Does Interview Order Mean Anything?

[nervous]

There are really two questions here:

1) Does interview order imply anything about the committee's preferences towards the candidates? I've wondered if they tend to put their favorite person last/first in the order...this happens at conferences so why not job interviews?


2) Can interview order influence final decisions - ie, if doing one interview per week, and three or four people are shortlisted, then do you think its possible that the later candidates can seem more memorable merely because they were more recent? Or perhaps, if a great talk is done early, perhaps that sets a standard that the others are measured against?

I know I'm reading into things with this question, but isn't that what we do on this forum? .

[SC member]

No, nothing in my department. Everyone is so busy that we schedule whichever interviewee whenever we can.


Second question: Yes. If we like two interviewees, the latter one is fresher in our memory and might have a slight advantage......but only slight. If your interview stinks, order is meaningless.

[perhaps]

There was another thread on this topic some time ago and it was noted that in some departments they bring in preferred candidates first.

[WTF]

The answer is usually no but sometimes it's yes. However, at the end of the day the question itself is just masochistic. You will never know one way or the other and at the end of the day what difference does knowing the answer make? It doesn't actually provide anything useful.

Just prepare for the interview, do your best and quit obsessing about trivial crap that you can't control.

[Lots of SC]

I have had the opportunity in recent years to be on many search committees (more than I would have liked, to be honest), and, boy, do you learn a lot on the other side. That said, the information I am going to share is purely anecdotal. First, search committees often have their favorites before any of the finalists come out. I've never seen a case where a "top choice" who did awesome on their interview did not get the offer. On the other hand, I have seen top choices bomb in one way or the other on the interview and the offer goes to another candidate. So you never know. However, if a top choice has been identified, the search committee (whether consciously acknowledged or not) is rooting for them to be as awesome in person as they look on paper and as awesome as their references indicate. Because there are usually these kinds of preferences at work, it is often the case that you call the top choice first to set up an interview. However, as the above posters have pointed out given the time constraints so many of us are under, the actual order that people end up in is often random. From a former candidate's perspective, I always prefer to be the first interview, however. While you may wonder if department members have somehow "forgotten" about you by the end, the reality is you are the one that sets the bar by which the other candidates are measured. Further, as previously stated, if you are already perceived to be the top choice (cv screams perfect fit, excellent letters, etc., etc.) and you rock the interview, the job is yours even if the committee has to go through another week or two of interviews. In other words, you are not going to be "forgotten" when you make that kind of impression on the department.

[nervous]

Dear "WTF": I must admit - you make a fair point...

Dear "Lots of SC": This is exactly what I was wondering about, so thank-you for sharing your experience.

I was offered a choice between multiple dates, and started agonizing over whether I should have taken the earlier spot. In a tight-race it might have mattered, but since I plan to blow everybody away it shouldn't . Honestly, my agony comes less from this particlar search than from the tight job market in general. It makes even the trivial things feel like life or death. Again - thanks for the input.

[Link]

Here is the link to the other thread on this:
socjobs.proboards.com/thread/1221/interviewing-order

[don't go first]

At my current institution, the candidates that go last tend to get better reviews. Everyone who comes in contact with candidates completes an evaluation. The first candidate sets the standard and often gets so-so scores. People then compare the other candidates to that first candidate. By the time the last candidate goes, folks can reflect on all the other candidates, and they are finally in a position where they feel comfortable giving relatively favorable scores. At my school, there's definitely an advantage to not being first.

[yeahbut]

Feb 2, 2014 8:36:38 GMT -5 don't go first said:

At my current institution, the candidates that go last tend to get better reviews. Everyone who comes in contact with candidates completes an evaluation. The first candidate sets the standard and often gets so-so scores. People then compare the other candidates to that first candidate. By the time the last candidate goes, folks can reflect on all the other candidates, and they are finally in a position where they feel comfortable giving relatively favorable scores. At my school, there's definitely an advantage to not being first.

...But thats only because you buys have a weird way of ranking the candidates and then, apparently, having those rankings actually matter. I'm pretty sure that is the exception not the norm. At most places, I think that the norm is that everyone comes in with their favorites and then argues/bargains over it...or sometimes a smaller committee does it and then presents a recommendation that gets an up/down vote. I've never heard of people using rankings for this sort of thing.