Introduction

With the economics job market applications drawing to a close and interviews drawing nearer, I want to highlight some aspects of interviews that it appears to me may not be obvious to some candidates. To be clear, none of these comments reflect on any specific candidates I have interviewed. Rather, through chatting with PhD students and folks on the market, I realized that there may be lack of knowledge about certain kinds of interview questions, about approaches to aspects of the interview itself, and about what interview panelists are looking for. I approach this from the perspective of a “teaching specialist” at a large institution where our teaching load is roughly that of a 2-2 or 2-3 instructor and I believe many of these points transfer directly to liberal arts colleges (I worked at one and interviewed people there) and some of the comments also transfer to research-focused positions where you’re expected to do teaching.

My advice

  1. Don’t assume all members of the committee have read your JMP. At least one will have, but you can’t assume all members of the panel know your research well, if at all.

  2. Therefore practice explaining your research to non-specialists. If there are important ideas someone needs to know to understand what you do in your field, try to explain those ideas as you would to an economist who is interested in what you do, but doesn’t know. Do not assume the panel is going to know an abstruse part of environmental economics. development, or behavioral economics. Many don’t. Don’t make your interviewers feel stupid. (I mention these fields as I’ve done work in them and so I could make this mistake, they’re just placeholders) 

  3. I will often ask you, “How would you explain [X] in your JMP”, or “how would you explain your JMP to an interested undergraduate?” Or “How would you change the explanation you just gave to me [aka someone with a PhD in economics] if I asked you to explain it to an engaged undergraduate student?” Why would you make that change? Sometimes your original explanation will have been sufficiently clear that you don’t need to change it much, but more often than not it includes some higher-level understanding that a student may not have. You should feel free to ask a follow up such as, “Can I assume a student has done intermediate micro?” And I’ll say, “yes, go ahead.” And you could say something like, “My paper builds on the ideas of market failure and externalities that you would have learned about…” or similar. This shows that you situate what you do in what a student will understand and that you are trying to get around the curse of knowledge.

  4. When people ask questions about your JMP or research, realize that they will be evaluating how you answer questions not only for how smart you are or how well you know your topic, but for whether you could teach that topic to students. Do you treat the questioner with respect? Do you take time to clarify what they asked (which especially with zoom lag and crappy mics may be helpful)? Do you answer with clarity and care?

  5. Read your audience. Don’t ramble when you answer a question. Pay attention to non-verbal cues you receive.

  6. Consider leaving a gap for questions at specific points and ask your audience/interviewers “Do you have any (follow-up) questions about X?”

  7. Have a syllabus or course outline prepared for a course in your field you would like to teach. I expect a graduating PhD to be able to teach almost any UG core course, but I’m likely to ask them “what would you like to teach [in your field] and how would you design that course?” This doesn’t have to be the actual syllabus you’d use for a course, but it helps to have sketched out for yourself an outline of topics and maybe a choice of textbook or some papers that you think are important. If you can’t do this, people are going to wonder why you’d want to teach in the first place. You need to be concrete here. I went perhaps a little overboard when I was on the market and I sketched out courses I would teach that I hadn’t taught (I already had a portfolio of core courses I had been the “instructor of record” for and so I could talk about those easily), but I do think having a solid idea of a course you would teach and how to structure it is more important than many candidates expect.

  8. Demonstrate your trajectory. Apply this idea to teaching especially. For example, the first time you teach it’s often overwhelming and you realize how much you don’t know. Talk about that, then tell me what you did to fix it. How did you change your practice? Similarly with research, you can demonstrate a clear trajectory and articulate how your work is unified in some capacity. Tell the story!

  9. Be prepared to answer basic questions of theory. If you’ve taught a course in topic X, I can feasibly ask you a question about that topic. Often I might ask a question that’s at the introductory-ish level, such as “Can you explain the intuition of MRS=MRT?” Or “What are income and substitution effects and why are they important?” I am not going to ask you to tell me about something you don’t claim you can teach, but if you tell me you’ve taught X, a basic idea from the set of ideas covered in X is fair game.

  10. Show me you’re going to be a good citizen. Most people can’t be the asshole superstar researcher (this is less so for asshole superstar teachers, but can sometimes apply) and there are also costs to being that person. If in a one-on-one meeting or interview you come across as callous, uninterested, or unwilling to do the work the interviewers themselves are doing while interviewing you, they’re not going to be that likely to want to give you a job.

  11. Prepare a good answer to the question of “fit” with the department. Do not, I repeat, do not, speak in broad generalities like “School/Dept X has such a great reputation and I would be happy to be at such a well known institution.” That tells me nothing. Is there anyone you’d like to work with? Did you take an even cursory look at our website? Did you notice courses you could teach or research units you could contribute to? We want to know you’re actually interested in coming to join us, so don’t say things you could say to people at any half-decent institution.

  12. In teaching specialist roles, the department will often require you to do service from pretty early in your career. Have you thought about the kind of service or administrative role you can perform well? Come up with examples, even if you’re not sure of exactly what they would look like at the institution you’re interviewing at. Ask questions about this if you’re not sure what to ask about at the end of the interview. If you have ideas for things you want to do, then speak about them.

  13. One form of service many schools need is for you to advise students. Can you handle that? Can you role-play different situations? For example, I have asked candidates, “A student comes to you during office hours and they’re struggling with one of their classes. What would you do with this student?” This is an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you can think through how to diagnose a problem. But the “problem” in this case is many-fold. The word “struggle” is purposefully ambiguous: you need to diagnose whether the student has challenges with the content, challenges in their personal life, challenges with the classroom ecology (maybe there’s an HR issue even). How would you go about finding out what kind of problem it is? Having uncovered the particular challenge, how would you deal with it?

