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Do on-campus visits hinge on the job talk?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I've heard that, at some departments, almost the entire decision as to whether to hire a candidate hinges on the job talk. I imagine this is especially true in cases in which the entire department votes and many professors are only acquainted with the candidate via the job talk.

Does this echo others' experience? I'm not trying to put additional pressure on my own job talk, but it's good to know if that's the truth of the matter.

This doesn't echo my experience at a liberal arts university, but I suspect it might be true at (some?) research universities.

Do any readers have any helpful experiences or insights to share? 

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15 responses to “Do on-campus visits hinge on the job talk?”

  1. R1 faculty

    At my R1 it’s certainly not the case that this is all that matters, but it’s the main point of the visit and the main way you can screw up or shine. (In fact, it’s the only formal thing that really happens–everything else is a one on one meeting with faculty or a dean, lunch with grad students, dinner with faculty.) You could definitely not get a job by, for example, being a jerk in those one on one meetings but performing well in a job talk. And you might be able to save a somewhat bad performance (especially if there was interesting stuff in it, but it wasn’t super well worked out, or something like that) by being especially impressive one on one. But mostly the job talk is the point of the fly out. It should be as close to perfect as you can make it. I think that’s true at almost all PhD-granting programs.

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  2. R1 faculty

    Sorry I should add (reading too quickly): this is definitely not all that matters in decisions to hire–the FILE matters, the person’s written work, etc. So if the question was about whether people only focus on the job talk, the answer (at my department) is definitely not! People read files and read written work. If the question was about whether, of the components of the actual fly out, people only focus on the job talk, the answer is basically yes with some room here and there for slippage.

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  3. talks are over rated

    When I was at a typical state college, the job talk mattered very little. A really bad one would destroy your chances, but we were more interested in the whole picture – your teaching, your publications, your ability to teach a range of classes, your ability to interact with students (our students), peers, and administrators. I personally probably weighed publications heavier than others – I want a colleague doing interesting work and publishing in good places. I also leaned toward well-rounded candidates, people who could talk in an informative fashion about many different subjects.

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  4. anon

    Can anyone speak to this concerning teaching focussed jobs at SLACS, where there is a teaching demo instead of a job talk oftentimes? In flyouts for these jobs, how important is the teaching demo relative to the other aspects of the flyout and the file?

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  5. clarification

    OP here: yes, I meant whether, of the components of the actual fly out, people only focus on the job talk.

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  6. Tech Ethics Teacher

    I would expect that it varies considerably. Each department has its own way of doing things. Of the flyouts I had, I got the impression that the job talk / teaching demo was important but not always the most important thing. At one place, a secondary interview after the job talk seemed more important. At another, they seemed to have made a decision on the ranking of candidates well before the job talk. A third seemed to be based on the opinions of the faculty with whom I met one-on-one. So your job talk / teaching demo should be good, but don’t focus all your energy there.
    Like everything in this job market, it’s as much (or more) about luck as it is about skill.

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  7. Michel

    In larger departments, the job talk might be pretty much the only part of your application that many voting members see, since they’re not on the committee. In that case, yeah, that’s what they’re basing their vote on.

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  8. slac assc

    I teach a 4/4 at a school whose students are generally neither prepared nor motivated. The two most important features of our campus visits, though there is a job talk, are the dinner and the teaching demo. With regards to the dinner, we just want to see that you’re relatable and someone who we could stand to see every week for potentially years. With regards to the teaching demo, we want to see if you can reach our students. Just this last year, a candidate earned themselves the offer with the teaching demo. I mean that–the eventual second-place candidate was a virtual lock prior to that.

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  9. slac assc

    I should add: the job talk itself is partly a teaching demo in departments like me. Research requirements in my department are pretty lax, so we can see from your CV what potential you have to get tenure (if you’ve published in top 30 journals, there’s no worry really). But your job talk will also give us a sense of your ability to explain difficult material to non-specialists, which is a big part of teaching.

