Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Comments for search committees

Now, I know that we scientists tend to not be the most, um, socially able people in the world, but I think there are some basic things professors could learn when it comes to telling someone he did not get a faculty position*.

First, when you are calling to let someone know they were rejected, I give you credit for being polite enough to call and not email or even mail a rejection. However, if you call someone every day for a week but don't want to be impersonal by leaving a message or sending an email, you are making it worse. This is why the gods gave us answering machines** and email. Yes, I know you don't want to leave a message saying, "This is Prof Hoo-Hah from This University, please call me back," so as to not get one's hopes up, but at some point you can just email the person, politely saying that you didn't want to email, but...At least that way you don't have to wait for the person to email you himself and then email a rejection anyway.

Also, never, NEVER, include the following in said rejection: The department had no specific criticism of your visit or your presentations. You were, in fact, voted an “acceptable” candidate and might have been called if our first choice turned us down. Our first choice was a person whose broad research interests touched a wide segment of the department. That is difficult to compete against.

Let's break this down. The first sentence is nice. The second though is most assinine thing to say, even though it is clearly meant as a "good thing." I think the sarcastic quotes destroy the positive message, and could have been a better worded sentence by just switching an "acceptable" with a qualified, or something.

The final two sentences make it sound like they had someone in mind all along, but that's just a certain person trying to find ways to justify the results and/or hate the place that he is not going to be going to.

Plus, who in their right mind accepts a faculty job in just two days, by the way?

---

* Obviously this applies to many other jobs, but I'm obviously not hiding the fact that this is a personal story, so go figure.

** I like answering machines or voicemail in my office for this very reason. I'm never in it, but for some times here and there.

by Topher at 8:36 AM |