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For job market folks, I thought I'd share how I prepared for these meetings during flyouts last year, which worked well for me and may be useful to others. Related to Marty's thoughts here. (Thread)
First, I come up with an exhaustive list of questions I have about the department, school, university, and organize them. I think my categories usually are department culture, teaching/educational programs, funding, university/school questions. Quick ideas on each 2/
Dept culture general ones: What type of person is successful here? What type of person wouldn't be successful here? How much do people collaborate within the dept? What kinds of seminars, workshops, or similar does the dept hold? How often do you see your colleagues? 3/
Ed programs: What are the students like? What kinds of students come to the program? Where do they go after? How much do people teach? What are the current teaching opportunities? How much does the dept rely on adjuncts/students? TA expectations? How do evaluations matter? 4/
Funding (soft money especially): What are the expectations? What's the mix of foundation vs. federal grants vs. contracts? What kinds of internal, pilot, seed funding are there? (Note: no right answers. You are asking so you can see if it matches your research trajectory) 5/
University/college: Ask about other departments, how much people collaborate in other departments, what centers are around, how those centers work, what opportunities the larger units have (e.g. trainings, workshops, seminars, etc). This is very school specific. 6/
Research each of these areas in advance so you are asking specific questions about the dept. e.g. you should know what ed programs they have, what centers you are interested in on campus, and the like. You should start knowing everything there is to know on the internet. 7/
For each person I'm meeting, I then look them up to learn about them. What's their background, what they've written on, current interests, what they teach or grants they have, etc. 8/
Practically I use a small paper notebook, and make a page for each meeting or person. I list a few key details at top (e.g. where they went to school, current level, if they're MD vs. PhD). Then I bullet a few key things, usually research, that are interesting to me. 9/
For example I might put bullets that describe a few papers of theirs I read (or at least abstracts), interesting findings, and the like. Have at least one specific thing in their research you find interesting (even if it's way outside your area) that you can ask about. 10/
Like @MartinSGaynor noted, these are potential colleagues, not just interviewers. If you are an interested and engaged academic, you can find something interesting in the work of almost anyone you meet. Chat about it and learn about it. 11/
Finally I crosswalk what they do with my larger set of questions as much as I can and write it on my page for them. (e.g. ask the PhD program director more about PhD students and program; ask someone with lots of grants about infrastructure and support for grants). 12/
Goal is that in a hectic day, I have enough on each small notebook page to remind me specifically what I want to learn from each person, and topics that would fun to discuss with them. This makes it easier to just settle into conversation and not ask silly/basic things. 13/
Note I do not read tons of papers from each person. (I do for people I find that I didn't realize were in a really closely related area, and read a lot of.) For others I scan through their list of papers and skim/read a couple that sound most interesting to me. 14/
Hopefully useful to others! It's hard to be an interviewee (and feel constantly evaluated) and also try to have normal conversation, but it's a good goal. You probably will meet great people you might want to work with even if you don't end up at the school. 15/
I have a really great collaborator that I met on a job interview, for a place I didn't end up at. Also many other colleagues who once interviewed me that I really enjoy seeing and talking to at conferences. It's a great benefit of the job market. Don't miss out on this! End/
Some quick follow ups -- I spend probably 4-5 hours doing this. I usually research the department generally, school, and centers some before writing a cover letter, so that wouldn't be included in that time estimate. I probably spend ~15 mins for each person.
Second, part of the reason for being meticulous (over prepared?) on exhaustive list of questions is so that you as a candidate learn as much as you can in one day, and walk away as informed as possible about the place you might consider working.
Finally, the large list of questions is reassuring to me. If there's a meeting that ends up awkward or running out of conversation, I have lots of things to ask about. This rarely happens, but knowing I've a thoughtful set of things to discuss if it does puts me at ease.
