Acing the academic job
talk: Marincovich gives pointers
BY DIANE MANUEL
On a visit to Vanderbilt
University, Michele Marincovich spoke with a dean there
who had been bowled over by a Stanford graduate student's
presentation of research.
"The dean said, 'You
know, he was not necessarily our very top candidate, but
he gave such an amazing academic job talk that there was
no need for discussion. The search committee said,
'That's our choice.'"
Marincovich paused to let
her listeners absorb the exchange.
"So your talk
can be that important," she told more than 80
graduate students and teaching assistants who had crowded
into the packed conference room.
Marincovich, assistant
vice provost and director of the Center for Teaching and
Learning, was speaking on Jan. 26 about "How to Give
an Effective Academic Job Talk," as part of the
center's new series of Professional Development Workshops
for teaching assistants.
Defining the job talk as
"the final step before a decision is made among
candidates on the short list," Marincovich added
that it often is the deciding factor in a departmental
hire.
"It's the academic
job talk that often reveals to [faculty] why they want to
hire one person, or don't want to hire another."
Peppering her own talk
with example after lively example and maintaining eye
contact, Marincovich modeled each tip she passed along to
her listeners.
In preparing for an
academic job talk, she said, it is wise to keep the
audience in mind at all stages.
"Do not take for
granted that people know why you are working on a
particular question," she said. "Be aware that
as a dissertation writer you have a well-known disease,
which is that you have fallen deeply in love with your
own topic and have forgotten that everybody else may not
find it that fascinating, even after you explain it.
"Your job is to help
people see why it is such a wonderful area of work."
Like all effective
speakers, Marincovich waited until the end of her talk to
distribute a handout. But she highlighted and reinforced
the main points on the sheet throughout her remarks:
- Show the roots and
context.
- Link to big issues in
your field.
- Indicate future as
well as past lines of research.
- Find the right level
for your audience.
- Be prepared but also
spontaneous.
- Be ready for
questions, even hostile ones.
- Be interesting.
- Reflect a
multicultural world.
Marincovich said she had
distilled the suggestions from talks with faculty in many
departments and schools, and from conversations with
graduate students who had prepared and delivered academic
job talks.
Typically, a job talk is
imbedded in two intensive days of a campus visit and
sometimes can be scheduled at the end of the second day.
"It's difficult under
the best circumstances," she said. "But it
might be safest to assume you're going to be doing it
under the worst of circumstances."
Marincovich encouraged her
listeners to gather as much information as possible about
the institutions where they would be interviewing. Find
out about research emphases, read up on any fractures
that might exist in departments and look at the overall
financial health of the schools, she said.
And don't forget to ask
practical questions: How long is the talk expected to
last? Should I bring a printed copy of the talk? How big
will the audience be? Will there be a question-and-answer
period?
It also is important to
find out what audio-visual equipment is available, and to
ask faculty and fellow students about the presentation
conventions for the discipline. While geologists tend to
use slides, for example, engineers prefer overheads and
in many fields PowerPoint is gaining in popularity.
Beyond the practicalities,
Marincovich urged graduate students to design their
academic job talks in a way that would connect their
particular research to larger questions in their fields
of study. Someone specializing in a small family of
fossils might link his study to questions of climate
change, she said, or a person researching silk production
by women in south China could talk about economic
development in China.
Marincovich said it also
is important to look ahead to future research potential.
"When faculty read
your dissertation, they can see what you have done, but
what they're mainly interested in is what you will
do," she said. "They want to see that you will
have new ideas, and particularly in the sciences and
engineering, they want to know that your ideas will
attract grant support."
Marincovich urged graduate
students to practice talks in front of their faculty
advisers and friends who would be "kind enough to be
critical."
When the time comes to
give the talk, she added, it might be helpful to remember
that "even a great speaker on a great day doesn't
reach 20 percent of the audience.
"If you see one
person in the audience who is not giving you positive
return, don't look at that person again. Look at someone
else. Find the smilers and nodders and go back to them a
lot!" SR
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