elementary schools in the area? Did I plan to buy a house? She was obviously fishing for information about my marital and family status.
As I later learned, the college is in a tiny, insular community with fewer than thirty faculty. I wonder if an unmarried young woman would have been a threat to this interviewer or the college community, for it was clearly a screening call. The interviewer asked no questions about my qualifications or experience, and though I politely asked twice to talk at a better time, she kept insisting that this was not an interview.
She finished the half-hour phone call by assuring me that the committee did not yet have a process for narrowing the field of candidates and that they would be contacting me within the next week. She arranged for the school to send a large packet of information, which I read carefully; I also studied the catalog on microfiche. But after hearing nothing in ten days, I called the school and was told that three candidates had been invited to the campus and I was not one of them.
Was there anything I could have done? What can I take from this to be better prepared for the next round of hiring?
A: Ms. Mentor was deeply saddened by your letter. Torture by telephone—now you hear it, now you don't—is very cruel.
Yes, of course, Ms. Mentor knows why departments do such things. They are screening candidates; they cannot afford to invite all the good ones to campus; and it's as good a method as any in their eyes.
But it's not.
No one would expect to be given a syllabus and told to teach a Shakespeare class five minutes later; no one should be expected to summon up, after 104 job letters, the perfect recollection and exactly matching enthusiasm that an interviewer wants. Nor should “cold” calls be made, without previous appointments. And illegal questions—seeking information about marital status—should be barred. The only job seekers who do well under such circumstances are the glib, the mendacious, and the idiosyncratic who do somehow memorize everything. (Such unusual beings used to be called “idiot savants.”)
But as there's no way to stop diabolical departments, the best you can do is to be always prepared.
Ms. Meritor advises you to get a big accordion-style, alphabetized folder, into which you file all 104 job applications, each with its original job description. Then get on the Internet and download each university's homepage—and each department's, if there is one.
Print out the homepages, highlight in different colors the essentials, and file them with your applications. For each school, you can also attach two or more positively phrased questions to ask, such as, “Yours seems like an excellent collection of environmental studies courses. Do you encourage faculty to continue developing new and interesting courses?” or “You have a very large popular arts program. What do your students find especially attractive?” or “I'm impressed with the internship opportunities for students. How are those arranged?”
(Ms. Mentor hopes that sage readers will see the value of positive questions: they flatter the interviewer. Conversely, “What are you racist fart-knockers doing about your piss-ant legislature?” won't get you hired at a state university.)
Now you're prepared for all calls—if you keep the accordion folder within reach at all times. Should you sleep with it? Should you get call-waiting? Probably yes, sighs Ms. Mentor, for if you're not available, conscienceless callers will go on to the next person.
Ms. Mentor also grieves: this is no way to treat future colleagues. When you do land a tenure-track job, Ms. Mentor hopes that you will not forget what you have endured. For only those who are hired can, in the future, make hiring humane.
Wifey
Q: I followed my husband to his faculty job, in the humanities, at a research university. I wasn't finished with my dissertation, and so I took an instructor position in the same department. Now I've finished my Ph.D., but no one sees me as anything but His Wife. How can I improve my status and get a tenure-track job?
A: You are a “trailing spouse,” a “deflected woman”—terms used by Nadya Aisenberg and Mona Harrington in their excellent book, Women of Academe: Outsiders in the Sacred Grove. They point out that following hubby's job is the single biggest way to derail your own career. But you didn't ask Ms. Mentor's advice in time, and now all she can do is offer two suggestions:
1. Find out if instructors ever do ascend to tenure-track assistant professorships in your university. At most schools, it's impossible, but if you know someone who did it, find out how. (Often there's a rich but unsavory story associated with people who make such a leap: rumors of sexual favors, bribes, and blackmail abound. At one Middle Atlantic university, the wife of an assistant professor in English reportedly went down on her knees, slobbering and crying over the department chair's hands, begging for a tenure-track job—which she got.)
2. Write and publish a book, to make yourself eligible for tenure-track and tenured jobs elsewhere, and resign yourself to a commuter marriage. Do not be “place-bound” as a “captive spouse.”
If you were in science, there would be ways you could work under (the terminology is unfortunate) your husband: you could be a research associate on his grant, for instance. You might even seek your own grant money. But such niches are not available in the humanities.
Ms. Mentor wishes you well in what is really a very small universe of choices.
One Trick Lady
Q: What happens if I hedge about my marital status or sexuality in a job interview?
A: Ms. Mentor recalls the old saw from Archilochus, the wild and wily seventh-century (B.C.) poet: “The fox has many tricks; the hedgehog only one. A good one.”
Sting ‘em before they sting you is indeed one approach to illegal questions, and many a job candidate has fantasized doing just that:
“You've got your nerve asking if I'm married, you slimy pigface! Just because no one would ever marry your ilk!”
“Of course I'm a lesbian! Especially if you're one of the alternatives!”
“How dare you ask me that! I'll sue your butt off!”
But in real life, one has to be foxy, not prickly.
Interviewers legally are not supposed to inquire about a candidate's race or sex (although those are usually obvious)—nor about marital status, national origin, religion, or handicap. In some states, sexual orientation is also a no-no (it should be an illegal question everywhere, opines Ms. Mentor).
But when they hold all the cards, interviewers who want to can ignore the rules. And if a candidate even says, meekly, “Do you know that such questions are illegal?” that's an obvious criticism of the questioner, and there goes the job.
And so Ms. Mentor concludes, with regret and distaste, that unless you can afford to turn down a job, the only way to handle illegal questions is to answer them. Indeed, any female candidate must be prepared for unlawful, strange, or intrusive queries.
Ms. Mentor recommends these responses:
“Yes, I'm married, and my spouse is a freelancer.” That answers the university's worry about whether the spouse will be expecting the department to procure him a job. Once a position is offered, the candidate may indeed want to negotiate a job for her partner. But at the first interview, the best strategy is to make the spouse not part of the equation at all.
—or—
“No, I'm not married. I'll be going to a new job alone (or with my children).” Or (with an engaging smile): “I'll be coming with my cats (or with my golden retriever).” Pets are often a better selling point than children.
—or—
“I've always considered my sexuality a private thing.” But (1) “I do have a partner, a freelancer who'll be coming with me.” Or (2) “I live alone, don't date students, and like to think I get along well with everyone in my university community.”
All