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Initial Report

Last Modified: 01/01/2011

1. Were you a job candidate this year, the member of a search committee, or a department chair of a hiring department?

# Answer Response %

1 Job Candidate 238 75%

2 Search Committee Member 67 21%

3 Hiring Department Chair 11 3%

Total 316 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 3

Mean 1.28

Variance 0.27

Standard Deviation 0.52

Total Responses 316

2. When you went on the market this year, which of the following best describes your professional status at the time?

# Answer Response

%

1 Graduate Student ABD 108 46%

2 Adjunct or Visiting Instructor/Professor (part-time) 20 8%

3 Visiting Instructor/Professor (full-time) 35 15%

4 Post-doctoral Fellow 39 16%

5 TT Assistant Professor 29 12%

6 Tenured Associate/Full Professor 6 3%

Total 237 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 6

Mean 2.49

Variance 2.54


Total Responses 237

3. If you were a job candidate this year and you attended the APA, how many interviews did you have?

# Answer Response

%

1 1 52 23%

2 2 53 24%

3 3 28 12%

4 4 11 5%

5 5 17 8%

6 6 8 4%

7 7 2 1%

8 8 2 1%

9 9 1 0%

10 10+ 1 0%

11 I was on the market but did not have any interviews 50 22%

Total 225 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 11

Mean 4.52

Variance 14.54


Total Responses 225

4. If you were a job candidate and you attended the APA, how much did you spend on travel expenses (e.g., plane tickets, train tickets, gas, etc.)?

# Answer Response

%

1 0-$150 27 14%

2 $151-$300 31 16%

3 $301-$450 48 24%

4 $451-$600 32 16%

5 $601-$750 14 7%

6 $751-$900 16 8%

7 $901-$1050 7 4%

8 $1050-$1300 15 8%

9 $1301-1450 2 1%

10 $1451+ 8 4%

Total 200 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 10

Mean 3.97

Variance 5.70


Total Responses 200

5. If you were a job candidate and you attended the APA, how much did you spend on your hotel?

# Answer Response

%

1 0-$150 33 17%

2 $151-$300 37 19%

3 $301-$450 57 29%

4 $451-$600 43 22%

5 $601-$750 17 9%

6 $751-$900 12 6%

7 $901-$1050 0 0%

8 $1050-$1300 0 0%

9 $1301-1450 0 0%

10 $1451+ 0 0%

Total 199 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 6

Mean 3.05

Variance 1.96


Total Responses 199

6. If you were a job candidate and you attended the APA, how would you rate your overall experience?

# Question Very unsatisfied

Unsatisfied Satisfied Very satisfied

Responses Mean

1 The Timing of the Eastern APA 99 55 36 6 196 1.74

2 The Location of the Eastern APA 55 52 74 15 196 2.25

3 The Expenses of Attending the APA 98 63 31 4 196 1.70

4 Your Experiences with the Interviews Themselves 10 28 92 54 184 3.03

5 Your Experiences at the Smoker 40 66 66 12 184 2.27

6Your Non-Job Market Related Experiences at the APA

14 54 103 18 189 2.66

Statistic The Timing of

the Eastern

APA

The Location

of the Eastern

APA

The Expenses of Attending the APA

Your Experiences

with the Interviews

Themselves

Your Experiences

at the Smoker

Your Non-Job Market Related Experiences at

the APA

Min Value 1 1 1 1 1 1

Max Value 4 4 4 4 4 4

Mean 1.74 2.25 1.70 3.03 2.27 2.66

Variance 0.75 0.91 0.65 0.67 0.77 0.57

Standard Deviation 0.86 0.95 0.81 0.82 0.88 0.75

Total Responses 196 196 196 184 184 189

7. If you were a job candidate and you attended the APA, would you have preferred to have been interviewed instead using video-conferencing such as Skype?

# Answer Response

%

1 Yes, I would have preferred to have been interviewed via Skype 107 54%

2 No, I prefer APA interviewing to video-interviewing. 53 27%

3 I don't have a strong preference either way. 37 19%

Total 197 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 3

Mean 1.64

Variance 0.61


Total Responses 197

8. If you are a job candidate who has been interviewed using web-conferencing technology this year, how would you rate your overall experience?

# Answer Min Value

Max Value

Average Value

Standard Deviation

Responses

1 Video-interviewing Experience 0 7 4.95 1.55 96

9. If you were a job candidate who had one or more APA interviews, how would you rate your overall experience?

# Answer Min Value Max Value Average Value

Standard Deviation Responses

1 APA interviewing 1 7 4.20 1.63 166

10. If there was a movement to decouple the Eastern APA conference and the job market by adopting video-interviewing for the first round interviews, which of the following best describes your position?

# Answer Response

%

1I would be in favor of transitioning from APA interviewing to video-interviewing for first round interviews.

174 75%

2I would not be in favor of transitioning from APA interviewing to video-interviewing for first round interviews.

32 14%

3 I don't have a preference either way. 25 11%

Total 231 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 3

Mean 1.35

Variance 0.45


Total Responses 231

11. If you are not in favor of decoupling the Eastern APA and the job market by adopting video-interviewing for the first round interviews, what are your primary concerns?

Text Response

In-person trumps technological interaction. Period.

I did several Skype and APA interviews. The APA interviews were, by far, more conversational and ranging. We got into some serious philosophy and there was a give-and-take. The video interviews were much stiffer.

The APA was a very rewarding experience; I enjoyed meeting my potential future colleagues personally, and having everything taken care of all at once, rather than scheduling numerous interviews at different times, dragging out the relevant stress. I find Skype interactions more artificial than in-person interviews.

Video conferencing is awkward and less natural than in person.

Not getting a sense of my future colleagues during the interview and during the smoker.

I'm a bit hard of hearing, and I usually rely on watching people's lips as they speak. Additionally, I depend on my ability to read people's reactions (expressions, posture, breathing, movement) in order to produce the best conversation.

I have no experience with Skype interviews. But the few times I've tried to attend group meetings through Skype, it has been very difficult to hear anything.

Video-conferencing doesn't replicate the experience of an in-person interview. (Eye-contact is difficult to maintain, technical difficulties interrupt the flow of conversation, etc.) As an interviewee, I don't learn nearly as much about the hiring department, and find it more difficult to establish professional connections that may last beyond the interviewing process. (I still maintain contact with members of committees that have interviewed me in the past.) All that said, while I believe the conference interview to have a number of advantages over video interviews, I suspect these advantages are not sufficient to justify the added cost, especially in a market where it is very common to have only 1-2 interviews. If things return to the days where 8-10 interviews were common, I might rethink my ambivalence.

I don't want to give up the chance to catch up with old friends at the APA, and I believe that I benefit from face to face interviews.

Money.

Face-to-face interview is important to see how the candidate performs under stress.

Technical Difficulties; Cannot see the facial expressions of the interviewers.

I feel a good deal more comfortable in a face-to-face settings than in videoconferencing settings and there is enough about which to be uncomfortable already! But I realize that not everyone feels that way and I recognize that the common good may not coincide with my good. I am, incidentally, firmly in favour of getting rid of first-round interviews altogether and moving immediately from looking at written applications to on-campus interviews, so I am in favour of decoupling the Eastern APA and the job market, just via a different route.

The interviewing at the APA is fine with me, but the timing of the Eastern APA is terrible. I am married and have two kids (I am 32 years old), and this is the second year in a row that the Eastern APA

interviews have basically ruined my family's Christmas. I have never done a skype interview (or even used skype at all), so my knowledge of skype is not good. But, for some reason (perhaps a bad reason), I think I prefer face-to-face interviews over video interviews. So, if it is possile to move the APA to a different time of year (a time when it doesn't ruin my family's Christmas) and do the interviews at the APA then, that is what I would favor. For example, doing the APA in early January in a warm-weather location (so not in the DC to Boston eastern corridor) would be good with me. The costs of attending the conference do hurt me quite a bit, but, all things considered, I think I like face-to-face more than video (even though, as I said, I have never done a video interview). That is my position.

I think that these "preliminary" interviews are a waste of resources in general. Plenty of schools either go directly to campus or (like Princeton) just hire off of paper. I would be in favor of doing away with preliminary interviews altogether.

Costs to personal interaction from switching to Skype. Also, value of attending conference in general. Also, value of having my advisor at the conference. Also, value of being in it together with my fellow job-seekers. Lots of support for one another over coffees, dinners, and drinks.

In nearly every field without a central hiring conference, hiring is done in an ad-hoc and spread out way. This makes things much harder on candidates over-all (I have talked to people in fields like this and none like it) and much more stressful. It inevitably leads to more exploding offers and other problems. This will happen without an anchoring conference, dreams of "requiring" a time-line notwithstanding. (Compare the unraveling of the "hiring plan" for law clerks for a clear example.) I think people are greatly underestimating the increased stress and difficulty that will certainly result if there is not a centralized hiring conference.

I think that both APA interviews and video interviews provide quite a lot of unhelpful "noise" (as opposed to information that should be relevant to hiring) and wish departments would abolish first-round interviews of both kinds. That said, there are a few reasons that I prefer APA interviews to video interviews. I think that having several interviews in just a few days is less stressful than having the interviews spread out over several days or weeks, which is what I believe would happen if we moved away from APA interviews. Additionally, I have done both types of interviews, and I find it more difficult to interpret social cues (body language, facial expressions, etc.) over video conference (when, depending on one's set up, one must look into the camera--and slightly away from the interviewers on screen--to appear to be making eye contact, and is thereby distracted from observing the demeanor of one's interviewers). I also prefer the relative neutrality of the APA rooms. With respect to each department, each candidate is interviewed in the same setting at the APA; in video interviews, various items (or even the color of the wall) shown in the background may add to the unhelpful "noise" present in the interview.

They won't be able to see my pretty face clearly enough.

I seem to have more success at in-person interviews than phone or skype interviews. Over several years, I've had many of both (for academic jobs in both law and philosophy, and previously for clerkships). Maybe there's no causal relation, but there's strong correlation.

Problems with the technology, logistical issues, inability to interact personally with committee.

I am an overseas candidate seeking a job in the U.S. During my two years on the job market, I have found that I get the most interest from schools who interview at the APA. I always point out in my cover letter that I will be at the conference, and my experience is that this information places me on a much more even footing with U.S. based candidates. If schools moved to Skype interviews as a rule, I fear I would make the all-important first cut less often, as schools would be less inclined to interview someone geographically very distant. Under the current arrangement, schools who do conference interviews

seem to say, "Well she's going to be at the APA anyway, so we might as well interview her." Schools who mention in their ads that they are doing phone or Skype interviews, by contract, have contacted me only once. The second reason I prefer APA interviews is the time difference. I recently did a Skype interview with a U.S. department and the time difference was a killer. I wound up doing the interview late at night my time, the only time the committee could accommodate me, and was so exhausted it contributed to me bombing the interview. With APA interviews, by contrast, because I organize my trip around the interviews, I have always been fresh by the time they occur. The fact that the interviews take place at a conference where I can present papers has also allowed me to obtain travel funding from my university to get there. This is a third positive feature of the status quo in my view.

Impersonal nature of video conferencing; audio imprecision; no looking people in the eye and shaking their hands

I'm concerned that in-person interviews are simply a more meaningful and effective practice for vetting candidates than internet-mediated interviews. The APA is expensive, especially if you have only one interview, but I'm skeptical that it isn't worth it for job candidates to shell out, even for just that one interview.

I prefer face-to-face interactions.

There is a sense of 'getting to know' both from the candidate perspective as well as the search committee that cannot be adequately captured via skype interview. There is a sense in which as a candidate I wanted to get a feeling for how I felt when in the same room as my interviewers just as I imagine they want to also get a sense for how they feel about me in the room as well as how they feel about one another when I am in the room.

The Skype interview that I had was very awkward. I could barely hear the questions asked me. I could only vaguely make out the images of the people on the committee; I couldn't tell who was speaking, and I couldn't see any of their facial expressions. I found it difficult to try to look at the camera rather than the image of the committee members. In my in-person interviews at the APA, however, all of these problems vanished, and I felt I was able to make a personal connection with my interviewers that would have been impossible over Skype. While I agree that the APA is extremely expensive and that this year's conference was a disaster, I would not be in favor of replacing in-person interviews with Skype interviews. Rather, I think schools should skip the interviews altogether and go straight to fly-outs.

With my one skype interview, I found it hard to hear, hard to read facial expressions, hard to know where to look, and hard to know when to stop talking without the relevant social cues. Why not just jump straight to fly-outs though? A number of schools I am auditioning for went that route, and it certainly seems efficient. I don't know what it's like on the other side, of course, but from my perspective it seems pretty sweet. Cuts down the pain of interviewing, and I doubt I can say much in an interview that will improve my chances of getting a job, given that I've sent them carefully edited and maximally thoughtful versions of my best material. And anything I could do in an interview would be hard to convey in a skype interview - e.g., positive body language, spontaneous thoughtfulness (like I said, I kept not knowing when to stop talking without being able to read my interviewer's faces properly over skype), an authentic smile, a GSOH, lack of BO.

