.  My question for your readers is:  Who’s with me? 

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50 responses to “Farewell to the Eastern APA, Hello to Skype!”

  1. Kris mcdaniel

    I'm with you. Syracuse did Skype interviews this time around, and the decision to do them instead of the eastern was prior to the weather disaster. I haven't talked to all my colleagues about the experience, but my impression from those I have talked with is that there is no noticeable difference in the quality of information derived. (I was and am in no way involved in this year's searches, so I can't speak from personal experience.)

    Reply
  2. David Sobel

    Overall I agree that APA interviews are not worth the costs and should be replaced. However, I am doubtful that Skype is just as good as as being in the same room, especially if there are several interviewers. Nonetheless, I think some combo of reading more papers, having more people out to campus, skype, phone interviews, e-mail exchanges, and such, will be less costly for everyone involved both in terms of time and money and as effective for searchers in selecting good job candidates.

    Reply
  3. Ben Caplan

    Without addressing the issue of whether Skye interviews are adequate substitutes for face-to-face interviews, I would like to mention an obvious (i)th reason for switching to Skype: smaller carbon footprint.

    Reply
  4. Leiter's "young philosopher" correspondent

    David,

    I am curious why you're "doubtful that Skype is just as good as being in the same room, especially if there are several interviewers"? You can fit just as many people around a conference table facing a webcam as you can a table at the APA (without all the stress and distraction associated with the shark tank that is the ballroom experience or the awkwardness of hotel suites). Indeed, it seems to me that Skype (or more technologically sophisticated products like Marratech or Adobe Connect) would allow for more people from the hiring department to at least sit in on the interviews even if they don't ask any questions, etc. Moreover, you can have multiple parties involved in a web conference such that even members of the committee who may be out of town can log in and participate. So, it seems to me your doubts are unwarranted.

    Perhaps your concerns are driven instead more by worries about the "feel" of the cyber-interaction itself more than the number of participants, etc. I certainly understand that concern. But I think the success of both Bloggingheads TV and Philosophy TV make it clear that very high level and engaging philosophy can be done with web-conferencing technology. If it's good enough for the top philosophers in the field to use for the purposes of educating and entertaining the philosophical masses, it ought to suffice for the purposes of first round job market interviewing, especially given the costs associated with "being in the same room."

    Reply
  5. Holly Andersen

    As someone who has interviewed candidates using Skype, I can attest to the fact that they are surprisingly useful and helpful. They are much more like face-to-face interviews than they are like beefed-up phone interviews. It worked for us with four interviewers in the room on our end. I think a lot of doubts regarding Skype interviews stem from a lack of familiarity with currently available technology and software; it is not difficult to have one vaguely tech-proficient committee member set it up. One could even make the argument that this provides a better way to get a sense of candidates than the incredibly weird and artificial circumstances of the APA, where candidates wait around in hallways with other nervous candidates for a room door to open with one candidate walking out before they themselves walk in, or wade through a sea of tables to shout across a wide table over the din. Face to face interviews *as performed at the APA* are about the least useful kinds of face to face interviews one could conduct, and replacing them with Skype interviews sooner rather than later is sensible.

    Reply
  6. V. Alan White

    I have participated in several Skype-style compressed video interviews in the last few years as a SC member. I was at first highly skeptical that they could be as good as face-to-face interviews but now I am quite enthusiastic about them. I have two excellent, newly-tenured colleagues as a result. One oddity of the process is that if there is an internal candidate involved they must be interviewed by the same means to keep the process fair. It's a little weird to interview someone over the internet who is sitting in the next room! But my own limited experience is that Skype is very close to in-person interviews in most relevant aspects and absolutely superior to phone interviews.

    Reply
  7. Christopher Pynes

    Two frequently repeated comments about the Eastern APA strike me as not cogent: (i) the holiday/family time objection about the timing of the Eastern and (ii) the cost for job seekers. And claiming Skype is a sufficient replacement for the interview misses some of the other functions the professional meeting provides–I'll explain below.

    Let me first say that I am sympathetic to all the job seekers out there. Looking for a job (starting a career), no matter what field you are in, is expensive to the unemployed (or under employed) job candidate. This is just a function of looking for a job (starting a career), and it will be expensive no matter where you do it. When my wife was looking for a job in our prior city, it took months. She had to drive places, get new clothes, send out hundreds of resumes and applications. It costs a lot of money to get a professional job, which is different than applying for a job as a pizza delivery person. The only difference for philosophy candidates is that it comes all at once instead of over a three or six month period.

    As to the time of the Eastern APA. I think it is just fine. Academics who complain about family time and the Christmas holiday need to talk to their friends who don't live on the academic calendar. Most people go back to work during the week we go to the Eastern APA, and work far closer to Christmas than academics who's semesters end in the middle of December. Academics have more time for family than just about any other working group. Semesters are 17 weeks including finals. Quarters are 11 weeks including finals. That's 34 and 33 weeks a year we have to *work* or be on campus. Subtract that from 52 and you get 18 or 19 weeks of time you can schedule as you wish. That's more than 4 months of family time. I am just not convinced that family time is even close to a problem for the Eastern APA if you compare us with the rest of the working world. I was more sympathetic to the religious objections to the Pacific, but only just barely.

    As for the Skype suggestion. Not a bad idea. But the professional meeting allows people to meet each other. They allow graduate students to see how good their competition really is, and go to some talks and get intellectually energized. You can meet people and learn how to be a professional academic. You will have access to publishers. You won't learn these things sitting in your one-room apartment waiting for the Skype interview. You need to get out there and learn how to deal with stress and other people. This is part of your professional development. You will have to meet people and deal with them for the rest of your professional career. These meetings are a lot more for job seekers than just the interviews, and those who think of it as more than that will, I am willing to bet, become successful.

    So, yes getting a professional career started is expensive and stressful. The issue is: is it too much in philosophy relative to other careers? I don't really think so. Is the Eastern APA timing bad? Other than one bad storm in a long time, I don't think so, and I am willing to bet that the market goes on like this for a long time. And Skype might work for interviewing, but the professional meeting has a greater function for job seekers than just the interview. Plus, there is something nice about actually meeting people. I am sure I will have irritated someone with these comments. I'm ready; go ahead and start yelling at me.

    Good luck job seekers and those of you stuck in Boston.

    Reply
  8. Tim Schroeder

    I'd like to re-emphasize an earlier point: hiring committees place enormous financial burdens on those least able to afford it by requiring candidates to come to the Eastern APA. If Skype is close to as good as in-person interviews, then overall the reasons to favor Skype over in-person interviews become enormous.

    I'd like to see the APA announce that it will no longer do anything (such as book ballrooms at hotels) to support in-person interviews at any APA conference, and also put out a helpful "best practices" guideline on how to shift to video interviews, appropriate etiquette for the clueless, etc.

    Reply
  9. R. M. Farley

    I think Pynes' comparison between philosophy-job-seeking and other-professional-job-seeking is not terribly apt.

    Given the new technological resources available to us, we, as a profession, could make the job search less burdensome. As the author of the initial message notes, the only thing that seems to be holding us back is adherence to tradition. That other professional job searchers accrue similar burdens is not a good reason for perpetuating avoidable harms in *our* profession. Who cares what bankers, marketing directors, or insurance agents do?

    Reply
  10. Jeff H

    @ Christopher Pynes: Even granting that there are, unavoidably, considerable expenses involved in getting a professional job, I fail to see how that justifies the current process. It's one thing to claim this *is* true, and quite another to claim it *should* be. If you're only making the former claim, the argument seems like a non sequitur to me. If anything, this seems like a reason *not* to needlessly exacerbate these expenses – say, by holding the relevant conference in some of the most expensive cities in the country, at one of the most expensive times of year to travel. I simply don't see how that claim gives you any sort of argument against moving the interviews online (or failing that, at least to a different region and a different time of year).

