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Members of Search Committees: What do you actually do in reviewing files?

Brian Leiter

Philosopher Charles Pigden (Otago) suggested a thread on this topic would be useful, both to other philosophers on search committees and to job candidates.  He suggested addressing such questions as:  "What are the criteria that search committees employ and what traits are they looking for (or at least what traits do they suppose themselves to be looking for) when making junior hires?"  Signed comments will be strongly preferred, though as long as there is a valid e-mail address, making clear institutional identification, those comments will also be approved.

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29 responses to “Members of Search Committees: What do you actually do in reviewing files?”

  1. Anon SLAC Chair

    I would like to remain anonymous just because being chair has made me very cautious about any statements I make that might be taken to be "official representations of the department's views" (even if they were not intended as such).

    Among the criteria I look for when reviewing a candidate's file are the following. (1) "Fit": does the candidate actually teach and do research in the area that we are searching for? In addition, do they bring other teaching or research interests that are not our primary focus, but might add to the richness of the department? (2) Teaching: is there evidence that the candidate is a strong teacher? Student numerical evaluations are weighed particularly heavily. Purely qualitative evaluations are hard to judge (e.g., a colleague's report of a classroom visit or selected student comments). We may interview a candidate without evidence of teaching ability, but then we have to rely very heavily on the "feel" we get from the interview of whether he or she would work well in the classroom. (3) "Pedigree": how strong is the candidate's graduate program, particularly in the area we are searching for? (4) Recommendations: are the candidate's letters of recommendation strong, detailed, from people with a good reputation in the field, and from people known to avoid hyperbole? I look particularly carefully at word choice (e.g., "has the potential to make a contribution to the field" sounds like mild praise, as does "an intriguing thesis"; in contrast, "one of the best I have ever trained" is obviously quite strong praise). (5) Writing sample: I don't think anyone has the time to read all of every writing sample. At the initial stage of evaluation, I will only read the first few pages. I am looking to see whether I understand what the candidate is saying and whether it seems well argued. (6) Affirmative action considerations: we take these very seriously and our department has been praised by our institution's faculty director of affirmative action for its efforts to ensure a maximally diverse candidate pool. However, we do not interview anyone who we think is not a serious candidate, and I honestly do not think that any strong non-AA candidates are adversely affected by our efforts.

    I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but these are some of what comes to mind.

    Reply
  2. Anon SLAC #2

    I'd also prefer to remain anonymous. I'll use Anon SLAC #1's comments as the springboard.

    (1) is the most important. It amazes me how many candidates apply for the job but yet do not fit the advertised needs, or might fit the needs in some ways but don't say how in the cover letter (leaving it to the committee to figure out whether you fit at all and if so in what way). The first thing I read is the cover letter – do you fit what we asked for, or not? As an applicant, you should address this in the cover letter – particularly if the ad calls for certain teaching needs. A strong cover letter that argues specifically how you meet the needs of the position sends a very strong signal to the committee. Again, it amazes me how few people do this.

    (2) is next important, but I would split this into two components, (a) teaching experience and (b) teaching excellence. If you are applying to a SLAC, you really should provide evidence of both, since teaching will be your primary job.

    (3) Irrelevant to us. We're looking for excellent teachers, and pedigree doesn't tell us anything about your teaching ability (back to (2) and (1) again).

    (4) Going back to (2) again, I should point out that I've read many recommendation letters that say little to nothing about an applicant's strengths as a teacher. Instead, the letter(s) talk at great length about the applicant's research, dissertation, etc. Clearly these are important (if not central) concerns for certain positions (R1s, or jobs where a central component of one's work will be research). But if teaching is the primary responsibility, and research is the "added" requirement, then letters that don't talk about teaching are really not terribly helpful (they don't hurt, but they don't help either). At some point, graduate departments and advisors really need to face up to the reality that most jobs are *teaching* jobs. So you would greatly help your advisees if you can address teaching excellence in a *meaningful* way.

    (5) I'd agree with Anon #1's comments here. For a SLAC job with teaching as the primary responsibility, you need to show that you can write in a clear and coherent way, and be able to communicate your thesis to the audience. We know you'll need to publish (something), so a writing sample matters, but again – going back to (2) – lack of clarity and focus in a writing sample means you won't be able to teach your students to write well. That's bad.

    Clearly different SLAC search committees will see things differently with respect to (1) – (5), and probably due to differences in how important research is to the job, but I'd be willing to bet that a fair number see things as I've stated them if teaching is the primary focus of the position.

    Reply
  3. Brian Leiter

    I want to reiterate that anonymous comments must have a valid e-mail address (which won't appear), which verifies that the person is who s/he claims to be. The first anon comment did; the second did not, but I will let it through since it was substantive and so probably legit. Thank you.

