General Guidelines:

• Follow any instructions given; if length is unspecified, between 20 and 25 pages is appropriate.
• Make sure the sample is carefully documented, as it would be for publication. You want to show your readers that you are a professional, familiar with the conventions of academic publishing and knowledgeable of current work in your field.
• If you have a recently published or forthcoming article, this will often be an ideal sample to send. But it may be more advantageous to choose an extract from your dissertation if your only published option is older or if your dissertation is what you consider to be your best work.
• Bear in mind that if you advance to a campus visit and are asked to give a research presentation, it must not be the same as the writing sample. This could influence your choice of writing sample if you have more than good option (for example, if you know that one piece is definitely easier for a reader to digest while another lends itself better to a great oral presentation). However, do not let this possibility cause you to send a sample that isn’t your best work: represent yourself to best advantage at each stage of the process, and cross the next bridge when you get to it.

Content:

• The writing sample must be in your field/advertised field. Even if you’ve done good work in another field or even had it published, you need to show your work in the field you wish to be hired in.
• The writing sample should ideally reflect your major research project/dissertation. But it should not necessarily be extracted from your dissertation as is. This sample must be highly polished and stand on its own. Revise with these factors in mind.
• When possible, use continuous pages selected from a chapter.
• When editing for length, make sure to provide comfortable transitions through the sections you have cut.
• Be sure the writing sample presents a viable, self-contained argument and states clearly your contribution to debates in your field.
• Begin and end the writing sample strongly (if it’s a large applicant pool and they ask for the writing sample up front, your first page might be all a hurried reader sees).
• Don’t start with a review of the work done by other critics in the area; confine that material to a footnote or footnotes. Begin with an introduction of your own argument.

Typical Interview Questions

• Tell us a little bit about your dissertation.
• How did you get interested in your dissertation topic?
• What are your research plans?
• How would you revise this dissertation for publication as a book? or in articles?
• What is your next research project (book-length/ article-length)?
• What connection do you see between your research and teaching?
• How would you teach a survey course in your general field?
• How would you teach an introductory survey of literature?
• How would you teach a freshman literature course?
• How would you teach a freshman composition course?
• What would your ideal course be and how would you teach it?
• How would you teach this specific course we offer?
• What is your pedagogical approach?
• Do you have any questions for us about the job or the university/college?
• What is the cutting edge in your field?

The Interviewer

The Candidate

When you are invited to an MLA interview, keep these things in mind during the conversation or email exchange setting up the appointment:

• Consider anything else that is already on your schedule so that you don’t cram things tightly together. Make sure to leave at least an hour free between interviews (two hours is better). You may have to walk or find transportation from one place to another, and delays are always possible. Even if everything moves along smoothly and you have plenty of time, you’ll want that time to take a break and get your head ready for the next interview.
• Be sure you’re clear on where the interview will be held. If it will be in a hotel (this is usual), your contact may not know the room number yet but should at least know the hotel.
• Ask your contact whether he or she is able to tell you who will be present at the interview. It’s very helpful to know who the interviewers are in advance. The hiring department’s website will give you basic information about them, such as their fields of specialty.
• Find out how long you should expect the interview to last. (They are usually either 30 or 45 minutes.)
• Before the communication ends, be sure that you give your cell phone number to your contact person and that you have gotten the number of the search committee chair (or another designated emergency contact). In the unlikely case that something goes wrong and either you or the committee urgently need to get in touch while at MLA, you want that to be easy to accomplish.

Written by Ken Bugaski

• If the interviewers are in a different time zone, make sure they know what time zone you are in. Be clear about what time they are going to call and what time that means for you. I had a school from California say they wanted to interview me at 4:30 pm, but they called at 3:30, thinking that I was in the eastern time zone.
• I wrote the names of the individuals conducting the interview on separate sheets of paper with little notes about them on it. So I had the name, the person’s area of specialty, and if he/she held a particular position at the school. I also checked each person’s web page, and if there was a picture, I printed it out. At the time of the interview, I spread out these pages so I could remember everyone’s name and have a face to look at.
• It is important not to speak while someone else is speaking. A lot of speaker phone/conference call technology will get “confused” if more than one person speaks at a time, and it will stop transmitting any voice at all. If two people speak at the same time, the phone will seem to go dead for a second and then come back on. This can happen saying something as short as, “Okay” “I see” or even “Mm-hmm.”
• Try using questions at the end of answers, like “Does that address your concern?” or “Have I answered your question?” Using those kind of tags is a good thing, I think. It helps.
• After the phone interview, have a beer. That won’t do anything as far as the interview itself goes, but I found it useful all the same.