    And of course, if you're making the latter claim – that it *should* be very costly to get a professional job, that this expense is somehow a good thing – I'd like to see some justification for that, because I don't see what, besides an elitism you surely aren't actually advocating, could possibly be the thought behind that.

    Somewhat similar arguments apply to the matter of family time. Even if it were true that we have it better than those in many other professions, this would not be a reason for avoidably worsening matters. But, when applied to typical graduate students, adjuncts, and untenured academics, the claim that we have it better is obviously false.

    The comparisons to other professions would only be to the point if, as is typically true in those professions, we could live and work in a city of our choosing. A doctor or lawyer may not get as much time off work as we do, but can knock off work and visit his or her family and friends any day of the week. That is simply not an option for a graduate student in a city 1500 miles from those people. A few weeks with those people around Christmas are a welcome break from homesickness and I'd much rather cancel a couple of classes than cut that short, if those are the choices. (Of course, with the Skype suggestion, we wouldn't even have to face that dilemma.)

    Reply
  11. Parezcoydigo

    The efficacy of Skype as a free and easy to use platform for interviewing candidates should increase with the reason of its next version, which will allow multiple accounts to call in with video. The search committee won't have to be crowded around a table.

    I would also note that the financial burdens of starting a career in the humanities do not begin with the singular event of interviewing at a major yearly conference. They began many years earlier during the apprenticeship of underpaid assistantships, and maybe adjuncting. Forward thinking departments would do well to tune in and make available a computer their candidates know is trustworthy for the skype experience. Finally, while I'm sure it would harm the finances of our professional associations, I think it would be transformative in a good way to make the annual meetings about scholarly exchange, and not job desperation.

    Reply
  12. P.D.

    I suspect that Skype interviews would be a good alternative to APA interviews, but I think that people protest too much to the present system. It is, in a lot of ways, rational and successful. There are many academic disciplines which do not have a single, central meeting for the job market and in which candidates can be forced to pay for more than one conference trip. Moreover, APA interviews force the philosophy job cycle to follow a standard calender. The period between Christmas and New Years is actually ideal, since it works both for institutions with Fall terms that run late and Spring terms that start early.

    APA interviews are definitely stressful and expensive, and they entail the carbon footprint of flying everyone to the APA. Yet they have the advantaged of being a central standard, and it would be a shame for what replaces them just to be a mishmash of alternatives.

    Reply
  13. Rebecca Kukla

    I'm totally convinced that IF we are going to do initial interviews at all (as opposed to just cutting straight to the on-campus interview, which I think might be the best plan), then skype is the way to go. Many excellent arguments have already been given.

    Here's one that hasn't been mentioned; there's a gender issue here. Some time earlier this term there was an interesting and lively thread on this blog about interviewing in hotel rooms and its differential impact on women, and there was much talk about how neither hotel rooms nor tables in noisy ballrooms were ideal, how suites were too expensive, etc. Skype interviews completely eliminate that whole hornet's nest. (I'm assuming no department is going to turn the webcam on the faculty lounging about semi-clad in someone's bedroom.) This seems to me to be a pretty big advantage.

    And here's another, perhaps more contentious gender consideration: There are lots of good reasons to think that women have it harder during interviews when it comes to appearance and self-presentation. We know that women get judged by their body type more than men do. At the same time, many people have suggested that women have no really good interview clothing options – we don't have a stock professional uniform like men do. It's really easy for women to come off as too femme, too dressy, too butch, too casual, too sexy, too dowdy, etc. during an interview.

    In a skype interview, you only see someone's head and maybe their upper torso, typically. You have way less sense of their general body shape, and you don't really have much of a sense of their style. It's really not too hard to look neutrally professional from the shoulders up! Of course, at the on-campus stage, women will show up with their whole, clothed bodies on display. But then there is much more information to go on. These initial interviews are all about quick first impressions, which is just where we would expect there to be problems of the sort I am pointing towards.

    The more I think about it, the more I find the idea of women might be interviewed without anyone really having a sense of their style or body shape totally exciting and liberating. And no more stupid uncomfortable, expensive interview shoes in the middle of winter! Woo-hoo! I know this sounds frivolous, but I suspect it may make a real difference to the fairness with which female candidates are assessed.

    And look, these things may not be as big of an issue for men, but surely it is all to the good if there is less potential for one's judgments about ANY candidate to be biased by impressions of their style, height, fitness level, etc. And surely men don't especially love having to sit on someone's bed or in a noisy ballroom for their interviews either.

    Reply
  14. Maureen Eckert

    It seems to me that, as Parezcoydigo notes, making the annual meeting about scholarly exchange–not job desperation–might not only be transformative but also better suited to Christopher Pynes' view about the professional purposes of attending such meetings. The only APA meetings in which I truly made the most of the meetings (attending sessions, meeting publishers and editors, networking and leaving the experience *energized*) were those I attended when I was *not* on the job market.

    However, given the intense professionalization at large among graduate students presently– the amount of publishing and conferencing necessary prior to going on the market in order to make the cut as candidates in job searches–it seems very unclear that the Eastern APA does serve as a fundamental introduction to the profession anymore in the way Pynes suggests. I agree very much with the idea that graduate students need to experience all the aspects of the profession Pynes discusses, yet, at this point, even my undergraduate students are far more familiar with professionalization (and, arguably, overly concerned with it) than I was as an undergrad. (They're probably reading this right now!)

    Businesses are utilizing Skype for job interviews increasingly (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1930838,00.html), and I see no reason that Skype cannot work for us just as well.

    Reply
  15. Young Philosopher

    @ Christopher Pynes:

    First, I would like to point out that your response to the "unnecessary financial burden" objection isn't cogent for the reasons already mentioned by R.M. Farley and Jeff H. That seeking a job in other professions is costly is irrelevant when it comes to whether it is justifiable that our profession, the purported lovers of wisdom, intentionally yet needlessly makes our own job market unnecessarily financially, environmentally, psychologically, and socially costly by forcing candidates to attend the Eastern APA. Even if it were normal for people to spend hundreds/thousands of dollars to find a job–which, I might add, I think is itself a spurious claim–that wouldn't justify holding the APA in some of the most expensive cities in the country in the middle of the most expensive holiday season for travel. Moreover, your own example makes it clear that you are comparing apples and oranges. After all, your wife, like most job seekers, presumably had the ability, however trying and time consuming, to look for a job locally. Are we really to believe that local job seekers spend so much on gas, resumes, and business attire that their expenses are comparable to graduate students who have to travel from California to Boston (in addition to having to spend money on gas, resumes, and business attire)? In short, you are simply wrong that the only difference between the financial burden placed on job candidates in philosophy and candidates in other non-pizza related fields is that we must take the financial hit all at once. Now, our own candidates’ trials and tribulations are much like those of other academic fields—but those fields have the good sense to not have their meetings between Christmas and New Year's. But that is a story for another day.

    Second, and relatedly, I want to respond to your claims about the values of attending the APA that would be lost if job candidates were not forced to take winter vacations in Boston and New York in the dwindling and likely to be unfulfilled hopes of getting a job. On your view, part of the value of having the job market at the Eastern APA is that it allows people to meet one another, size up the competition, meet publishers, etc. While you are clearly correct that these are valuable things one can experience at the Eastern APA, these are things people can also experience by simply attending graduate student conferences, professional conferences, perusing philosophy department web pages to see the CVs of their graduate student peers, etc. That these are important experiences speaks for attending conferences more generally. However, these reasons provide no support whatsoever when it comes to the topic under discussion—namely, whether the first round of interviews ought to be conducted at what everyone admits is an otherwise interesting and important conference people should voluntarily attend if they have the money, time, and desire. No one is suggesting we should simply conduct philosophy by Skype and blogging and dispense entirely with live conferences. People are suggesting we use Skype to decouple two distinct enterprises that need not and should not be conjoined—namely, the job market and the APA. The only reason they are conjoined is because it was necessary long ago. But technology has undermined this necessity and unless and until better arguments are provided by you and others, we should do our part to act as if we are living in the 21st century rather than the 1950s (however grand things may have been back then).