    Reply
  4. Ulrich Meyer

    While we're on the topic of applying to liberal arts colleges, I would like to add two things to the comments by my anonymous SLAC colleagues.

    (i) Contrary to what SLAC #2 said, I would actually encourage applicants not to take job ads too seriously. Sure, you have to say something about how you fit the stated job description, but there is no harm in trying for a position for which you are not optimally qualified. Sometimes, job ads reflect awkward compromises between the various members of a department and the administration. As a result, they might describe an ideal candidate who does not in fact exist. If you come close enough, you might get an interview (and a job). The only thing that is certain is that you will not get the job if you don't apply.

    (ii) I guess there are different liberal arts colleges. Perhaps some of them only care about teaching, such as the place where Anon SLAC #2 teaches, but that is surely not true of all liberal arts colleges. Most of us want people who are good teachers AND good scholars.

    Reply
  5. Anon Job Seeker

    I wonder if anyone could add something about how seriously the definition of "Fit" from the first comment is weighted: "does the candidate actually teach and do research in the area that we are searching for?" Of course it makes sense to look for candidates with appropriate research areas, but I suspect that most of those on the job market (like myself) have very little, if any, say over what we get to teach. The small liberal arts college where I currently adjunct is the first place I've really had a chance to teach anything other than Intro to Philosophy classes, but even so the classes I am offered have at best only a tangential connection to my research interests and usually none at all.

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  6. Anon Seeker 2

    I have a question for Anon SLAC Chair. If Anon's department takes AA "very seriously" how could it be that non-AA candidates are not adversely affected by this? Presumably what happens is that candidates with some AA-relevant feature are for that reason ranked at least somewhat more highly than others. But then surely it follows that non-AA candidates are sometimes passed over in favor of their more "diverse" competitors.

    How else could it be? If we suppose that non-AA candidates are never adversely affected because those who would be favored under AA are also always more attractive candidates by all other standards, AA considerations are pointless and redundant. But if they make some kind of difference, non-AA candidates must be adversely affected by them. (Is the idea that being passed over for an interview or a job is not a way of being "adversely affected"?)

    Reply
  7. Anonymous Future Job Seeker

    I wonder if someone who shares Ulrich Meyer's view on what liberal arts colleges might be looking for (good teachers and good scholars) would be willing to elaborate on what counts as "good scholarship" for a liberal arts college. This is not to imply that the standards of good scholarship differ for liberal arts colleges. Rather, I'd like to gauge what sort of publication is seen as impressive, or even just adequate, for a liberal arts college seeking someone with both sets of skills. For example, must a good scholar publish in "Ethics," or is a publication in "Ethical Theory and Moral Practice" evidence that one is a good scholar, for the purpose of applying to liberal arts colleges? Both are good journals in my view, but they are not equally good. I'm trying to develop a realistic set of expectations moving forward, since I see myself as a much better candidate for the liberal arts college jobs than the major research university positions, and I find the task of comparing quality of publications to be incredibly puzzling. It's also something I fret about quite a bit, and I'd like to know whether I ought to continue my fretting.

    Reply
  8. Mohan Matthen

    At the entry level, here's how I go. I'll be looking at my share of the applicants, which maybe 70 files. So I don't have as much time as I would like.

    First, I look at the cv. Often this rules the candidate out: not far enough along, wrong field. But suppose that's not so. Any publications? In decent places? That's a plus.

    Second, I take a quick look at the writing sample. (No time at this stage for a detailed look.) Is it going somewhere? Does it have a thesis? Or is it just a dreary plough through the literature, or a small-minded criticism of somebody else?

    Then and only then do I look at letters. Do they calibrate with cv and writing sample? Do they tell me something that would help me appreciate the writing sample.

    This is the last time I look at the letters (except in the actual committee meeting, where it is de rigeur to make laughing remarks about letter writers). At this point, I assign a letter grade, with only 10% making A. Then I read the writing samples of those that I have marked as an A.

    So then I feel confident about discussing candidates with my colleagues on the committee. It almost never goes the way I anticipate, but at least I feel I have done my job. And, by the way, letters play only a small role, since I don't really feel I have much confidence in letters.

    Reply
  9. Ulrich Meyer

    There is a pecking order amongst liberal arts colleges just as there is one amongst research universities. So what counts as "good scholarship" will depend on the college in question. I would be interested in getting feedback from other readers of this blog about this, but my sense is that liberal arts colleges tend to have the same expectations with regard to quality of scholarship as similarly ranked research universities, but slightly lower expectations with regard to quantity. (This is partly justified by slightly higher teaching loads and fewer research leaves.) Feel free to send me an email if this doesn't answer your question.

