Week 1_how to give a good job talk?

Professor:  Let us talk about who do you think is the best job candidate and how to give a good job talk.

Student #1: First of all, the choice of paper or project to present is very important to the success of job talk. The key is to bring the best or most satisfied work to present. Second, handling the process of presentation should be another necessary skill. Audience may ask all kinds of questions, some challenging and some difficult. So it is always useful to prepare ahead of time in case some dynamic issues that would ruin the whole process of presentation

Student #2: Good presenter in the job talk can well prepare his work so that he or she could self-defend with confidence.

Student #3: Good presenters usually show good communication skills, confidence in what he or she is presenting and can clearly explain what has been done and what has been thought about even though not shown in the presentation.

Student #4: Job talk is the time to show the best of you. So one should choose the best paper to give a job talk.

Student #5: Good job talk is about confidence. And I would like to share a tip related to it, that is, whenever someone ask you a question, the first sentence you should always say is “It is a good question. I have thought about this.” If you are not confident and say something like “I am not quite sure. Could you give me some feedback?” etc, that is not a good interaction with audience.

Professor: What about you three? Any merits you could find from good job talkers presented in your department?

Student #6: I think confidence and self-defense is always important. If I were a committee member to hire someone, I would focus on the research topic too. Is it a good topic? Has it got some potential to publish in the A level journal? So a good job candidate should be capable to show future publication opportunities.

Student #7: Normally in our department after job talk, we doctoral student and professors get together to discuss the performance of the presenter. It is an intuitive and practical way to let doctoral student know what is good and bad about job talk and what should be done or not be done in such talk. So we get a sense that good job seekers can show your own research idea, which is not from your advisor. That is a good way to tell others that you are able to conduct research independently.

Student #8: Good job presenters give impressive talk with confidence. He or she could be tolerant and open to any kinds of questions in a manner without arrogant and over-confidence. Also he or she could manage the time well.

Professor: First of all, a good job talker could manage the conversation with audience. Often times you would encounter challenging and difficult questions, but only if you know some tips and tricks to go through it even if you do not have a confirmative answer, your talk would not become a chaos. If there is a disagreement between his or her opinion and yours, you could say “Maybe you are right, well, but I think…, and we could always talk about it after this.” More of such tips and tricks can be obtained by observing how a good job talker communicates with audience. I heard that a job seeker who had to stay on the first page of slides for 45 min due to mismanage the conversation with the audiences.

Second, it is a useful to show descriptions of other projects in your job talk. Top research universities implicitly require candidates to have pipeline papers that are potentially published in the future 5 or 6 years to ensure tenure. But review circle is uncertain and this requirement may not be met if you do not have a considerate stock of papers. But the problem that has been seen times and times is that some cannot publish beyond dissertation, which means, it is almost impossible to get tenure in a good business school. Doctoral time is the best time to do research, not only research for dissertation but for your future 5 or 6 years being an assistant professor. Thus, to present and propose research agenda is a good way to show the working papers beyond the dissertation to show potential to survive in the process to tenure.

Third, confidence is important. But more important is you should know what and how to make you confident. As my personal experience, before my job talk, I have presented the same projects 7 or 8 times in workshops, seminars and conferences, and before each presentation I practice up to 10 times ahead of time. This means that I memorize everything, and means I am confident about what I am going to present and about what questions would be most likely to be asked. Besides a lot of practices in other academic activities, the choice of paper you present is also a key to keep you confident. You had better to present a paper that has already passed the 1^st round review because reviewers and audiences usually give you the same comments, which could help you prepare ahead of time.

Last but not least, please remind that those siting in front of you when you give a job talk are hiring a professor, not a student. So you should act like a professor. As a student, it could be freaky to hear from sharp critics, comments or questions from senior professors. But when you present as a job seeker, you should be professional and accumulate experience to handle those questions. As mentioned before, you could say “That is different from what I know, let us discuss it after this talk.”

In summary, to give a good job talk or to be a good job seeker, you should prepare ahead of time, practice and experience more to keep you confident, show your potential to publish paper in tenure-track, and behave as a professor with professional manner when you interacts with the senior professors who consider hiring you.

(Scribed by Aaron Cheng, 1/13/2016)