    Third, and finally, while I find it a bit galling that you would publicly announce that the timing and costs of the costly Eastern-APA-job-market-palooza are “just fine” during (a) this job market, (b) this winter storm, and (c), this economic recession, I don’t think your remarks on this front are relevant to the original post. The original post was trying to shift the burden to those who think the first round of interviews for the philosophy job market should be coupled with the Eastern APA. As far as I can tell, nothing you say directly meets this burden. Instead, while you make several observations that provide some support for both keeping the Eastern APA at its present time and attending the Eastern APA for the experiences it provides, you provided no reasons whatsoever for forcing people to go to the APA for interviews when Skype is a free alternative that provides all of the benefits that have already been mentioned while imposing none of the costs of the current system you laud.

    @ P.D. The original post didn't propose replacing the Eastern APA job market with some loosely defined "mishmash of alternatives." It made a very specific proposal–namely, any and every hiring department should conduct first round interviews with Skype rather than forcing candidates, hiring committees, hiring departments, and hiring universities to continue to pay the costs of the Eastern APA job market. Given that you "suspect Skype would be a good alternative," I don't really understand what you were getting at with the rest of your remarks. Seems to me like you, too, should be on board. If not, why not?

    Reply
  16. Anonymous Job Seeker

    I'm on the market this year, not for the first time, and I've noticed that there is already a noticeable increase in the number of departments interviewing by alternate means (Skype, or requesting additional materials, or simply skipping to campus visits) over years past. Of course, I'm in no position to debate the usefulness of one method over the other for the hiring department. (As for me, I don't like interviewing by Skype, but I hate going to the APA even more.)

    There is, however, one thing that deserves mention. Without APA interviews, hiring timetables are all over the map. Some schools will likely be ready to make an offer in February, when other schools are just beginning to review applications. Other schools have made offers prior to the APA. At least when everyone went to the APA, there was some reasonable uniformity to the process. The danger here is that a candidate might be forced into a disadvantageous decision, and that's far more exploitative and damaging in the long term than forcing them to attend the APA.

    If the profession does move toward a Skype-standard for interviews, the timetable of the APA should still be (somehow) enforced.

    Reply
  17. Lisa Shapiro

    I find the enthusiasm for interviewing with Skype somewhat peculiar. My own experience interviewing job applicants with Skype was not bad, but I wouldn't say it was without issue. For one, there is always the threat of technical problems, and there need to be backup plans in place in case video or sound cuts out (which it can). In recent weeks Skype has had some problems, enough for some to speculate about whether the service will remain viable in a competitive environment. Of course, there is the google equivalent and other services, but the future is likely to make these either riddled with ads or a pay service. Second, while the interviewers do get a decent view of the applicant from the mid torso up, it is not clear that the applicant has it so easy. In discussing their experience of their Skype interviews with successful interviewees, I learned that they actually didn't have a very useful picture of the group doing the interview (there were 4 of us huddled at the end of the table). Many departments do like to have interviews with a substantial number of people (more than 2 or 3) and the larger the group doing the interviewing the harder it is to ensure that the conditions are such that the candidate can perform well. This sort of problem may be solvable if a real conference call capability gets built in, but my understanding is that that sort of capacity is not yet widely available, or at least affordable. Finally, part of the function of an interview, and the APA itself, is recruiting. It is hard for me to see how a Skype interview provides an opportunity for the kind of recruiting that does go on between departments and their favored candidates. Face to face interviews are not all bad, and there is all kinds of information that you get in person that you cannot get through a computer screen (smell and comportment come to mind, perhaps even responses to stressful situations) and while I am not sure that the benefits of a face to face interview outweigh the costs, I do think that it is a real mistake to rely to heavily on virtual human interactions.

    Reply
  18. Julia

    I am a graduate student in my fourth year and I think it is not true that the Eastern APA plays a major role in helping graduate students get into the profession, meet other people, etc. Me and most of my fellow students attend several conferences every year do do that, but NOT the Eastern APA, for the obvious reasons: inconvenient timing, expensive to travel to, etc. Interviewing on Skype is the way to go!

    Reply
  19. Gabriele Contessa

    Like many Canadian departments, my department doesn't conduct first-round interviews at the APA. We only invite shortlisted candidates on campus. I don't think anyone involved has ever thought that we or the candidates are the worse off for that. In fact, candidates seem to be happy with this arrangement (personally, I was when I was on the other side of the interviewing table) and so are we. Frankly, I really don't think that the benefits of conducting pre-interviews at the APA (whatever they might be) outweigh the costs.

    I don't know if anyone mentioned this already but let me also add that some job seekers have to make special arrangements when traveling to attend interviews (believe it or not, among them, there are single parents and parents of children with all sorts of special needs just to make just two examples). Of course, this is a small price to pay for the opportunity to land a job, but conducting first-round interviews via Skype would make their lives much easier.

    Reply
  20. L. A. Paul

    I use ichat and skype regularly, but I think they are a distant second-best option for in-person interviews. The network connection can be unreliable. The interactions and body-language issues are nontrivial. You have to look at the camera when you talk to the person on the screen or you will seem to be staring at the wrong spot when you reply. It is difficult to have more than a couple of people doing the interviewing, since it is hard to get them all in the screen and, unless the screen is turned when each one speaks (which adds its own difficulties), they won't be front and center when they are speaking. Etc.

    This does not mean we should have APA interviews: we should abolish them. I think the main reason departments have them is that it makes hard decisions easier. In my view, this is not a good enough reason: they are an enormous waste of money and time for everyone, and many job candidates feel like they are undergoing some sort of hazing ritual (this by itself is reason to stop the practice).

    Reply
  21. Ruth Sample

    I agree that the Eastern APA interviews are, given the existence of Skype, little more than expensive hazing. It is true that the those on the job market should have some conference experience, but interviewing at the E-APA isn't going to be a very good introduction to it. Also, many candidates have probably been to a conference or two before if they are at the point of being interviewed. I also agree with Rebecca that this would be more comfortable for women, although some of the same problems arise at the on-campus interview level. One other advantage is that people who have the cold or flu can do their interviews without making themselves completely exhausted. I know this may not seem like a huge problem, but I had twelve APA interviews while I had a very bad cold. I completed them on serious amounts of Nyquil, but it would have been better had I been able to stay at home and rest inbetween them. The air travel wasn't good for me–or for anyone I infected. (The interviewers were very understanding, but nevertheless.)

    I say this just having missed the APA because of a strep infection with a fever etc.. Given my condition over the last 3 days, I wouldn't have been able to do a Skype interview, let alone a face-to-face hotel interview. But Skype can be rescheduled.

    Reply
  22. 2010 Job Seeker

    While it's not like the APA is at all receptive to our comments (I mean how long have we all been complaining about the website, about various arbitrary and expensive APA policies, and about the Eastern), I'll go ahead and chime in with one more issue. Before I get there, though, I want to just agree with all of the points raised thus far. Interviewing at the Eastern is totally unnecessary, and (primarily) a huge financial burden on everyone (not to mention the other points like being needlessly stressful and not at all superior to Skype interviews–I mean, the ballroom? Come on!).