    Reply
  10. Ulrich Meyer

    I can't answer for Anon SLAC Chair, but here is what we do: affirmative action considerations play a role when compiling the list of candidates to be interviewed, but in the end we simply hire the best person who emerges from this process. This means that applicants are slightly more likely to get a shot at an interview if they would contribute to the diversity of the department, but AA considerations do not play a decisive role in the final hiring decision. This way, no member of the department has to worry about why precisely he or she was hired. Everybody got hired in the same way.

    How does everybody else deal with this issue?

    Reply
  11. V. Alan White

    "Fit", though I agree is of primary importance, is a difficult problem more for candidates than for SCs for obvious reasons. Candidates must grok what fit means for departments to which they apply with only crude assessments (sometimes skewed) of those departments' expectations. And what the expectations of fit actually mean from departmental perspectives are all over the map. Some R1s really expect that candidates impress in print and the classroom; others don't. Similarly for SLACs with expectations slanted either way. I mean damn–I'm from a 4/4 state university system department that still struggles with that balance despite the fact that we overtly emphasize teaching over scholarship. We still are drawn to published candidates who nevertheless impress in the classroom. The confusing wide range of expectations only favors departments overall in sifting through a cornucopia of applicants with wildly different demonstrated skills to find a good fit. It does not favor any particular applicant with respect to the ultimate goal of obtaining a job.

    Reply
  12. Mark van Roojen

    I think two things are worth noting. (1) That there are things that matter in getting you to the stage in the process where close study of the file and especially the writing sample becomes something one is able to do, and then there are the things we are really after. They both matter but in different ways. The grad program from which someone is applying is some evidence of quality and students from programs with better reputations will have an advantage in getting to the point where closer scrutiny is possible. (The last search I participated in had nearly 300 candidates so the first cut has to be somewhat coarse grained and use heuristics to narrow the field.)But other factors can put someone from a not so good program into the group that get closer scrutiny as well. Having a publication in a decent place, letters from people not in one's home program, a letter writer who gives me a sense of the project and makes it seem interesting and important, or an abstract which does the same. All of these might get a file to where I'll spend more time with the file. A good letter from someone who I think is trustworthy that gives me a good sense of the work, really influences me at this level. Once I'm narrowing things down to those on the short list, the writing sample and my own evaluation of it carries most of the weight. It seems to me to be the best evidence I have of the best work this candidate is capable of at this stage. No doubt the surrounding information colors how I see this, but that's what I mostly try to rely on at this point as it is the only thing I have any real first hand access to myself. Having a good degree won't make up for a bad writing sample; coming from a less than a first-rate graduate program won't be any reason to downgrade a first hand judgement that this is a good paper.

    The second point to make is that committees make these judgements and at the last stage the department is likely to be functioning as a committee of the whole. That means that the final verdict is the result of a vote by people who probably don't agree on what is most important, at least in all cases. Or it may be a consensus judgement where all agree the decision is a good one if not the best one. Different departments run in different ways. And different people have different views of what is probative evidence and that means that colleagues won't always see things in the same way. That means that the actual decision won't be based on any one person's reasons.

    There's more to say, but I think these two points haven't yet been made and are worth making.

    Reply
  13. Anonymous

    I work in a research university rather than in a SLAC so that probably colors how I approach things.

    Step 1: Look for files that can be dismissed really quickly. Perhaps the cleanest filter is, as others have indicated, inappropriate area. I admit, though, that if a file has some indication that the candidate is a truly superior candidate, even inappropriate area won't necessarily kill the file right away. Cover letters sometime are useful instruments for quick elimination. But those cases are rare and most cover letters are of neutral value. Mainly it's something in the writing sample or the letters that gets a file a "quick" elimination. But it takes awhile to get to those. So if I have to rely on the letters and/or WS to do the elimination, it really isn't so quick.

    Step 2. First read of WS — not a complete drill down type read, but not just a shallow skim either.

    NB 1: I used to read the writing sample only after reading the letters because I used to try to weed files on the basis of letters. But I have come to rely less on the letters for helping me make an initial cut and more on the writing sample. Indeed, I now use my first read of the writing sample to help calibrate the letters — since letters have come to be overblown. Some letter writers are frank enough and explicit enough to make it clear where they think a candidate really belongs at a top N research institution. But few are. One mostly has to read between the lines to figure that out from the letters themselves. Reading WS before letters really helps calibrate the significance of verbiage in the letters.

    NB 2: Placing heavy weight on WS early on like this requires a LOT of time. Fortunately, I'm in a big enough department that our search committees are usually large enough that it is feasible for members of SC to actually read writing samples reasonably closely as part of our early screening.