I feel very comfortable interviewing in person, and I know others do not. I consider this an advantage that I would not happily give up. Moreover, by meeting face-to-face with my interviewers, I realized my initial assessments of which jobs I would most enjoy were probably wrong. The interviewers I was most eager to meet were disappointing in person, and those whose work I was skeptical of were much more impressive than their CVs would have suggested. Surely, this information could have been garnered at an on-campus interview, but equally as surely, interviewing departments have had similar experiences.

If initial interviews had been conducted via Skype, I very much doubt the same interpersonal experience would have been available. As such, if initial interviews had been conducted via Skype, I wonder whether such missed opportunities might result in missing an on-campus interview request.

In general, I prefer to interview in person. I can use more of my non-verbal communication skills and demonstrate to interviewers how well I can handle both the stress of a large national conference and the pressures of giving a good interview.

The APA helps keep interviews in a banded time-frame. Disciplines without a hiring conference have interviews strung out all year, to no one's benefit (except sometimes individual departments.) Without the conference, this will happen to philosophy, too, and it will generally be worse for job candidates, not better.

My main concern would be technical glitches that might become like the weather in Boston of 2010. That would be my fear, but it would certainly be more controllable.

Video-conferencing, no matter how advanced the technology may be, doesn't permit the same level of interaction between interviewer(s) and interviewee.

Loss of some extra information. e.g. i had some very good interactions with one SC at the Smoker (I know, it's crazy). Compared to an interview I had via Skype, I feel I have a better sense of what that department may be like - and they have a better sense of me - than the 40 minute Skype interview could convey. (That said, all told, I'm still in favor of Skype).

I did interviews both ways, and it was way more informative to do in-person interviews. I had a better sense of how the interview went, and of the personalities of the various interviewers. Plus, I like that the bulk of my interviews were held over two days - there was a definite event to prepare for, and then it would be over (except I had two interviews that need to be rescheduled because of weather).

Costs, croneyism.

I prefer in person interviews -- its a reasonable process - as would be video interviewing - the attempt to try to cajole departments who would prefer in person interviews into some other method seems to me (as an ethicist) inappropriate.

Preliminary interviews are unnecessary. If departments want to have them, they should have phone interviews or video interviews.

I got a much better impression of the people I interviewed with during the APA interviews. In at least one case I found it extremely helpful to talk to the search committees at the smoker.

I feel like if there were reliable video-conferencing technology this might work. As it now stands, the lag time with a skype conversation makes it unpleasant and difficult to put your best foot forward. I also actually like talking with hiring committees at the smokers. I feel that people routinely over-blow the awkwardness of this situation. I don't necessarily think interviewing should be stress free. And, in fact, I kind of enjoy the thrill of face-to-face interviews.

Statistic Value

Total Responses 41

12. If you are in favor of decoupling the Eastern APA and the job market by adopting video-interviewing for the first round interviews, what do you think could be done by hiring departments to make the video-interviews as beneficial and stress-free as possible?

Text Response

Set up a technology test for the software a day or so before the scheduled interview -- something where you could try to get Skype working between you and, say, the department's office manager, to make sure everything is working. That would give everyone enough time to make sure there were no problems with the technology.

On the interviewer side, they should make sure they have adequate video conferencing resources and a clear plan for getting the most out of the experience.

Ensure that the technology functions well-enough, and that the hiring committee understands the limitations of the technology. I have interview both in person and with Skype, and I much prefer the Skype experience. However, it is important that the committees ensure that no one off camera ask questions, that their microphone is high enough quality, and have a process in place to handle technical glitches. For example, in one of my Skype interviews, the connection was so poor I could not understand the questions. However, I felt like I could not ask that the interview be stopped and resumed once a better connection had been established.

Work with technical help from within the institution. When I did my (only) first round skype interview the logistics and testing were all done with an AV tech at the university. Everything was tested and ready to go the week before the interview, there were no concerns about weird lighting/bandwidth, etc. that had to be worked out with the interviewers, so the interview could be devoted entirely to teaching and philosophy discussion. A further benefit was that the institution had rooms with specialized video conference equipment that provided excellent video and audio and let them see me at lifesize.

Get the equipment properly set up ahead of time, and let the interviewers change position during the interview, so that the person asking the question is clearly displayed to the person being interviewed.

1. Allow candidates to do a technical trial-run, perhaps with a department administrator, the day before the real interview. (I had technical issues that ended up consuming a third of the scheduled interview slot.) 2. Use a high-quality wide-angle camera and noise-canceling microphone -- NOT merely the built-in equipment on a laptop.

1. Have a staff member from the interviewing institution initiate and confirm the connection 10 min. before the interview is scheduled to start, to ensure that there won't be any technical difficulties on either end. 2. The APA could mandate that every PhD-granting department have an office with a good-quality video camera set up so that graduates and committees from each institution will have a place to conduct interviews. We don't want people trying to impress each other via Macbook cameras.

Not sure as I've never had a video-interview.

(1) Test run the equipment ahead of the interview to make sure a stable connection can be made. (2) Introduce the entire interviewing committee before beginning the interview, so the candidate knows who is in the room. (3) Explain to the candidate what can be seen on the interviewers' end (e.g., do all members of the SC see the candidate even when the candidate only sees one member of the SC?)

Just make sure the technology works well and they know how to use it.

Maintain the current timetable, so that first-round interviews all occur in December, all campus visits early in the spring semester, etc. Otherwise, candidates will not be able to take their best offer if it comes later than another offer.

Ensure each interviewer can be seen on the video screen. Aside from this suggestion I have mixed feelings about policing or even encouraging hiring departments to follow protocols on interview practices --- because after all, no one has to follow *any* policies dictated by the field. Plus, many

departments already follow their own rules as far as these things go and presumably don't suffer the worse for it.

Placement directors, chairpersons, directors of graduate students, and search committees should inform themselves regarding their schools' video-conferencing resources. In many cases, departments rely on a single such campus resource or a single IT expert who is assigned to the department to set up such interviews. On my campus however I found that two other sources of such expertise were readily available on short notice of which my department was completely unaware (one in the library system, the other in Communications). When our 'assigned' IT person was on vacation and an opportunity for a video interview suddenly arose last summer, the burden of making the interview happen was shifted completely to myself, since my DGS, chair, etc. were helpless without access to our 'IT person'. As it turned out, there was a widely used and state of the art video conferencing resource at the library--virtually around the corner from our department. Also: at the smoker with my search committee, when we discussed the possibility of using video/Skype at future conferences, the (elderly) search chair said he would not use such a resource because 'he doesn't know how to set it up'. You don't have to know how to set it up, folks; you just have to inform yourselves regarding your own school's existing resources well in advance of their need. (The video conference I eventually had went off without a hitch).

I had one skype interview this year, and it was a pretty good experience. Interviewers should learn how to arrange the camera and the lighting in the room, though, so one can actually see them. Otherwise it's been a great experience, I preferred it to the more traditional interviews that I've had (partly because I find the smokers so terrible).

Subsidize job candidates getting the right video equipment. Maybe department placement committees could set something up for their graduates. As for me, I don't even own a webcam and have never been on Skype.

Have a back-up plan in place if there are tech glitches. Invest in high quality voice and video equipment.

Make sure all the interviewers are visible and audible to the candidate, and vice versa.

Pay a bit for state-of-the-art software, to minimize technical glitches and poor connections.

I don't think the main goal is to make the process less stressful. The process will be stressful in any case.

Use the best, most accessible technology available.

I think hiring departments ought to provide a quick way to contact the committee (probably phone number) in case of technological difficulties shortly before or during the interview.

Having done no video-conference interviews, I am really not sure. Honestly, though, I'm not at all sure what the interviews are supposed to be gauging. If they want to know something about collegiality, then the interviews will look one way. If they want to know something about professionalism, then the interviews will look a different way. I think everyone would be better served if the interviewers were as up front as possible about what they are looking for and why.

Hiring departments should try out the technology for themselves to get used to it. For example: one staff member stays home or goes elsewhere on campus and agrees to be the interviewee. The other members skype them and conduct a bit of a trial run. Hiring departments should also allow candidates to conduct a short, informal pre-interview conversation via Skype to ensure the technology works, either shortly before or a few days before the interview itself.

Economical costs of APA fairly high. Risk of additional stress from travelling.

Seems like one of the most important issues will be timetable. One of the big advantages of the Eastern is that the interviews are all done at the same time, and are all over quickly. Spreading out the stress of

Skype first round interviews from October to February could be a disaster. Trying to encourage departments to get all their first round interviews done at a particular time (first two weeks of Dec, for example) would be a nice idea.

My main complaint with video-interviewing is the diminished non-verbal communication--one can't always tell who laughed or who asked a question. It makes for an awkward time in discussing one's research. Passing the computer/camera around and making a series of one-on-one conversations would reduce this problem.

Make sure the candidate can see the interviewers clearly.

Know and be comfortable with the technology, give the candidate some information on what kind of information the SC is looking for in the interview

In addition to APA interviews, I also interviewed by Skype this year, and the interviewing dept did a great job of testing the software, and for offering advice for a smooth experience: use a hardline (rather than wifi), testing speakers, microphones, cameras, etc. I was prepared, and was very pleased w/ the experience-- much better than phone interviews, and comparable to F2F.

Strengthen IT understanding/adopt a "best practices" to make sure the call can be between more than 2 parties, will have a good connection, good microphones, good speakers, etc.

I think that first round interviews should be quite short (20 minutes), and that they should merely allow the hiring department to have some preliminary acquaintance with the candidate. I don't think that a first round interview, no matter how detailed it is, allows to draw robust conclusions on the candidate's professional skills; rather, I view it as a tool to test her/his interpersonal skills.

License good video-conferencing software, and lend students good microphones and web-cams, or make time and space available on campus to use such software and hardware.

A common courtesy for speaker-phone conversations is for each side of the call to introduce who is on the call; similarly, it should be common practice for everyone on a Skype interview to know who is on each end of the video conference. Also, a set start and stop time should be agreed on in advance. All of this could be arranged by e-mail prior to an interview. \

I have no idea why this question is only for those in favor of de-coupling. The more relevant group would seem to be those who find the video-interviews more stressful. I'd suggest assuring good equipment, having a single person at a time be the question-asker, so that the candidate doesn't have to read the whole room all the time, via video.

Contact interviewees as far in advance as practical and propose interview dates/times for candidates to choose from (similar to current APA practices). I.e., rather than contacting candidates and requesting interviews right then and there, or the next day, and rather than leaving it to the candidate to propose times to the search comittee. In other words, it would be ideal to preserve some of the formal structure of the current system, rather than adopting the full measure of flexibility afforded by the video medium.

Set the camera so the candidate can see all members of the search committee.

Have the entire committee visible to the candidate throughout the interview

Have strict recommendations for when the interviews should take place (time of year and time of day). Accommodations should be made not to interview people before 9 am their time or post 5 pm their time.

I'm not in favor, but hiring departments would have to make sure that candidates have access to the technology, and the ability to set it up, in a way that doesn't advantage the more-technologically-savvy candidates.

Give clear instructions to candidates in advance, especially concerning back-up plans in case of technology problems such as phone alternatives.

The interviewing department should have someone capable of tech support (e.g., someone from IT at the interviewing university) on hand to assist both the interviewing department and their candidates.

They could be scheduled at a convenient time for the interviewee -- after the interviewee has finished classes (i.e., taking grad classes and teaching courses), but NOT during the 22 December - first Sunday after New Year's Eve. Interviews should be scheduled (generally) between December 15-22 or January 3-15.

Just making it skype would be a huge improvement. Knowing in advance who is interviewing would be good enough.

Better audio equipment than at the school I interviewed with!

ensure that the candidate can see all interviewers at once, ensure no technical problems.

Simply conducting the first round interviews by either phone or video would make them significantly less stressful than the over-priced, inconvenient nightmare that is the Eastern APA.

Have someone from IT services close by in case there's a technical problem

Schedule at least one 'practice call' between the applicant and either the head of the selection committee or someone involved with the committee (e.g., department secretary).

1) Give the candidate the choice between phone and skype. Skype is nice for the face time, but the possible technical glitches can be stressful 2) Pursue more sophisticated technology... I'm guessing there are better video options than the free skype we all use. 3) Broad disciplinary agreement on a timeline better than the APA timeline... interviews before xmas, and no PFOs sent out until after new year.

In my experience video-interviews are less stressful than APA interviews just by their nature. Being in my own home or office in my own city, knowing that after the interview I can walk outside the room or drive a few minutes home and see my family and go about my normal life makes it all much better than the APA interviews. Of course there is the possibility of technical problems. I ran into some of these in my skype interviews. My interviewers took them in stride and were very pleasant about them. One even used the earlier technical failure as an example in formulating a question later in the interview.

