Questions to Ask in a Faculty Interview
Questions for a candidate on a campus visit for an academic post, to put to the search committee, the chair, the dean, junior colleagues, and graduate students, covering teaching load, tenure standards, startup packages, service, space, and department health.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
Why is this position open?
Retirement, growth, a departure, or a line that has turned over twice in five years are four very different jobs. If someone left, ask where they went, and ask a junior colleague the same question separately.
- 2
What does the department need this hire to do that it cannot do now?
The written advertisement is a committee compromise. This question gets you the actual gap, and occasionally reveals that different members of the committee are hiring for different things, which will become your problem.
- 3
What is the teaching load, counted in courses and in preparations?
Two courses a term with one repeat is a different job from two courses with two new preparations. Ask about class sizes, whether you get teaching assistants, and whether the load is reduced in the first year.
- 4
Which courses would I teach in year one, and how much choice do I have?
Departments often hire for a research profile and then assign whatever service teaching is vacant. Ask when the schedule is set and by whom, since a course you did not expect can consume the whole first year.
- 5
What is the tenure standard here, specifically?
Ask for written guidelines, then ask how they have been applied recently, because those are separate questions. Numbers of publications, venue expectations, grant thresholds, and the weight of teaching should all be answerable.
- 6
Who has come up for tenure lately, and what happened?
This is the most informative question available on a campus visit. Ask the chair, then ask junior faculty privately. Anyone denied recently, and anyone who left before the clock ran out, tells you what the standard really is.
- 7
What is in the startup package, and how long do I have to spend it?
Equipment, lab renovation, students, postdocs, summer salary, travel, and course release are separate line items. Ask about the expiry date and about what happens if renovations delay you, which they usually do.
- 8
What is the space situation for this position?
Office, lab, shared or dedicated, and when it is available. Space is the promise that most often turns out to be contingent on someone else's move, and it is worth seeing the actual room before you accept.
- 9
How is service distributed among junior faculty?
Junior colleagues frequently absorb committee work that senior colleagues decline, and it is invisible in the tenure file. Ask what committees a new hire is expected to join, and whether there is any protection in the first years.
- 10
What mentoring exists for new faculty?
Ask whether it is formal or informal, and whether the mentor is also on the tenure committee, which changes what you can safely say to them. The best answer names a specific person and a specific cadence.
- 11
How are graduate students admitted and funded, and would I get access?
New faculty in some departments wait years before they can recruit students, which can be fatal to a research programme. Ask how admissions decisions are made and whether your subfield reliably gets applicants.
- 12
What do you expect from me in the first three years?
A useful answer is concrete: a grant submitted, a certain kind of publication, a course built. A vague answer means the expectations will be applied retrospectively, which is the situation you want to avoid.
- 13
How are teaching evaluations used in personnel decisions?
Ask whether numerical scores are used, what threshold causes concern, and whether peer observation exists. Departments that lean heavily on student scores create risks that fall unevenly across who you are.
- 14
Is the budget growing or shrinking, and what happened in the last cycle?
Enrolment, state funding, and college level cuts determine whether the promises made to you survive. Ask what was cut most recently and whether any searches were cancelled after being authorised.
- 15
How is the department's relationship with the dean?
A department out of favour at college level gets fewer lines, less space, and slower approvals, and none of that appears in the offer. Ask several people and listen for how carefully they phrase it.
- 16
How do people here actually get on with each other?
Ask it of the chair, a junior colleague, and a graduate student separately, then compare. Long running factional splits are usually visible in what people avoid saying, and they shape committee votes you will eventually depend on.
- 17
What support exists for a partner's career?
Ask the chair or the dean rather than the committee, and ask about precedent rather than policy: whether a partner hire, an adjunct position, or a placement elsewhere on campus has actually happened here.
- 18
What do people find hard about living here?
Ask students and staff as well as faculty. Housing costs, commutes, schools, healthcare access, and isolation are the reasons good hires leave after three years, and nobody volunteers them during a recruiting visit.
- 19
What is the timeline and how does negotiation work here?
Find out when a decision comes, how long you would have to respond, who negotiates, and what is negotiable at all. Public institutions often have salary constraints but flexibility on startup, teaching, and timing.
- 20
Is there anything about this job I would only find out after taking it?
Ask it at the end of a one to one conversation rather than in a group. Junior faculty and graduate students answer it most honestly, and the pause before the answer is worth as much as the answer.
Asking well on a campus visit
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Match the question to the person
Match the question to the person
The chair and the search committee
Ask about load, expectations, startup, space, and timeline. These are the people who can answer institutional questions accurately and who expect them, so asking is a sign of seriousness rather than of doubt.
Junior faculty
Ask about tenure in practice, service load, mentoring, and whether promises made at hiring were kept. They are recent enough to remember the process and close enough to it to have opinions.
Graduate students
Ask about supervision, funding reliability, morale, and how the department treats people with least power. Their account is the best available proxy for what the place is like when nobody is recruiting.
The dean
Ask about the college's plans for the department, enrolment pressure, and any partner hire question. Do not use this meeting for questions the chair could answer, since dean time is short and rarely repeated.
Practicalities of the visit
Practicalities of the visit
- Ask for the schedule in advance, and ask who each person is and what they do. Arriving without knowing who you are meeting wastes half the meetings.
- Repeat the important questions to different people. Consistent answers are reassuring, and inconsistent ones are the most useful thing you will learn all day.
- Save salary and package specifics for after an offer unless the chair raises them. During the visit, ask about structure rather than numbers.
- Write notes between meetings, not at the end of the day. By dinner the visit compresses into a single impression.
- Treat every interaction as part of the interview, including the drive from the airport and the meal, because both are routinely reported back to the committee.
- Ask to see the actual office or lab space rather than a floor plan.
Warning signs
Warning signs
- Nobody can state the tenure standard, or the answer changes between the chair and junior faculty.
- Several junior hires have left in the last few years and everyone describes the reasons as personal.
- The startup package is described enthusiastically but not in writing, or depends on a grant nobody has yet.
- Graduate students are noticeably careful about what they say in front of faculty.
- Teaching load is quoted in courses without mention of preparations, class sizes, or whether release exists.
- The advertised specialisation does not match what anyone in the department actually asks you about.