    Step 3. Read letters carefully, partly with an eye to seeing whether what they say about the WS comports with one's own initial reading. If they do, that strengthens the felt reliability of the letter. If they don't I often go back to the WS and take a closer look to see if I missed something. Bad sign when the letters do a better job of explaining the view than the WS does. Good sign when the praise in the letters seems justified by what's on the page in the WS.

    Step 4. Meet with colleagues and compare judgments. Usually we're down to a long short list by this time, with each file have been looked at carefully by 2 or more people (a benefit of largish department and largish committees).

    Step 5. Take the long short list and through deliberation arrive at medium short list.

    Step 6. Everybody goes off and reads all WS closely of all files in medium short list. This probably means re-reading some of one's own initial batch of files.

    Step 7. Collectively arrive at short list.

    Step 8. Read every file on short list one more time, in preparation for interview.

    One thing about my department. We pay attention to things connected to teaching only for those who make the short list. It's not that we don't care about teaching –we do. But we use teaching only to distinguish among those who are impressive enough, on other grounds, to make the short list.

    Reply
  14. Anonymous First-Time SC Member

    A minor and tangential rant:

    As a first-time search committee member, I'm literally astonished that some applicants would be so careless as to submit writing samples that do not include their names. Flabbergasted.

    Our search required online applications, so much of the review – of CVs, letters, teaching portfolios – happened at the computer, where it is easy to coordinate distinct documents with the files with which they're associated. But I printed out writing samples of some promising candidates for closer scrutiny at home (like many, I prefer not to read dense papers on a computer screen). At which point, I spent a significant amount of time opening links in our database trying to figure out whose papers I had in front of me.

    This is incredibly unprofessional. Job candidates: do not do anything that exacerbates the already excruciatingly difficult task of evaluating you as objectively as we can. And if you have not been advised on the various aspects of presenting yourself professionally when you apply for a job, and advised against doing everything you can to prevent introducing in those evaluating you a bias – unconscious or otherwise, philosophical or otherwise – against your file, then you have been advised poorly and you should seek better mentors. Or get some common sense.

    Reply
  15. Anon SLAC Chair

    This is SLAC Chair #1 replying to Anon Job Seeker 2's query: "If Anon's department takes AA 'very seriously' how could it be that non-AA candidates are not adversely affected by this?"

    What I said was this: "I honestly do not think that any strong non-AA candidates are adversely affected by our efforts." The word "strong" is important here. We have found that there are far fewer clearly "strong" candidates out there than one might hope. Perhaps we are too choosey, but our choosiness has resulted in what is regarded as one of the strongest departments at our institution. So only non-diversity candidates who are marginal interview choices to start with are adversely affected by AA considerations.

    I'm sure some will find even this unjust. However, speaking again just for myself, I find that there is enough uncertainty in our choices about whom to interview that I have never felt like I sacrificed quality for diversity. It feels more like diversity was one of a large group of competing and largely incommensurable considerations that there is no algorithm to balance.

    Reply
  16. Charles Pigden

    Aspiring philosophers face (at least) two problems:

    a) There aren’t enough permanent (or TT) jobs to go around.
    b) It is not clear what you have to do (or be) to get the jobs that exist.

    The point of this thread is to try to do something about the second problem. What makes the current job-famine worse is that young philosophers seem to be in a competition where they don't know what they are supposed to do to win. It's like entering a running race where you are not told until afterwards whether it was the sprint or the 1500 meters, and a race, furthermore, where the penalty for losing is a prolonged stretch of hard labor with the perpetual threat of summary execution. What are the criteria that search committees employ and what traits are they looking for (or at least what traits do they SUPPOSE themselves to be looking for) when making junior hires? Is there some kind of method in the madness of selection or are search committees really motivated by something like Bentham's Principle of Caprice? What follows is an account of what I tend to look for when helping to make a junior hire. I should make it clear at the outset that I am speaking for myself and though my colleagues would probably agree with some of what I have to say, this does not represent the official position of the Otago department. So though I often say ‘we’, these are the things that *I* in particular have been looking for in my sometime capacity as Search Committee member.

    1) Research potential. This is very important to us generally and is incentivized in New Zealand by the PBRF system (the NZ equivalent of the British REF) which rewards universities and indirectly departments for their research outputs. The last time around we were making informal use of a heuristic that I have suggested on an earlier thread: Rank the journals on some scale (I suggest 1.0 for Mind and 0.4 for the No-Name Journal of Philosophy.) Multiply each candidate’s actual and forthcoming publications by the prestige of the journal in which it has appeared or will appear. Sum the result and divide by the years out from completion of the candidate’s PhD. This gives an initial ranking of the candidates and will tend to generate a clear subset of frontrunners who then become the candidates to beat. Once you have narrowed things down to the top ten, you can of course read the writing samples, the publications and the letters of reference more carefully to see if the best-published candidates are really as good as ‘The System’ seems to suggest. (See below under ‘Fun’, ‘Clarity’ ‘Fit’ and ‘Letters of Reference’)