Don't necessarily limit it to Skype, for one thing. GoogleTalk (i.e. gmail video chat) is in many ways just as good or better, so having more options may mean getting a better connection and overall experience.

I agree with someone on Leiter who mentioned the downside of skype interviews is that you sacrifice a standard time line. If first-round interviews are done via skype/phone, I think there needs to be a "best practices" time line that schools voluntarily follow to avoid putting candidates in difficult "early decision" positions. (Something like, all skype interviews happen between Dec 10 and Jan 10, fly backs between Jan 15 and Feb 15, etc.).

Flexible scheduling; more first round interviews since there would be time to do so; alternative phone interviews if candidate does not have access to a good internet connection/skype

Having the technology as well worked-out as possible. Technical problems can cause huge stress. A standard format for the interviews would also be helpful.

The APA could produce a document describing the best practices for conducting these interviews.

An APA-sanctioned time-frame for when they occur.

Be on time, communicate in a timely fashion, and not tell me my school has a lousy reputation at the

start of the interview.

I think it would be helpful if, for the most part, departments agreed on a time of year for first-round interviews. Because I haven't had much luck in this market, I have made the transition into thinking of myself as "on the market" all the time. But being on the market has an ebb and flow. I don't want to be preparing for interviews all year round; I want some time to do real philosophy and prepare to be interviewed about it later. So if committees mostly kept doing interviews in January and February, I think that would be somewhat better than just doing interviews at any time of the year. In other words, I think it would be better to have a job market season rather than a single job market APA.

1. Make sure equipment is in good working order (a friend had half their Skype interview w/o video due to the SCs equipment malfunctioning). 2. Space interview appointments sufficiently so as to not need to rush (my Skype interview was rushed twds the end b/c they scheduled them back-to-back; they still had questions which they asked in high speed and asked me to answer quickly. Bad form). 3. Schedule interviews sufficiently in advance (not just 2-3 days notice, e.g.).

1. Schedule extra empty back up sessions, so interviewers who run into technical problems during the interview know they will have a make up session. 2. Schedule slightly longer interview slots to provide some cushion for technical problems. 3. Make sure the committee runs its own test interview. 4. Commit to some kind of non-interupt procedure (e.g. no interruption up to 2 minutes) - as tracking interrupt questions are hard to track on Skype because of small time lags.

I've done them, they are no more stressful than a normal interview so long as all involved recognise and acknowledge the slight alienness of the stiuation.

Do a test run with the technology and the candidate.

- test with IT person prior to interview - small committee so each member can be clearly seen

Schedule the interview well in advance and provide a back-up phone number in case there are internet connection glitches.

Give clear information on schedules and procedure

Just adopting video conferencing would reduce much of the stress of interviewing -- 80% of the stress is financial and having to go to APA.

The schools can provide a place with suitable tech support.

Use conferencing in such a way that the interviewee has the opportunity to see the faces of all SC members.

Phone interviews are just as good as video interviews for first round interviews.

Back up solutions, so that if there are technical problems they are handled smoothly and in such a way that they are not made the candidate's problem. Technology that allows for viewing all committee members clearly and simultaneously.

Schedule them before Christmas or in early January. That way people won't have to interview while they are traveling or visiting family.

Make sure that all of the interviewers have practiced with the technology before and realize some of its shortcomings. Don't skimp on the technology. Make sure everybody has a camera (for when multiple streams becomes possible), the mics are good, etc. Stick to the generally accepted timetable, insofar as their institutions allow them to.

The idea that the interviewers might pass the camera back and forth so that the interviewer could see the faces of their interlocutors seemed like a very good one (despite the potential drawbacks).

Statistic Value

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13. What are your general thoughts and concerns when it comes to the on-going debate about whether the discipline of philosophy should (a) stick with the current practice of conducting first round interviews at the Eastern APA, (b) decouple the Eastern APA from the job market by using video-conferencing technology for first round interviews, or (c) dispense with first round interview altogether and skip right to bringing a limited number of candidates to campus.

Text Response

If first-round interviews remain, keep them at the APA. Personally, I much prefer the idea of skipping first-round interviews in favor of campus visits.

If we cannot have convention interviews (which I prefer), we ought to dispense with the first round entirely.

Not having experience on the other side of things, I'll remain agnostic on this one.

A lot of the debate compares apples to oranges. Some schools are actually interested in interpersonal relations and behavior of potential future colleagues. For those schools first round, in person interviews are essential. For other schools, quality of research and the like is more important, and that can be assessed by video conference.

The Eastern APA is a depraved, evil, and unnecessary experience. There are no good reasons that support its continued existence as location for the "first-cut" job interviews. It may be an important philosophical conference, but it is immoral to force young candidates to Moreover, current technology could allow the APA (or, better, some alternative, competent organization) to set up the following: (a) an online application database and clearing house (like https://www.econjobmarket.org/), that also (b) provides a central messaging service that facilitates the videoconferencing interviews, while (c) provides soft enforcement of a reasonable schedule (i.e. the system won't reveal a candidates skype name until, say, November 20th). The current technology is in place for such a system, and it would be a vastly more efficient way of doing things. Indeed, I would have gladly paid $150 towards the creation of even (a) if it saved me the $1000+ I paid to fly to Boston, nevermind the cost of mailing applications.

(b) is probably preferable for jobs that actually care about candidate's teaching abilities, while (c) is the best option for jobs that are research focused and care only nominally about teaching. If the concern is with research, look at the printed work to pick people for the shortlist. If the focus is teaching, first round interviews may be helpful in identifying candidates who might plausibly be excellent teachers. It is much harder to glean this information from a candidate's application, as many departments and universities have teaching 'awards' that are easy to win to help burnish the credentials of candidates and teacher evaluation data is of only moderate worth. Further, there may be enormous differences in the students that a TA has dealt with during their studies and the students they will encounter in job after grad school. Talking directly to a candidates can indicate whether the candidate might be able to perform well at that institution, which would merit an on-campus interview.

I'm happy with first round interviews, but they don't reveal much information and so it's hard to justify the burdens of having these interviews at the Eastern since there's a burden free way of gaining essentially the same information using phone or skype interviews.

I like the Princeton model, and I'd be happy to see less interviewing in general. But if there must be interviewing, let's do it in a more cost effective way that is less disruptive of the holiday.

There is something to be said for meeting people in person. But, when you have only one or two interviews, and you could be one of twenty people interviewed, it does not seem worth it to travel anywhere and pay exorbidant hotel prices. I think the practice of APA interviews made sense when candidates had 10 or more interviews each, but that is not the case today. Everyone I know travels to the APA for at most 3 interviews, which does not make sense at all from a candidate's perspective.

There are so many kinds of departments that I don't think you can decouple the process. I would think that going just to a short list is a bad idea. I have been a part of three searches and rarely is the highest ranked person on paper the person who gets the job offer or even a campus interview. There is a lot to learn by meeting people in person.

(There is a typo in the third word of this question.) The arguments in favor of the "video-conferencing decoupling" solution seem conclusive on pragmatic grounds--that is, the cost is clearly too high for the interviewees. I only oppose it out of self-interested reasons; I would personally suffer from such a decoupling. But I am surely in the minority.

I would favor (c).

See above.

The Eastern APA and the job process should definitely be decoupled, since there is no obvious reason for keeping them together other than tradition. First round interviews should not be dispensed with, since they provide candidates who may be slightly less interesting on paper an opportunity to impress the committee in person.

I hope schools stick with the current approach.

I am in favor of (c). My sense is that very little can be gained anyway from a first round interview. The format does not allow for in depth philosophical discussion.

My general thinking is that there is useful information to be gained from first-round interviews, but that information likely can be gotten from video interviews and is not so useful as to outweigh the (primarily, but not exclusively, financial) burden placed on candidates by the current system.

I vote for (b).

APA interviews may have slight advantages to video chats, but they're so minimal in relation to the costs involved (to both candidates and departments) that it's absurd that we're even having the debate. I'm not in a position to judge whether initial interviews are of any benefit. (Thanks for doing this survey!)

I would favor skipping the first round interview altogether.

a) I am all in favor of ending the current practice of APA interviews. I've done it three years in a row (this was my first year not attending) and overall the travel, expense, and time of year are very inconvenient, in ways they don't need to be. I get the sense that the disconnect between the financial and personal burden to job-seekers vs. the much easier commitment and no-cost, "I did it and I think everyone else should too" attitude of the hiring folks is a real problem in the conversation. As for the value of the APA conference itself - I and many peers avoid attending the conference like the plague, largely because of the meat market, competitive feel, though we are active on the conference scene in general. If I go to an industry-wide conference, I'd much rather go for the presentations, collegiality and networking. b) I can only speak as a job-seeker; I favor first-round interviews as a good way for newbies to get their feet wet in the hot seat even if it doesn't go anywhere, but only so long as they are manageable for the job-seeker (e.g. phone interview, skype).

I am inclined in favor of option (b).

I think videoconferencing is obviously superior to the status quo. I'm agnostic on whether skipping straight to fly-outs might be better yet.

I think (b) is the way to go, possible even (c). I can't understand why some people would defend (a).

(a) / (b) The current practice is unconscionable. The idea that desperate and often financially strapped graduate students should have to pay their own way for what is often a very small chance at getting a job is just awful. And I say this as someone whose department covers all of my APA expenses (or would have, if I had gotten an interview). (c) Never having been on a search committee, I can't say whether 1st round interviews have much value. But if the move to Skype drastically reduced the cost for job candidates, then I have no strong feelings either way.

I'm for decoupling. I'm for first-round interviews. I'm for video-conferencing.

I think there are valuable cues and intangibles that can only come with in-the-flesh interaction. That said, I'm not convinced the aforementioned are worth the cost of travel to the Eastern APA. It seems to me that there is little advantage to flying out candidates (c) without at least Skype interviewing them first. I buy into the ideas (i) that someone who looks worthy of a flyout on paper might be proven unworthy via a first-round interviews and (ii) that someone who is borderline worthy of a flyout on paper might be proven worthy via a first-round interview. Sorting out who's worthy via first-round Skype interviews is a no-brainer for those disinclined to attend the Eastern APA, given (i) and (ii).

The more the APA does to encourage decoupling, the better. The reasons I've seen for not decoupling all seem to glorify those aspects of initial interviews that seem like they would result in the most noise and are responsible for worries about the worth of interviews in the first place.

I've been on search committees in the past. Video conferences are just as good as in person interviews in providing information. But video conferences are better for job candidates because they involve significantly less cost for them. They also better for hiring departments for the same reason. Decreasing stress is not the goal. Increasing fairness would be a good goal, if possible.

I think the best thing would be option (c), since I think interviews just introduce cognitive biases into the process and provide little useful information for search committees. However, insofar as there are going to be interviews, I don't think the advantages of a face to face meeting justifies the cost of having it at the Eastern APA, so we should go to video interviews. Regardless of whether we continue having interviews at the Eastern APA, I think the conference should be held at a different time of year than between Christmas and New Years.

Interviews seemed (to me at least) relevant information, and I don't think they should be eliminated; a dossier only says so much, and flying people out directly may unnecessarily eliminate some (and include others) who should have been included (eliminated). Nevertheless, the technology is or soon will be such that good electronic methods will exist for conducting interviews, and it's not only the case that I think this should be how things go, but also that I think this is how things will/ must go. The absurdity of physical travel in the age of cheap digital communication simply won't stand.

My preference would be to go directly to on-campus interviews, with departments increasing by about 50% the usual number of fly-outs (so, if a department normally interviews 12 at the APA and has 4 fly-outs, transition to something like 6-8 fly-outs with no APA interviewing). But, assuming that isn't done, the main concern for me is cost. There's just no justification for placing a thousand dollar burden on poor grad student ABDs, adjuncts, and temporary lecturers.

As a general rule, I think whenever we adopt new technological practices, we eventually find it, too, has some significant drawbacks. I'm not much of a believer in panacea by technology. So before a wholesale shift to video-interviewing, I think a long, hard look at what the potential drawbacks will be would be called for. That said, I'd like to see first round interviewing skipped altogether. I've never seen a convincing case for it producing anything of relevance. Anecdotes about finding out in an interview that candidate X had terrible flaws say nothing in response to worries that the things we find out in interviews are merely statistical noise.

What are first-round interviews supposed to accomplish, and is there any good evidence that they satisfy the goals well? I suppose I favor constructing some instruments or asking for additional materials (letters of support from friends and colleagues attesting to how it is to work with the candidate, filling out a questionnaire about personality and personal hygiene, etc.) rather than conducting interviews.

