One of the most important things in a search is to treat applicants the same. Included in this, of course, is that you don’t disadvantage women, racial minorities, disabled people, sexual minorities, parents, older people, and so on. Some practices systematically disadvantage entire groups. Some of these have been commented on, on this blog and elsewhere.
For example, you don’t make candidates uncomfortable by making jokes they may be sensitive to because they belong to groups of the above kind. Again, in social situations connected with hiring—at APA receptions and dinners during campus visits—you keep the conversation general. You do not get into an animated conversation about college football. (Some candidates have no idea about this; others are avid.) You don't air your views on same sex marriage, or the Tea Party, or the death of Osama bin Laden, to a candidate for an epistemology position. Even if you are talking philosophy, you don't push your position on, say, naturalism aggressively. It’s better to let the candidate guide general conversation, whether s/he knows it or not. (Applicants, please note.)
But the scope of equal treatment is broader than this. . . .
One extremely important stricture, far too often not observed, is that you don’t contact your friends to get their informal opinions on candidates. (Nor should random anecdotes be permitted in committee discussions: "I was at a conference, and . . . ") There is a stage in any search where you are down to a small number of candidates, and at this point it is permissible, and possibly useful, to do a “reference check.” But if this is done, it must be done systematically and equally. One member of the committee could be assigned the task of inquiring after each candidate. (I don’t think that one person has to be responsible for doing all the reference checks.) It should be clear in advance what information is being sought; the checker should try not to let the conversation become too open-ended.
Another important point is that you don’t let interviews become too argumentative. Though philosophers naturally want to know how a candidate will defend her or his views, there is a limit to the utility of getting too embroiled in technical discussion with a candidate in a group situation. These sorts of conversations are fine one-on-one, or in Q-and-A after a talk, but committee interviews should stay more general.
Should interviews be scripted? Should there be a list of questions, with each committee member asking the same question of all candidates? This is common practice in searches for Deans and the like, but ordinary faculty searches need to examine candidates’ research and teaching capacities. So, these interviews need to mix it up a little, or maybe a lot. This said, there are questions that need to be asked of all candidates. Standard questions about background, interests, teaching, future research, etc. It’s useful to script interviews at least to the extent that these questions all get asked, and to limit follow-ups in both length and number. Even where there is no committee interview, such questions should be assigned to individuals to ensure that they get asked.
Antony Eagle has an excellent reflection on interviews here. Some of the above is taken from him: including ask at least some of the same questions, and limit follow-ups. His reasoning is somewhat different from mine.
Perhaps most elementary: it seems essential—but surprisingly non-universal—to be polite and friendly. There is unfortunately no dearth of stories about unduly challenging interviews and campus visits. But it is clearly a bad thing to let a choice turn on an intellectually or emotionally charged conversation. Or even to seem to.
Perhaps the bottom line should be that if committees kept equality of treatment in mind as an objective, they would be far less likely to engage in invidious discrimination. Nonetheless, other specific pointers would be very useful. Applicants’ experiences, good and bad. We'd like to hear about them. Searchers, ditto.
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