    One reason that I suspect this will not change any time soon is because the APA itself now has a monstrous bureaucracy, whose purpose seems to be, well, to support itself. I don't see the APA downsizing (and not interviewing at the APA would suggest either doing this or their employees suddenly gaining skills like website design, proper customer service, and so forth).

    Reply
  23. Young Philosopher

    So we now have several reasons on the table for sticking with the current system of interviewing at the APA rather than using Skype (Option 1) and several for switching to Skype (Option 2). There have been several comments about the non-job market value as well as the timing of the Eastern APA, but since these aren't relevant to the issue at hand, I am going to set them aside. So, first, here are the grounds given in support of Option 1:

    (a) Skype won't enable committees to determine whether candidates smell funny or badly;(b)Skype won't give committees as much insight into candidates' real world rather than mere cyber comportment; (c) Skype interviewed candidates are not stressed out enough to give hiring committees a good enough read on how well the candidates handle stress–which we all know is a key element of being an academic philosopher;(d) Skype won't allow the back room good ol' boy networking to take place as readily as the Eastern APA; (e) Skype can sometimes lead to technical difficulties; (f) Skype makes it more difficult for search committees to include more interviewers in the process, (g) if everyone switched to Skype, it would create chaos when it comes to the time-line of the job market, and (f) sometimes Skype will lead to awkward situations if internal candidates are involved.

    Here are the grounds that have been given in support of Option 2:

    (a) they are free for both the departments and the candidates (who often don’t have the money to attend conferences over the holidays in some of the country’s most expensive cities), (b) they are markedly less stressful for the candidates, who are able to do the interviews from the comfort of their homes or offices rather than having to navigate the stress-filled ballrooms, lobbies, hallways, and suites of hotels, (c) they enable both candidates and hiring committees to spend time with their families over the holidays rather than braving the cold and expense of compulsory mid-holiday “vacations” in the north east, (d) they can be scheduled much more flexibly, which not only benefits candidates but also makes it less stressful for the hiring committees themselves, (e) they minimize stress and fatigue as factors that influence hiring decisions by ensuring that candidates and search committees are much more at ease than they would otherwise be, (f) they save money for the departments so that departments have more funding to bring additional candidates to campus, (g) they make it possible for departments to spread out their interviews over a few weeks, making it possible for them to actually interview more candidates under more favorable conditions, and finally, (h) they send a welcomed message to candidates that the hiring department has the good practical and moral sense to set aside the irrational practices of tradition and embrace new methods and ideas that make life easier on everyone involved; (i) they greatly reduce our profession's carbon footprint; (j) they minimize the gender-related issues raised by Kukla and others; and (k) they make the job market less punishing and burdensome on single parents and the parents of special needs children.

    For my part, it is hard for me to compare these two lists and take the debate about Option 1 and Option 2 seriously since it seems clear to me that the evidence favoring Option 2 is simply overwhelming. But since the worry about technical difficulties and the awkwardness of the Skype interaction when several people are involved has been raised several times and since it is a legitimate worry (even if I don't think it is sufficient to outweigh the reasons given for decoupling the first round interviews from the Eastern APA), I just wanted to point out that there is an obvious solution to one of the recurring themes in this thread–namely, that it is awkward for applicants and committee members when the committee is huddled around a single web cam. In short, Skype is already offering a beta version of Group Conferencing, which would allow several people to log on at once. This is a feature I have used in the past with the now-defunct Marratech (which was purchased and is being redesigned by Google). Each individual has his own "box" on the screen and users can arrange the boxes as they see fit. I have also used the admittedly expensive service offered by Adobe–namely, Adobe Connect. It is simply amazing. And while it is expensive, it would still be cheaper than flying committee members to New York or Boston. Moreover, some universities already subscribe to the service–especially the business and law schools. Now, none of these solutions eliminate the problems raised by Shapiro and Paul mentioned above–namely, that network connections can be an issue. But I simply don't find this concern compelling when considered in light of the myriad reasons that speak against relying on the Eastern APA as the vehicle for conducting first round interviews. Another problem highlighted above with switching to Skype that merits closer attention is that it creates a time-line/coordination problem. On the one hand, I think this might be a good thing since it would mean committee members wouldn't be under such a serious time constraint when reviewing applications. On the other hand, departments could try to use this to their advantage to leverage candidates earlier and earlier in the year. This is a real worry. It seems to me the solution is for the APA to release a formal "best policies" document for video-interviewing that specifies that these interviews should occur within a specified time frame–e.g., between November and February. This wouldn't ensure that all departments play by the rules, but that's the case with the present rules in place for APA interviews.

    In short, while there are several legitimate issues that would collectively need to be addressed if our profession decided to make the switch to video-interviewing for the first round of the job market, I think they both can and should be addressed since I think the arguments for the switch are compelling. The real question is how to nudge everyone in the right direction. Here's a suggestion: The graduate students and faculty at the top PhD granting philosophy institutions–e.g., the departments listed in the PGR–can collectively and formally agree that their graduate students will not participate in APA interviews. With no top candidates to be interviewed at the Eastern APA, departments will simply be forced to switch to video-interviewing at the APA. Another possibility is trying to convince the Eastern APA to discontinue the facilitation of the job market. But since this affects their bottom-line, I don't have much confidence that they could be persuaded to go this route even if doing so would, as Parezcoydigo notes, have the added virtue of being "transformative in a good way to make the annual meetings about scholarly exchange, and not job desperation." Finally, someone could start an on-line petition which would allow philosophy departments to publicly commit to switching to video-interviews for the first round of the job market. If people think this latter strategy might be helpful in breaking the inertia of tradition, just say so in this thread and I will create the webpage! Like I said before, who's with me?!

    p.s. I do not mean to suggest that any of the people who raised the worries I give in support of Option 1 actually support Option 1. For instance, Paul raised the network connection concern but nevertheless thinks we should get rid of APA interviews. Similarly, White raised the concern about internal candidates even though he, too, favors Option 2 over Option 1. My goal was merely to compile any of the possible concerns that had been raised about Skype that could be used in an argument to support Option 1.

    Reply
  24. john doris

    Tim's argument about costs and benefits seems exactly right, and generalizes beyond a comparison of convention interviews and Skype:

    The practice of convention interviews places unquestionably large burdens on job seekers (and perhaps also on hiring departments). To justify these burdens, the practice must be shown to (1) have unquestionably large benefits to hiring departments (and perhaps also to the most burdened parties, the job seekers). Further, it must be shown that these unquestionably large benefits (2) cannot be realized in other, less costly, ways. Neither (1) nor (2) has been demonstrated. If (1) and (2) cannot be demonstrated, the practice of convention interviews is morally and prudentially suspect, and should be abolished.

    The existence of Skype as a plausibly comparable alternative raises the burden of proof for the "traditionalist" claiming large and singularly realizable benefits for convention interviews. Of course, widespread transition from the convention model will requite technological and cultural changes that will engender glitches. The events of this week indicate that the traditional approach is also subject to glitches.

    –doris

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  25. Anonymous Graduate Student

    A few additional thoughts:

    -Even if Skype interviews are imperfect, let's not forget that it's just the initial interview to assist in deciding whom to fly out. There's still the intensive, fly-out interview where candidates can be fully observed (smelled, etc.) in person.

    -Might the abolishment of the APA interviews be a positive thing for the APA itself? I have no doubt that much organizational energy is expended orchestrating this massive event each year. Might doing away with it free them up to work on other pressing needs of the profession? (Is the APA making a profit from the event?)

    -As one who plans to go on the job market next year, I am *extremely pleased* by this discussion and the prospect of not having the dreaded APA experience. It just sounds horrible, frankly, and stresses me out just to think about it.

