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On-line job portals that will not accept letters from Interfolio?

Brian Leiter

A reader writes:

In the comments below one of your recent posts, Daniel Kaufman (and others) shared eye-opening reports that some online portals don't accept letters from Interfolio, even though to applicants they appear to. Many universities use customized versions of the same few portals. So if, e.g., MSU (Daniel Kaufman's employer) doesn't accept Interfolio letters, presumably Interfolio won't work with any university (e.g., U of Utah) whose portal is a version of that same PeopleAdmin platform.

Would it be possible, as a service to all of us on the market (and to committees who want to hire the best candidates!) to post a thread on this? Such a thread could ask people who've served on search committees to comment with their university (or its portal system platform, if they know it) and whether it accepts Interfolio.

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9 responses to “On-line job portals that will not accept letters from Interfolio?”

  1. David Vessey

    At Grand Valley State we use PageUp and it accepts Interfolio, but only three. More than three references have to be entered manually, and for that I use the email address included on the cv. Most cvs include the reference's university email address, not the Interfolio email address.

    Reply
  2. Daniel Kaufman

    I just talked with my department head who was involved in our most recent search for two instructors. Apparently, MSU's portal is now capable of receiving letters through Interfolio. It seems that all the complaining we did during my last chaired search actually had some effect. I am very glad.

    Reply
  3. Matt Haber

    That would be concerning were our online portal not accepting letters from Interfolio (or other similar sources). If you have run into problems please let us know!

    1. To reassure applicants, we did a quick check this morning. We've confirmed that interfolio letters have successfully been uploaded both for some of our earliest and most recent applications. Obviously this doesn't mean there have been zero issues, but as far as we can tell interfolio is compatible with our system;

    2. We've heard from a few people that no confirmation email is sent when they upload reference letters directly, but we are happy to confirm the letter was uploaded successfully if they email us. You may contact Jim Tabery (james.tabery[at]utah.edu) or Matt Haber (matt.haber[at]utah.edu). In every case we've learned of, letters were successfully uploaded;

    3. Rest assured that if you indicated we should expect to see a reference letter that turns up missing, that we will contact that letter writer directly if it's a letter we're keen to see.

    If anyone has any trouble uploading letters (or any files) to either our tenure line Assistant Professor position (http://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/69343) or our Postdoctoral Fellow position (http://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/69347) (they are in slightly different PeopleAdmin systems), please contact either Jim Tabery (james.tabery[at]utah.edu) or Matt Haber (matt.haber[at]utah.edu). We definitely would want to know!

    -Matt Haber
    Chair, Dept. of Philosophy, U of Utah

    Reply
  4. Confused

    Someone in the original thread asked how schools are preventing Interfolio and other third parties from uploading letters (i.e., how the system knows it is Interfolio uploading rather than Dr. Recommender). This seems worth asking again, as it is prima facie implausible that this could happen and we only have one unconfirmed report that it is. Can anyone shed light on this, either or both explaining how this is possible and/or providing evidence that it is actual? (The only thing I thought of was that the system might simply refuse to send requests to Interfolio addresses, but that would be very odd, especially since it means a general ban on third parties would require their knowing of and blocking every dossier service.)

    Reply
  5. Steve

    The original post seems to be based on a misunderstanding about how Interfolio works. It said "Applicants to our program are also required to submit letters through our HR departments online portal — hence the uselessness of Interfolio and other letter services." The consequent doesn't follow from the antecedent here. When necessary, an Interfolio employee uploads letters manually to HR online portals — that's why it costs so much.

    Reply
  6. job marketer

    Dr. Vessey, do you let job candidates know that you are directly emailing the other references? If not, I have some concerns about this practice and wonder if other search committees are doing this as well. I think that the intentions are good–to ensure that candidates aren't penalized for using interfolio. However, I for instance have let my letter writers know that I'm managing the letter process through interfolio and choniclevitae so that they shouldn't be bothered. If this changes I would like to be able to let them know and would also like to know if the committee has all of my letters or just the three I submitted.

    As a side note, I was really concerned to learn in the original thread that, if I'm understanding correctly, there could be instances where a candidate thought that their letters were successfully sent through interfolio when they weren't. Not even just because that means one's application is less complete than other applications it also because interfolio charges by the letter. It's not free to send those letters, and for many of us working towards a TT job while supporting families etc. $12 or whatever it is per application is not actually cheap.

    Reply
  7. David Vessey

    To job marketer–
    Thanks for the question. I get the anxiety of there being things out of your control, like missing letters, undermining your candidacy.

    Some candidates include interfolio email addresses on their lists of references on their cvs; some candidates include department email addresses on their cvs, as presumably someone in the department handles the letters. Most, though, list as the contact information the personal email address of the reference. Since the candidates are sending us the contact information for each reference I follow the candidates' information.

    I've seem some cvs include two email addresses, one the personal email address and one for soliciting recommendations, the latter is a department email address or an interfolio email address. Candidates also have also emailed me directly with updated contact information that I can enter into our HR system.

    Interfolio has been great at sending letters right away, as have most faculty. In the case of our search, if there are letters missing I'll be notifying candidates so they can follow up. We want to receive all the letters, too; the more information we have about a candidate the better we will be able to do our job hiring someone.

    Reply
  8. job marketer

    Thanks Dr. Vessey, for your follow up reply and clarifications.

    Reply
  9. Laura Grams

    The UNOmaha Philosophy department is searching for a tenure-track Assistant Professor and uses PeopleAdmin as our university-wide human resources application portal. We have tried to work around some of these challenges, but it is difficult to communicate the work-arounds and anticipate what candidates might encounter. We have very limited ability to control the way our PeopleAdmin portal is set up. We need to list letters of recommendation as a requirement, since they are required, yet some candidates are only able to upload one letter, or they cannot upload letters not in their own possession. One useful workaround is to upload a document listing references and explaining where the letters may be found, while sending the actual letters via email or a service like Interfolio. However, some candidates may believe they have successfully completed the application even though they encountered a snag due to this difficulty with letters or Interfolio. We will never know this because we see only the completed applications. We send a message of receipt back to every emailed letter of reference or Interfolio delivery, and PeopleAdmin is supposed to notify candidates whether their applications are complete. If a finalist was missing letters, we would contact that person to try to rectify the situation. We receive a large number of email inquiries, mostly to unophilosophy@unomaha.edu, or to me directly, and we are happy to answer questions for candidates or receive letters that way. If anyone has advice about how to work more efficiently within PeopleAdmin or make it play nicely with Interfolio, I would be glad to hear it, though again, we do not have much control over this system from our end.

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