    Reply
  17. Charles Pigden

    2) Teaching ability. Though the PBRF provides the icing on the cake, undergraduate teaching is still our bread and butter. We need to know that we can put you in front of class and that you will do a decent job. We need ‘bums on seats’ and we want the proprietors of those bums to go away with their minds significantly improved. Thus you have got to be able both to pull in the punters and to give those punters a worthwhile education. This requires fluency, pizzaz and flexibility. Over at Philosophy Smoker somebody was complaining about the rapid-fire philosophical questions on the part of Search Committees on the grounds that they don't mimic anything you need in philosophy except how you handle a Q & A after a talk. I disagree. If you are not generating questions, in your upper-level undergraduate courses, some of them rapid-fire, then you are probably not doing it right. And if you can’t answer those questions you are not much use to us. On this point see Brian’s recent post: Some smart advice about job interviews. A good teacher knows how to make the best of a bad question. However, the last time around we didn’t use any measure of teaching ability to make the first cut as everybody seemed to have teaching evaluations that were at least respectable. It was only later on that we looked at them in detail and tried to make a proper assessment. It helps when assessing teaching ability if we have seen you in action. If you can deliver a paper, especially on some abstruse topic, in a stylish and accessible manner that is at least an *indicator* that you have got what it takes to be an undergraduate teacher.

    3) Bourgeois virtues. A large rich department can perhaps accommodate a wayward genius who does not wash, does not turn up on time and can’t be trusted to fulfill his or her duties or to keep his or her hands off the students. That’s not true of us. And it is not true of most departments.

    4) Likeability/being a decent human being. You can be a gifted researcher, a competent teacher and suffer from no actionable vices whilst still being a touchy, obnoxious, egomaniac, unable get on with your colleagues. If you get hired, your future colleagues can expect to be working with you for years and maybe decades. They will want to be reasonably confident that you are a pleasant and cooperative person to work with. There are plenty of departments where the staff have to tip-toe round the resident ogre for fear of exciting its wrath. You don’t want to come across as a potential ogre or even as an arrogant jerk. So if your secret opinion is that your potential colleagues are a bunch of useless old fossils who should ideally be required to make way for younger and more talented philosophers, that’s a thought that you should keep well away from the forefront on your mind for fear that it will express itself in your face or your demeanor. However, likeabilty is not the same thing as servility. Most departments don’t want yes-people but they do want people who are friendly, polite and cooperative and not excessively arrogant or chippy. (A high estimate of ones own talents is usually acceptable provided it is not combined with a contempt for other peoples’. It's a serious mistake to think that you cannot learn from people less talented than yourself.)

    Reply
  18. Charles Pigden

    5) Breadth/versatility. Breadth of culture (including scientific literacy) is an important plus. The successful candidate should be able to talk intelligently about a wide variety of topics both philosophical and otherwise. There are several reasons for this.
    a) An epistemologist who is just an epistemologist isn’t likely to be much of an epistemologist, a meta-ethicist who is just a meta-ethicist isn’t much of meta-ethicist, and so on through most of the subdisciplines of philosophy. My a priori view would have been that Logic is something of an exception, but in fact most of the good logicians I have met – and I have met quite few – are notable for the breadth of their interests, so I guess it applies to logic too. More generally I am inclined to think that the philosopher who is merely a philosopher won’t be much of a philosopher. I have certainly read – and even refereed – articles where my unspoken response was ‘You would not have written this kind of rubbish if you weren’t so horribly ignorant of everything other than the latest issue of Philosophical Studies’. Good philosophers tend to be wide-ranging: philosophers who are not wide-ranging tend not to be good. So departments looking for good philosophers will tend to be looking for cultural breadth.
    b) Teaching I. In a small to medium-sized department you often have to teach subjects that are outside your comfort zone. Thus in our department the normative ethicist teaches philosophy of mind and the metaphysician teaches introductory ethics and the philosopher of biology teaches critical thinking the logician teaches introductory metaphysics and so on. Of course a quick study can often mug up a course at short notice, but it helps if you have the philosophical breadth to know where to begin.
    c) Teaching II. Many universities have interdisciplinary courses and programs of one kind or another. You are going to be a lot more employable is you can teach in such a program, and if you ARE going to teach in such a program, it helps to be a wide-ranging sort of person even if your teaching is largely confined to your own areas of expertise. For you will need to be able to talk to your colleagues from other disciplines and to help forge connections in the minds of your students. If those connections aren’t there in your own mind it is difficult to forge them in other people’s.
    d) Being a good research partner. Ideally a department should function as a community of enquiry where people help one another with their work (though the help can sometimes take the form of refuting a pet conjecture). The hope is that your colleagues will be an intellectually stimulating bunch. Indeed if your department is geographically isolated – as is not uncommon, even in North America – then there won’t be any other proximate philosophers to be stimulated by. In a large department where each subdiscipline may have two or three representatives, this does not require much in the way of breadth. But in a small-to-medium-sized department you are not likely to be much use to your colleagues as a partner in discussion unless you are a fairly wide-ranging kind of person. Thus I am primarily a meta-ethicist and my colleague Colin Cheyne is primarily an epistemologist and a philosopher of mathematics, yet we have a joint (and reasonably well-cited) article on the philosophy of mathematics and another on truthmaker theory and negative facts. In the first case only one of us had any postgraduate training in the relevant subdiscipline and in the second case neither of us. My colleague Heather Dyke is a primarily a metaphysician and philosopher of Time whilst James Maclaurin lists his primary research interests philosophy of biology, philosophy of science and epistemology. Yet they have a joint paper criticizing analytic metaphysics and another developing an evolutionary explanation of why we are biologically predisposed to believe the A-theory. I could multiply examples, not only of co-authored work by colleagues from different subdisciplines but of single-authored papers which draw heavily on departmental discussions. The point is that this sort of thing can only go on in a small department if people don’t remain locked up in their own little research specialities. Thus small departments with a strong research culture will tend to favor candidates with whom they can interact. And that puts a premium on breadth and versatility.

