Ms. Mentor

Can I Dazzle Them With My Energy?

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Question (from "Linda"): I've noticed a seemingly innocent word in job postings: "energetic." It appears to be a buzzword for "young," and it looks like an attempt to insert age discrimination into hiring. After all, an older applicant like me (50ish) might well be deemed not energetic. How does a committee define "energetic," and how would job candidates know they lacked it? Can I build up my energy, and reflect that on my CV?

Answer: At least the ads don't demand "sizzling" or "nubile."

Ms. Mentor agrees that "energetic," like its cousin "dynamic," can be a code word for "young." It can also imply a preference for certain regional styles -- the fast-talking repartee of New Yorkers, for instance, over the measured conversation of North Dakotans. It may cloak a preference for, say, Italians over Norwegians, or frenetic skinny people over stolid fat ones. And it could seem to discriminate against people with disabilities.

Most devisers of job ads would probably deny what Ms. Mentor has just proclaimed. Instead: "We want only the best" or "We're a new community college, and we need people to run the extra kilometer" or "You're just paranoid." Nevertheless, Ms. Mentor's files show that hirers often do prefer -- well -- particular kinds of people.

Once upon a time at Far West Big U., for instance, a search-committee member wondered aloud: "Can job candidate Venerable, who seems to have a little arthritis, get around this campus fast enough? Maybe we need his medical reports." Once told that asking for medical reports was illegal and that Mr. Venerable was the same age as Mick Jagger, the member retreated, harrumphing. (A decade later, Mr. Venerable was still hiking and cross-country skiing, Mick Jagger had had a hip replacement, and the committee member was dead.)

More recently, at Midwest Medium U., a search-committee chair lobbied furiously for hiring Dr. Ingenue over Dr. Matron, although Dr. Matron had more publications and much more teaching experience, because "Dr. Ingenue is livelier." "You just like them perky and malleable," retorted his enemy.

In exceptionally vicious departments, hirers often do want recruits for their own factions -- or if that fails, as cannon fodder for the next feud. That is not what Ms. Mentor would like them to mean when they say "energetic."

Ms. Mentor has never been opposed to energy, enthusiasm, or dynamism. She wants professors who are eager and curious, and she feels tenderly toward those who spend hours on the Internet researching obscure facts.

But are only the young, the able-bodied, and the foxy considered "energetic"?

Here Ms. Mentor must salute courageous professors with disabilities who have made themselves as dynamic as the nondisabled -- through dramatic gestures and well-trained voices, as well as Power Point and all its cousins. Professors have hired students to be their ears and their eyes -- and thereby taught all students that being deaf or blind does not affect the brain. Teachers with "invisible disabilities" have endured chronic pain without publicly wincing; many have been considered "antisocial" for going home early, because they must rest to stay out of the hospital.

Ms. Mentor knows one professor who heroically, and secretly, performed kidney dialysis for herself in her office, lights off and door locked, during lunch hours. Her students, who loved her wry sense of humor, never knew until she got tenure and "came out."

In Ms. Mentor's ideal world, age and disabilities would not be concealed, but she knows that prejudices abound even among the most educated of academics -- often along the lines of "sound mind, sound body." It is a bitter fact that employers too often see job candidates who are middle-aged, or beyond, and those with disabilities as cost drains instead of opportunities. But in fact anyone can be -- or seem -- "energetic," simply by being busy on paper.

Job candidate Linda's CV, for instance, can show that she has been busy teaching this, publishing that, organizing this, committee-ing that. She has earned a degree, and her research is exciting. Her CV might also include other relevant parts of her life: serving on school or hospital boards, helping in battered women's programs, consulting, and tutoring, for example. Whatever she has done with her earlier life, Linda should not be perceived by a hiring committee as having spent a lot of time as a homebound bonbon eater.

A job-application letter, Ms. Mentor reminds eager seekers, has only one purpose: to land an interview. (Whether to include degree dates if they show your advanced age is a vexing question, and Ms. Mentor directs interested readers to the archives of The Chronicle's Career Talk column.)

Once at the interview stage -- whether on the telephone, at a conference, or on a campus -- all candidates are equal, and it's their job to outdo one another.

At an interview, Linda will have to project energy by talking quickly and clearly, moving briskly, looking keenly alert, and responding vivaciously. Among academics who live to pontificate, "active listening" will come across as irresistibly charming, a winning collegial trait.

Linda should be well-prepared: She has read the department and university Web sites; she has good questions. She's a self-starter, not just a time server, and she has specific plans for teaching and research (not "I'm kind of interested in, um, Civil War writings," but "I want to transcribe the nine Civil War diaries in your university's collection and show students how to edit them.")

An energetic candidate sits up straight, makes eye contact, and, when asked a question, is more apt to begin her answer with "Oh, ..." (which leads to "Oh, yes! I'd like to!") rather than with "Well, ... (which leads to "I'm not sure" or "I'm not so eager").

Job interviews can themselves be energizing, for they draw on all your abilities. Because they have more life experience, "mature" candidates are often more flexible, tolerant, and self-confident. (The young will be writing furious epistles to Ms. Mentor as soon as they read this. She is ready for them.)

Ms. Mentor has just one warning for the mature and energetic: Do not tell the young whippersnappers how they should run things, even if you know better. Let them see you as a colleague, even though you know that their lives would be immeasurably improved if they would just follow your advice.

Even after you have tenure, that is apt to be someone else's responsibility. Yours is to be dynamic and vital, especially for your students. Ms. Mentor hopes you won't endeavor to be nubile, but trusts that you will be energetic and knowledgeable even when you're a nonagenarian. She will want company.

Question: Twenty years ago, I was undoubtedly the coolest, most energetic, hippest prof on campus. But last year not a single student rated me "hot" on Ratemyprofessor.com -- and I don't care. Have I sold out?

Answer: Mellowed.

SAGE READERS: Almost everything in academe has degenerated since 1998, according to Ms. Mentor's correspondents. There are fewer tenure-track jobs and many more exploited adjuncts who "have to decide between poverty and teaching." There are more administrators, but fewer custodial workers or secretaries. Students are paying more, cheating more, and complaining more. There are fewer grants and more forms to fill out, and less toilet paper. And would-be administrators are, more than ever, forced to play golf.

Ms. Mentor deplores it all, and invites more material about academe's changes since 1998, the year she took up her mouse for The Chronicle. Besides more openness to people with "unusual faiths, unusual family situations, and unusual sexual inclinations," what other good news is there?

As always, Ms. Mentor welcomes rants and queries for future columns and further enlightenment. She rarely answers letters personally, but many common queries are handled in her archive or her tome (below). Anonymity is guaranteed, identifying details are changed, and subject headings are very much appreciated.