Saturday, February 16, 2008

Academic Interview Etiquette

I am chairing a search committee right now and we are in the midst of scheduling interviews. In the interest of being friendly, welcoming, and preparing for unforeseen travel delays, I have given my home and cell number to the candidates. One of the candidates called my house yesterday. At 9:30PM. I was in bed already*, so I didn't answer the phone. S/he had also emailed asking for good times to call. I emailed back this morning and said that anytime before 9:00PM would be fine (I also happened to mention that we are two hours later here than where s/he is). I did NOT mention what time that call came in last night, because I don't want to make him/her feel bad, but I really hope that doesn't happen again. Even when we're awake, we tend to not answer the phone that late- especially if the number is unknown. I'm not even sure why this person wants to reach me or why s/he seems so intent on talking immediately, when the interview isn't for almost a month, either. One other interesting thing is that I met this person last spring when I interviewed at her/his current department! Maybe s/he wants to get the low-down, since I was trying leave. We'll see.



*I arrived at school at 7:30AM yesterday and didn't get home until after 7:30PM. My day included teaching, meetings, lunch with a friend, and attending a visitation for another friend's father. By the time I got home, I had a splitting headache and went to bed early.

2 comments:

What Now? said...

When I was on the job market several years ago, I got an interview-request phone call from a school (yay!) that arrived at 6:00 a.m. (boo!). Clearly this was an issue of time zones, but I did think that the search committee person making the phone calls at 9:00 a.m. might have considered the issue of what time it was in the rest of the U.S.

Addy N. said...

Ah- the time zones. Yeah- we are Eastern time and this person is in Mountain time. I'm wondering if s/he thought we were Central- we are pretty far west to be in East Coast time.