Additional Thoughts on the On-campus Interview

As I continue my death-march through the prep-school interview season, I have been amazed by a number of things. First, how badly I have botched my first few interviews. (For ugly details see this post.) Second, how generous the people who have interviewed me have been in offering advice.

I recently found out I am 0-for-3 in on-campus interviews (bad), but got some additional feedback on my interview (good), which I'll share here.

The good news is that I appear to have avoided the rookie mistakes of my first interview. Nobody at the third school came away thinking that I was so desperate to leave my current Uni that I would take any job offered. The bad news is that I did not do a particularly good job articulating why I wanted to teach at that particular school. When the school's head asked me "What kind of school are you looking for?" my answer was about Independent Schools as a whole, not about PP. (In part this is becaurse I felt profoundly ambivalent about PP. I had to swallow my initial answer, which had to do with teaching in a progressive school, which PP ain't.)

In any event, to the advice I received. In a nutshell, Do your research. When I had campus interviews for nationally-known colleges and universities, search committees never wondered why you wanted that particular job. In their thinking, who in their right mind wouldn't want to teach at University of Chicago.

Prep schools are not so full of themselves as this. They wonder why you would want to make this move, not just to independent school teaching but to their school in particular. To do this, be as specific as possible. What is it about the mission statement that speaks to you? Why do you love their approach to education? Why do you want to be a part of that specific community? As one person put it, "They want to hear about themselves."

There are two good ways to make the case for a particular school. Most obviously is in your answers to their questions. When they ask you why you want to get into independent school teaching, don't answer! Tell them why you want to teach at that particular school.

You can also do this by asking school-specific questions. Don't ask generic questions about the curriculum, ask about specific aspects of the department's curriculum. When you meet with senior administrators, refer to the mission statement or strategic plan. They want to know that you know them and that you are taking them seriously.

So as this season winds down, I feel pretty stupid in making so many basic mistakes. I hope I'll do better next time, and I hope that you will too.

Good luck us.

Getting my head back in the game

Okay, sorry about that last post, and thanks so much for the supportive comments. I read recently about a piece of software that keeps you from sending emails when drunk. I need one that keeps me from blogging when freshly rejected.


There is an aspect of the secondary search that I have been puzzling over for some months now, but have not written about it, less out of fear of appearing foolish than the fact that I had a question, but no answer. As you, dear reader, have probably figured out, one of the major differences between the academic and secondary markets is the timeline. By this time of year, all but the most tardy and muddled-headed search has wrapped up. (I'm talking to your employer, Eliza!) But secondary schools are just heading into the on-campus phase, and it will be another month before these positions close.


But there is a bigger difference than this, and here is where I become confused. In the world according to my Carney Sandoe rep, the vast majority of teaching positions have been announced. (These positions, it should be noted, are positions that schools have known about for the better part of a year.) To fill these positions, CSA had their big conference last month, and if your ship hasn't come in yet, the odds are very high that you'll be standing at the dock for another year.


But when I ask prep school teachers, I hear something completely different. Every one of them agrees that next month, a second wave of searches will begin. This is because schools are only now offering contracts to faculty for the 2011-12 academic year. Thus it is only now that some faculty will announce their retirement (or that they have taken the job that I had my eye on). As a result of these retirements/moves, there will be another set of openings in April and May (and even June or July). (Unlike colleges and universities, independent schools don't have to wait a year to fill a position. Got a vacancy starting in the fall? Fill it.)


The question then becomes, how do we explain the discrepancy between what Carney says, and what teachers say? If this second wave of jobs is a reality (and I'll keep you posted), why doesn't CSA go after those as well?

All I've got is an educated guess, and I'm happy to hear from anyone who knows better. My thinking is that CSA is powerful, but they work on volume. (Why? For the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: "That's where the money is.") They can handle the block of jobs that come out in January and February, and funnel them into their big conferences. These are the low-hanging fruit. But the spring jobs come out in dribs and drabs over three or four months. For a guess, they require more resources to fill, and are thus less profitable.

So both stories are right. Carney's season does end in March, but the rest of the world's does not. The pace slows, to be sure, but that doesn't mean that things are at an end. So even if you are signed up with CSA, keep an eye on the NAIS listings, for there may be jobs there that CSA doesn't handle.

And good luck out there!

Countdown to Carney, Pt. 1

According to my Carney representative, the last 48 hours before a hiring conference are the most hectic, so (as events warrant) I've decided to post more regularly over the next couple of days, and then once I arrive in DC.

So far, it's hard to see how things could be going any better. Forgive the bullet points, but I have to break down some numbers.