I did not attend the APA, but had applied for a job where I was asked if I would be attending. Now I do not live in the US I live in the UK so this idea of a job market rather bemused me. It might be a cultural thing, but there was no way I was going to spend what is an even more extortionate amount than usual

to travel to the US over the holidays. If the APA is to be of actual use as a philosophy conference then I think it ought to be decoupled from the interview process. I would favour option C. Decide who is on your short-list and invite them to interview on campus. Asking people to engage in a cattle market at the APA probably doesn't give people the opportunity to show their best side. Since philosophers are meant to know the 'principle of charity' then it would seem relevant in this context too - set up the system so that it gives everyone an opportunity to show themselves in the best light. This would, hopefully, also ensure that the hiring department actually gets the best candidate.

I suggest that (b) is by far the best course, simply because I cannot see most departments agreeing to (c). I highly doubt (a) would exist at all if there were not a very strong appetite for something more than (c). Overall, the arguments in favour of (b) over (a) are overwhelming, and we are supposed to be the discipline where rational argument counts above all else. So it doesn't say much for us that we continue with such irrational hiring practices.

My stance is stated two questions above.

I prefer option (c) as I think it reduces the amount of unnecessary noise in hiring a candidate.

I think that it's best to not have a hard standardization. APA interview work best when one is not swamped with too many interviews and the APA serves as a prime place for networking. I did enjoy my Skype interviews, but the lack of follow up (not being able to talk with the faculty) is disconcerting (lets not forget that we are interviewing them as well!). I also think that it's not always a bad idea to skip right to on-campus interviews, but that takes a bit of control out of the candidates hands and probably makes pedigree even more important than it is already (if that's even possible--one cannot discount how much pedigree matters in this game).

My preference is for c). In either method of interviewing, the sort of information gleaned more or less runs orthogonal to the primary legitimate hiring concerns and so, such methods ought to be abandoned.

I would be in favor of (c), but I am not particularly stronglu opposed to (b) -- if some departments think they gain valuable information from interviews, let them interview via videoconference. I think (a) is completely intolerable. Let me add a reason why which has not been mentioned in the Leiter thread. The philosophy job market is international. There is no justification for a department favoring candidates from a particular geographic region. However, the coupling of the job market with the Eastern APA puts people at non-US institutions, and especially non-North American ones at a huge disadvantage. First, there is the enormous cost of intercontinental travel at one of the most expensive times of the year. Second, entering the US is not a trivial matter even if you can afford the price of a ticket. Though most of Europe is excepted, the citizens of many countries are not allowed to travel to the US without a visa. Consider the situation of the citizen of a country that does not participate in the US visa waiver program but who is, say, ABD at a top UK institution. Typically they will have to travel to their home country to interview in person for a visa at the US consulate. That can easily double the cost of travel the APA interviews involve. And of course the visa is not guaranteed, and one has to apply for it well in advance of knowing whether one has any interviews.

There are pros and cons. On one hand, the value of meeting face-to-face is great. On the other, the costs of attending the APA are fairly high. I tend to value personal interaction highly and think that there's a cost to it by switching to Skype. Finally: also had a phone interview. That was horrible. Bad sound. Awkward interaction.

It is clear to me that being at the Eastern in person gave me an advantage that I wouldn't have had on Skype - I think the Smoker really helped my chances at a couple of places. Since I come across pretty well in person, the whole affair was worth it for me personally. But EVEN GIVEN THAT, I don't think the benefits in general outweigh the costs. So I'm in favour of more Skype. Personally, I'm not sure how

much can be done to change the discipline as a whole. Some departments will carry on interviewing at the Eastern whatever the APA can be persuaded to recommend. But I think things will change: as faculty become more and more tech savvy, the transition to Skype will be de facto.

My overall preference would be for (c). (b) could be useful, but I predict that face-to-face interviews are probably better, qua interviews. (I haven't actually had any video interviews, so this is conjecture based on other skype video calling experiences.) But even though face-to-face interviews are better than skype interviews, qua interviews, overall I'd prefer to skip the whole APA experience as a job candidate.

(c) seems like a terrible option! Pedigree would be even more of a dominant factor than it already is. I would think that hiring committees would be able to interview more candidates via video than at the APA (due to less cost, time expended, etc.) and would then be able to make a more informed choice as to whom to bring to campus. My concerns about (b)--awkwardness--are far outweighed by the financial, emotional, and temporal cost of going to the APA.

If departments think first-round interviews are useful they should do them. If they do not, they should not. There is no good reason to have a stronger suggestion than that. But without a central hiring conference, the time-frame will unravel and extend, and exploding offers will become much more the norm. A casual glance at other fields shows this quite clearly. I think this is undesirable, and that people who are stressed in general are both 1) focusing too heavily on an unfortunate event this year with the weather, a bit of bad reasoning, 2) projecting their (often understandable) stress and frustration onto a system that, while far from perfect, is much better than other fields where there is no central hiring conference. Both seem to me to be clear mistakes.

I think first-round interviews should be abolished.

My main concern is not with the timing of the conference but the expense--one must book a hotel and flights in advance of getting interviews, and these are often in the most expensive cities. I spent a whole month's (adjunct) salary on the Eastern APA this year, only to have my interviews cancelled because the SCs couldn't make it into town. I think the timing should be rearranged so that the location is more central, and in less expensive cities. So, move the Central to the Eastern slot and explore less-expensive venues if we must have a hiring meeting (which I'm not in principle opposed to). I think we should definitely explore Skype and other video-conferencing technology, and with the help of our IT departments, I suspect we can make these things work for us. I don't expect video interviews to do the same things as in-person interviews, and thinking of it that way will surely lead to disappointment. We must think about what these technologies CAN do for us rather than seeing their limitations on the current job market model.

The ongoing discussion on Leiter showed how inane it is for our program to continue this practice, both for the timing and huge expense. A) should be abandoned in favor of b) with the option of c).

As a candidate who has had considerable work and interview experience prior to entering academia, I find the debates here somewhat provincial. Although i only had one interview, it seems to me that the attendant stresses and strains of interviewing for philosophy are extremely similar to their non-philosophy counterparts. Admittedly the timing of the conference is poor (whatever its purpose), and it is often prohibitively expensive for the people who need to attend the most. I'm not against trying to change these factors. I am against skipping first-round interviews however. The professionalization of philosophy results in certain types of candidates getting the lion's share of interviews as it is. Many very good candidates coming from programs lower in the 'Leiter Rankings' are failing to get interviews due to the low number of jobs and high numbers of candidates, and the rankings seem to be playing a disproportionately high role here. I could be wrong about this, but I'm that confident statistics would bear me out. I find it remarkable that the people concerned about inherent bias arising from interviews

("attractive" candidates, etc.), don't seem to think that different, but equally bad, biases arise in paper-only candidate selections.

The current practice of the job market at the Eastern APA is outrageously burdensome for those least able to bear the burden. I find that many experienced professors simply do not have a realistic understanding of the financial situation of graduate students in the current economy. Stipends provide, generally, just enough for a very basic living. There isn't extra for such travel. As such, for many graduate students the only way to go on the market is to go into some debt (I put my expenses on credit cards). It is simply unconscionable and completely unjustifiable when such a viable alternative exists. Much has been said about what further burdens there are (Leiter Reports), and I endorse every one of them I've heard so far.

I would like to see more departments move away from first-round interviews, and the reason is that various studies have shown that, relative to other information available to a search committee, information from an interview is less reliable but more vivid. Now, either the information provided by the APA interviews will cause a search committee to make a different selection among the candidates, or it will not. If the interviews do not provide information that will make a difference, then the interviews are not worth conducting. If, however, the information does make a difference to one's selection--but that information is unreliable, as studies have suggested--then it looks like conducting the interviews leads to poorer decisions when selecting candidates, because the decisions are based on information which is less reliable.

Here is one problem I've had with Skype interviews: while I recognize that the "face to face" nature of APA interviews is less than ideal (given the surroundings), one problem with Skype is that it makes it quite difficult to make out your interlocutors' facial expressions. This is particularly true if you have several interviewers in the room, so that they are sitting further away from the camera. This makes it more difficult to "read" the interviewers; I left my Skype interviews mostly uncertain about how they went. I think the APA would be well served by minimizing the interviews and focusing on the philosophy. I would also appreciate being able to decide whether or not to attend independently of considerations about whether or not I will get a last-minute interview. I've been lucky to live in the Northeast, making it easy to get to the APA (usually), but this is not likely to remain the case, and of course many people do have to fly in from far away.

The current practice, in my view, is outdated, not to say unfair towards graduate students and post-docs, who often don't have the means to pay for flights and hotels in pick season, and not just once in their careers (once if one is lucky and finds a job) but every year and sometimes for several years (the number of sessionals seems to be growing). To be sure, there are APA hotel discounts, but often departments invite candidates so late in the day that it is hard to get the hotel to comply (not to say impossible), and one is forced to buy last minute, expensive, plane tickets. The first-round interviews should use video-conferencing technology in my view, and they should be used as a means of first acquaintance, just to test the personal skills of a candidate. To properly assess candidates departments should invite them for on-campus talks and interviews. It is only in that context, after a talk, that one can really test the candidate's professional skills. If departments are unsure, they can invite 4 or 5 candidates on-campus rather than the usual 3 by using the money they save by suppressing costly (and for me superfluous) first-round interviews in suites at the APA. The most rational way to invest the money allotted for hiring is to bring more candidates on campus, it seems to me, and to avoid the "Victorian" ballrooms of the APA.

The arguments I have heard in favor of keeping APA interviews strike me as exceedingly bad. While face to face interviews are preferable, the case has not been made that video-interviews cannot yield sufficient information so that an acceptable on-campus interview shortlist can be compiled. The

emphasis placed by those in favor of retaining APA interviews on the advantage of being around to talk to committee members informally between sessions, at the Smoker etc., strike me as amazingly unprofessional. Surely first and foremost should be ones philosophical ability, and professional accomplishments, or the signs that this will be forthcoming. To admit that the APA interviews should be retained because the social and networking aspects of the APA are so determinative for ones chances of getting an on-campus interview strikes me as admitting that demonstrating one's ability to do the job of being an academic philosopher counts for less than that certain special something that trumps everything else which some people call 'potential', others 'being quick witted' or whatever; that certain special something which ensures that an NYU graduate with no publications will get multiple interviews at top schools while a graduate of a Leiter-40 school who has published in Mind, Nous and Phil Review will be lucky to get any interviews at all. As to concerns about the possibility of technological failure, I cannot believe that anyone would even take this seriously. No system of interviewing is perfect, all of them are liable to possible disruption (except of course, snowstorms, traffic jams, sudden illnesses and accidents never happen to anyone attending the APA), as long as these disruptions are infrequent that should be good enough. Chances are that replacing the APA interview with video-conferencing will replace an awful system with a bad one, but to let the perfect be the enemy of the bad in favor of the awful is just dumb. The problem of keeping to some generally agreed upon schedule is perhaps a more serious one, but I take it that APA system is not foolproof in keeping departments to it. Perhaps the APA may be convinced to invest in a video-conferencing system which is open for use for some agreed upon period, undoubtedly some departments will opt-out and try to get ahead of the pack, but that already happens, so the objection is not specific to doing away with APA interviews. There is no reason to expect the rate of compliance to the job market schedule to be much different from what it is now. To the objection that looking for a job should be costly and stressful, the question is 'why'? If the response is something along the lines of 'it builds character' or 'it exhibits the ability to handle pressure and stress which a philosopher needs to have' then the answer is 'why should being a philosopher be so stressful and unpleasant'? Speaking personally I got into philosophy because I enjoy thinking and like the subject matter, not because I get a kick of being stressed out or being overworked. That some people think things should be like this, honestly, smacks of the view that what really matters is not your professional accomplishments or signs that this will be forthcoming, but that certain special something called 'potential' or 'wit' or whatever. The current system is subject to many contingencies that have little to do with ones professional accomplishments. Moving to video-interviews is likely to remove some of these contingencies, and allow committees to focus on more professional matters instead, and it will reduce the likelihood that an application for a job will be sunk because you hurt someone's feelings by not laughing loud enough at one of their jokes at the Smoker!

I think the APA is incompetent and is beyond reform. They have had years to update their website so that job ads are searchable, for instance, and have shown no willingness to improve that service. So, by all means, decouple interviews from the APA. The second and third points are less important; some research points in favor of (c), but a chat on Skype might be helpful in markets like ours where there is a vast oversupply of very well qualified people, and a tendency for committees to split. Switching to Skype is a no-brainer, which is not to say that it will be a sure-thing. But the economic incentives all point in the right direction, so I have some hope. After this is in place, I hope you will turn your attention to the Job Ads. A weekend of thought and another of programming would solve that problem to everyone's benefit.

I kind of like (c), given that the information imparted in an interview is of uncertain value.

