As some readers know, I’m co-teaching a survival-skills course for our neuroscience doctoral students this semester. Last week we talked about job talks and the crucial skills involved in flying in for the day-and-a-half interview for an assistant professor-level tenure-track job.

In thinking about the whole process, the notion of a bank stress test comes to mind. The schedule is quite grueling, it demands a very high level of constant alertness, and there are ample opportunities for making mistakes.

In my experience, the biggest tripping hazard comes at the end of the job talk on Day 1: you’ve just finished giving a spectacular talk after a long series of interviews with potential colleagues. You lower your guard and begin to relax just as you need to be at your peak performance–the dinner where your potential colleagues will attempt to ply you with drinks and food for two hours while simulating the behaviors that go with a social dinner. In actuality, they are looking for insight into your level of scientific abilities and character–all while offering you ample rope to hang yourself with.

Some rules of the road for that dinner:
1) Stay with the formal clothes that you were wearing at your job talk. This is no time to dress-down.

2) Don’t have more than one glass of wine at most. Your ability to remain focused is paramount to success and by this time on Day 1, you are probably close to exhaustion.

3) Don’t gossip. Deflect questions designed to get you to dish on current or former colleagues. Worst case scenario: your dishing goes right back to the person you were dealing the dirt on,. Best case scenario: your scientific character is impugned.

4) Keep aware of your body. Avoid nervous behavioral habits and eat carefully enough to avoid spilling disasters.

5) Ask questions–but keep the questions within the professional scope.

6) Try to focus most of your intentions on intelligent give-and-take scientific conversations, all the while, taking care not to monopolize either in quantity or amplitude. In other words, listen carefully, speak intelligently but not too loudly.

Finally, remember you are not “off-camera” until you shut your hotel room door for the night.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Jim