    -To add one more response to the Pynes' point about the benefits of meeting people and networking at the APA: the APA meetings and hundreds of other conference opportunities are still there!

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  26. Roberta Millstein

    For those who are worried that switching to Skype interviews will lead to interviews at different times of the year, or universities holding earlier and earlier interviews: The genie is already out of the bottle. There is nothing to stop universities from doing Skype interviews now (and some have already done so), and there is nothing to prevent more universities from doing so in the future. Indeed, it's not clear to me that this is, or needs to be, an APA decision at all. If more universities recognized the value of switching to Skype or similar technology (as people above have articulated well already, so I won't repeat their arguments), the in-person interviews at the APA Eastern would die their own natural death.

    I suppose there is a worry that we create an even harder decision for applicants if only a few holdouts were doing APA Eastern interviews. But again, I'm not sure how we prevent that. Universities are at liberty to hold their first round interviews on the phone, over Skype, in person, or not at all.

    Instead, I am hopeful that we come to agreement about some sort of "best practices," as has been suggested above, and end the frustration and expense of APA Eastern interviews.

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  27. another anonymous job seeker

    We've had several people report on the experience of being on an SC using Skype, but fewer reporting on the experience of being a candidate using Skype. I'm one of the latter, so let me register a mildly dissenting voice.

    The basic problem with Skype is one others have noted above – in its current incarnation, it permits only one camera on each side. So the SC sees a job candidate taking up the whole screen, while the candidate sees an entire committee, spread out around a conference table. This produces some awkward distortions for the candidate.

    At my Skype interview, two of the interviewers weren't even on camera. When they asked questions they would lean in sideways, but otherwise I couldn't see them at all, and so had no information (e.g. facial expression) about how they might be responding to my answers. As for the other interviewers, their faces appeared so small on screen that I was never really sure just what expressions they were showing.

    As others have mentioned, there is the oddity of eye contact – you only appear to make eye contact if you stare directly into the camera, but then you can't see what anyone is doing on screen. Audio is also a problem. At one point while I was talking someone laughed, but I couldn't figure out who it was, or even if it was a friendly or dismissive laugh.

    A lot of these things aren't big problems, so long as the SC appreciates their existence. But I worry a bit about the asymmetry of the experience – since the SC sees only one large, clearly detailed face with unambiguous audio, for them the experience feels not too different from being in the same room with the candidate. In that (perhaps unconscious) context, it's easy to erroneously attribute oddities of the candidate's behavior to the candidate, rather than to the peculiar distortions of the medium. (Note that, in this regard, Skype is actually worse than ordinary telephone conferencing.)

    Of course, there are tricks a candidate can employ to get around at least some of these problems. But not everyone will be equally aware of these tricks, or able to master them. And then we've just added 'ability to work around the eccentricities of Skype' as a central prerequisite for getting a job in philosophy – which (arguably unlike the skills of a face-to-face interview) bears no relation to the job itself.

    For everything I've said, I'm still inclined to agree with the central point of this thread. Skype has problems, but the APA interview format has far worse problems. If the choice must be between these two, Skype interviews are preferable. It would be good, however, if all SC members had some practice being on the other side of a group Skype session, to get a feel for the abnormality of the candidate's experience. And hopefully the next version of Skype (or another program) addresses some of these problems.

    Reply
  28. Lisa Shapiro

    The very helpful remarks from another anonymous job seeks (@11:55am) were precisely the sorts of worries that the candidates we interviewed through Skype (and hired) expressed. And I think our SC was trying to be attentive to the potential issues with the technology. I might add that inability to determine who is laughing, not being able to discriminate facial expressions, these kinds of things can actually really change the quality of an interview and so distort information. While I don't want to be read as implicitly defending APA interviews (my department doesn't do them for cost-related reasons), I don't think Skype interviews are the quick fix that at least some seem to assume they are. They are far from problem free.

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  29. Mike Valdman

    The most important reason against moving to Skype is getting insufficient attention. If interviews were conducted over Skype, the APA would be cut out of the loop. And without the APA playing central broker, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to force departments to honor the standard timetable. It would take only a few prominent defectors before other departments felt compelled to interview before the holidays, and then again before that. Job seeking would be chaotic, and candidates would be significantly disadvantaged. They would be forced to accept or decline offers even before having conducted all their first round interviews. All this might happen anyway, but I think this outcome is far more likely if the APA is cut out of the process.

    Despite all that, I'm not opposed to Skype interviews. But I think we need to think seriously about how to keep departments on the straight and narrow. If there is no mechanism for doing so, I'd grudgingly endorse the current system.

    Reply
  30. A totally different anonymous job seeker from the previous one

    I was one of the candidates who had to rely on the good graces of interviewing departments to set up skype interviews this year. Neither of my skype sessions seemed to work terribly well. The first was a three-way call through Skype and it was often impossible to hear what the questions were. For a good three minutes, it sounded like someone was flushing a very loud toilet. Still, I could eventually work out what the questions were and they could work out what my answers were. We gave up on the second skype interview after multiple disconnections and went to a conference call. In spite of these difficulties, it seems that the skype interview is at worst as bad as a conference call. At best, it is nearly indistinguishable from a face to face interview. My skype sessions were as bad as they could get, but they still seemed good enough as initial screening interviews. At least, that was my impression and the impression of some members of one of the committees. (Haven't heard from the other committee, so I can't speak for them.)

    It's hard to believe that there's information lost in these exchanges that would justify requiring candidates to pay the traditional interview at the Eastern. Not to pick on commentators up-thread, but I think I can say that there's some very poor practical reasoning being offered in support of the traditional interview. We never know ahead of time whether the skype interview will be as bad as a conference call or nearly as good as a face to face interview. If the former, the benefits still outweigh the costs to all parties. If the latter, the benefits still outweigh the costs to all parties. This sort of argument for moving away from the traditional format is not defeated by the additional consideration that people outside of philosophy are foolish enough to cleave to a model on which candidates are required to fork out vast sums of money to make it to a face to face interview.

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  31. Tina Shoebb

    A couple of practical points on how to improve the quality of Skype interviews (particularly given the problems raised by AAJS).

    1) I’ve been at a conference where one of the speakers appeared via skype. His picture was projected onto a screen so he was large enough for the room to see. If similar technology could be used by the candidate (hopefully lent to them by their department) then having the large screen would enable the search committee to be seen in sufficient detail. Alternatively, getting the picture up on a large TV screen would also be a big improvement over a laptop screen.
    2) The sound quality was not good though, because the conference organisers used ten or twenty dollar plastic computer speakers. The speaker’s voice came over as tinny, unattractive and less expressive than usual (in real life he has a pleasant voice). This would doubtless affect the interviewer’s judgement. Moreover, some voices will be affected worse than others. For example, women’s voices, tending to be higher pitched, would probably come across worse; someone with a loud laugh, like me, would come across as raucous, and so on. Given all the money that departments would be saving by Skype interviewing, they should invest a couple of hundred dollars in decent hifi quality amp and speakers.

    That said, I do think even the best Skype interviews are nothing like as good as face to face interviews. Watching a computer screen is not the same as being in the presence of a person. One of my strengths as a person, philosopher and teacher is building up a rapport with people. This is much more difficult over Skype than in the flesh, so I would be relatively disadvantaged by Skype interviews.

    However the Skype interviews only have to be *good enough* to confirm the shortlist. This raises the question of how much difference first round interviews really make. Do departments already have a pretty good idea of who will be on the short list, so it is only a bad interview which will get you kicked off the shortlist, or a great interview which will lever you on? Or are they really open minded, and largely making up their minds on the interview?

