Job Market Advice II: Interviewing at the Annual Meetings

It’s that time of the year again, when graduate students who are about to enter their final year in economics and related disciplines are getting ready to go on the job market.

Going on the job market is a harrowing experience for most people, however, so I thought I should help job-market candidates by sharing my advice.

This post is the second in a series of three. Today, I’d like to discuss what it’s like to interview at the annual meetings, and how you should prepare for it. The next installment will be posted in late fall and will cover on-campus interviews.

INTERVIEWING AT ASSA

Invest in staying at one of the conference hotels, if not the conference headquarters hotel. It will be more expensive, but it will be well worth it. When you check in, ask for a room that is as far as possible from the elevators and the vending or ice machines. You will need every minute of sleep you can get. Try to schedule at least 30 minutes between interviews. This is because interviews are sometimes far apart (I remember my Duke interview in Boston in 2006 being 15 minutes away from the conference hotel by cab), and because hotel elevators get crowded and stop at every floor between interviews. You will sometimes wait 15 minutes for an elevator. Plan accordingly. Instead of going for the cheapest flights, invest in a flight that is as close to direct as possible. The sad truth is that the air travel infrastructure in the US is extremely shoddy, and it is getting worse every day. This means flight delays and cancellations. Also, do not check your bag. You don’t want your suit to arrive after you. Invest in buying a carry-on baggage with a suiter. This model is close to the one I have been using for years. You should plan on arriving at least a day early. Ideally, you should arrive two days before your first interview. Because your interviews will likely be spread across several hotels, arriving early will allow you to case the joint, so to speak, and have an idea of the layout of the various hotels you will be interviewing in. It will also allow you to plan on when to walk and when to take a cab. Look sharp! Sure, most academics have absolutely no fashion sense (this is doubly true in economics, I’m afraid), but those people already have jobs. For now, it’s important for you to signal that you can at least fake it. For men, this means a dark suit with a plain shirt and a tie that’s not too out there. For women, this means a dark business suit with a plain shirt. No excessive jewelry; men should limit themselves to a watch and a wedding band. The above does not mean that you have to spend a fortune on a suit; most grad students are broke. When I went on the job market, I was wearing an outfit (shirt, pants, jacket, and tie) that cost less than $250 at Target. The most important thing is that your suit fits you well, which means that it should not be either too tight or too loose. The second most important thing is that the fabric of your suit should looks nice. This site has some solid advice for men. Wear dress shoes. Make sure they are shined before you head out to your interviews. You can get your shoes shined at most airports. Then, buy a shoe mitt to use the day of your interview. If you have several interviews scheduled in a row, pack a light, protein-dense snack, such as a piece of cheese or a handful of nuts. You should pack your toothbrush and toothpaste. Invest in a good shoulder bag to carry all that you’ll need. For me, this meant my phone, a water bottle, a light snack, and some magazines in case I had to wait on interviewers who were running late. Be ready to answer the question “Tell us about your research” over and over. It’s the first question almost all interviews will begin with. Ideally, you will have three answers to that question: a 30-second answer, a two-minute answer, and a five-minute answer, all nested within one another (i.e., your 30-second answer can segue into your two-minute answer, and your two-minute answer can segue into your five-minute answer). The way to do this is simple: make a general statement in your 30-second answer (“My job market paper studies the impact of commodity price volatility on the welfare of rural Ethiopian households.”) Make a slightly more detailed statement in your two-minute answer (“My job market paper studies the impact of commodity price volatility on the welfare of rural Ethiopian households. To do so, my coauthors and I expand the theory of behavior in the face of price uncertainty developed by Sandmo for producers, by Turnovsky et al. for consumers, and expanded by Finkelshtain and Chalfant for agricultural households to derive an estimable matrix of price risk aversion over multiple commodities. We then estimate this matrix using panel data on a sample of rural Ethiopian households and find that although commodity price volatility hurts everyone, it hurts wealthier households the most, contrary to conventional wisdom.”) Your five-minute answer would go into the key assumptions of the theoretical model and the details of your estimation and identification strategies. The next question will typically be “What do you see yourself working on in five years?,” which is a thinly disguised way of checking whether you have a pipeline. Make sure you know exactly what you’ll be working on for the next few years, and what your long term plans are. The important thing is to show that you are not a one-trick pony, and that you are interested in topics other than your JMP. Another question you should be able to answer is how you came up with the idea for your JMP. This question is asked to weed out candidates who are not creative enough, and who got the idea for their JMP from their advisor. You should also be willing to discuss what classes you would be willing to teach, and how you would design a graduate course in your area. “Anything” is never a good answer to the question asking what you would like to teach. Ideally, you should respond that you would be happy to teach a graduate course in your field, a graduate course in either theory or empirical methods (depending on whether your JMP is more theoretical or empirical), and just about any undergraduate course. Like George Jakubson told us when I was in graduate school, “You guys will have a PhD in Economics; give yourself six months, and you can teach any undergraduate class.” This is important: Before you head out to ASSA, you should try to assemble a list of who you will be meeting with during each interview. Then, you should read up on those people. This means taking a look at their webpages, their CVs, etc., and knowing what they have been working on lately. Typically, an ASSA interview is all about you, but this will prevent you from saying anything stupid by virtue of not knowing who you are talking to. Also, before you head out to ASSA, you should try to read up as much as possible on the departments and schools you will be interviewing with. The first time I was on the job market, during an interview with a liberal arts college, I was asked “Why do you want to work at [interviewer’s school]?” I answered: “Because of the quality of the researchers at [interviewer’s school.]” I did not get invited for an on-campus interview… At the end of each interview, you will usually be asked “Do you have any questions for us?” Do not ask about salary! It is good to have one or two to questions ready. A good question would be something like “Where do you see your department in five years?,” or “What field are most graduate students interested in?” After you have returned home from ASSA, get on your computer and send short thank-you notes to your interviewers. You don’t need to be particularly expansive. Just “I just wanted to make sure to thank you for taking the time to interview me at ASSA. It has been a real pleasure, and I hope to see you soon” is enough. If you remember something in particular about your interaction with a particular interviewer, it is fine to include one sentence about it (“I was particularly surprised to meet someone who shares my love of Frank Zappa’s music!”)