How to Interview for a First Academic Position

Abstract

Perhaps the most important conversation that academic clinicians ever have in their career with regard to defining their role, impact, and implications on eventual success, as well as aligning academic goals and fit within a department, is the first job interview. This critical conversation initiates what could be a lifelong relationship and defines the new faculty member’s value/worth/salary. Despite the significance of this first interview, clinicians and scientists routinely receive little training or practice in preparation for it and, perhaps more important, do not learn about the process of negotiating a contract. It is true that all physicians interview for medical school and for a residency, but interviewing for the first academic medicine job is very different. In interviewing for medical school and residency, there is an assessment of overall fit from both sides of the interview, but unlike in the academic position, salary is not negotiated and there is really no negotiating over the specifics for the job.