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  32. Young Philosopher

    Lisa,

    First and foremost, I just want to point out that I don't think anyone has suggested that Skype interviews are problem free. The issue is whether the problems associated with Skype are less burdensome than the one's associated with APA interviews. As Doris and others have pointed out, it seems pretty clear that Skype interviews are indeed far less problematic. So, the real focus should be on how to minimize the problems associated with the practice that nearly everyone seems to think is preferable to the one we currently utilize at great financial and psychological expense. In my earlier comment, I noted that video-conferencing software is not only improving, but the improvements allay the kinds of concerns you and others have raised. Skype's newly available Group Video Calling beta software is just one example. They have some information and a video posted here:

    http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/features/allfeatures/group-video-calls/

    Adobe Connect is yet another viable (albeit more costly) option. See here for details:

    http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html

    In both cases, each conference/interview participant would have a dedicated video image so that each person is front and center within their own frame. This greatly minimizes the sorts of issues you and others have raised. If someone laughs, I would be able to notice who it is, their expression, etc. So, if we're going to have a conversation about the problems associated with video-interviewing, I think we would do well not to focus on problems that can already be minimized with new and improved technologies. This is not to suggest that video-interviewing is some utopic solution. It's merely to suggest that given the costs associated with APA interviewing and given recent (and likely future) advances in video-conferencing technology, it is becomingly increasingly obvious to me and others that it is time for a change–a change your own department has already laudably made, I might add (so, kudos for that)! Keep in mind, my own positive experience with a recent video-interview prompted me to write Leiter about this issue in the first place. Indeed, it was clearly more positive than the 10+ traditional APA interviews I had back when I was on the market. That's partly why I committed to ensuring that when I serve on hiring committees in the future, I insist we utilize new technologies rather that outdated and very costly practices.

    Mike, I take it one way of minimizing the worry you and others have raised about time-lines and unfair leveraging of applicants, etc. is to continue with the practice of not running JFP ads until late fall so that schools don't have sufficient time to engage in underhanded practices. If candidates can't submit their dossiers until mid-to-late fall, it would be hard for departments to do interviews much earlier than December anyway–whether they use Skype or not. So, while I sympathize with the concern you raise, I don't think it is likely to be as problematic as you suggest. For instance, my own Skype interview was a week before the APA this year. And since they won't be making decisions about on-campus interviews until after the new year, I don't feel leveraged or disadvantaged in the least. Indeed, if anything, I feel blessed that I wasn't forced to attend the Eastern APA during a nasty winter storm!

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  33. Neal Tognazzini

    As someone who has been on both sides of a Skype interview, I am wholeheartedly in favor of them. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that there are better and worse ways of conducting a Skype interview. The way that we do things at William & Mary largely eliminates the worries that Lisa Shapiro and Another Anonymous Job Seeker (11:55am) note: our hiring committee sits around a round table and passes a laptop around from person to person, so that the candidate is only seeing "one large, clearly detailed face with unambiguous audio" at a time, but the laptop is plugged into a projector so that the members of the hiring committee who aren't currently holding the laptop can still see and hear both sides of the conversation.

    The only drawback to this way of doing things, so far as I can see, is that the interview feels less like a conversation with everyone involved, and more like a series of one-on-one conversations. I grant that this is less than ideal, but in the end I don't think it's that big of a deal. The candidates don't get to see how other members of the SC react to what they are saying, but then again, they also don't have to worry that an inadvertent yawn from someone off-screen means something deeper.

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  34. Franklin Frankly

    I'm warming up a bit to this newfangled Skype idea, but let me offer a couple of remarks in defense of the tradition.

    First, I acknowledge that when it comes to most of the activities that professional philosophers can expect to carry out, the Eastern APA does not provide much in the way of preparation. But there is one uniquely horrible professional experience that it does prepare one for, namely the Eastern APA itself. If the Eastern APA meeting goes by the wayside, how else will young supplicants learn to deal with the stress, fatigue, self-doubt, and undeserved humiliation they will surely face during the single most important professional event in their young lives — the Eastern APA? And how else will hiring departments ascertain how candidates will fare at that event?

    Secondly, I do think it's extremely important for departments to determine the precise scent of a candidate. It ought, for instance, to be beyond controversy that of two equally qualified candidates, the one that doesn't reek of paint thinner is a hands-down winner. I grant that the issue of candidate odor could be addressed in other ways — candidates could specify their scent and its usual strength on their CVs, and letters of recommendation could address the issue. ("My endorsement of Joe is unequivocal. His work on Leibniz is first-rate. He smells like shoe polish and peanut butter, on weekday afternoons at least. Finally, he's an inspiring teacher.") But I think departments are entitled to learn of such important matters by acquaintance.

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  35. 2010 Job Seeker

    Mike –

    Job seeking is *already* chaotic. So that's a moot point, really. The APA does nothing to keep departments on the "straight and narrow" — it's us who do (or don't do) it. You really think the APA has ever *stopped* a department from making an early offer? The APA is barely able to censure departments that don't conform to its own policies (e.g. anti-discrimination ones).

    Look, you have *candidates* (such as myself, but plenty of others on this thread) telling you that there is no reason to conduct interviews at the APA…why not listen to them instead of trying "grudgingly" to endorse the current system?

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  36. Rebecca Kukla

    On timetables: I agree that the standardized timetable is important. Right now the APA is still the arbiter of JFP. Why not just say that you can only list your job in JFP if you commit to a certain timetable that meets some APA no-earlier-than guidelines? This would actually enforce the timetable better than relying on fallout from dependence on the Eastern meeting. Who polices the reasonably standardized grad school admittance timetable? Maybe we should just do that, whatever that is.

    More generally: Honestly, I just don't get why we do initial interviews. I really don't. I've served on six or seven search committees. I can count on one hand the times that initial interview (be it at the APA or on the phone) has substantially changed my opinion about who deserves an on campus interview – i.e. who is among the 3 or 4 really top candidates. And, I think without exception, when my mind has been changed, I've changed it back again at the on-campus stage if there's been one. (I.e. people I wasn't that into on the basis of the file, who sparkled at the initial interview and got on-campus interviews, turned out to be not that great after all upon sustained contact.) I was speaking to another philosophy friend about this and he's had the same experience. I suspect that to whatever extent the initial interview makes a difference to a candidate's ranking (and it rarely does), it makes the ranking less rather than more reliable. I've never heard anyone give me a single good example of something you need to learn from an initial interview rather than an on-campus interview, nor a single good reason why search committees can't pick their top 3 or 4 candidates on the basis of the dossiers.

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  37. A grad who prefers anonymity

    Whatever the disadvantages of Skype interviews, don't they disadvantage candidates equally?

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  38. Steven Hales

    Rebecca– I have certainly changed my mind about the top 3 or 4 candidates on the basis of 1st round interviews. People I had at the top of my list turned out to be, in person, boring beyond belief, incomprehensible, arrogant, manifestly not suited by temperament or communication skills for our kind of university, etc. Yes, I could have learned those things with an on-campus interview. But I was glad we didn't waste a valuable on-campus slot on a nonstarter candidate. So I have to disagree about the relevance of initial interviews for final decision-making. My department is planning to use Skype interviews for our next hire, but we're all reserving judgment about its efficacy until then.

    Interviewing issues aside, Christopher Pynes is absolutely right about the collateral value of attending major professional conferences like the Eastern APA. Networking, meeting people, finding (and learning about) your niche in the field is vital for professional success, not only in philosophy. Those who refuse to (attempt to) network out of shyness, fear, or self-righteousness about the whole process, well, good luck to you.

