Austin Z. Henley

Associate Teaching Professor
Carnegie Mellon University

azhenley@cmu.edu
@austinzhenley
github/AZHenley

Faculty interview questions I asked and got asked

5/14/2018

This is a list of questions I asked and got asked during phone and campus interviews for tenure-track Assistant Professor positions in Computer Science during the 2017-2018 interview season. Many of the existing resources for the job market focus on application materials and the job talk, but I had no idea what to expect during the interviews, so I wrote these down.

I applied to 36 positions, did 10 phone interviews, was invited to 8 campus interviews, and received 7 offers. Most of these universities were R1 state schools and ranked in the 60s-70s by US News. I attended an R2 university with an unranked department.

Questions I got asked

Tell us about your research.
What are the contributions of your work?
Can you explain the theory behind your work?
How does your research relate to X? (where X is something I've never heard of in a very different domain)
How is your work different than other's in your field?
How will you distinguish yourself from your advisor?
What are your 1st year goals as faculty? 5 year goals?
What are your funding plans?
Which specific NSF programs will you submit to?
What other funding agencies can you submit to besides NSF?
What will be the topic of your first grant proposal?
When will you first apply for the CAREER Award?
Who will you write your first grant proposal with?
Do you have any grant writing experience?
What do you want your research group/lab to be like? Number of students?
What is your biggest achievement?
What is your "home" conference?
Who will you collaborate with externally?
Who would you collaborate with within the department? What other departments could you work with?
What will your strategy be in order to publish top-tier papers consistently?
What would you like to teach?
Can you teach X? (sometimes X was far outside my area)
What resources do you need for your lab?
Why this university?
What are you looking for in a department?
What other schools are you interviewing with? (some beat around the bush, others were blunt)
What is your timeline [for accepting an offer]?
Why academia? Why not industry?

Questions I asked

What is the teaching load, before and after tenure?
What is the size of undergrad and grad classes?
How many PhD students does the department have? Masters? Undergrads?
What kind of lab space will I be provided? Is it shared?
I need space for running user studies, is that possible?
What is the IRB like here?
Is there any mentorship for junior faculty?
What grant writing support is there?
What has been your experience in recruiting students here?
Where do the undergrads usually go after graduating?
What are the big tech employers here? Is there much of a startup scene?
To grad students: Is the GA salary livable? Do you get health insurance?
To junior faculty: What are department meetings like? Do you feel like you have a voice?
To senior faculty: What do you think makes for a successful junior faculty member here?
To graduate/teaching coordinator: What courses is the department in need of someone to teach?
To dean/chair: What is the success rate for tenure?
To hiring committee/chair: What is the timeline for the committee to make a decision and extend an offer?
To chair: What are the tenure expectations? How much grant money?
To chair: What is the startup package? Student support? Summer salary? Travel and equipment? Expiration date?
To chair: How much do students cost to support?
To chair: What is the overhead rate for grants?
To chair: How much does it cost to buy out of teaching?
At dinner: Where do most faculty live? Which school zones are good?
At dinner: What made you choose this university?