  14. What are your plans for your scholarship? When I ask this question I both mean your disciplinary research in economics, but also what kinds of things you might want to study in economics education, pedagogy, content, or service. For example, I have done work on data literacy in economic development, on teaching with students as partners, and more (including writing a textbook). This is separate from my disciplinary research in behavioral economics, economic development, and other applied topics. You should be able to talk coherently about your disciplinary research, but if you have other broad ideas, then let us know about those too.

  15. Be aware that different institutions have different names for things you already know and understand. As someone who has taught in three different countries, I’m aware of the ways in which institutions have institution-specific names for roles, service, or ideas that are much more universal in higher education. So, if you get asked “How would you do [X] at our institution?” And you have no clue what the interview panel means by that, then be confident that you are allowed and in fact encouraged to ask follow up questions. For example, we have a term in the UK for a role called “Personal tutor”. You might think that this means you’re meant to give a student one-on-one lessons for a course, but the idea is that you play a mixture of roles of academic advisor, pastoral care, and person who helps a student when they don’t understand something. Many ideas like this exist, so be sure to ask questions and interrogate a panel if an idea isn’t clearly conveyed to you in an interview.

  16. Don’t assume all members of the interview panel have read your JMP. At least one will have, but you can’t assume all members of the panel know your research well.

  17. Therefore practice explaining your research to non-specialists. If there are important ideas someone needs to know to understand what you do in your field, try to explain those ideas as you would to an economist who is interested in what you do, but doesn’t know. Do not assume the panel is going to know an abstruse part of environmental economics or behavioral economics. Many don’t. Don’t make your interviewers feel stupid.

  18. I will often ask you, “How would you explain [X] in your JMP?”, or “How would you explain your JMP to an interested undergraduate?” Or “How would you change the explanation you just gave to me [aka someone with a PhD in economics] if I asked you to explain it to an engaged undergraduate student?” with the follow-up “Why would you make that change?” I find answers to these questions help me to understand someone’s approach to teaching and to research.

  19. When people ask questions about your papers/JMP, realize that they will be evaluating how you answer questions not only for how smart you are or how well you know your topic, but for whether you could teach that topic to students. Do you treat the questioner with respect? Do you take time to clarify what they asked (which especially with zoom lag and crappy mics may be helpful)? Do you answer with clarity and care?

  20. Read your audience. Don’t ramble when you answer a question. Consider leaving a gap for questions at specific points and ask your audience/interviewers “Do you have any (follow-up) questions about X?”

  21. Demonstrate your trajectory. Apply this idea to teaching especially. For example, the first time you teach it’s often overwhelming and you realize how much you don’t know. Talk about that, then tell me what you did to fix it. How did you change your practice? Similarly with research, you can demonstrate a clear trajectory and articulate how your work is unified in some capacity. Tell the story. Also, practice your story! Write it out and read it out loud. If something sounds off when you read it, it will sound off in an interview.

  22. Be prepared to answer basic questions of theory. If you’ve taught a course in topic X, I can (and likely will) ask you a question about that topic. Often I might ask a question that’s at the introductory-ish level, such as “Can you explain the intuition of MRS=MRT?” Or “What are income and substitution effects and why are they important?” I am not going to ask you to tell me about something you don’t claim you can teach, but if you tell me you’ve taught X, a basic idea from the set of ideas covered in X is fair game. (I have seen people crash and burn when claiming they could teach course X and then an panelist asks them about an idea in X and they can’t explain it).

  23. Show me you’re going to be a good citizen. Most people can’t be the asshole superstar researcher (this is less so for asshole superstar teachers, but can sometimes apply) and there are also costs to being that person. If in a one-on-one meeting or interview you come across as callous, uninterested, or unwilling to do the work the interviewers themselves are doing while interviewing you, they’re not going to be that likely to want to give you a job.

  24. Prepare a good answer to the question of “fit” with the department. Do not, I repeat, do not, speak in broad generalities like “School/Dept X has such a great reputation and I would be happy to be at such a well known institution.” That tells me nothing. Is there anyone you’d like to work with? Did you take an even cursory look at our website? Did you notice courses you could teach or research units you could contribute to? We want to know you’re actually interested in coming to join us, so don’t say things you could say to people at any half-decent institution.

  25. In teaching specialist roles, the department will often require you to do service from pretty early in your career. Have you thought about the kind of service or administrative role you can perform well? Come up with examples, even if you’re not sure of exactly what they would look like at the institution you’re interviewing at or when people ask “what questions do you have for us?” you can ask about what service/administration tends to look like and the kinds of roles that might work for you.

  26. Many schools need you to do advising, for example. Can you handle that? Can you role-play different situations? For example, I have asked candidates, “A student comes to you during office hours and they’re struggling with one of their classes. What would you do with his student?” This is an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you can think through how to diagnose a problem. But the “problem” in this case is many-fold. The word “struggle” is purposefully ambiguous: you need to diagnose whether the student has challenges with the content, challenges in their personal life, challenges with the classroom ecology (maybe there’s an HR issue even). How would you go about finding out what kind of problem it is? Having uncovered the particular challenge, how would you deal with it?

  27. What are your plans for your scholarship? When I ask this question I both mean your disciplinary research in economics, but also what kinds of things you might want to study in economics education, pedagogy, content, or service. For example, I have done work on data literacy in economic development, on teaching with students as partners, and more (including writing a textbook). This is separate from my disciplinary research in behavioral economics, economic development, and other applied topics. You should be able to talk coherently about your disciplinary research, but if you have other broad ideas, then let us know about those too.