💼 Job Market Materials
& Resources

Screening Interview Questions

If you need some questions to help you get started with prepping for the screening interview, here are some of the questions I used in most of, if not all, the screening interviews that I did. Feel free to riff on these and such if you feel the need.

Can you tell us about current your research agenda?

If you're interviewing for a research-focused, tenure-track position, this question can be somewhat misleading. What they're really asking you is, "How do your current projects map onto a publication timeline that will lead to tenure in six years?" 

Essentially, you want to answer this question in a way that outlines: 

1. 1. what animates your research projects (i.e., guiding questions and a brief discussion of interests, overarching projects, collaborations with other scholars), 

   2. what projects you're working on and where they are in terms of finalizing them and sending them out, and 

   3. how this all maps out onto a tenure timeline, including when a book would go out or when all your articles will be out and about leading up to when you'd go up for tenure. 

Though most tenure clocks are six years, you really only have five years given that the final year should be dedicated to going up for tenure (compiling everything, writing the tenure narrative, contacting letter writers, giving reviewers time to actually review the tenure portfolio).

Typically, a TT job at an R1 looks like 1 – 2 articles a year or a larger book project that has a clear narrative arch leading from when you started to when you go up for tenure. That is, you want to be able to clearly articulate how all the publications (if you're not doing the book route) speak to your researcherly intent and ethos. 

Beyond all of these tidbits, just know that your answer to this question should also answer, "Will this person get tenure at our institution?"

More questions to come!

Figuring Out The Teaching Load & Salary

To preface this part, as I was getting mentored by faculty in the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures department at Michigan State University, I was told that you should *never* ask about the course load, salary, or any questions related to the actual labor of the position. Rather, in the screening interview portion, you might ask about the daily life of someone in a similar role, clarification on some of the duties, hopes and such that the committee has for the role, or other similar questions.

What that means is that, after 9 screening interviews, and 6 campus visits during the market season wherein I secured my current position, I never learned the salary or teaching load until I got to the campus visit, and that information was usually shared by the dean (or associate dean) or the chair of the department. Instead, we were taught how to glean that information—either through the job ad or other means. Below are some tips on how to do that!

Scanning The Job Ad

This might seem obvious, but scan the job ad for the salary and teaching load. Very rarely, sadly, will the salary actually be listed on the job ad, but the teaching load is often listed. That said, you can also look for codes and such that are specific to that university or state (if it’s a state school). From there, you can search out a location that gives you a glimpse into what that pay looks like (i.e., whether you are paid bi-weekly or monthly, what the  payment process looks like for a 9-month faculty position or a 12-month contract). For example, my current position is a 9-month faculty position, and we are paid 2x a month for all 12 months, meaning the overall salary is distributed across all 12 months.

Look at New & Current Faculty Teaching Loads / Salaries

This is super handy if you’re in a state school in a state with open salary data (e.g., Texas, North Carolina). What I did in the past to get a sense of what the starting salary would be like is look at which faculty member was the most recently hired. From there, I looked up their salary online to get a sense of what they were offered in relation to the salaries of staff who had been there longer. This method can be very illuminating and will show you how much pay non-white people get offered compared to white faculty.

Looking at the University or College Type

If you’re in the constellation of fields that comprise writing and rhetoric (i.e., Professional Writing, Technical Communication, Rhetoric and Composition), depending on what school you are applying to, the compensation and teaching load can look quite different. One quick way to access your teaching load is to look at the type of university you’re applying to in the first place, as well as the kind of department you’d be working in. Frankly, and sadly, if you’re going to be in an English department, your salary will almost always be lower than if you were in a standalone department. Below is a breakdown of common teaching loads for different university types.

R1 (very high research activity)

Teaching Load

• • Usually a 2/2 (i.e., two courses in fall and spring). This can sometimes be dependent on whether you’re going to be teaching and serving in a graduate program. When there’s no PhD program or you’re not working in it, your teaching load can be higher.

  • That said, I’ve seen some with a 3/2 load, and some with a 2-1 teaching load depending on what other duties you will have in your role. This all will change, of course, if you’re at a university or college with a different teaching schedule.

Salary

• • Depending on the state, the department, and school system (such at the UT school system in Texas), the salary can look radically different

    • For example, I was given at offer at an R1 that started out at only $60,000 because the state it was in was severely underfunding its higher ed and the program was in an English Department.

    • Another R1 that I interviewed at started off at $70,000 which was in Texas and the UT system, which is fairly well-funded in contrast. This was all before negotiations of course—and you should be negotiating.

R2 (high research activity)

Teaching Load

• • Usually a 3/3 or 3/2.

  • However, some R2s are on the push to reach R1 status, and many will hire research-specific faculty

    • For example, I am currently at an R2 but my role is research-intensive and so I have a 2/2 teaching load. This might not always be the case, and my university is also on a heavy push toward becoming an R1 university.

Salary

• This can be tricky because, again, it might all come down to the type of department you’re joining and what state and school you’re going to be in.

• Most R2 salaries I’ve seen ranged from $50K to $55K. That said, my school is an R2 in a well-funded state school system in a city with a high cost of living, so that’s another thing to think about.

Small Liberal Arts College

Teaching Load

• These can range depending on where you're at (i.e., 2/2, 3/3, 3/2, 4/4).

• I received an offer from a SLAC last market season, and the load was 3/2

  1. • NOTE: Though the teaching load might seem like a lot, classes in SLACs are typically much smaller, so in terms of grading loads and such, you might have about the same amount of labor as a 2/2 load at a state research-intensive university with large class sizes.

Salary

• Depending on which SLAC and where it's at, your salary might look different. The offer I got was in a fairly prestigious SLAC in a big city with a giant cost of living, but the starting salary offer was $72K (which was not enough to live off of in the city).

  • Depending on the funding structure of the SLAC, you also might not be able negotiate the salary as it will be capped based on salary or a faculty union (which is not a bad thing to have).

  • This is the one that I have the least knowledge about, so if you have any insight, feel free to comment here.

Regional Comprehensive

Teaching Load

• • These can also range depending on where you are.

  • Often 4/4 or 3/3 from what I gathered.

Salary

• The offer that I got for this type of university was along the lines as the smaller R2s I interviewed at: $50K–$55K.

Job Hunt Resources

If you’re in writing and rhetoric, subscribe to the Writing Studies Listerv and the ATTW Listserv to see when people are posting jobs. Depending on what you focus on, the mailing list for the Association of Internet Researchers can be pretty handy too. Below are some websites that are also useful for finding jobs in the field and across the humanities in general (for example, through H-Net, I interviewed at a pretty cool comparative studies job at Ohio State).

• H-Net Job Guide

• Academic Jobs Wiki

Email Templates

These are emails I built with the help of mentors and advisors at Michigan State University. The language of these emails can change, of course, depending on your specific needs and wants.

• 📧 Negotiating the Offer 

• 📧 Getting Offer Details