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  39. Young Philosopher

    @ Steven Hales,

    You claim, "Networking, meeting people, finding (and learning about) your niche in the field is vital for professional success, not only in philosophy. Those who refuse to (attempt to) network out of shyness, fear, or self-righteousness about the whole process, well, good luck to you." As I and others have already pointed out, no one in this thread (or any other thread I know of) has suggested that there is no collateral value in attending the Eastern APA for job interviews. As has already been noted, there are ample benefits to be gleaned from attending conferences. The value of attending conferences–the Eastern APA or otherwise–is not the issue under discussion. The issue is whether the collateral value of being forced to attend the Eastern APA for interviews outweigh the collateral costs. So, I am puzzled by your suggestion that people don't want to be forced to go to the Eastern APA in order to seek gainful employment because they're shy, afraid, self-righteous, etc. Many don't want to go simply because it's unnecessarily burdensome financially and emotionally–especially given that there are less burdensome means of interviewing available. Conferencing is a great way to network, meet people, find your niche in the field, etc. No one is disputing that. Conferences are good–which is why no one is objecting to attending conferences per se. What people are questioning is the practicality of coupling conferencing with job marketing when it's unnecessary and outdated. The issue is collateral damage vs. collateral value. As such, what you and others need, as has been pointed out multiple times in this thread, is good grounds for thinking that the latter outweigh the former. As far as I can tell, this burden has simply not been met by you or anyone else.

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  40. Mike Otsuka

    I never found an APA interview a useful source of information regarding the merits of hiring a candidate. It provides too little opportunity to discuss the candidate’s work and philosophical thoughts at anything other than a superficial level. Given the artificiality and brevity of the interview format, it doesn’t even provide a very good sense of how good a teacher the candidate will be or what he or she is like as a person. If Skype interviews are conducted along the same lines as an APA interview, they’d inherit these flaws. If, however, departments that moved over to teleconferencing took advantage of the liberation from the constraints of the number of hours available for interviews at an APA, and turned these interviews into something more like a proper philosophical talk followed by discussion (i.e., more like an on campus job talk), perhaps followed by an APA-interview-like discussion of teaching, that would be an improvement – provided that the technology is there to support such extended teleconferencing.

    The one thing I did find useful about the Eastern APA (and I’m speaking in the past tense because I now teach in the UK) was the opportunity it provided to have more extended, one-on-one philosophical conversations, face to face, with the shortlisted job candidates at the mixers and at other opportune moments. These conversations approximate the sort of worthwhile philosophical exchanges one can have during the intervals between sessions at conferences, or during a reception following a colloquium. They involve ‘doing philosophy’ in the ordinary sense to a much greater extent than an APA interview. Of course, job candidates are stressed out and fatigued at the mixers, but I think they’re more like their ordinary selves in this setting than at an interview in a hotel suite. It’s more like the sort of thing they’re already familiar with from conferences and departmental colloquia.

    I grant that it is somewhat perverse to claim that the Eastern APA is justified by the mixers, and I’m not claiming that! But I think Skype evangelists upthread should acknowledge that the opportunity for face-to-face philosophical conversations of a fairly familiar sort with a greater number of job candidates than it’s feasible to fly out is something that will be lost if departments abandon the Eastern APA and move over to Skype. This will be a loss for good philosophers on the job market who are sharp and interesting in philosophical conversation.

    Granted one can have one-on-one philosophical conversations via Skype, or over the phone. But, for whatever reason, something significant is missing, when compared with a face-to-face meeting. (A rhetorical question for Skype evangelizing job candidates: Would you have been just as happy to have your meetings with the chair of your dissertation committee to discuss your work remotely by telephone or over Skype, rather than face to face?)

    I’m co-editing work with a colleague. We entertained the idea of discussing this over Skype or the phone when I was away for Christmas break. But we decided to wait until I was back in town. We met up earlier today to discuss things. The venue we chose was a hotel bar! Not so different from an APA, then, except for the dark wood panelling and the comfortable leather chairs, this being a more traditional London hotel than the normal APA meeting site.

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  41. Roberta Millstein

    It is absolutely true that budding philosophers need to attend major conferences for the reasons stated. The question is whether they would be get these experiences at the APA Eastern when they are interviewing. They might have better experiences at other conferences: APA Pacific, APA Central, or conferences that are more local or in their area of specialization. (These can still be "major" conferences, like the biennial PSA conference). Furthermore, they might have better professional experiences at the APA Eastern if they were not interviewing. Aside from the distractions of preparation, stress, etc., the interviews themselves take time away from attending sessions of interest, meeting people, etc. Finally, we shouldn't need to "force" people to go to the APA Eastern just to get these experiences. If they are truly interested in becoming academic philosophers, they will go to conferences anyway (and hopefully, their advisors are telling them this), and their CVs should reflect that participation.

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  42. Bennett Gilbert

    I am certainly not a young philosopher, but I am new to the academic profession of philosophy. This profession often defines itself by exclusion (of content or method) and in this country struggles to maintain itself in academic relevance, especially in its relations to other disciplines. A greatg many philosophers have dis-used the academic version and practice it in other fields or departments because of this. Why should academic philosophy deepen this problem by adding exclusions through monetizing and ritualizing the entry into humanities careers" in arbitrary, discriminatory, impractical and harmful ways. On this board I find little resistance to change in the APA interview system and mostly thoughtful discussion of ways to change it, but the resistance by some and the doddering behavior of the APA is headache-making.
    I gather that the purpose of the current system was to put the hiring process in philosophy on the same calendar for all departments. I imagine this was a difficult accomplishment and a beneficial one. But I do not know why the same problem does not affect geology and history and every other discipline, since more or less everyone is on the same academic calendar. Does the MLA hold its critical job market on 28 December in NY? Does everyone else? Does anyone else? If not, why not? What do other organizations of disciplinary professionals do to assist the academic job market? Surely there is some solution other than requiring everyone to show up in NYC and only NYC just before New Year's Eve and only then?

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  43. Steven Hales

    @ Young philosopher: in your enthusiasm to depict me as a staunch defender of the status quo, you may have overlooked my statement that "My department is planning to use Skype interviews for our next hire, but we're all reserving judgment about its efficacy until then." I did, however, appreciate your rebuttal that people are not shy or afraid to attend the conference, but instead the problem is its emotional burden.

    I don't deny the costs, economic and otherwise, of the tradition of interviewing at conferences. I think exploring other options has merit. That doesn't mean that Skype or any of the other proposed solutions is the holy grail; experimenting with various approaches is a good idea.

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  44. interviewed at the 2010 Eastern

    Suppose the job-market timeline stayed as it is presently, and suppose it became standard to use Skype for first-round interviews. Still, I think job candidates would feel compelled to go to the Eastern APA, for a chance at schmoozing potential employers who are in the midst of making hiring decisions. So I'm not convinced that Skype could save candidates the expenses of the Eastern APA.

    In addition, I'm not convinced that Skype interviews are normally less stressful for job candidates, as was suggested earlier. The difficulties in Skyping (not seeing all the interviewers or their body language, tech problems, etc.) could seriously disrupt the candidate's rhythm during the interview. And that would seem more problematic than the circumstances surrounding an APA interview.

    Having said all that, I'm slightly in favor of Skype interviews (assuming the job market timeline would be unaffected). The benefits to departmental budgets seem to trump other concerns. But let's be clear on which reasons are good reasons for Skype.

