Thursday, January 29, 2009

Job Search Etiquette Question

Last week, I got an e-mail from the chair of a search committee regarding a job I'd applied for in late November. The position was in my field, and the applications were to be reviewed immediately until the position was field. No clear indication of whether or not MLA interviews would be part of the process.

The e-mail I got last week explained that they had bypassed MLA and were now beginning the selection process, and they wanted to know if I was still available and interested in the job.

Uhhh, yeah.

So, time passes on, and today I learn from my advisor that they called her to follow up on her recommendation letter. Good news, of course, but I'm not going crazy or anything. My question is: Can I ask my advisor anything about the phone call? Obviously, I'm not asking for a play-by-play. I'm just curious if the search committee had any particular concern(s), or if this was just a run-of-the-mill follow up in the "tell us more about this person" kind of way.

Any traditional rules or etiquette for this situation?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't see why you can't ask your advisor- I mean, they should be on your team, and they should want to give you any help they can. Plus, if they don't want to answer your question, they don't have to. Good luck on the job, by the way-- it's such a rough year that any interviews are terrific!

M said...

I can't believe that you didn't ask her already!

scribblette said...

first, congrats on the job follow-up. such a nice thing!

second, yes, ask! how, though, is the trickier part. if this had happened to me, my advisor would already have tracked me down to talk to me about it. since that wasn't the case, you might need to be more cagey/distant/professional. i would just say, gauge your relationship with your advisor and then ask in appropriate terms. if that makes sense.

AcadeMama said...

It was my advisor who e-mailed to tell me she'd just gotten off the phone with them and had been "singing my praises". Since she didn't offer any further details, I hesitated to ask until I knew if there was some sort of taboo against doing so.

I did, however, ask another member of my committee whether or not such follow-ups are the norm, if they'll call each committee member, etc. She indicated that since I'm ABD, there's a good chance the phone call was a "How done is she?"-type thing. Luckily, I've just finished an entire draft of the dissertation, and I'm now turning to revisions!

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes!

Anonymous said...

Oooh! Good luck with this!