APPENDIX C: GUIDELINES FOR GRADUATE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE HOSTING JOB CANDIDATES

  1. Host the candidate luncheon with graduate students, typically held after the job talk. This means the rep must organize the catering for the lunch. Assuming that the job talk takes place on Wednesday, the rep should touch base with Amy (or the secretary) the Friday before to find out more about which vendors Rutgers will accept reimbursements. The most common options are Mediterranean, sandwiches, pizza and Indian food. I recommend checking with the interviewee (or those in contact with the interviewee) to make sure that they do not have any allergies and then calling in the order to Amy (for 8-10 people) on the Monday before the talk, so that she can coordinate with the catering company to arrive at the appropriate time.

  2. Encourage graduate students to attend both the job talk and the lunch by soliciting attendees of the lunch via email about one week and a few days before the actual job talk. We recommend 7-8 graduate students confirm participation, but ordering food for 10. Typically, a few additional students that did not email will join for the lunch.

  3. Organize discussion during the job talk by asking graduate students to introduce themselves at the beginning of the lunch. This tends to involve 1-5 minute introductions from each student followed by a Q&A for the interviewee. While you may opt to be more involved in this process, I let the interviewee specify what they wanted to know from each student and this ended up being a criteria by which graduate students judged each of the interviewees. I also suggest preparing some questions ahead of time, because awkward silences seem to happen more often that you’d expect.

  4. Obtaining feedback on the candidates after the visit by (1) speaking with graduate students who attend the lunch, (2) by reaching out to those who attended the talk by email or in person, and (3) by sending out a Qualtrics survey after each talk OR after all of the job talks have been completed. This already programmed survey data will help provide feedback from a range of graduate students. I recommend the graduate student rep be very proactive with collecting feedback from their colleagues. In other words, do this immediately following the last job talk. Faculty need to make these job decisions quickly so you need to be prepared for a faculty meeting within a few days after the last job talk. The rep should also be proactive in finding out the date(s) that faculty will be making these decisions, so as to have this feedback prepared. If you procrastinate, graduate students may not have the opportunity to provide feedback.

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