The Interview Questions

Carol Prahinski
Assistant Professor of Operations Management
Ivey School of Business
University of Western Ontario

This is the second of two articles on how to be successful when looking for your first
position in academia. The first article was published in Decision Line, 2002, which can
be found at www.decisionsciences.org/Newsletter/index.htm. In the first article, the
process of getting a position in academia was outlined. This process includes:
preparation, awareness, introduction, the conference interview, the campus interview, the
offer, negotiation, and acceptance. During the interview process, many questions are
asked. The purpose of this second article is to list typical questions that are utilized to
determine if the candidate and the institution are ‘right’ for each other.

In preparation for the interview, you should give serious consideration in how you would
answer these questions. The best advice is for you to be honest in your answers. You
want an institution that is a good fit for you as you really are. If you have portrayed a
different person, or if you don’t learn the strengths and weaknesses of your hiring
institution through your questions to them, disillusionment (for both you and the
interviewers) may set in later when you’ve accepted the position.

This article commences with the questions that the interviewers will typically ask you.
The second section discusses potentially illegal questions, as defined by the U.S.
Government. Regardless of the institution being foreign or domestic, you need to think
how you would handle the situation if a personal or uncomfortable question arises during
the interview. The third section describes questions that you should consider asking your
interviewers. You will want to get accurate answers to the questions that most concern
you in making your decision, especially if you have multiple offers.

Questions you may be asked:

Prepare your answers ahead of time and practice your responses aloud. Perhaps you
could ask a colleague to ask you these questions randomly and offer you feedback on
your performance. When answering the questions, be direct and concise, be a good
listener, pay attention to non-verbal cues, smile, and relax. As preparation for the
interview:

1. Recall the history of your choices: How did you become interested (in your field,
your institution, your dissertation topic, the institution to where you would like a
position)?
2. How did you decide on your dissertation focus?
3. Review both your knowledge and your ignorance of your dissertation topic.

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Research – Dissertation
1. Why did you choose your dissertation topic?
2. Describe your dissertation research (your research motivation, your research
question(s), your model design, your anticipated results, your managerial
implications, etc.) Could you describe your dissertation in three sentences so that
the average person on the street can understand it?
3. If you were to begin again, what changes would you make in your dissertation?
4. In doing your research, why did you --? (This question can take many forms. You
are being asked to respond appropriately to an intellectual challenge to your
work.)
5. What do you love about your dissertation?
6. Of course, you’ve read ____. (Names an unfamiliar article/book that supposedly
is related to your dissertation).
7. What contribution does your dissertation make to the field?
8. Why is this research important to the business manager?
9. What stage are you at in your dissertation? Is your proposal approved?
10. When will you graduate? [They want to know that you will graduate.]
11. What are your plans for submitting articles for publication from your dissertation?

Research - Future
1. What direction do you expect your research to take in the future? What are your
research plans for the next two/five/ten years?
2. What are your plans for applying for external funding?
3. What facilities do you need to carry out your research plans?
4. What do you consider good research? [They want to know about your research
philosophy.]

Teaching
1. What courses do you want to teach? What level of students (MBA, Ph.D.,
executive education, honor students, etc.)?
2. What has been your prior experience with teaching? What textbook did you use?
3. Are you good at teaching?
4. Describe a moment in the classroom that you are particularly proud of, and a
moment that you are not proud of.
5. How do you motivate students?
6. How do you feel about teaching X? How would you structure it? What textbook
would you use?
7. If you were to teach an undergraduate course in Introduction to Y and you could
only teach three subjects in three weeks, what subjects would they be?
8. How would you encourage students to major in our field?
9. What is your teaching philosophy?
10. Have you had experience in teaching the case study method?
11. If you could teach any course, what would it be? How would you structure the
course?
12. What do you think is the optimal balance between teaching and research?
13. Have you had any experience with interactive on-line instruction?

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Your interest in the institution:
1. Why are you interested in our school?
2. What contributions would you make to our department?
3. What institutional characteristics particularly interest you?
4. How much are you willing to participate on university committees and
extracurricular activities?
5. In what ways and in what areas do you see yourself making professional
contributions in the next 5 years?

Motivation:
1. Is our location going to be a problem for you? [This is a typical question for
small town institutions or if you haven’t lived in a certain part of the
country/world before.]
2. What attracted you to our field?
3. What attracted you to the institution where you are getting your Ph.D.?
4. What kind of salary are you looking for?
5. What will it take to persuade you to take this job?
6. Why should I hire you?
7. (For employed faculty) Why do you want to leave your current position? [Don’t
focus on the problems of your current institution.]
8. If you have more than one job offer, how will you decide?
9. What schools are interviewing you? [List the ‘best’ schools or those that are most
competitive with this school].

Self-image:
1. Tell us about yourself (Memorize a concise 1- or 2-minute summary of your
background.)
2. What are your strengths and weaknesses? (Respond by admitting to a ‘weakness’
that is honest but would not be something that would be a major negative attribute
in performing the job. For example, “my students complain that I grade them too
hard on the case assignments. Let me tell you about my teaching philosophy …”)
3. What are other special strengths and interest of yours?
4. What do you do in your leisure time?

