Faculty vs. postdoc interviews

Last year, I interviewed primarily for faculty jobs --- some tenure-track, most non --- and just a few postdocs. This year, I had 9 postdoc interviews, 1 industry, and 1 faculty interview. I'd forgotten how different faculty interviews are.

1. Postdocs expect you to fit your research into theirs, and second-guess independent/original ideas. Sometimes it seems like the best strategy for a postdoc interview is to come in and give absolutely the most boring vanilla research idea straight down the middle.

2. Faculty jobs assume competence. When they ask, "What can we do for you to help you meet your research goals?" they really mean it: you are the expert in what you want. They judge you in how well you can carry out what you claim to want to do. It was startling to sit in the interview and realize that I could think for myself and not look for their approval. (Conversely, my first postdoc interviews were strange because I realized that I had to look for their approval which I hadn't been used to from my previous year of faculty-type interviews.)

3. Postdocs are a mutual relationship: they train you, and you do for them, either by direct labor or helping them renew the training grant by serving the purpose. They want to make sure that they add to the postdoc's training, and that the postdoc adds to them: they don't want to take a risk.

4. Faculty jobs require responsibility. On a bad day, postdocs can just sit around all day reading phdcomics and xkcd or getting lost in unnecessary detail. Faculty have to serve on committees, teach, and add to the environment around them. Postdocs have fewer ties and don't invest in their institution.

Faculty interviews don't just want to know how you will carry out your independent research. They also want to know how you will add to community and teaching. That's obvious, but I literally hadn't thought about teaching for over a year, since my last faculty interview, until I was actually sitting in the interview itself. Fortunately, I spent a lot of time last year formulating syllabi, and I remembered them.

5. Postdocs are often narrowly constructed, and the most important part of the interview (which took me a long time to catch on) is explaining how my research agenda fits into the purpose of the training grant. On more than half of my interviews, all of my interviewers were interested in my research, asked many questions, and listened eagerly, and in a few cases they asked for advice on the more rare parts of my expertise.

The explanations about "fit" have to be carefully constructed and very simple and straight-forward. I cannot overemphasize how important this seemed to be.

6. Faculty announcements don't correspond to what they're looking for, or they are constructed in the way that they are for administrative reasons. The one faculty job interview that I got this year was one that I almost didn't apply to because it seemed like there was no way that I fit the announcement. More on that later.

7. Postdocs are sometimes treated like faculty (e.g., substantial research funds), but sometimes like advanced grad students, with required courses. Alternatively, they're treated like medical residents and fellows. At one postdoc program, it seemed particularly revealing that people didn't remember who was postdoc vs. predoc.

8. Postdocs have to ride the balance between admitting ignorance and showing competence. They have to be competent enough to be impressive, and yet they have to have enough areas where they need more "training" that the postdoc will feel like they are adding to them.