    Reply
  19. Charles Pigden

    6) Fun/Intellectual Excitement. Because we are a small and rather isolated department with a strong research culture, one of the things we are looking for in a new recruit is intellectual excitement and stimulation. ‘Worthy but dull’ won’t do it for us. We have certainly pushed people off the longlist because we decided on reflection that their work was a bit boring. Our response to an article shouldn’t be ‘Ok, I suppose – but kind of obvious’ and definitely not ‘So what?’. Rather it ought to be ‘Wow, that’s really interesting – I would never have thought of that! But now I see the argument I realize that it has to be right [or at least, that it is it is worth refuting].’ HOWEVER (and I am aware that this converts this entry into the kind of cuts-both-ways advice that can be so very annoying) we don’t like the kind of candidate who appears to believe that the object of the philosophical exercise is to deploy their wit and ingenuity in maintaining some obviously absurd thesis at all costs. We want boldness in the service of truth not boldness in the service of showing off or boldness in the service of eccentricity.

    7) Clarity. What propelled one of my current colleagues to the top of the pile some years ago was the wonderful clarity of their writing style. ‘Writes like an angel’ was one of the comments that was bandied about. Conversely, stodgy or opaque prose can get you dumped.

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  20. Charles Pigden

    8) Fit 1. Again what I have to say next is likely to apply to small departments rather than big ones. In a big department you can afford to have representatives of widely diverse schools of thought who disagree radically about just about everything because everybody can still have somebody they can talk to. Not so in a small-to-medium-sized department. If the aim is to create a friendly and cooperative research culture, there has to be broad agreement about what is interesting and important and about what good philosophy tends to look like, though there can be sharp differences about specific issues. For unless there is this kind of agreement there may not be enough people to talk to about your ideas. Thus the best critique of the Cheyne/Pigden paper on negative facts is due to our former colleague Josh Parsons. But though Josh thought that our solution was wrong he did not think that problem we were trying to solve was a non-problem or that our alleged solution was not worth refuting. Nor did we think that his counterarguments were not worth considering. Indeed Josh and I had enough in common to discuss his objections at length during long walks through the hills. (For what it’s worth I think Josh has partially refuted our paper though I am not sure how far Colin would agree.) There can be differences too deep for this kind of fruitful discussion, and in a small department this kind of difference can disqualify a potential candidate. Thus in a department such as ours, in the broadly analytic tradition with a strong interest in early modern philosophy, a dyed-in-the-wool Heideggerian would probably be out of place. They wouldn’t be much use to us and we would not be much use to them. When people talk about ‘fit’ I suspect that this is the kind of thing that they sometimes have in mind. In a small department you need the kind of colleagues that you can talk to.

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  21. Charles Pigden

    9) Fit 2. We often find ourselves struggling to cover what we take to be the core areas in philosophy so we are often on the look-out for a specialist in areas X or Y. But on the whole considerations of overall quality trump considerations of teaching fit which is why our job ads are usually ‘open’. It is nice if the most brilliant candidates are specialists in one of the preferred subdisciplines (as was the case the last time around) but we would not prefer a poor candidate in the areas X or Y to a significantly better candidate with a less desirable AOS. Teaching ‘fit’ might be a tie-breaker between otherwise equally good candidates, it might bump somebody up a couple of places, and the lack of it might bump somebody down, but for us it is generally not a decisive consideration. If other posts are anything to go by, we are a bit unusual in this.

