First Person

The Interview Circuit

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By Charles St. Clair

It was during my freshman year of college that I first regularly used the Internet. I was living in the dorms and everybody had a computer (except one of my roommates, who instead used mine without asking). Walking down the hall, one heard the AOL Instant-Messenger notification chiming away from all directions.

I sent e-mails and IM'ed people who literally lived across the hall from me. Convinced that the most important note of my nearly two-decade existence could come at any time, I checked my e-mail constantly. Eventually the attraction faded and I settled into checking my in box only several times a day, not unlike a compulsive gambler checking the ponies. And in that pleasant -- some would say "reasonable" -- state, I have lived for nine years.

That is, until I went on the job market this academic year in economics looking either for a teaching job in academe or an analyst's job in the financial sector.

Throughout the first few weeks of December, I was convinced that at any moment, the most important e-mail of my now three-decade existence would arrive. At any time, I might hear from a department inviting me to a conference interview.

So my daily schedule went like this:

• Arrive at work by 7:20 a.m., check e-mail.

• Read interesting articles in The New York Times until 7:30 a.m., check e-mail.

• Work on research until lunch at 11:30 a.m., checking e-mail 17 times and severely derailing any strenuous analytical trains of thought.

I was fortunate and received 22 interviews at the annual meeting of the Allied Social Sciences Associations in New Orleans. None of the really top places decided to interview me, which was disappointing but realistic.

In the end, I even turned down some conference interviews, which felt distinctly weird. Only a month earlier, I had been desperate for a call. Now, here I was turning people away. But I said no to an interview only if (a) I didn't want to move to the campus anyway, and (b) I felt that going to the interview would drain energy from interviews at places I did want to go.

I set those conditions only after I had several interviews in hand, and there were ones I accepted early on that I would have turned down had they called a week or so later. A lot can change in a week.

My interview schedule set, I traveled to New Orleans. I never expected to experience the city. Instead, I was a soldier on a mission. With my Gatorade and PowerBars in hand, I scouted the walking distances between various hotels (traveling at a thoughtful gait to avoid breaking a sweat before entering an interview room). I practiced my main offensive -- the key points I wanted to convey. I developed my defense -- the answers to difficult potential questions.

I knew I needed to be clear and succinct in describing my research. If a questioner was especially vigorous, I had to answer respectfully but swing the conversation back to my spiel. I had to make my case as graciously as possible, and I had to make it in 30- to 45-minute windows. To a large degree, good interviewing is about running the clock.

Then came the campus fly-outs, of which I have nine. If conference interviews are an 800-meter dash, the campus version is the 10K. Each visit consists of a series of half-hour meetings with faculty members in the department, a 90-minute seminar on my research topic, and a dinner meeting. What makes a fly-out so difficult, and so exhausting, is that it includes all the usual challenges of interviewing but throws in a new one: discovering if you and this institution, and these people, are a good fit.

As I write, I am still getting the hang of this balancing act. My first fly-out was difficult, too many people to meet, too much to figure out. I devised my strategy early on: Be honest about who you are, what you know, and what you would like to do. But that third part of the plan keeps changing. As I go from policy-oriented institutions to teaching-oriented ones, I keep alternating in my imagination between being a policy adviser and being a professor. I am still unsure which fits me best.

The stress of traveling to new places only aggravates such uncertainty. As I arrived at an East Coast airport last week, I was feeling good about my job search until I got to the ticket counter to check in for a flight to Canada. My stomach sank as the ticket agent asked for my passport and I realized that I had left it at home on the West Coast.

Panic set in as I rummaged through my bag, hoping that it had somehow serendipitously landed in my luggage even though I knew for a fact (why hadn't I known it earlier?!) it was at home. I called my wife, who was a rock of calm, and we arrived at a solution.

Five hours, one cancelled plane ticket, and two last-minute flights later, I was driving a rental car north to the Canadian border. Slowly I approached the checkpoint. I handed over my driver's license. I answered the guard's questions about my background. I ventured no additional information. I waited nervously. I was allowed to pass.

The next day I marveled at the wonders of FedEx when my passport arrived 13 hours after my wife had shipped it. The people I met in Canada seemed to find my story amusing, and I was finally able to laugh myself. No word yet on what negative information it may have conveyed to my possible employers.

When I am stressed, I am tempted to look around for clues on how to act and what to say. I become uncertain about myself and my work, and it starts to seem like a good idea to build myself up through false confidence or negative comments about other people's work. Stress works to make me different from who I am and who I seek to be.

In my calmer moments, I am starting to enjoy the process. There is a lot to see and take in, and I've come to have more appreciation for this wide world full of smart people.

As I progress through this second week of fly-outs, I wonder if any job offers will come from places I have already visited. At every airport, I am tempted to pay the $4.99 for 24-hour Wi-Fi access. I feel compelled to check my e-mail every five minutes. I can't help wondering if the most important e-mail of my life is en route.