I have 'followed' the market for two years now, tentatively going on the market (few applications, mostly post-docs) while finishing my dissertation, and then getting my materials polished. I have not

had any interviews. I have also presented a paper on a main-program panel at the Eastern APA, and found that experience to be collegial and not intimidating. Although I know interviewing is a stressful situation, and many factors influence the face-to-face experience, after good experiences at the APA, I am not especially frightened by the 'horror stories' of interviews (especially prevalent among job seekers). In any case, I don't think video-conferencing would lessen the stress level for candidates. I am, however, concerned about the financial burden placed on job seekers in this market. I understand that, in years/decades past, job seekers have had to finance their own trips to the APA, etc, and that job searches are frequently expensive, no matter what industry/position/etc. However, philosophy interviews are extremely rare these days (relative to the number of candidates, and presumably qualified candidates), and airfare needs to be booked well in advance to get a reasonable rate. If the APA insists on holding meetings in very expensive hotels in very expensive cities at very expensive travel times-- with all the travel variability witnessed this year--I think that there are compelling economic and moral reasons for decoupling interviews from meetings. Especially given the availability of alternatives. Such arguments have already been persuasively voiced. I think it is no counterargument to point out that previous generations have benefited from the meeting-interview process, for two reasons. First, because the profession and the market are significantly different than they used to be. The process of getting a job today is simply unlike the processes of former generations, decades (maybe years)-- and in many aspects (equal opportunity, non-discrimination, diversity of positions, decreased nepotism, etc), that is for the better. However, the changed circumstances require changed behaviors. Second, because the traditional process may be partly responsible for tendencies within the profession that are morally and intellectually unjustifiable. It's no secret that female, non-white, and lower-middle and lower classed individuals are underrepresented in our field, not simply relative to the national population, but relative to the demographics of other fields (humanities, social sciences, and perhaps even hard sciences) in which faculties more diverse than ours are doing productive and impressive intellectual work. It is at least likely that our traditional hiring practices have something to do with this (and given anecdotal evidence from the minorities in our profession-- including women-- it seems certain that this is the case). Given the history of our profession, its hiring practices, and its relation vis-a-vis university culture more broadly, I'm not sure arguments of the form 'it's always been this way' or 'but we went through it this way' or 'there were good reasons for this back in 19XX' hold much water. The unjustified burdens (especially economic) of job seeking are indeed part of our professional traditions, but if they have anything to do with the successes of our profession, they likely have much to do with its failures. That said, in proposing video-conference interviews in place of meeting interviews, we need to carefully consider what new burdens, inconveniences, and avenues of discrimination we might be introducing. And we need to carefully consider what policies, norms, and procedures we should preserve from the current format(s). Video-conferencing could be an extremely flexible means of conducting interviews, and we need to consider how that increased flexibility (especially regarding timing) will place new burdens on candidates and committees. Thanks for making this survey.

Bypassing the first round interview process entirely and going straight to flyouts seems like it might make pedigree an even weightier factor that it already is, since search committees are unlikely to take a chance and fly out an interesting candidate from a mediocre program, whereas they might take a chance and interview such a candidate, who might then shine in the interview and earn a flyout. Since pedigree is already an inappropriately weighty factor in philosophy, this seems like a bad result.

I strongly support option B or C. For all the reasons listed on the philosophy smoker and Leiter Reports blog, I think option A should end.

I think I do well in interviews, so I prefer option (b). The technology exists, it is cheap, and relatively easy

to use. If departments have a problem setting up skype, they should have a tech person on hand to assist them. It seems to me that the most important thing one learns in job interviews is whether or not one can get along with one's potential colleagues. Skype makes this assessment harder, but not impossible. Plus, you will be able to determine personality suitability if you make it to an on-campus interview.

I favour option A, the status quo. I would be less opposed to video-interviews if departments who switched to them consciously made a point to not let distance affect their decision whom to interview, but I can't really see that happening. Right now as an overseas candidate I can take steps to overcome the distance factor by choosing to travel to the APA Eastern. If all schools switched to Skype, there would be no equivalent step I could take, and as a result, I fear I would have even less of a chance as a candidate than I do now. Skype-based interviews oblige interviewing departments to take much more active steps much earlier in the process to give overseas candidates a look-in. My experience to date is that rather than consciously make a point to interview such candidates, Search committees instead use distance as a screening criteria. When I let them departments know I will be at the conference in person, on the other hand, my experience to date has been that they are far more likely to set up an interview. The fact that the debate over switching to Skype has taken place almost entirely in regard to the situation of North American candidates is one of several signs that the interests of overseas candidates are overlooked in the debate. I fear that switching to Skype would only reinforce that status, and see even fewer of us make it past the all important first cut for interviews than is the case now.

I'm not sure how valuable first-round interviews are. But, if they are valuable, then they should be done in person, like future working relationships.

We should keep the first round interviews. They expose more candidates to selection committees and that's valuable for all sorts of reasons, including interviewee practice/experience and giving a shot at jobs to a wider set of candidates. Skipping to on campus interviews would likely intensify the selection pool in even more horrid ways than it is already. What if institutions gave candidates a choice of whether they want their first round interview to be in-person or Skyped? I suspect, however, that some will feel that this unfairly advantages the in-person interviewees. And if that's so, then it seems to me like this is a reason to preserve the status quo...

I think it's fairly important if we decouple the Eastern and a significant component of the hiring cycle that the APA take an active role in keeping the timing more or less standard. Otherwise, we risk moving to a rolling-hiring system which reduces the rationality of the process (I think).

The American approach to hiring philosophers is a colossal waste of time and resources, and is designed to benefit those from prestigious backgrounds. It actively discriminates against good candidates from less prestigious programs or from abroad. I think video is still not well enough developed to be used as a standard method. Some people do not have good connectivity, especially in non-US countries or some US regions. I prefer phone interviews, because committees can focus on what the person is saying and how well they are communicating, rather than on their appearance. Committees can easily buy a phone interviewing microphone system and sit around a table, and candidates can easily take themselves somewhere quiet to use either cell or land lines. Phone connectivity is more equally accessible worldwide. Moreover, phone interviewing makes it possible for committees to work together throughout the interview. Here is the way it should be done, based on my experience of interviewing: 1. Send out advertisements requesting a letter, CV including list of referees, teaching statement & evaluations, and a research statement. Either use an HR electronic submission system or use email to turn in pdfs. 2. Make a long list of 10 names. Use specific criteria to get to this list, e.g. PhD in hand, required specialization/competence in required teaching area, quality of publications in relevant area, relevant experience of successful teaching. Fame of advisor and prestige of graduate program should

not be relevant: simply consider whether this person can do what you want them to do. 3. Request letters of recommendation for these 10 candidates. Permit electronic submission/contact recommenders directly via email. 4. Rank the 10 candidates. 5. Conduct a 30 minute phone interview with the top 4 candidates using a list of pre-set questions based on evaluatory criteria agreed on in advance. 6. Re-rank/confirm rank of 4 candidates. Go back to remainder of top 10 if two or more of them can't conduct sane, coherent conversations. 7. Bring candidates to campus. A visit does not need to last two days. You need one informal chat over coffee with people not on the committee, one formal presentation, one lunch, one interview with the department chair, and one interview with the search committee. 8. Solicit feedback from all those who met the candidates. 9. Rank candidates and make an offer to the highest ranked candidate.

I am not in favor of (c), because I believe that first round interviews are valuable for many hiring institutions, especially for smaller departments and/or departments with high teaching requirements. In my opinion, the reasons for (b) outweigh the reasons for (a), and I would be strongly in favor of (b) if the hiring schedule was not seriously affected by the move away from APA interviews.

+I don't think one should dispense with the first round altogether. +There should be a first round of interviewing via Skype, followed by invitations for up to 5 on-campus visits. +In general, it would seem that the money a department saves by not having to do interviews at APA should be spent to bring an extra candidate or two to campus for a visit.

I am in favor of b or c. I think (a) is a waste of everyone's time and money.

There are obvious advantages to both sides of the debate. But my faith in the E-APA is not all lost. There is room for much improvement but not abandonment all together. Professors are often busy throughout the academic terms and probably only have the holidays to commit interviews.

I said this above but will say it again here: I am very, very, very strongly in favor of (C) (go straight to fly-outs).

If first round interviews are to be kept, they should absolutely be decoupled from the Eastern APA and be done via videoconferencing. The financial burden placed on those least able to bear it to attend the Eastern APA simply in the hope of securing a first round interview (since travel plans have to be made and deposits paid before interviews are typically scheduled) is manifestly unjust and should be discontinued. Even if videoconferencing yielded inferior information (which I do not believe they do), there is no way it would justify the burden it places on candidates. Beyond this, I am skeptical that first round interviews are worth the hassle in the first place. It is not the custom of many departments and they seem not to suffer from it at all. (I understand Princeton and NYU go direct to campus visits, and their departments seem not to have suffered as a result.) Anecdotally, I have reason to suspect that first round interviews may give *disinformation*, since my last time on the job market I had no flybacks resulting from first round interviews, but job offers from every department that flew me out without an initial interview. Though I obviously cannot prove it, I rather suspect that the extra burdens (beyond just the financial) and stresses of those interviews at the Eastern APA made me perform worse in them than I did in the longer term campus visits. Thank you for spearheading this. It is asinine how long the practice of interviewing at the APA has persisted.

I think APA interviews are better than Skype interviews; nonetheless, the savings to departmetal budgets outweighs the pros of the APA interview.

1. I'd like for the profession to decouple job interviews from the Eastern APA, and for multiple reasons. 1) They impose an unreasonable financial burden on candidates in an economic climate which requires candidates to repeatedly go on the market, year after year. 2) The timing of the event is an unreasonable imposition on familial commitments during the holidays, especially for candidates who

have to go on the market year after year. 3) The Eastern APA enables a kind of networking by select departments on behalf of their candidates, especially during the Smoker. I think this introduces a non-meritorious influence on the hiring process, and one which is not distributed equally, given that some candidates/department have greater social capital than others. 4) I'm skeptical that useful information is gleaned from APA interviews which by-and-large could not be gleaned via phone/video. 5) I suspect APA interviews allow for certain kinds of bad information (e.g. the shape of a woman's figure) which could be avoided through the use of phone/video. 6) If APA interviews possess no significant advantages over phone/video interviews, then APA interviews look like an unnecessary environmental cost. 7) For some candidates, their first experience of the profession at large is in the context of being a job market candidate at the APA. What a horrible way to introduce people to the profession. 2. I think it should be up to the hiring departments to decide whether they conduct first round interviews. I also suspect departments from smaller, poorer, and/or less prestigious institutions might rely more heavily on first round interviews (especially SLACs, where there may be a stronger emphasis on collegiality and the ability to converse across disciplinary lines). At any rate, I don't mind first round interviews; I just don't think they should be conducted at the Eastern APA.

Both parties are making an investment in the interview, with an eye towards a greater investment in the long run. It is impossible to completely dispossess the scenario of all risk. Though the schools might have certain financial options available to them that prove a lesser risk than does the interviewee, it is nonetheless in the interest of the school to have the best access to the interviewee as possible. Because personal interviews are a better gauge of candidacy than internet interviews, I do not think the APA should rule definitively on the matter. However, if schools are comfortable with the newer format, then I whole-heartedly endorse the change, as it is a great benefit for the interviewee.

This is a no-brainer. The timing of the APA simply couldn't be worse. It's morally reprehensible that I had to make a choice between seeing my family at Christmas and attending a work function. No other profession and no other academic discipline would dare submit their members to this sort of treatment. The whole thing is an embarrassment to the profession.

The principal problems with the current system are (1) the timing of the APA, between Christmas and New Years, and (2) the location of the APA; always in an expensive hotel in an expensive northeastern city. (Why not Atlanta? Richmond? Charleston? Charlotte? Norfolk? Raleigh?) If the APA were moved both in time and space, I am confident the process of interviewing as it is currently would be considerably improved. Regardless of whether the APA is moved, I *strongly* oppose foregoing in-person interviews (whether at the APA or elsewhere) in favor of Skype interviews. I have been on a hiring committee. In my experience, no one is invited to an interview who is not obviously qualified for the job—*that* is not what one learns in an interview. What one learns, rather, is whether the candidate will be a decent colleague. Since colleagues do not regularly interact over Skype, I do not see how Skype interviews are an improvement over face-to-face interviews. I also strongly oppose foregoing interviews and skipping right to on-campus visits for related reasons. An on-campus interview invitation is a precious thing, not to be handed out to the three or four candidates who are most qualified "on paper" (which determinations are always made by splitting hairs upon hairs) regardless of whether the candidates are, in person, irredeemable, misanthropic recluses.

My general thoughts on (a) are that there would need to be a well-articulated argument for doing so, and no one has offered one yet. In the face of plausible alternatives, (a) looks like an extraordinarily weak position.

From a graduate student's/applicant's perspective, (a) seems irresponsible because it involves too many costs (most obviously, material costs) and anxieties for those who are already severely struggling (financially and emotionally) and that could be wholly or partly avoided by switchting to (b), without

there being any disadvantages involved in (b) that come even close to outweighing the benefits. As far as the debate over (b) and (c) is concerned, I am hedonically speaking in favor of skipping first round interviews altogether, but I am not clear about the overall advantages/disadvantages of doing so, and in any case this is a choice for selection committees to make.