Illegal Questions:

In the United States, there are both state and federal laws that protect individuals from
potential discrimination when applying for a job. Employers are forbidden from asking
questions that can lead to discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national
origin, or physical disability. The following questions are examples of questions that
could be considered illegal since their answers may result in the applicant being
discriminated against. In addition, they have little (or nothing) to do with the position.

1. Do you plan to have children?

2. What is your ethnic background?

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 3. What does your spouse do?
4. Are you married?
5. “We were all impressed by the years you had spent in business before you got
your Ph.D.” (Concern: Can you work effectively with younger colleagues and in
a junior position?)

“Certainly there are times when such questions are asked innocently, either out of interest
or in an attempt to assist you in finding a position for your spouse or good child care or to
introduce you to others with similar interests. You must use your best judgment in
responding to these types of questions. [For those questions that concern you], highlight
your strengths without necessarily answering the question. If you feel uncomfortable
with something being asked, you may ask the interviewer to clarify for you how the
question relates to the position you are seeking.” (Sowers-Hoag and Harrison, 1998, p61).

Questions you should consider asking:

The interviewer usually provides an opportunity for you to ask questions. “Do you have
any questions for us?” The right answer is always, “Yes.”

The questions that you ask will provide the interviewer with information about the issues
that are important to you, your level of interest in the school, your level of preparation for
this particular interview, and how you gather information.

Below is a list of questions that you may want to ask. Certain questions are more
appropriately directed to certain individuals (junior faculty, senior faculty, department
chair, or dean). On the campus visit, the department chair and dean should get questions
that deal more with the strategic direction of the organization and department, the tenure
and review process, and compensation. Several questions you may want to ask different
people to assess the consistency between their answers. Do not ask all of these questions
of one person since it would consume too much time. Keep the question/answer time to a
maximum of 10 minutes in a 50-minute interview.

Teaching
1. What is the teaching load for junior faculty?
2. If I am hired, which courses would you need me to teach?
3. What is the expectation on the number of preps that I would need to perform in
the first three years?
4. What is the typical class size?
5. How many students major in our field? [As preparation, research that this
institution has a major in our field].
6. Where are most of your students from?

Research
1. Does your school provide research (summer) support? RAs?
2. Tell me about your library system. What are its strengths and weaknesses?

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 3. How frequently are the faculty’s computers upgraded?
4. In your research, why did you do --? Did you look at doing --? [Only ask this if
(1) you are interested in their work, and (2) you’ve read their work.]
5. What is the availability of workload reductions to support research?
6. What journals are considered “A” journals?

Service
1. What does the faculty and administration expect of junior faculty in terms of
service?
2. How is service defined?

Tenure:
1. How does the tenure process work?
2. What are the standards that are commonly required for achieving tenure?
3. Have some assistant professors tried to obtain tenure and were unsuccessful?
Why and how did they fail?
4. How many other junior faculty members would come up for tenure with me?

Mission
1. What is the mission of your institution?
2. How do you foresee the mission changing in the future?
3. How do you see our field fitting into the future of this college and department?
4. Which colleges are considered the strengths of this university?
5. What businesses influence the direction of the college or our field?

Collegiality
1. Are faculty mentors available to provide assistance and support to new hires?
2. Why is there an open position?
3. What is the working relationship between department faculty?
4. Which departments in the college have the political clout (power)?
5. What are the retention and exit rates of faculty?
6. What structures does the institution have in place to support diversity?
7. How many minorities are hired on tenure earning lines?
8. How many assistant professors have been hired during the last 10 years and what
has happened to them?
9. Why is there an open position now?

Happiness factor:
1. What are the five things that you like most about working at this school?
2. If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?
3. What issues do faculty face when relocating to this location?

Compensation:
Only ask these questions at the end of the campus visit. These questions should be
directed to the person who makes the salary decisions, usually the dean and the
department chair.

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 1. How are the base salaries determined for new faculty? [Do not ask what the salary
will be for this position. However, if someone mentions it, definitely make a note
of it.]
2. Is summer support provided? At what rate? For how many summers?
3. What has been the average raise received by all faculty over the last 3 years?
4. What is the research and travel budget?

It is suggested that you do not ask about:

1. Salary and benefit questions until after they extend the offer. [Usually benefit
information can be found on the institution’s website].
4. Things you don’t really care about. [You will give the impression that it is
important to you.]

At the conclusion of the interview:

1. Ask when you should expect to hear from them.
2. How did I do in the interview? What issues or concerns do you have about my
ability to meet your department’s needs? [Only ask this question if you’ve
developed a sense of rapport with the interviewer.]
3. Thank them for their time, stand up and shake their hand with direct eye contact.
Smile.

Reference:
Sowers-Hoag, K., and D.F. Harrison (1998), Finding an Academic Job, Sage
Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA.