Using virtual interviewing to create a more accessible hybrid academic job market

Abstract

Virtual interviewing has become ubiquitous with the academic job market. Here, we highlight the best practices for candidates and departments to consider when using virtual interviewing. We propose how virtual interviews can be leveraged and adapted for hybrid academic job searches combining virtual and in-person activities in a post-pandemic world.

Introduction

Global lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic caused large-scale shifts from in-person to virtual interactions (McReynolds et al., 2020). While some used digital platforms to safely stay in contact with loved ones during periods of isolation, academic institutions quickly adapted to performing tasks remotely to maintain productivity and a semblance of normalcy. Students, faculty, and staff were offered unlimited access to digital platforms to hold virtual meetings and seminars. However, while several institutions canceled faculty searches, this newly acquired access to virtual resources allowed others to pivot plans and undertake a completely virtual faculty search. In many cases, this novel format was uncharted territory for both institutions and applicants.

As a group of transitioning postdoctoral researchers in the Fall of 2020, we were amongst the first faculty candidates to complete the entire interview process virtually. We encountered both the highs and lows of virtual interviewing and believe there are countless takeaways from our experiences that will provide valuable resources and improvements for current and future faculty candidates and hiring institutions. In this article, we discuss the benefits of virtual interviewing, how candidates can gauge departmental interactions during virtual interviews, adaptations that can support a digital chalk talk, scheduling considerations particular to virtual interviewing and how a hybrid format combining virtual and in-person interactions may support the next generation of faculty candidates. Throughout this piece, we will elaborate upon specific aspects of virtual interviewing we believe should persist in this hybrid format as we move ahead in the academic job market.

Benefits of virtual interviewing

As the global pandemic continues to loom over us, the next round of academic faculty interviews may either be held virtually or in a hybrid format. While this may be disappointing to candidates and hiring committee members hoping to interview in-person, there are benefits to virtual interviews. One advantage of virtual interviews compared to in-person interviews is increased convenience. Both applicants and institutions can explore more opportunities without the added time, stress, and monetary burden of travel. For example, two geographically distanced institutions can be electronically visited within the same week with a virtual interview format.

Many faculty candidates have responsibilities outside of research, such as caring for dependents, which may be better managed in the context of virtual interviewing. Candidates will still need to arrange for dependent care during virtual interviews, but this will not require extended preparations (e.g., overnight, multi-day) as in-person interviews would. The responsibility of family care during the pandemic has disproportionally affected women. Studies describe significant increases in the amount of time academic mothers spent on childcare compared to pre-pandemic times (Viglione, 2020), and this is concomitant with less available time to work (Lantsoght et al., 2021). Virtual interviews have the potential to level the interviewing process to create a more accessible mechanism for individuals with dependents. We recommend institutions embrace this opportunity by reallocating recruitment funds to supplement dependent care for candidates who require arrangements to complete their interviews. Proposed adaptations in this regard are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1:

Considerations and proposed adaptations for institutions interviewing candidates virtually.

Virtual interview consideration	Proposed adaptation
Caretaking responsibilities	Interviewing institution provides candidate with stipend to pay for caretaking. Be considerate of scheduling requirements that the candidate may have for dependent care. For example, nurse/health aides or babysitters may have scheduling limits.
Space	Interviewing institution arranges a local space or hotel for candidate to use to complete interview. Home institution of candidate provides temporary space for interview.
Electronic resources	Interviewing institution provides candidate with necessary resources for interview (drawing pad, monitor, webcam, lighting, audio needs, etc.…) by mailing returnable supplies to the candidate.
Interview scheduling	Provide multiple interview date options to allow the candidate to select the date best suited to their schedule. Provide at least one month for the candidate to prepare for the interview. Schedule important meetings within a week of the interview as to not extend the interviewing process unnecessarily. Only schedule meetings during normal business hours according to the candidate’s time zone.
Meeting punctuality	Assign a meeting facilitator to ensure meetings start and end on time. Breakout rooms coordinated by the meeting facilitator can be used to manage meetings. This is the equivalent of knocking on a person’s office door in-person.
Interview day breaks	Schedule breaks between each meeting comparable to the time it would normally take to walk a candidate from office to office. Schedule lunch and restroom breaks for the candidate.