(C). My preference would be that depts eliminate first round interviews, but with the caveat that some exceptions may need to be made. Maybe sometimes they really can't narrow it down to, e.g., 4-5 candidates, and in those cases Skype or phone interviews could be used, or perhaps the dept could ask their top 6-15 to fill out a detailed questionnaire relevant to that specific position.

Departments should choose between b) and c) based on circumstantial factors.

I would certainly vote in favor of (b) over (a) largely for reasons of saving job candidates (who are likely grad students or underemployed and who likely will spend numerous years on the job market) thousands of dollars and making things better for job candidates regarding stress and not interrupting holiday and family time. Also I think lowering the costs for the interviewing departments and lowering the environmental costs are added benefits, but not my primary concern. (This is all working on the assumption that any benefits of a face to face interview over skype are not enormous and I find it very unlikely that they are enormous.) I'm not sure I am qualified to have much of an opinion on (c) as I have never been on a search committee. I don't know if search committees think they get anything out of a first round interview that they could not get from reading dossiers closely. It does seem to me if they can get a list of 12 people out of 400 just by reading dossiers, then why can't they go from 12 to 4 just from reading dossiers? But I have no strong opinion on this.

The cost savings and convenience of live video interviews for both interviewers and interviewees seems to far outweigh any intangible benefits derived from conference interviews. It seems irresponsible to skip straight to campus interviews, and phone interviews really are not as favorable to either party, so the video interview seems a very good middle ground. That, coupled with the vast savings involved make it seem (to me anyway) like a no-brainer.

(b) or (c), though, if (c), I think that the number of candidates flown out should be increased to 4 or 5, to help reduce the incidence of people who don't look super spectacular on paper being cut out prematurely.

Definitely B or C, leaving it up to individual departments to make the call between the two. No reason to have an APA policy mandating one. But if for no other reason than that the financial burdens fall almost entirely on the poorest members of the profession, APA interviewing should cease. By the way, since there's no where else to put this: I didn't get any interviews, but I'm in a job that is decent by any reasonable standard and so only applied to a handful of elite or more geographically desirable positions. The questions above are thus not worded in such a way that I can answer them (I entered the costs I would have incurred, but for having purchased a refundable Southwest ticket and made a cancelable reservation), but I have had plenty of APA interviews in the past, and, based on those and the costs associated with traveling, I would much prefer Skype interviews. I would also emphasize the difficulty for shy/socially anxious people at the APA, particularly in the setting of the smoker, as some posting on the Leiter blog discussed. The profession already selects for aggressiveness and a capacity for self-promotion in a variety of ways, and perhaps that's inevitable, but those traits shouldn't be an entry requirement. There's no reason to think the best philosophers or teachers will be those who have the skill set that best adapts them to the Eastern APA.

I think decoupling should at least be tried for a couple of years. If it is beneficial, good. If not, there is nothing preventing a switch back to the old method.

I'm in favor of having first Lund interviews be done only by video conference, but also having them

remain optional for departments that would rather go straight to campus visits. There are advantages to the face to face interviews, but not enough to outweigh the costs.

Individual departments should decide whether they find first-round interviews useful or not. That's a distinct issue from whether to have first-round interviews via skype or at the APA. But, if they are to be had, I would rather have them centralized and because of that, generally on a set time-frame. Without the conference to anchor things, the time-frame will break down, as happens in other fields, despite dreams some have that this could be "enforced" by the APA.

I'd like C. This thing is so stressful.

The level of interaction between interviewer(s) and interviewees using Skype or other technology is very limited. I see two very big problems. First, the interviewer(s) and the interviewee cannot read each other's body language. Much has been written on Leiter's blog that the interviewee will be able to track the interviewer(s) response to the interviewee. The problem is that it could be the interviewer(s) who will be unable to read the interviewee's response. If the interviewer(s) ask the interviewee a question that may have offended the him/her, it'll be difficult for the interviewers' to tell because only one person will have primary access to the computer. Second, technology has a way of making people more anonymous and distant. Think of a student who has emailed you at the end of the semester complaining about his/her grade. They tend to be brash, short, and downright rude. Both interviewer(s) and interviewee may think of the medium similarly. They may be more apt to be brash, short, and rude to one another. Their ability to connect the image with an actual living person may be hindered by the technology. I am not completely opposed to videoconference interviews. The wrinkles I have mentioned above may be worries that will be overcome with the passage of time and the improvement of videoconferencing technology. I would hope that the profession takes promoters and critics seriously. Thanks for your effort!

I think first-round interviews are helpful, so I wouldn't recommend (c). Some departments have already gone the Skype route, so I think it is a matter of making the transition to Skype interviews as seamless and easy as possible. We should just plan around the fact that some departments will use Skype while others stick to tradition. I hope that as the advantages of Skype become clearer we will eventually move to having mostly video interviews. I believe this would help make the Eastern APA a more valuable philosophical happening. I think it could also take the pressure off always holding the APA between X-mas and New Year's, so that in time we could finally change the scheduling. I don't know *anyone* who likes the timing of the Eastern APA. Surely we can change it. Finally, I wish the APA itself would either take a more active facilitating role or just get out of the way. As things stand it does a very bad job at communicating about the Eastern APA itself, the job market, etc.

There is probably some info that can be gained through in-person interaction which gets lost when all interviews are done by Skype. However, given the relative benefits of Skype interviews (cost; carbon footprint, avoiding the awful timing of APAs), they far outweigh the losses, which are easily made up during on-campus visits.

1. I don't favor (C) 2. I think it is obviously a cost/benefit debate. Those who think "nothing" is lost during face to face interviews are being naive or facile. But the benefits of video conferencing obviously outweigh the losses.

I think c is a very bad option, since the first round interviews give everyone more practice, plus they allow the schools to get a sense of the candidate before flying them out. I think the biggest argument in favor of Skype is the insane amount of money spent on the Eastern APA. For me it was not so bad since I had a number of interviews at Boston, but for friends of mine with only one or two interviews, it seems ridiculous. However, if I only had one interview, I think I would want it to be in person - I think I come

off better in person, and probably most people do. Moreover, I have a very old laptop and would need to buy a new one if I had to do a number of Skype interviews, instead of borrowing my boyfriend's for the two.

(a) Definitely not. It smacks of a "rite of passage" thinking and marks the discipline out as arkane and nepotistic. (b) I think if departments want to have prelim interviews this should be the way - the ranking of candidates often seems set and the APA is a way to double check/confirm initial impressions. The process should be as cost effective for the candidates as possible. (c) I'm more in favour of this.

This whole debate seems to me terribly misguided. This seems to be the paradigm of an area where hiring departments have the discretion to do as they please within a reasonable range of possible options. I would prefer an in person interview, others would prefer Skype or some other replacement. If a department says (as one did) "we're doing a phone interview" - then that is a reasonable request, and I am more than happy to accomodate it. If one wants to do an APA interview, then that is a reasonable request, and I am more than happy to accomodate it. I prefer in person, but both (in person and Skype) are totally reasonable on the part of hiring departments and the preferences (and minor costs) of those of us on the market seem to me totally irrelevant if hiring departments / universities would rather continue to hold interviews at the APA (I would however, say the same if they decided to do phone interviews or Skype) interviews)

Interviewing at the APA puts too much of a burden on job seekers who already have very limited resources. While I do prefer in-person interviews to Skype interviews, as it is easier to speak to people in person, that one benefit does not counteract the many disadvantages to the Eastern APA: the location and cost, and especially the timing.

I think it would be very difficult not to take video interviews as simply confirming your pre-interview conclusions. To reach a different conclusion, you'd really have to work to get something from the interview. But the investment in the video interview is minimal. That is the downside of there being no cost to generating the interview. You do not feel like you really must get something out of it, to justify the cost. It didn't cost you a thing (in time, effort, money, travel hassle) to produce it, and you'll not (I bet) work as hard to make the lack of effort pay. In short, it's going to make for sloppier interviews. I also have worries that this is going to result in doubling up on interviews, re-interviews, etc, to the advantage of some over others. This sort of thing happens already, I know, to a lesser degree.

I am strongly against having interviews at the Eastern APA given its current timing (between Christmas and New Year's), though if the date were changed I would be open to all three options. I favour abolishing the Smoker.

Decouple. I still have reservations about the "creep" of departments earlier and earlier in the year in order to get the best candidates early or force candidates to make job decisions before all the results of the market are in, e.g. other interviews.

I think the main problem with the APA is the timing. If we could simply hold it in early January, and in a city in which there isn't often snow, I would be fine with it.

Statistic Value

Total Responses 111

14. If you were a job candidate and you're done answering this portion of the survey, please select "Finished" below. Otherwise, you will have to scroll through the sections for search committee members and hiring department chairs before you answers will be recorded:

# Answer Response %

1 Finished 235 100%

Total 235 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 1

Mean 1.00

Variance 0.00


Total Responses 235

15. Were you the member of a search committee, or a department chair of a hiring department?

# Answer Response %

1 Search Committee Member 71 88%

2 Hiring Department Chair 10 12%

Total 81 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 2

Mean 1.12

Variance 0.11


Total Responses 81

16. If you were on a search committee this year and you attended the APA, how many interviews did you conduct?

# Answer Response

%

1 1 0 0%

2 2 1 3%

3 3 0 0%

4 4 0 0%

5 5 1 3%

6 6 0 0%

7 7 4 11%

8 8 2 6%

9 9 3 8%

10 10 4 11%

11 11 2 6%

12 12 6 17%

13 13+ 13 36%

Total 36 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 2

Max Value 13

Mean 10.58

Variance 7.62


Total Responses 36

17. If you were a member of a search committee this year and you attended the APA, how much did you spend on travel expenses (e.g., plane tickets, train tickets, gas, etc.)?

# Answer Response

%

1 0-$150 9 23%

2 $151-$300 3 8%

3 $301-$450 10 25%

4 $451-$600 8 20%

5 $601-$750 2 5%

6 $751-$900 2 5%

7 $901-$1050 0 0%

8 $1050-$1300 4 10%

9 $1301-1450 2 5%

10 $1451+ 0 0%

Total 40 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 9

Mean 3.73

Variance 5.74


Total Responses 40

18. If you were a member of a search committee this year and you attended the APA, how much did you spend on your hotel?

# Answer Response

%

1 0-$150 8 20%

2 $151-$300 4 10%

3 $301-$450 9 23%

4 $451-$600 8 20%

5 $601-$750 4 10%

6 $751-$900 3 8%

7 $901-$1050 2 5%

8 $1050-$1300 0 0%

9 $1301-1450 1 3%

10 $1451+ 1 3%

Total 40 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 10

Mean 3.65

Variance 4.80


Total Responses 40

19. If you were on a search committee this year and you attended the APA, how would you rate your overall experience?



Responses Mean



3 The Expenses of Attending the APA 11 14 9 5 39 2.21

4 Your Experiences with the Interviews Themselves 1 1 24 10 36 3.19

5 Your Experiences at the Smoker 5 11 14 8 38 2.66

6Your Non-Job Market Related Experiences at the APA

3 7 19 6 35 2.80

Statistic The Timing of

the Eastern

APA

The Location

of the Eastern

APA

The Expenses of Attending the APA

Your Experiences

with the Interviews

Themselves

Your Experiences

at the Smoker

Your Non-Job Market Related Experiences at

the APA

Min Value 1 1 1 1 1 1

Max Value 4 4 4 4 4 4

Mean 1.95 2.59 2.21 3.19 2.66 2.80

Variance 1.16 1.25 1.01 0.39 0.93 0.69

Standard Deviation 1.07 1.12 1.00 0.62 0.97 0.83

Total Responses 39 39 39 36 38 35

20. If you were a search committee member and you attended the APA, would you have preferred to have been interviewing candidates instead using video-conferencing such as Skype?

# Answer Response

%

1 Yes, I would have preferred to have conducted our interviews via Skype 13 35%



Total 37 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 3

Mean 1.84

Variance 0.53


Total Responses 37

21. If you were a search committee member who has interviewd candidates using web-conferencing technology, how would you rate your overall experience?

# Answer Min Value

Max Value

Average Value

Standard Deviation

Responses

1 Video-interviewing Experience 1 7 4.34 1.67 44

22. If you were a search committee member who interviewed candidates at the APA, how would you rate your overall experience?

# Answer Min Value Max Value Average Value Standard Deviation Responses

1 APA Interviewing 1 7 5.27 1.39 37


# Answer Response

%


44 67%


12 18%


Total 66 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 3

Mean 1.48

Variance 0.56


Total Responses 66


Text Response

Invaluable information acquired through meeting candidates in person during interviews and also the smoker

I like meeting candidates in person

The technology failing mid-interview.

technological difficulties with video interviews

Decision should be made by departments, not APA or any other central association. if some departments want to interview at one of the APA meetings, the APA should accommodate them. Talk about a central decision to decouple is just silly. If departments want to interview at some conference, let them.

