signalnoise

In my department, we are doing a *load* of hiring this year. Which means, job talks. For those of you who actually work for a living, a "job talk" is pretty much what it sounds like. It works like this: When a spot at an university opens up, about a million people apply for the position (this is *not* an exaggeration by the way). A committee of faculty and grad students then looks through the files, and finally picks a handful of people to invite out. These "lucky" individuals then come out for two days. During those two days they eat meals with faculty and grad students, go through tons of meetings with faculty and grad students, and give a job talk.

The job talk is basically a presentatio of research - it lasts about 40 minutes, followed by about 50 minutes of questions. This is where the job candidate presents their dissertation, new book projects or whatever. So, I've been to a load of talks this quarter. Yesterday, I saw a *terrible* job talk. It was in political theory, and she pretty much didn't have an argument. The woman gave this huge speech that basically recounted a bunch of facts about 19th century philosophy. It just wasn't very dynamic. The Q&A sessions was pretty brutal.

A bad job talk always leaves me conflicted. First, a job talk is *always* a learning experience. Someone who gets a talk at this university is probably pretty smart and probably has a pretty interesting project. So, it's good to go and see what a quality project looks like. The bigger lesson, however, is a chance to see what separates a good talk from a bad talk. For example, a "bad talk" doesn't have a coheisve argument. A "good talk" never has charts that the speaker doesn't fully understand and cannot explain in 15 seconds (yes, we did have a talk where the woman did not understand how one of her charts operated). A "good talk" is also one where the speaker handles questions well, but is also not arrogant (in particular, a good talk should at least concede the limits and weaknesses of their research BUT also be able to answer most questions and consider things beyong the immediate horizon of their project). It's probably a bit intangible - sort of a sliding scale - but there are good talks and there are bad ones. And they're easy to tell apart.

Bascially, in the end, I hate to see a bad job talk because it bores me and annoys me for wasting my time. But I also feel bad for the person who gave it, 'cause it's usually pretty obvious when a talk was shit. In contrast, a good job talk - is like a pure shot of joy. You learn something, you're engaged the whole time, your have tons of *questions* (not critiques, but questions that flesh out or expand the work; questions driven by *curiousity* not problems). Seriously, good talks are just better for everyone.

Job talks MATTER. Candidates can come in, and people can be excited about them. But a bad talk can sink them, right there. It happens. The faculty just turns on them. It's fucking scary. And I hate knocking some just based off of *one talk* in a *stressful environment* - but I have nothing else to really judge on (I don't know them, haven't read their file etc). On the other hand, a great talk can all but get you a job right there (I've seen good talks that move THAT AFTERNOON to a "first meeting" - the next step in the process).

Quite honestly, nothing scares me more than the job talk. It's like a two-day job interview, where you have to be smart, charming, and quick on your feet THE WHOLE TIME. It's like an interview where you have to defend the last few years of your life to a bunch of smart people who are trained to tear apart shitty work. On top of that, there are only a few jobs open each year - and you'll get a talk at an even *smaller* number of those jobs. Maybe it's not appreciably different than any other job interview, and I've just been cloistered away from the "real world" (where people stop being polite...) for far too long. Job talks just seem intense - it's a demanding mix of *having* to be both substantive and smooth. I seriously wonder shit like: Is my dissertation interesting? Will I break down and flub and stutter over my answers?

A great job talk is a hard trick to pull off. But Jesus Fuck - the idea of going on the market in the next year or two all but causes me to wake up sweating in the middle of the night.