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  22. Charles Pigden

    10) Letters of Reference. We tend to take these with a pinch of salt unless we know and/or trust the referees. (This is of course a problem for candidates. How do you know whether the search committee at the University of X knows and trusts your referees?) They are better too if the referee has no personal interest in promoting the candidate (something which is generally not true of their teachers), if their encomiums are backed by evidence or if they contain specifics about the intellectual achievements of the referees. (What exactly were those brilliant ideas that the candidate is supposed to have had?) Also we tend not to bother with the letters of reference until after the candidate has made it through the first cut, which is largely made on the basis of prestige-and-age-adjusted publications.

    11) Pedigree. For us this is NOT a (conscious) consideration, and I have argued on another thread that it ought not to be. In this too, it seems, we are a bit unusual.

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  23. Charles Pigden

    12) Not being an immediate flight-risk. An obvious problem with going for research potential is that once it is fulfilled – or once it is noticed by others – that potential can be tempted away. Searches are arduous and you don’t want to go through the whole rigmarole twice within a year because the successful candidate has lured away by a better offer. In fact those of our high-flyers who have gone on to greater things have all stayed a reasonable length of time, and flight-risk hasn’t been a major factor in any decision that I have helped to make. However, it MIGHT be important and I do like some evidence that the candidate has some interest in getting a job at Otago in particular and not just a job at some bloody place or other.

    13) One more thing. It is really annoying when the CV fails to clearly distinguish between actual and forthcoming papers and papers that are merely ‘under submission’. So far as I am concerned, actual and forthcomings count, ‘under submssions’ do not, and it is infuriating to have to laboriously trawl though a CV sorting the one from the other.

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  24. b

    Charles' last point is important. When a candidate makes it challenging to determine what is a publication and what is a mere submission to a journal, one gets suspicious that the candidate is not trustworthy. They are just not worth considering, given the vast number of qualified and deserving candidates. Honest colleagues are far better than dishonest ones.

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  25. Patty Steck

    From a completely different perspective — i.e. the community college — here is a general rundown…

    1) Qualifications — you'd be surprised at how often I see people with other kinds of terminal degrees applying to teach philosophy at my CC. The union requires an MA with 18 graduate hours in the field the person wants to teach… no matter how wonderful a JD or MBA is, if they won't get past the union hiring bit, it doesn't make sense to go further. I'd estimate that nearly 50% of candidates are eliminated this way…

    2) Cover letter / CV — I look for teaching experience and whether or not the candidate has our preferred qualifications. I also look to see if their materials address the specific qualities included in every one of our job advertisements — namely experience working with a diverse population. That will eliminate another 20% of the pool, or so…

    3) Transcript — I'm not looking for top schools or stellar grades, but I am looking for a diversity of coursework. I also have a slight preference for Ph.Ds… but, only because I can be pretty sure that the new hire won't have to do what I did to finish — namely teach a lot AND write… The thing is, we're a pretty small department and if the person lacks the background to teach our basic courses AND help us to develop new courses, then they're not a good bet. This may eliminate about 10% of the pool.

    4) I then review the remaining files another time. At this point, any of them are likely to be outstanding hires for us — and I'm looking at the letter/CV for something interesting. I want to WANT to meet this person. I generally pick out 10 candidates from this pool. These are the folks I'll argue in favor of brining in for interviews.

    FYI — the interview at a CC is a new topic all together… suffice it to say that when you have one hour to impress a committee of 9, you'd better be on your game. Any whiff of snobbery or whatever will put you on the bottom of the pile. We recognize that many folks see a CC interview as beneath them… and it shows. The thing is, we don't want to hire someone who sees us and the job as a beneath them. We have plenty of other candidates who actually WANT to work with us.

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  26. Charles Pigden

    A) It may be that we have covered al the bases on this thread, but when I first suggested it to Brian Leiter I was hoping for a more informative and helpful discussion. My list of desiderata, non-desiderata and important considerations was as follows:

    1) Research potential, initially measured by publications weighted by the prestige of the venue and divided by the time out from the candidate’s PhD.
    This means that candidates with no publications went to the bottom of the pile.
    2) Teaching ability.
    3) Bourgeois virtues
    4) Being a likeable/decent human being (not quite the same thing as having research potential, teaching ability and possessing the bourgeois virtues).
    5) Breadth/versatility (not being a narrow philosophical specialist, an uncultured ignoramus or a scientific illiterate). [More of an issue for small departments?]
    6) Work and persona must be fun and stimulating and not boring or derivative. [More of an issue for small departments?]
    7) Clarity especially wrt to writing.
    8) Fit, in the sense of being somebody we can talk to, that is, a good research partner. [More of an issue for smaller departments?]
    9) Fit wrt to teaching needs (a relatively minor factor for us).
    10) Letters of reference were taken with a large pinch of salt unless we knew and/or trusted the referee. Only important AFTER the first cut.
    11) NOT pedigree (not a conscious factor for us).
    12) Not being an immediate flight-risk. (Not a factor in any decision I have helped to make but could be an issue.)
    13) Publications and ‘under submissions’ should be clearly distinguished in the CV.