The face to face contact with candidates provides a much better opportunity to assess how they would be as teachers and as colleagues. The technical problems that can arise with Skype are bothersome and make for different interviewing conditions for different candidates, which isn't good at all. My stated preference could be a bit misleading though. I think that the costs of attending the APA are too high, and that high oil prices and airline consolidation are likely to drive them even higher. But for now, I give the edge to APA interviews, although I am in favor of experimenting with Skpe.

I feel Skype is an inadequate substitute for talking to a person face-to-face.

The way I see it is as follows: I'm still of the opinion that APA interviews are slightly better than Skype interviews. If that's right, then I can see reasons for keeping the current arrangement. Here are the reasons (all under the supposition that APA interviews are better than Skype interviews): For most departments, making sure to get a good hire is a very important decision; and for most candidates, having every advantage at your disposal is very important. Consequently, if *all you're concerned about is maximizing the chances of having a good fit*, then there is good reason for keeping the current arrangement. If I were convinced that Skype is just as good or better than APA interviews, then I would favor it. One other thing, though unrelated: I definitely favor moving the APA from cold cities to warm cities.

I have done both -- this year I only did in-person interviews, but in recent years I have done video-inteviews as well. Frankly, I find that both practices encourage focus on superficial qualities. I have more or less the same concerns about both -- lack of clarity on both sides of the table being the chief one, and lack of focus on the interviewer side -- but feel these might be a bit worse on Skype.

Video conference technology is bad, period. I've been on both sides of such interviews, using expensive dedicated technology, and have found it unsatisfying every time. As a search committee member, I'm hiring someone who may be my colleague for 30 or more years. It's important to get that decision right, and video conferencing makes it harder to get it right.

Candidates will be teaching our students in person, not via Web conferencing software. They will be interacting with colleagues, administrators, and so on in person. That makes me prefer meeting them face to face. In addition, the gathering of so many members of the profession makes possible multiple interviews and the possibility of follow up on the part of either interviewer(s) or interviewed, as well as

conversation with others who can vouch for the candidates.

Statistic Value

Total Responses 11


Text Response

Video interviews are already much less stressful than in person. (At least they were for me--I've been on both sides of these things.) The committee just needs to show common sense--e.g., confirming that the candidate can hear them OK, looking at the camera to mimic eye-contact, making sure that only one person speaks at at time, etc. When I did video interviews as a candidate, it was the first time I'd ever conducted any sort of conversation over video, so I was understandably nervous about what it would be like. But nowadays most job candidates have used Skype before to talk with friends and family.

ensure that technicians are present beforehand, to avoid last-minute glitches

No idea. I've never done it. (I have used Skype in a many-one connection, but not for an interview.)

Be sure to create in advance open time slots that can be offered to candidates right away when technological problems derail an interview. Otherwise, all of the usual for interviews in general. (Especially, be sure that all the interviewers are well acquainted with the files and preferably have read a writing sample from each candidate.)

Assure candidates tech problems will not be held against them, take time to explain/acknowledge differences from in-person (e.g. we will just nod and not say "yes" while you're speaking to avoid audio cut-out)

Ensure that all interviews are as similar as possible in format (both content and form).

Get a lot of tech support from university's IT people; have the equipment set up properly.

(1) Make sure to use reliable technology. (2) Ensure that someone present has the wherewithal to use it properly. (3) Interview everyone by video, not just those in faraway lands. (4) Schedule the interviews before Christmas, so that candidates can relax for the holidays.

Get the video-interviewing set up by professional IT support people at the host institution.

Make sue that the technology works and is as glitch-free as possible.

Clearly, the greatest effort should be made to schedule interviews at convenient times, to understand if candidates do not have immediate access to the technology, etc.

Do phone interviews rather than video-interivews.

Send detailed directions to candidates about what to do. Have an explicit series of standard protocols/practices used by all departments. Encourage all PhD programs to dedicate IT staff, equipment, etc., to help their students on the market have easy access to reliable video-conferencing facilities. Before the interview, spell out back-up plans in case there are technical glitches.

In our interviews, we offered all of our candidates a chance to follow up by e-mail if they wanted to -- e.g. if they thought of a good answer to a question asked at the interview. A couple of them did, and I think it was helpful for both parties.

Encourage the applicants to test their Skype connection before the interview. The applicants' microphone went out in a couple of our interviews, so we had to supplement the video connection with

a telephone connection. Not a big deal. It added a minute of stress for two applicants from which they quickly recovered.

Arrange to have reliable and Hugh speed facilities on both ends--buggy connections are the worst in this process.

Advanced planning, keep the interviews fairly short (15 minutes), perhaps begin with an acknowledgment that video conferencing often lacks the natural flow of face to face interviews.

I am sceptical of first round interviews as a filter for campus visits, but waiving this: ask what time of day is best for the candidate and do your best to comply, don't ask questions that are difficult to parse in spoken language (since they are even more difficult to comprehend remotely); respect rules of formal etiquette, since breaches come across especially badly in remote interviews; make sure only one person is speaking at a time.

Statistic Value

Total Responses 18


Text Response

Video is not perfect, but nor are in-person interviews, and I think all things considered video is much much better.

I go with (b). While less than perfect - one of our skypes failed because of problems at the candidate's end - we got a good enough sense of who the people were to know whether we wanted to bring them to campus, Reason for rejecting (c): Most departments can afford to bring no more than 3 people to campus, and it's crazy to go from a vast number of applicants (hundreds) to 3 without any form of person-to-person contact. I endorse the main reasons for rejecting (a) that have been discussed on the Leiter blog

(c), and it's not close. I haven't been able to convince my department, though.

I find it hard to draw any general lessons from the debate since departments simply differ in what matters for hiring decisions and the efforts connected with campus visits. Campus visits are a major commitment for our department, so we need to be absolutely sure that we only bring absolutely fantastic candidates to campus. Absolutely fantastic candidates need the personality, intellectual skills and charisma to play a meaningful role in our department. There is no reason to think one can test for such features without an in person interview and hours of discussion at the smoker etc. But other departments may make their hiring decisions differently, and for them video conference or no first round interview may be a live option.

Having conducted our first-round interviews by Skype this year, I will never be persuaded to do another hotel room interview. Even if expense were no object, the savings in time and energy would clinch the case. I was afraid that candidates would be uncomfortable with this form of interview. On the contrary, they seemed much more comfortable than candidates I have interviewed in hotel rooms during other searches. (Of course we always honored the suites-only rule.) By the way, it was not clear to me whether I was supposed to use the sliding bar to indicate my satisfaction with APA interviews on prior occasions. (Note the difference in language, between "has interviewed" and "interviewed", in the two questions.)

In my view c>b>a. But the relevant question for the APA is whether (a) is justified; individual departments should be able to decide between (b) and (c). The existence of (b) makes it important that the APA cease encouraging departments to conduct APA interviews.

There are many better options than current practice. Don't forget keeping a first round interview conference but moving either the place or time, preferably both, to early January in california or the west. But I think I'd prefer videoconferencing yet more.

I think that the debate is an outlet for expressing deeply felt frustrations about the poor state of the job market

The money saved by not sending committees to APA would allow for additional campus visits - an excellent trade-off. Video interviews are almost as good as in-person. I would very much miss the smoker, though - very useful for evaluating candidates.

I think the APA should create a best practices guide based on the opinions of its members. I suspect such a guide would lead to giving up in-person interviews at APA and replacing them with video (or in some cases no first round). The APA should do what it can to ensure consistency in practices and timetables among departments. This seems best done by allowing depts to advertise in JFP only if they agree to the best practices (as much as their administration will allow), and disciplining those who do not.

Recognizing it can also create problems, I believe that in-person interviews provide a chance to pickup on many personal and psychological cues from a candidate that is lost when interviews are done on the phone or even over web-conferencing. I am not at all sure that cost is enough to keep the current system, but I am also not sure there are anything near only 2 options.

You missed an option for the first two questions. No other members of my department arrived, and so we conducted no interviews.

I would be in favor of Skype or similar for these purposes *if* the technology (Skype's network etc.) were much more reliable than it is. We needed to use Skype for two candidates who could not make it to the APA this time, and Skype let us down (we reverted to an ordinary phone for these two candidates). So far as skipping first round interviews is concerned, I am *not* in favor of it; I think that it is crucial to interview a larger number of candidates (e.g. 12), in order to counteract powerful individuals with idiosyncratic preferences and rankings on committees (in my experience, there is much more convergence towards the good when such individuals, and the committee as a whole, is forced to interview candidates in person before creating a very short list. Of course, there are also the distorting effects of interviews to consider, but these are less serious, in my experience.

I'm a believer in first-round interviews. People can be much more, or much less, than what they appear to be on paper. I haven't yet served on a search committee in which our initial impression of the candidates' strengths hasn't undergone significant revision after the first round of interviews. Regarding the Eastern APA: it's a nightmare, and the arguments in favor of decoupling the meeting from the job market are utterly overwhelming. The strongest argument in favor that I've seen -- apart, of course, from the "smell and comportment" argument, a juggernaut that no opponent of the Eastern APA could possibly deflect -- is that, you know, video-conferencing isn't perfect, and isn't as good as face-to-face interviews. Well, sure, but the costs associated with face-to-face interviews are extremely steep. How is this even an issue?

First round interviews are important, so I am definitely not in favor of (c). Concerning (a) vs. (b) it is not clear to me how this decision could or should be imposed on hiring departments. Also, until a critical mass of hiring departments to decide to go with video-conferencing, most candidates would still have to attend the Eastern APA for some interviews.

I think first round APA interviews are not a good idea, but that they should just be skipped in favor of bringing more candidates to campus for on campus visits.

I think it is absolutely necessary at this point to minimize expenses on job seekers, given their difficulty finding jobs. I went into debt as a job seeker and attending the APA was not insignificant in that. (In addition, applying to jobs should become cost-free by the use of the internet. Hiring departments should

be able to view dossiers on the internet for each candidate.) There is one down side, which is that attendance at the APA will fade. It does play a role in networking, etc. but I think the profession needs to be more compassionate about the burdens we're placing on job seekers.

I don't think there should be an ongoing debate; let individual schools do whatever they want.

Frankly, the technology is not yet mature. This is not just the issue that Skype went down while we were interviewing (for three different interviews of our five by Skype), it is also that both candidates and the hiring committee members are not sufficiently tech savvy to make their computers behave properly. Further, getting internet connections with sufficient bandwith was a problem for 4 of the five interviews we did with Skype--all on the candidates side. And for each to their detriment, as time was wasted futzing around and connection issues were front and center, not philosophy.

that anyone is talking about what 'the discipline' should do is a waste of time and shows lack of intelligence on behalf of those participating.

(c) I think first round interviews, be they Skype or convention, should be abolished. Convention interviews are costly, and useless (or worse). Skype interviews less costly, but still probably useless (or worse), though I don't know of systematic evidence on Skype effectiveness. (Of course, the evidence on short in person interviews is pretty damning.)

I think that the hiring timeline that is established by the APA interviews is a good thing, and that the hiring would become chaotic without it. This would be bad, and potentially expensive, for departments, and it would also be bad for job candidates. Stretching out the hiring season would only add to their burden, and these stresses would have no upside, unlike those of attending the APA. I fear that private institutions, which have more financial stability from year to year, would be able to get their positions approved faster, and that this could disadvantage public institutions,which face increasing downward pressures.

The timing of Eastern APA should be pushed to after New Year's. Otherwise, I favor continuing to have in-person interviews at the APA meeting. Of course, individual departments may decide to interview over Skype instead (as some already are).

I think it might be hard to make the transition for the profession as a whole. As long as some schools interview at the APA, candidates will feed a need to go. And some schools will reason 'as long as candidates are going to the APA anyway, we might as well meet with them in person'.

I tend to think that in-person interviews are helpful, and I generally enjoy going to conferences. I also think (having been on both sides of the search coin in the past 10 years) that the negative aspects of the APA job market experience are often wildly overblown. With that said, I am also sensitive to the fact that it is expensive, especially for grad students.

This was our first time using Skype for first-round interviews. The conversations were clear and free of distraction. The candidates were sitting comfortably in quiet rooms in their own homes or in homes of relatives or friends if they were traveling. The three of us on the committee were in a quiet office on campus. We scheduled three sessions of interviews over two weeks, starting on Dec. 27, at the convenience of the candidates and the committee. Not having to travel to the APA saved the committee members time and the department money. The candidates were not so lucky. Most of them were planning to attend the APA. The technology is already very good and will only get better. It seems inevitable that more interviews will be done this way. I find a lot of value in interviewing ten applicants in the first round. It allows the committee to get a sense of the applicants' personalities and to hear them respond to philosophical questions related to their work. This makes for a more informed judgment on who should be invited to campus. I would therefore not be in favor of doing away with

first-round interviews. Although I am in favor of decoupling the interview process from the professional meeting, the meeting does afford opportunities to interact with the candidates in other settings. The "smoker" has limited value, I think, but being able to hear a job applicant's presentation at one of the sessions, if he or she is fortunate enough to be on the program, could be helpful. On the other hand, almost all of the events at the professional meeting -- the interviews, the smoker, the presentations -- are stressful and somewhat artificial, especially for young philosophers. The Skype interviews have been relaxed and so have been at least as good as APA interviews at helping us imagine how the applicants would interact with students and colleagues day to day. I would be comfortable with the APA saying that departments may conduct job interviews at the division meetings or via video-conferencing technology. The quality of conversation during interviews at the APA is no better than that of Skype conversation. If the job candidate happens to be at the meeting, then I do not see any unfairness in allowing an interview at the meeting. If the candidate is not there, then a video-conference should be allowed. I do not see fairness being compromised with such a policy.