Hiring institutions may also benefit from the increased access and flexibility of virtual interviews. Virtual settings allow for one-on-one meetings and seminars to be attended by department members in between obligations. Recording elements of the virtual interview allows faculty to review candidates as it suits their schedule. Distributing the candidate’s recorded virtual seminar to members of the department ahead of the chalk talk helps audience members prepare, which is particularly important for those who could not attend the seminar live. Further, virtual interviews reduce the cost of hosting candidates, which provides financial support to expand the number of invited applicants for each round. This will increase the scientific diversity from which departments can select for further consideration. Taken together, virtual interviewing can provide beneficial flexibility for both institutions and candidates in advance of inviting interviewees for in-person visits. When using this hybrid setting, institutions must take care to inform candidates of their expectations (Table 1), and interviewees must reconfigure their interviewing style and tactics to the virtual setting (Table 2).

Table 2:

Best practices for candidates interviewing virtually.

Pre-interview	Scheduling	Clear your entire day for the interview. Request meetings with faculty, staff, and trainees with whom you wish to meet. Carefully review your schedule to ensure sufficient breaks are included and all necessary meetings are included. Ask to revise your schedule if important meetings or sufficient breaks are omitted. Keep your itinerary in an easily accessible location.
	Preparation	Prepare conversation topics that are tailored towards each meeting. Generate a list of standard questions to ask during meetings. This document can be readily available for the candidate to view during the interview. Customize these lists towards the career stage of the interviewer (e.g., early career faculty, senior faculty, trainees).
	Interview etiquette	Dress as you would for an in-person interview. Assess how your clothing translates on-screen to avoid distracting patterns, etc. While the interview may take place in your home, act professionally (this also applies to the interviewer). Be cognizant of time. Discretely position a watch or clock to remain on schedule.
	Video set-up	Review video settings to customize audience viewing preferences according to your needs. Position video gallery on screen such that you can view several audience members at once. Utilize a second screen, if available. Complete interview in a space with adequate lighting and a simple background. Use a virtual background and/or ring light if needed. Evaluate your slides in video chat platform prior to presentation to avoid unanticipated visual obstructions when sharing your screen. If you plan to use presenter mode, you will need a second screen. Be sure to test this set up with a colleague to ensure your presentation shows as desired.
Interview	Seminars, chalk talks, and meetings One-on-one meetings	Take notes of any questions and comments to discuss in later meetings. Close email applications and silence notifications to mute electronic distractions. Take notes during meetings to document important conversations. This will aide in writing follow-up emails. Be mentally present.
Post-interview	Sensing institutional environment	Request an in-person visit before accepting an offer to see facilities, potential lab space and the local community. Ask to meet with people who can speak to the resources you will need (e.g., student support/community, faculty affairs, diversity, equity and inclusion office, real estate agent, resources for partner, etc.). Ask to meet with individuals with your shared identity if not already scheduled in first round (e.g. underrepresented minority status, early stage investigators, etc.).
	Following up	Send thank you emails to everyone with whom you interacted (including trainees, administrative staff, etc.). Email search committee for updates regarding your application status as needed.

Gauging departmental interactions

An essential component of the faculty interview is the assessment of candidate fit. Fit is evaluated both by the department (e.g., Is the candidate well-suited for the department?) and the candidate (e.g., Will I thrive in this department?). As applicants, we felt the virtual format made it difficult to bring our authentic selves to the interview. In addition, it was challenging to build relationships virtually because nonverbal communication, which fosters in-person relationship building, was difficult to convey online. Strong departmental integration is critical for the success of junior faculty, particularly for the retention of those who identify as women and/or people of color that often enter departments as minorities (Piercy et al., 2005; Ponjuan et al., 2011; Stupnisky et al., 2015). Despite these shortcomings, we appreciated the ease of scheduling virtual meetings with additional departmental members that aligned with our research and values.