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  27. Charles Pigden

    B) So far as I can see Mohan Mathan would agree with most of the above though his initial measure of research potential was a skim of the writing-sample. He is even more skeptical than I am about the letters of reference, which his colleagues take it as de rigeur to laugh at (perhaps because they might otherwise cry at the debasement of the currency of praise).

    Anon SLAC chair 1 agrees about 2) teaching ability, with a special emphasis on student evaluations. He/she also thinks that 1) research potential or ‘scholarship’ is important, using my 7) [clarity in the writing sample] to arrive at a preliminary judgment. Wrt 10), letters of reference, he/she is a rather less skeptical than I am and pays a lot of attention to nice turns of phase. (This alarms the hell out of me as a writer of such letters as there is clearly a code here with which I am unfamiliar.) He/she DOES desire my non-desideratum namely pedigree. Point 9) (Teaching fit) is very important, much more so than it is for me, but his/her job ads are presumably more specific. Also AA considerations are important. This militates against weak white males but not strong ones.

    Anon SLAC #2, cares A LOT about my 9) (teaching fit). Ditto my 2), teaching ability, which she/he divides into two, teaching experience and teaching excellence, requiring evidence of both. Less so (I think) about my 1), research potential. However she/he agrees with me about my point 11) since she/he considers pedigree to be an irrelevance. And she/he does not find letters of reference very helpful because they don’t usually address the issue that she/he is really interested in, namely teaching ability.

    Anon 13, is very research-oriented, but works in such a large department that they can afford to read all the writing samples and to base their evaluations on them. Teaching ability matters, but they too tend not to bother about it until they have narrowed down the field to the top ten.

    24 b agreed with me emphatically about my point 13). Mark off the actual & forthcoming publications in your CV from the merely ‘under submissions’!

    Patty Steck , who works at a CC was especially interesting. If it's a philosophy job they want a qualified philosopher and not somebody with a JD or an MBA (apparently she gets a lot of candidates who don’t realize this). She’s also very keen on breadth/versatility and for some of the same reasons that I am. She wants teaching experience and especially teaching experience with diverse populations. Though she did not say so in so many words, I gather that flight-risk is a major consideration especially when it comes to the interview. (Is that right Patty?)

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  28. Charles Pigden

    C) Now it may be that most of the rival approaches to hiring have been canvassed. I’m not sure. But here are some issues that haven’t been adequately addressed:
    I) Of the departments which ARE interested in in research potential (which does not include some CCs & some SLACs ), some seem to employ a pubs-neutral approach, relying on the writing sample and perhaps pedigree, whereas for us at Otago pedigree was not a consideration at all and we effectively excluded those candidates who were thus far unpublished. I don’t think we should get into the rights and wrongs of this. But it might be useful for young philosophers if they had some idea of how departments divide up on this issue. How many would prefer pedigree without publications to publications without pedigree? And how many would prefer publications with pedigree to publications simpliciter?
    II) Flight-risk. Is this a major consideration for non-metropolitan R1s? For SLACs? For CCs? And if it IS a consideration how do people judge whether a given candidate is a likely flight-risk?
    III) Does size matter?
    a) It seems to me that my 5), breadth/versatility is perhaps less of a desideratum in large departments which can accommodate the occasional brilliant but narrow specialist. They will have enough staff to provide adequate coverage when it comes to teaching, and other people to talk to when it comes to research.
    b) In a research department it is important to have somebody to talk to but in a large department everybody does not have to be able to talk to everybody else. Thus big departments can accommodate people with radically different visions of what good philosophy looks like whilst smaller departments cannot.
    c) For similar reasons it is less important in a large department that everyone should consider the candidate’s work to be fun and stimulating. Where there are plenty of people to be stimulated by, it does not matter so much that a possible new chum may seem a bit ho-hum to some of his or her potential colleagues.
    Do people agree with me that big departments have different desiderata from small ones?
    Remember the point is not to get into an argument about any of these things but to inform job candidates about the kinds of characteristics that different departments are looking for and the strategies that they employ in trying to detect them.

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  29. Anon grad student

    I've found this thread to be one of the most useful threads in recent times. The process of being assessed by hring committees is extremely murky from a grad student's point of view – and the more information we can get on this the better. I'd love to see Charles' questions answered!

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