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  10. anon

    Just since I’ve seen a couple comments mentioning department votes fitting in with job talks, thought I’d throw my own experience out here, since it’s different.
    I did my PhD at a very large department. But the only people casting votes on the search were the members of the small search committee. Other people could send an email to the search committee saying what they thought of the candidates, but didn’t get a vote.

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  11. The Real SLAC Prof

    At my current college, I would say the job talk matters more than any other factor of the on-campus interview. We do not have a separate teaching demonstration, so the job talk is serving multiple purposes. Saying this is compatible with saying that the whole package matters in making the ultimate decision; the strength of the file is what gets people the fly out in the first place. But while I can remember a couple of instances where the philosophical exchange at the post-talk dinner was mentioned in the final deliberations, I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning anything from the one-on-one meetings, presumably precisely because they are one-on-one meetings whereas the job talk and Q&A (and post-talk dinner) constitutes a shared experience for the hiring committee. And, based on my experience, I would say that the job talk puts candidates out of contention more than any other factor.
    If OP is asking so that they know what to prioritize in preparation for an on-campus interview, I would say that for places where there isn’t a separate teaching demonstration to focus 85% of your preparation energies on the job talk, and 15% on other things like rereading your other published work (if it is not fresh in your mind), reviewing the specific needs of the department and anticipated courses you might offer, skimming the CVs of the current faculty members, and so on. If the interview will also involve a teaching demonstration, I would probably recommend spending 40% of you preparing time focused on the teaching demo, 45% of your time preparing for your job talk, and 15% of your time on other things.
    However, as I have said in previous comments, you can and should see the search chair as an ally in a successful campus visit. If you have any questions about where to invest your energies prior to the campus visit, I would consider asking the search chair directly.

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  12. Prof L

    R2 here, I’ve seen candidates tanked by a teaching demo. Often we have a few excellent candidates and if the job talks are all very good (they often are), we look to other ways to differentiate them, rather than looking to small differences in job talk performance. Try to make every part of your visit very strong. However, I don’t think minor differences matter all that much. Like tweaking your job talk for hours will not make a difference.
    At other times, I’ve been shocked by how little job talks mattered. Once I went to a talk that was the worst, most incomprehensible philosophy talk I had ever seen. I thought the candidate would for sure have very little support. But this person came in a close second out of three. No one even defended the talk, they just pointed to other parts of the profile that were strong. So, there’s that.

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  13. another cent

    In my limited experience: the job talk matters a lot, but the job talk is not just one thing. There’s the content of the talk of course, but also the delivery, the Q&A, the post-talk reception chat, etc. Sometimes the way a candidate responds to questions can reveal a lot about the candidate’s teaching and supervisory style (especially since my department doesn’t ask for a teaching demo). I don’t think the philosophical merit of the argument presented in the job talk is what matters the most, but I do think the job talk, overall, matters the most, if only because (as Michel has pointed out) it often is the only opportunity where everyone from that department (who cares about hiring) gets to interact with the candidate. So when we sit around to debate candidates, we often draw from the job talk as evidence.

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  14. Bill Vanderburgh

    At our large regional state university (teaching-focused institution, research-interested department), the job talk matters, but it is not the only or even the most important factor in the hiring decision. Insofar as a job talk is an opportunity to engage an audience and do philosophy with others, it is an indicator of both research and teaching potential. It isn’t the only evidence we have for that (there’s the file, the teaching demo, interview responses, etc.). That said, the market is so competitive that small differences between candidates can make a big difference to the outcome. An unusually good or bad research presentation can nudge someone up or down a place or two in the ultimate rankings.

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  15. whatever

    I work in a multidisciplinary department at a mid-sized regional. There were a lot of non-philosophers at the job talk. If you get an on-campus interview at such a place, keep the topic accessible. And FWIW, I think the teaching demo mattered a whole lot more here than the job talk.

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