Despite the complexities of virtual interviewing outlined above, virtual interactions with departments can provide a preview of the institution before an in-person visit is arranged, which provides a new opportunity for an initial phase of information gathering for both the candidate and department. To enhance virtual communication during faculty interviews and highlight the underlying sense of community at an institution, we suggest departments host interactive meetings between the faculty candidate and multiple department members. In our experience, reliance on one-on-one meetings between candidates and prospective colleagues inadequately captures the departmental climate. Virtual interview schedules should include meetings between applicants and two or more faculty members (simultaneously) to allow candidates to observe interactions among colleagues. One benefit of hosting these multi-attendee meetings virtually is that candidates may meet with potential collaborators across different campus sites with ease (e.g., college separated from medical school, field sites).

Virtual interviews may often omit meetings with trainees and staff. Departments should prioritize meetings with groups of trainees (undergraduate and graduate students), research staff (technicians, administrators), and advanced researchers (postdocs, senior scientists) since mentorship is an essential aspect of faculty service. By including meetings with individuals who serve diverse roles within the department, candidates can determine how the department values and supports individuals beyond faculty. Finally, for successful recruitment of underrepresented faculty, we also emphasize the importance of including virtual meetings with various departmental stakeholders (e.g., faculty, diversity, equity, and inclusion administrators) that are invested in efforts to promote equity and inclusion (Bhalla, 2019). We believe it is the responsibility of the institution and the search committee to ensure candidates are provided with virtual interviewing schedules that encompass the breadth of the described meeting types. If not, candidates must self-advocate to the search chair or the administrative staff assisting with interview coordination to schedule all necessary virtual meetings (Table 2).

Virtual chalk talk

The chalk talk provides an opportunity for candidates to discuss their research vision in an interactive environment composed of members of the department. Traditionally, a candidate depicts and narrates their research plans on a chalkboard or whiteboard during an in-person chalk talk. The conventional chalk talk is by no means perfect but this exercise has been used widely by search committees to evaluate a candidate’s suitability for a department (Hsu et al., 2021).

In our experience, translating a chalk talk to a virtual environment is possible but requires search committees to create guidelines that will ensure a productive experience for the candidate and audience. The search committee must develop clear expectations regarding the candidate’s presentation format to provide to the candidate several weeks in advance of the presentation. Examples of these formats include giving a PowerPoint-style slideshow, utilizing a drawing pad, or presenting in front of a physical whiteboard during a video call. While these formats are effective options individually, stylistic differences may require candidates interviewing at multiple institutions to recreate their chalk talk in several formats. Reconfiguring several chalk talks is an extraordinary amount of work and assumes candidates have access to the necessary resources to produce all potential styles. One would need a drawing pad, an electronic pen, a whiteboard, noise-cancelling headphones, a second monitor, lighting, and a webcam to deliver these types of presentations. Purchasing all necessary supplies would be an immense financial burden on interviewing candidates, many of whom are living on postdoctoral wages. In Table 1, we describe how administrators, members of the search committee, and interviewing faculty should disperse the resources needed for virtual chalk talks to candidates to support their interviews.

It is essential for the search committee to establish guidelines for how the audience will engage with the candidate and each other to ensure an interactive chalk talk. The inability to view all meeting participants, identify the questioner, or discern simultaneous interjections from audience members have created challenges unique to the virtual chalk talk format. For this reason, we suggest virtual chalk talks have a moderator who is the point of contact for the presenter and audience throughout the presentation. The moderator can synthesize questions from the chat box to initiate discussion or call on audience members with questions. If available, audience members can use the raise hand function to streamline this process. Since the presenter expects interruptions from the moderator, this adaptation will support a more dynamic virtual presentation. Finally, a moderator can assist with time management, which can be difficult for a candidate to do in screen sharing mode. While we hope in-person chalk talks will resume soon, these best practices provide essential guidelines for candidates and departments to prepare for and execute virtual chalk talks.

Scheduling

The scheduling of faculty interviews can often feel rushed for the applicant. Departments typically have a limited timetable to conduct in-person interviews, causing candidates to pick from selected dates based on a first-come, first-serve basis. While this model was still used in virtual interviews, the non-existent travel time for the virtual format inadvertently caused departments to accelerate or broaden the interviewing timeline. Although this may give the department opportunities to interview additional candidates at no monetary cost, candidates may be at a disadvantage if the interview dates best suited for their schedules and preparation are no longer available.