• My application package has been sent to about a dozen schools across the country.
• Nine of these schools will interview in DC.
• I sent letters of interst to four of these nine.
• Five schools have requested interviews.

So if you are scoring at home (or if you're by yourself) I'm batting 5-for-4, which is as impossible in baseball as academia. (As I said to a friend in the field, "Remember the year you had interviews with your top five schools? No, me neither.")

It's also possible that there are more interviews to come. I received a request to interview for a department chair position. (I declined it due to location and cost of living issues.) And more schools are registering for the conference and posting jobs. (Right now there are about 200 schools registered.)

Now, one reading of this is that I'm totally awesome. But I don't think that's true. I think that the correct reading speaks to the differences between the prep school and academic job markets. For college teaching jobs, a doctorate, publications, and years of teaching experience might not get you in the door. For prep schools, all of these make you stand out from the twenty-somethings who are looking for their first teaching gig. You might not get the interviews, but you will be noticed, and in my case my CV has clearly worked in my favor.

That said, I've been through the academic wringer too many times to think that a job is in the bag. Conference interviews won't necessarily lead to campus interviews, and campus interviews won't necessarily lead to job offers. But they're a start, at least.

Gearing up for a Carney Conference

One of the factors that can make the transition from the higher education market to prep school stressful (in addition to walking away from a career!) is the murkiness of the job search. Veterans of the academic search will be pleased to know that the prep school hiring process features all the opacity of higher ed, but with enough twists and turns to keep things fresh. (Think of it like the Coen brothers’ reimagining of True Grit rather than Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.)

First the opacity: As with any search, there is a lot you will never know. Will the school consider candidates with a PhD? Many searches are general – “English Teacher” – will they consider someone with your specialty? While these questions will come to mind, as in the higher ed process, you can’t know the answer, so don’t worry about it. (That said, if a department already has faculty with PhDs, you can at least know they’ll consider your application. Unless they've been disastrous in the classroom.)

Second, the timeline: As with many fields in higher ed, prep school positions trickle out over the course of several months. I received my first referral from Carney Sandoe back in November, but the action doesn’t really get started until February. It’s also worth noting that schools continue to post positions until late spring. Unlike colleges and universities, where hiring a new teacher requires fifteen signatures and an act of God, prep schools can move much more quickly. If a teacher decides to retire in April, they’ll hire a replacement in May of that year.

As with higher ed, the key moment in the process is the huge hiring conferences. These are run by CSA and by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). Since I’m working with CSA, I’ll focus on their process.

About a week before the conference, CSA sets up a website where schools and candidates schedule interviews and send messages. While a dearth of interviews a week before the MLA can signal career-death, such is not the case here. According to CSA, most interviews are made in the 48 hours before the conference starts. This can certainly put you on edge as you wait to hear from schools (and wonder if you should check on the refund policy for your plane tickets), but it’s the nature of the beast.

If a school decides to interview you, they have the option of sending you an old-fashioned email, sending you a message through CSA’s site, or they can simply sign up for one of your open time slots. Whatever the case, schools drive the process. They schedule interviews and you say yes or no. (If you get an interview, take it. Even if you’re not sure you want a job, at least talk to the school. It’s good practice, and you never know what you might learn.) Most of the interviews will come from schools to which you’ve applied, but it is also possible that you’ll receive requests out of the blue.

Another difference between the higher ed and prep school markets is that you can apply for jobs at the conference, even if they are not hiring in your field. To someone fresh from the MLA this sounds like advice your mother-in-law would offer (ie. completely insane), but it makes sense because the hiring process is so different. Here’s a notional example:

Boston Preparatory Academy sends their Dean of Faculty to the conference to hire a Spanish teacher. In the back of her mind she knows that there is a good chance that one of her French teachers may leave at the end of the year, but none has made a decision. (Many schools don’t sign contracts until April or May.) While at the conference, the Dean receives a message from a CSA candidate with a PhD in French literature saying, “I’m a French teacher in the midst of a secondary school search, and am particularly interested in teaching at Boston Prep. I will be at the CSA conference in February, and would love the opportunity to learn more about your school.”

Because the Dean knows that a position might open up in the coming months, she goes ahead and schedules the interview. The candidate has a stellar resume, shows initiative, and it’s only half an hour out of her day, so why not? The interview goes swimmingly, and both candidate and Dean walk away feeling that it would be a good match. A few weeks later, old Mr. Smith announces he will retire, and the Dean says, “No problem. I’ve already talked to a candidate, and he’s fabulous.” Granted it’s unlikely to move quite this smoothly, but it does seem to happen.

As the conference gets closer, I’ll continue to blog about my experience, but at this point I’m just waiting for my first interview…

Good luck, me.