Job Interview Questions

General: 1. Is this a new position or replacement? 2. How many full-time faculty are there in the department? Is this number increasing or decreasing? Do you think this is the right size sociology faculty for this university? 3. What areas do you plan on hiring in next? 4. What do you see as the major areas of strength in the department? Favorably? Unfavorably? 5. How does the university administration view the sociology department? 6. How are decisions in the department made? Would you describe it as democratic? 7. Do your junior faculty vote on department decisions? 8. How are decisions made regarding merit or discretionary increases? 9. What is the committee structure of the department? 10. Is this a chair or a head system? 11. How is the chair selected? 12. What are the requirements for tenure? How have recent tenure and promotion decisions gone (esp. among junior faculty)? 13. Do junior faculty vote on promotion decisions? 14. Are there reviews of junior faculty prior to the tenure step? If so, how rigorous are they? 15. Are the senior faculty good at giving junior faculty regular feedback on their performance? 16. In terms of research, would you say this is a "book" or "article" department? 17. Would you describe this as a harmonious or collegial department? 18. How well do the different specializations and methodological approaches (e.g., qualitative vs quantitative) get along? 19. Does the university award sabbaticals? If so, how often? Are there leave opportunities for junior faculty prior to tenure and promotion? 20. Is there money for faculty travel to meetings? How much and easy to get? 21. Do most faculty come to their office every day, or only on teaching days? 22. How is the department's space situation? How are the department offices? Is extra research space/offices available? 23. Can you live close to campus? 24. What is housing like? Is it affordable? 25. Health and retirement benefits. 26. For UB: What do you know about the new president? 27. How autonomous is the department? Does it pretty much make its own decisions, or are these sometimes made outside the department? 28. How much power rests with Dean? What is your view of the current Dean? 29. Has there been a lot of turnover in the university administration?

Teaching: 1. What is the teaching load? 2. How many undergraduate courses and how many graduate courses will you teach? 3. Is there a particular teaching style or philosophy emphasized by the department? 4. Does the department teach service courses for the university? 5. Who decides what gets taught each semester? Individual faculty members? Chair? Committee? 6. What is the typical class size for undergraduate courses? For graduate courses? 7. How many majors? Is the number increasing? Declining? 8. What is the quality of the undergraduate majors? 9. How many graduate students? What do they tend to be interested in? Are there graduate students interested in my areas of specialization? 10. What is the quality of the graduate students? Where are they drawn from? Quality of placements. How many are masters students? How many Ph.D. students? 11. Is the number of graduate students stable? Increasing? Declining? 12. Are all graduate students funded? How many funded? Unfunded? 13. Are faculty automatically assigned a teaching assistant each semester? If not, how are teaching assistants allotted? 14. How many hours are graduate assistants assigned to work per week? 15. Do graduate students have offices/space in the department? 16. How is advisement of undergraduates handled? By individual faculty? How timeconsuming is this for faculty? 17. What does the undergraduate curriculum look like? What courses are required? Are there honors programs or other specialized tracks? 18. What does the graduate curriculum look like? What courses are required? For the MA? For the Ph.D.? Does the department have comprehensive or qualifying exams? 19. How many faculty sit on a dissertation committee? 20. How quickly have recent graduate students been getting through the program? 21. How do you recruit graduate students? 22. Is there an opportunity to teach summers? If so, what does it pay? Research: 1. What kind of support is available for research? 2. Does the department provide research support directly (e.g., computer programmers), or this only available through the university? 3. How about statistical support? 4. What is the computing infrastructure? Is it centralized or decentralized? 5. How about computing software? Can specialized programs be ordered through the university, or is everyone pretty much on their own? 6. Are there research centers that sociology faculty belong to? 7. Is there help available for preparing grant proposals and managing grants? Is this through the department, the college, or the university? How would you characterize he quality of this support? 8. Do faculty collaborate with each other on research? 9. Can teaching assistants also be used for research?

10. Is it okay to buy offteaching time with grant money? Is this encouraged, discouraged, or neither? Is there a limit on the amount of release time? 11. Are there small (or starter) grants available through the university? If so, how competitive is this program? 12. How important is bringing in grant money for performance reviews (including tenure and promotion)? 13. Is there a particular style of research that is emphasized by the department? Service: 1. What is the typical service load for junior faculty? 2. How much time are junior faculty expected to devote to service? 3. Are junior faculty expected to participate in service outside of the department? 4. How important is service for performance reviews (including tenure and promotion)? Dean (or other outside-department university official) 1. What do you see as the main strengths and weaknesses of the sociology department? 2. Where do you see the department heading in the next five years or so? 3. Are there plans to grow the sociology department? 4. What do you think the department should be doing to improve its position within the college and university? 5. What are the most-favored! successful departments within the college? 6. What do you consider this university's peers? 7. How would you describe the financial state of the university? DEPARTMENTAL ENVIRONMENT What do you think your department is known for? What plans does the department have for development? Where do you see the department headed in the next five years? Strengths and weaknesses? Plans for recruitment in the future? Women? Jr. Faculty? Sr. Faculty? Is the department collegial? Is this a good place to get your work done? Committee work Recent faculty departures and reasons for departure?

DEPARTMENTAL STRUCTURE How are tenure decisions made (# of articles! books, teaching evaluations, service)? What procedures for evaluation are in place? When, and what kind of feedback, is given (e.g. annual support)? What have been the recent tenure decisions and what is the average number of publications for those who recently got tenure? What is the process for applying for salary increases here? Decision-making process Qunior faculty equal vote) Is there a policy on sabbaticals and leaves? Frequency? Support for junior faculty

DEPARTMENTAL STATUS How actively does the university administration support the department?

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Financial situation of department, recent budget cuts, future hires Dean's philosophy of education-what recent policies have you stressed w/ the department? Any notable distinctions about your faculty? INTER-DEPARTMENTAL RELATIONS What is the status of department vis-a.-vis other social science departments? How hard or easy is it to collaborate with faculty in other disciplines? Is there institutional support for this? Is collaborative work encouraged? How to allocate credit? RESOURCES What kind of money is available to support research and/ or buy off teaching time? What support resources are generally available (computing, secretaries, research and teaching assistants)? Supply support (e.g. copying limits on research, fax, long-distance, etc.) Institutional centers of support? Are there support services for research grant proposals? How good is the library? What funds are available for travel? What per cent overhead does the University charge to outside funding agencies? Available computer programs OTHER What do you like about department? What would you like to see changed? Homeownership/ help with moving expenses Your research Summer support or teaching? Summer school salary? Number of weeks? QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS How's the training in sociology in the department? How could the training be improved? How well are the graduate students funded in the department? Problems filling T.A.ships? Quality of library resources? Computing? Fights/ conflicts among professors, turf battles, favoritism, race/ sex discrimination? What kind of job will you be looking for after you finish your degree? Do you like where the department's headed?