While a candidate’s commute for a virtual interview is short, long days in front of a computer can feel draining. ‘Zoom Fatigue’ or virtual fatigue, is the feeling of exhaustion one experiences after video calls (Bailenson, 2021). Candidates must be engaging and personable while enduring six to eight hours of virtual meetings, seminars, and chalk talks over the course of their interview. The burnout candidates experience from multi-day interviews with several departments within a short timespan can impact performance.

Several factors should be considered when creating a candidate’s schedule. Institutions should be cognizant of the candidate’s time zone. An interview start time of 8:00 AM EST may not work for a candidate on the West coast, or a stop time of 6:00 PM PST may not work for a candidate on the East coast (Table 1). Since the virtual realm does not require candidates to walk to their meeting sites, it is easy to overschedule one-on-one meetings. Building sufficient breaks into the schedule for candidates to eat, use the restroom, and mentally recover is considerate. Meeting participants should firmly adhere to the candidate’s schedule by being punctual and ending meetings on time (Termini et al., 2021). Interview coordinators should avoid rescheduling meetings that are missed by faculty unless requested by the interviewing candidate.

The ease of scheduling and hosting virtual meetings can significantly increase the number of post-interview meetings. It is essential for candidates to speak with faculty and learn as much about the institution as possible to make an informed decision. For some candidates, post-interview meetings can prolong the interview process by days or weeks. Therefore, institutions should work with the candidate to carefully evaluate the necessity of such meetings after an offer is given.

Applying virtual interviewing to a post-pandemic era

The benefits of a hybrid interview format – combining both remote and in-person interviews—are numerous and advantageous for recruiting the next wave of faculty. Just as corporate employees now have the flexibility to work from home or the office, we propose that future academic job markets be similarly adaptable in structure. In a dynamic world that has proven to be unpredictable, academic departments cannot afford to wait for a return to normal and overlook talented applicants who will no longer be on the job market. Frankly, normalcy in the academic job search is not expected to return anytime soon. Therefore, we must be prepared for the new normal, which requires developing and implementing an effective hybrid interview format.

Considering the above guidelines, we advocate for a hybrid virtual job market whereby search committees take advantage of the accessibility of scheduling virtual interviewing. In a hybrid setting, the first visit should be online, where candidates give their research seminar and meet with department members. A second visit, encompassing an in-person trip to campus, should be held for the final round of candidate review by the department or after an offer is given. This gives candidates the opportunity to be intentional about their needs with regard to space, equipment, and beyond. In addition to the virtual visit, departments can leverage an in-person visit as a recruitment strategy to attract the best candidate for the position. This hybrid format style will allow for departments and candidates to meet each other virtually to begin the process and end the interviewing in-person when it is time for decisions to be made. With that said, hybrid-style interviewing offers both convenience and productivity for all parties involved—allowing the academic job market to flow effortlessly during these uncertain times.

In a hybrid job market, we believe the in-person or virtual nature of a chalk talk should be at the discretion of the candidate and/or department. Having this choice can accommodate candidates who are unable to travel while providing an in-person alternative for candidates who wish to explore this. These options will also benefit departments by limiting the financial support required for some candidates and enabling more efficient scheduling independent of coordinating travel. Ultimately, we expect these changes will support the review of a more diverse applicant pool. Finally, since the pandemic has not ended, institutions should be conscious of the candidates’ comfort level with traveling or attending in-person events. We encourage institutions to put forth virtual options to enable all applicants to explore the academic job market with comfort.

In summary, we hope our experiences will be a valuable resource to streamline and optimize the virtual interviewing process for candidates, search committees, and audience members. Although the virtual world limits our capacity to interact in-person, it can serve as an ice breaker for introducing a department and candidate to one another. Virtual interviewing is a flexible and time-efficient way to generate opportunities and curate networks that may have not otherwise been possible. Since the hybrid world is our current reality, we believe these timely recommendations for a reconfigured academic job market are necessary for future recruitment cycles.