Quote Originally Posted by Thistle View Post
i have been reading this thread with great interest cos i have my first academic interview on mon ...
I am so nervous they are going to expect me to come up with a whole bunch of hugely interesting and inspiring topics i will offer any students i supervise.... but right now i'm so engrossed in writing up i cant see beyond my topic . I know i will come back from the SARMAC conference in July with heaps of ideas, so maybe i'll just have to give them that line .
There isn't a lot of time between now and monday, but I would say that saying you hope to have some ideas after a conference is not the best idea. You should have a big picture plan in your head now of your research goals. Maybe this weekend you could make an outline, and then before the *next* interview flesh it out. When we hire faculty colleagues, the first thing we look at is passed research productivity, and the second thing is the significance, soundness, depth, and fundablity of the future research plan. Clothes don't matter. Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

p.s. If you are going to be giving a formal research presentation, that too is important since it is the best indicator they will have of your oral comm. skills, i.e. teaching ability.