The Job Talk

"I expected people to be active and interrupt me when they wanted to ask a question or make a point.  When in my very first job talk that did not happen, I was slightly taken aback and didn't know how to interpret that.  I don't think it had any bearing on me (I ultimately received an offer) but was a reflection of the politeness of the school."

Callbacks

After the AALS conference you will probably be eager to hear back from some of the schools with whom you interviewed to invite you to a full-day campus visit. Some schools will decide which candidates to invite back during or immediately after the AALS conference and will thus get in touch with you a few days after the conference. Other schools prefer to wait to see how the market “plays out” before inviting anyone back, so they might not get in touch with candidates until a few weeks after the conference. So don’t panic if you don’t hear back from anyone immediately after the conference, as schools might be just taking their time.

The campus visit lasts a day to a day-and-a-half and generally consists of a series of half-hour to forty minute interviews with faculty and a job talk-where you will present and discuss your work. Although the interviews with faculty are important and will be substantive, the most important portion of your visit will be your job talk. Job talks generally last about an hour and are scheduled during lunch time. Typically, you will be escorted into the seminar room where you will give your talk a few minutes before the faculty arrives to give you a chance to eat. After faculty arrive and either during or after lunch, you will be expected to present a working paper for about 20 minutes. The remaining 40 minutes will consist of a question and answer (Q&A) discussion session where faculty will ask you questions about the paper you presented.

The Paper

It is likely that during the course of an interview at the AALS conference you will be asked to describe your “job market” paper, which just refers to the article that you would present in the event you were invited back to give a job talk. Your job market paper should be a polished draft of an article that has either been recently accepted for publication or is almost in final form (i.e., it has been revised extensively and has received comments from colleagues, advisors, etc.). Preferably, your paper should relate to your overall research agenda. Remember that people want to evaluate your ability as a researcher and sense the type of work that you will be undertaking in the next few years. For example, if you are marketing yourself as an international law scholar and intend to do future research in international law, it is best if you present an international law paper instead of a contracts one. You should also try to select a topic that is relatively accessible to a broader audience. The goal of your presentation is to get most members of a diverse faculty interested in you and your work. It is much easier to accomplish this goal when your work is relatively broad and accessible.

The Presentation

Although some faculty would have read your paper before your visit to the school, you should prepare your talk with the (reasonable) assumption that most people would not have read it. With this in mind, you should dedicate a generous amount of time making your presentation clear, organized, and tight.  Job market candidates’ presentations are generally very polished, so it will pay off to develop a well-crafted and well delivered talk.

Below is a list of considerations that should aid you in preparing your 20 minute job talk:

• It should have a point. While it might appear impossible to cram a long article into 20 minutes, that’s all you’ve got, so you have to make sure that you use your minutes wisely. In essence, a successful talk should address the following: (a) what is your thesis or claim? (b) how does it fit into the current literature in the field? (c) what are the arguments supporting your thesis/claim and what methodology do you use?  (d) What is your conclusion and what are the implications? (In other words, you should have an answer to the “so what” question.)
• It should be clear to people outside your field. Most faculty in your audience will not be in your field and thus will be relatively unfamiliar with your field’s relevant literature, issues, and arguments. Since the point of your talk is to get the entire faculty to evaluate the value of your work, you should make every effort to make your talk accessible and engaging to everyone.  For this reason, you should try to make your arguments flow intuitively and reduce field specific “jargon” as much as possible. Also, never assume that your article’s background literature is common knowledge to anyone.  If your article is on an abstract topic, it might help to offer an illustration in order to keep faculty engaged. You should also keep in mind that your presentation will give people an indication of how effective you will be as a teacher. You want to be clear, organized, and approachable. Don’t worry too much about “dumming” down your talk for those in the audience who are experts in your field; they will most likely and assess the quality of your work independently or during the Q&A portion of your talk.
• It should note the main limitations of your claims and arguments. Questions about the limitations of your arguments or their implications will likely arise during the Q&A session. Still, it is a good strategy to be the first to point out some limitations in your paper and explain why your conclusions and methodology are still relevant or valid.
• Practice, practice, practice. You should practice your job talk several times before the real thing. With each additional performance, you will become more comfortable and fluent. You should recruit friends, colleagues, or family members and ask them to be your audience. Their comments might help you perfect the structure and style of your presentation.

"My job talk paper became much, much better over the course of the callback process.  I can’t imagine I will ever again have the luxury of so many professors, from so many different fields, reading a draft I’ve written and giving such thoughtful comments."
Sarah Beth Lawsky, NYU LL.M. in Taxation 2006

The Q&A Session

• The single most important part of your job talk is perhaps the Q&A session. Following your presentation, there will be an interactive forty-minute discussion about your paper.  Faculty will ask a broad range of questions challenging the validity of your claims and methods and exploring the boundaries of your arguments. The purpose of this discussion is to evaluate your ability to think critically, thoroughly, and on your feet. Below are some helpful points on what to expect and how to prepare for it.
• Know the limitations of your paper. All papers have weaknesses, and it is likely that many of the questions will focus on these. You should therefore try to anticipate these limitations to the extent possible and prepare well-formulated responses and reasons as to why you made the decisions you made. For example, you should be prepared to defend the reasonableness of your assumptions, the validity of your methodology, the implementation of your proposed solution, and the characterization of the issue that you are seeking to address, among others.
• Don’t be defensive. Q&A should be an open and interactive discussion about your paper. The purpose of this part of your talk is for faculty to assess your reasoning and your ability as a scholar. Questions will most likely vary in content and breadth. Faculty in your area might ask you about very particular applications of your claims, whereas other faculty might be more interesting in seeing how your claim would be addressed in their field. You are not expected to anticipate every question that gets asked. You should consider the questions straightforwardly and provide thoughtful and thorough responses.  The tone of the discussion should be stimulating and collaborative.  This is unlikely to happen if you get too defensive or deflect questions. Finally, use the questions that get asked to talk about your broader research agenda. Some of the questions will ask you to broaden or extend your current analysis. These are great opportunities for you to explain your follow up work and showcase your overall research agenda.
• Practice, practice, practice. You should moot your job talk and Q&A with professors and colleagues. You will only get better with each presentation, so it pays to practice. As a strategic matter, you should schedule talks with schools that you are most interested inlater rather than earlier, as you will improve with each additional presentation. You will see that questions generally repeat themselves, so you will have a better idea of what you will be asked.