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  45. Longtime TT job seeker

    I was another one of those forced to reschedule interviews via Skype. My experiences were not nearly as smooth as Young Philosopher, but much better it sounds then Job Seeker 1:09 PM. I found the Skype interview (in theory) to be superior to past phone interviews for the reasons given by others above. And I think we need to encourage people to consider using videoconferencing (I'm not wedded to it being Skype) in place of phone interviews. However, the technical glitches can be maddening and it would be best if institutions of higher ed developed rooms dedicated to reliable videoconferencing on various platforms and made them available for interviews (and to adjuncts and even those who are in the area who were not able to score a job that year – it's a bit idealistic, but otherwise it does create an unfair situation for those who can't afford top of the line webcams and/or internet connections).

    Given that the economic climate has created more job candidates like myself, who hold visiting positions and may attend multiple APAs in one year over the course of several years in search of a TT job, it does seem that Skype should be an option open to job candidates (yearly trips to multiple APAs is financially draining even if you have a travel budget, as most schools will not cover trips if you are not presenting; and there are only so many Christmases, Easters, and New Years you can miss before the family takes offense). However, as others have enumerated there are clear effects on the decision-making process that occur at the APA outside the interview. We could institute some "understanding" about that (and when interviews and offers should occur), but, given the perceived scarcity of what is at stake, most candidates will feel pressured to go to forego the Skype option and go to the APA instead. It's the same logic which so many students use to justify cheating – nobody else will abide by these informal rules, so I will be a chump if I do so. And I don't see a ban on APA interviews as an option, because it would not stop people from interacting informally at the APA (nor would it stop a large number of candidates from heading to the APA in the hopes of informal contact). As long as APAs exist and job candidates continue to see the market as a war of all against all, the APA interviews will be the default equilibria for this coordination problem.

    Still, we should decouple the question of Skype vs. APA from Skype vs. Phone and recognize that more departments will feel economic pressure to forego the APA (without needing a ban to make it so). The move to Skype is already happening in the latter cases, but more should be done to encourage it and embrace it (and the development of equipment to make it as bug-free as possible).

    Technology is rapidly being created that lowers the cost on job seekers and SC, which I as someone who has been on the market for a while welcome. I do fear though that the one thing we aren't discussing is instituting a clear etiquette for these new technologies. It would have helped me to know of any established practices about how to handle Skype feed interruptions rather than to try and figure something out when it happens (or try and ignore the glitches as I did) which undoubtedly affects the energy of the interview. It also would help if we had some standard practices established for electronic dossier submissions. Some SC rely on jobs.edu upload programs, others have a dedicated email address and some use a faculty address. We take for granted that email works, but I learned (way too late) that my emails with attachments were being captured by spam filters (and not bounced back). I like using email as it cuts costs, removes the vagaries of postal and campus mail delivery, and if I use PDFs it guarantees that the documents arrive as I intended. And I don't want to further jam SC emailboxes with inquiries about receipt of materials. Perhaps there is an APA committee whose charge it is to address best practices in issues such as these and come up with some guidelines for conduct in electronic submission and Skype interviews. I know some standard practices will eventually arise through the same process as English Common Law did, but wouldn't it be better to get ahead of the curve before practices develop that might not be ideal (or ideal from some subset of all those involved). I'd rather not see another system of etiquette develop informally in the virtual world that resembles Smoker etiquette – i.e., some set of expectations that people are not equally aware of, esp. those who didn't go to the depts that taught those rules.

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  46. Matt Weiner

    To Tina Shoebb's suggestion that the candidate use a large screen preferably leant by their department, I think there'd be a danger that this could give an unfair advantage to candidates who are at departments that can lend them large screens. Some candidates may be teaching in temporary positions at departments that won't be directing resources to their job interviews.

    This is just a minor point; this year's fiasco is certainly bringing me around to the position that interviews at the Eastern are a bad idea. (Though I think the concerns about trying to enforce a uniform schedule are very serious; the suggestion that the APA make advertising in the JFP conditional on adhering to a schedule seems like a good one.)

    To Mike Otsuka, I always found the forced attempts to strike up conversation at the mixers the most horrible aspect of the APA Eastern. For one thing, they're so brutally unsystematic that I can't see how they provide any sort of fair comparison among candidates; there's no control over who may be at the department's table when you wander over, whether they're someone with whom you can easily strike up an extended conversation (yes, you ought to be able to engage people who work in other fields, but it's certainly easier to engage people who work in yours), whether they're eager to talk to you or whether you're interrupting a conversation with a friend they haven't seen for a year, whether you have to subtly cut out some other desperate job seeker or hover around their elbow — all this can affect whether a decent extended one-on-one conversation takes place. Not to mention how much stress these factors can put on the candidate.

    And the code of exactly what to do at the mixer can be impenetrable; someone once told my placement director that I hadn't been flown out for a visit partly because I hadn't visited that department's table, when I'd had a fifteen-minute conversation with someone from that department at a mixer. I think that the problem might have been that the conversation didn't take place at the table, or perhaps it was that it was at the mixer the night after my interview rather than the night of it, or maybe I just talked to the wrong person. I still don't know.

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  47. Future Job Applicant

    As a grad student who will be on the market in a couple years, I very much hope that interviews continue to be held at the APA. And as someone who routinely uses Skype to communicate with family and friends, I would prefer not to interview by that medium. I would gladly pay for an expensive cross-country trip during the holidays to have the opportunity to meet my interviewers in person.

    Presumably I am not alone in having such sentiments.

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  48. helen

    I've just had my first Skype interview, and for me it was a very positive experience. Apart from the eye contact thing, which is a bit unnerving, and the fact that the SC was obviously packed a bit too closely together to be comfortable. I found it an excellent opportunity to discuss my writing samples with the SC, who are all experts in my area of specialization. They had read my two papers in depth and I enjoyed our discussion.
    My earlier experiences in face-to-face interviews (mainly in Europe, where I am stationed) in fact included almost no in-depth philosophical discussion, and were mainly limited to practical matters (e.g., how will you combine research with teaching, how are you going to attract funding, etc.). While such factors are undoubtedly also play a part in the suitability of a candidate, philosophical competence is still I think the most crucial, at least for research-oriented schools. So I do not agree that face to face contact is essential for in-depth discussion.

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  49. Mike Otsuka

    Matt Weiner,

    I agree with you about the randomness and the awkwardness of mixers. But, without them, we're left with the happenstance of which job candidate happens to have had the opportunity to make a similar impression at some other conference or philosophical event that the job candidate and the member of the hiring department happen to have jointly attended. That seems even more arbitrary. (I would not, for example, have got my first tenure-track job were it not for the fact that someone in the department that ended up hiring me visited the university where I was a graduate student for a term and attended seminars that I was attending.) Opportunities for job candidates to make an impression are made somewhat less unequal than they would otherwise be by the mixers.

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  50. David Velleman

    @Mike Otsuka: I have advised a dissertation over video-chat and found that method to be more productive than in-person meetings. Although video chat does not allow for eye contact, it does allow for conversation that is genuinely face-to-face, whereas parties to an in-person meeting in a faculty office rarely face one another directly. In video chat, the parties focus on one another more consistently, and see one another's facial expressions more clearly, than when speaking in person.

    Of course, this feature of video chat won't help when one side of the conversation is occupied by several people sitting around a table, but multi-party video-chat will soon solve that problem.

    Another advantage of video-chat interviews. At the APA, hiring departments cannot readily modify their interviewing strategy as the process unfolds. It's difficult, for example, to schedule interviews with additional candidates if the initial interviews are disappointing. It's difficult to hold a meeting in order to decide whether to conduct additional interviews, or to modify the direction of the search.

    Also. At the APA, who attends an interview on the hiring side often depends on who is participating in a session at the same time, who was able to attend the meetings, who arrived at the meetings late or had to leave early, and so on. Video-chat interviews can be scheduled when all of the relevant members of the hiring department are available. The makeup of the interviewing committee may change from one interview to another, but it can change on the basis of expertise and interest rather than random factors.

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