Humanities PhD job marketeers inhabit a "brave new world" in their quest to land a tenure-track job. My experience last weekend at the American Historical Association (AHA) annual meeting cemented this impression in my mind. Not only are increasing numbers of departments selecting to preempt the AHA interview by setting up initial and on-campus interviews before January, I understand that those brave (and well-endowed) departments that pony up the cash to meet with candidates at the AHA have hit the warp-speed button on their decisions. I recall hearing that departments would get back to me within two weeks of the AHA... departments that wanted to expedite the process to selecting a finalist to offer the job to. That was so last year. This is now. Would you believe receiving a notification of "thanks-but-no-thanks" 24- or 48-hours after the conference wrapped up? Oh yes, in case you needed your morale boosted at this frigid time of year, the number of job searches in history (at least)
is down 7.3% this year.
Let me confess: I never had the advantage of mock interviews at my grad school (one year none were offered, another I was out-of-state - at an interview, funnily enough - when they occurred). I recommend that you take advantage of any offered. If none are offered, ask your friends/colleagues/frienemies to interrogate you. Here's a helpful article about mock interviews:
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2014/01/06/essay-all-kinds-interviews-academic-job-candidates
Parting Shot
The only unambiguously positive thing I can write for the nonce is: "Yes, Virginia, it is a LOT less stressful interviewing job candidates than it is being interviewed." Especially in the AHA job center where you can hear (and sometimes see) the interview going on next door. No snark intended.
Your obedient servant,
The History Major
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