I am tentatively in favor of eliminating the 1st round interviews. But this was my first time serving on a hiring committee, hence the tentativeness.

(a) I like first round interviews. They changed the way my department ranked our candidates. (b) Unsure of this, though I suspect that Skype will very soon be as good as APA interviews (if it's not already). Once it is, then I think we should decouple. (c) I'm against this because actually meeting the candidates made some stand out more than others. NOTE: I was on a search committee but I didn't go to the APA.

I was a member of a search committee this past year. We did not use the APA, and neither I nor my colleagues can remember a time when we have. It is too expensive and (even worse) too inefficient. We use the Chronicle of Higher Education and get just as many applicants as other SLAC's like ourselves who use JFP. We use Phone/Skype first-round interviews and proceed with on-campus after that. Conference calls are more common than Skype. We have no intention of using the APA. We cannot see how what they offer is better than our current practices.

(c) might be an option for certain schools -- e.g., perhaps research universities -- but (b) is preferable overall.

Definitely b. or c. The current practice of interviewing at conferences is needlessly expensive certainly no less stressful than video conferencing.

While I think shifting to Skype for first round interviews is a step in the right direction, I prefer to eliminate such so-called first round interviews entirely. Our department is hiring this year, and we will do no interviews before the campus visit stage. We kept to the usual timetable--i.e., we decided upon a list of 14 candidates in December who, were we doing APA interviews, we would have interviewed. We notified these people that they were being considered for on campus visits, and invited them to send us any additional information they might like us to consider before we chose those we would bring to campus. We are making that decision this week, and will begin scheduling campus visits by the end of the week. So far this has gone very smoothly, and I anticipate making a very advantageous hire.

I was not on a search committee this year (I was on one last year), I was just curious about the survey. My answers are otherwise valid, but please feel free to discard them. Sorry! With respect to this question, I think first-round interviews could probably be dispensed with altogether, but if people want to continue with them, they should definitely use video (or phone) conferencing. I also think having the APA between Christmas and New Year's is ridiculous and should be changed regardless of whether there continue to be interviews conducted at the convention or not. This is often the only week that family members have off of work.

As indicated earlier, I am sceptical about the value of first-round interviews. Generally speaking, they serve those interviewees best who have a gift for quick and clear answers that can be appreciated by a plurality of interviewers who may not be intellectually in tune with one another. (This is a virtue, of course: my complaint is that in brief first-round interviews, it tends to eclipse other virtues.) Interviewers also tend not to be very well prepared: understandably, since adequate preparation for each interview takes no less than 90 minutes or so. (So a round of interviews takes 10-12 hours of work, not to mention time spent in making a list of first-round interviews.)

I am surprised that so many of my colleagues, at my own university and in the profession generally, seem to think it is so easy to select from among hugely overqualified groups of applicants -- or that it is so hard that really putting forth the effort is not worth it. I find all the arguments from their side (the timing of the conference, the cost, the hassle, etc.) insufficient even when correct. I reach the same conclusion about arguments from the candidate side. Improvements are, of course, desirable; meeting in a less expensive city, at a less expensive time. But going to video conferencing is a horrible idea, and my experience with option (c) above (also tried at my university) was bad as well.

The oddity of divisions -- particularly the Eastern -- having so much more clout than the national organization is most peculiar. That's a bigger target of my concern with the scheduling of the meetings. The meetings are a valuable opportunity to conduct many interviews in one place in a fixed bit of time. In addition, current practice allows candidates to get some sense of what the process is all about in advance of actually being on the market, should they choose to do so. And having the interviews all together allows candidates (again, if they choose) to share some bits of intormation, by making the process a little bit more public than if interviews were conducted online. Thanks for initiating this survey.

I don't have enough experience with video interviews to have a strong preference between in-person interviews (plus costs and inconvenience) and video interviews. Here is my experience with several tenure-track searches: from a list of 15, between two and four candidates turn out to be obviously unsuited for my institution (a liberal arts college that values both teaching and research). They look great on paper and we were all in favor of interviewing them. Then at the interview quirkiness, failure of communication skills, inability to make eye contact, etc. all point toward a disaster in the classroom and a problematic colleague. I'd really like a chance to weed out people like this before investing in an on-campus interview. If letters were more honest or teaching evaluations more standardized, maybe we could see these problems from the file, but the frequency with which this happens makes me reluctant to go straight to on-campus interviews. I'm open to persuasion by people who favor this strategy, but I'm having trouble figuring out how else to do the useful work that short in-person/video interviews provide.

Statistic Value

Total Responses 37

27. If you were on a search committee and you were not also a hiring department chair, please select "finished" below. Otherwise you will have to scroll through all the survey questions for hiring department chairs before your responses to this section will be recorded.

# Answer Response %

1 Finished 68 100%

Total 68 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 1

Mean 1.00

Variance 0.00


Total Responses 68

28. If your department conducted first round interviews at the APA this year, how many search committee members did you send to the APA to conduct interviews/?

# Answer

Response %

1 1 0 0%

2 2 0 0%

3 3 4 67%

4 4 1 17%

5 5 0 0%

6 6 1 17%

7 7 0 0%

8 8+ 0 0%

Total 6 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 3

Max Value 6

Mean 3.67

Variance 1.47


Total Responses 6

29. If your department conducted first round interviews at the APA this year, how many candidates did your department interview?

# Answer Response

%

1 1 0 0%

2 2 0 0%

3 3 0 0%

4 4 0 0%

5 5 0 0%

6 6 0 0%

7 7 0 0%

8 8 1 17%

9 9 1 17%

10 10 0 0%

11 11 0 0%

12 12 2 33%

13 13+ 2 33%

Total 6 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 8

Max Value 13

Mean 11.17

Variance 4.57


Total Responses 6

30. If your department conducted first round interviews at the APA this year, where did you conduct your interviews?

# Answer Response

%

1 The ballroom 1 17%

2 A hotel suite 5 83%

Total 6 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 2

Mean 1.83

Variance 0.17


Total Responses 6

31. If your department interviewed in the ballroom, how much did the APA charge for the use of one of the interviewing tables?

# Answer Response

%

1 0-$150 1 100%

2 $151-$300 0 0%

3 $301-$450 0 0%

4 $451-$600 0 0%

5 $601-$750 0 0%

6 $751-$900 0 0%

7 $901-$1050 0 0%

8 $1050-$1300 0 0%

9 $1301-1450 0 0%

10 $1451+ 0 0%

Total 1 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 1

Mean 1.00

Variance 0.00


Total Responses 1

32. If your department interviewed in a hotel suite, how much did you ultimately end up spending on the suite?

# Answer Response %

1 0-$500 0 0%

2 $501-1000 1 20%

3 $1001-$2000 4 80%

4 $2001-$3000 0 0%

5 $3001-4000 0 0%

6 $4001-$5000 0 0%

7 $5001-$6000 0 0%

8 $6001-$7000 0 0%

9 $7000+ 0 0%

Total 5 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 2

Max Value 3

Mean 2.80

Variance 0.20


Total Responses 5

33. Overall, what do estimate your department spent in order to conduct first round interviews at the Eastern APA?

# Answer Response %

1 0-$1000 0 0%

2 $1001-$2000 0 0%

3 $2001-$3000 2 33%

4 $3001-$4000 1 17%

5 $4001-$5000 1 17%

6 $5001-$6000 2 33%

7 $6001-$7000 0 0%

8 $7001-$8000 0 0%

9 $8001-$9000 0 0%

10 $9001-$10000 0 0%

11 $10,001-$15000 0 0%

12 $15001-$20000 0 0%

13 $20000+ 0 0%

Total 6 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 3

Max Value 6

Mean 4.50

Variance 1.90


Total Responses 6

34. As a hiring department chair, how would you rate your overall experiences with interviewing at the Eastern APA?



Responses Mean



3 The Expenses of Interviewing at the APA 2 2 2 1 7 2.29

Statistic The Timing of the Eastern APA

The Location of the Eastern APA

The Expenses of Interviewing at the APA

Min Value 1 1 1

Max Value 4 4 4

Mean 2.00 2.86 2.29

Variance 1.00 1.48 1.24

Standard Deviation 1.00 1.21 1.11

Total Responses 7 7 7

35. As a hiring department chair, would you have preferred that your department had been interviewing candidates instead using video-conferencing such as Skype?

# Answer Response

%

1 Yes, I would have preferred to have conducted our interviews via Skype 3 43%



Total 7 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 2

Mean 1.57

Variance 0.29


Total Responses 7


# Answer Response

%


4 50%


3 38%


Total 8 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 3

Mean 1.63

Variance 0.55


Total Responses 8


Text Response

At least at present, video interviews cannot convey sufficient information about the candidate as person. Moreover, casual conversation at receptions and other contacts at the meeting often play a significant role in learning about the candidates. Although budget saved might permit more on-campus visits, these are far more time-consuming and so the overall process could not possibly provide as many opportunities for candidates to make their case.

Face-to-face interviewing seems to me to provide more and better information.

Statistic Value

Total Responses 2


Text Response

We got late approval to hire tenure track last spring, and thus did all of our first round interviews via skype. We used the money we would have spent going to APA to bring a fourth person to campus. We were lucky to have excellent on-campus facilities and staff to make sure the interviews went off without technological problems. Even for many of my older colleagues without lots of tech experience, we were uniformly pleased with the results. For starters, the entire committee can be present and discuss each candidate immediately afterwards. We asked each candidate if they were comfortable with the process before and after the interview, and then encouraged phone call follow up if they had concerns about how their interview went. Scheduling was not as difficult as I initially expected. The committee chose two half days to block off during one week, then we offered candidates their preferred hours to interview beginning with the highest ranked candidate. The interviews themselves are much like traditional interviews, and so much cheaper for everyone. We prepped just as we would for APA interviews, designing questions, covering bases, etc. I've been on several hiring committees, both traditional and now skype; I can't see us doing first round interviews at the APA Eastern ever again. This also frees the department's travel budget up a bit, allowing precious research funds to be used by faculty to attend other conferences during hiring years if they so choose.

Statistic Value

Total Responses 2


Text Response

The holiday timing is bad, and the sites selected are often expensive, but for the reasons mentioned above, video conferencing is an inadequate substitute for personal encounter (because of the weather we had to do a few Skype interviews this year, so we had a direct comparison). Skipping the first round altogether would be least desirable: candidates far too often are nothing like what they seem to be on paper. Finally, video interviews are least effective in revealing to the candidate the nature of the interviewers and their institution, likely disadvantaging less-know schools.

This questions is preposterously USA-centric, as is the entire surevey. Most universities and philosophy departments in the world are not in the USA. Hiring practices in the USA hardly reflect the will of "the discipline of philosophy". If you are only interested in opinions from philosophers in the USA, then you should say so on the survey homepage. Do you think the internet stops at the borders of the USA?

Hold the APA in a southern city and provide for cheaper hotels.

In order to decouple the Easterns and the job market, the APA would need to make and enforce rules to keep depts from hurting candidates by rushing to make offers.

Speaking as a former, desperately poor Midwestern grad student who once spent the night on a couch in the lobby of the APA's hotel in Atlanta to save money for food (mostly granola bars washed down with caffeine) during interview week, established faculty and departments OWE it to our future colleagues to take advantage of new technology such as skype. If we desire professional networking or seeing old friends in New York over break, we can do it without making others play along. Grad students who want to experience "professional conference life" can then be free to choose local, regional, national or international conferences that best fit with their AOS, their budget , their teaching schedule and their family life.

Statistic Value

Total Responses 5

40. If you are finished taking the survey please hit "Finished" below and your answers will be formally recorded.

# Answer Response %

1 Finished 9 100%

Total 9 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 1

Mean 1.00

Variance 0.00


Total Responses 9

41. If you were on a search committee this year and you attended the APA, how many other members of your committee also attended the APA to conduct interviews?

# Answer

Response %

1 1 1 3%

2 2 8 27%

3 3 8 27%

4 4 8 27%

5 5 2 7%

6 6 1 3%

7 7 0 0%

8 8+ 2 7%

Total 30 100%

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 8

Mean 3.50

Variance 2.74


Total Responses 30

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