A real story, vastly improved in the retelling.
We had all gathered in the room early in the morning. It had been a long night. It was time to get down to business.
The time came. There was a sheepish knock at the door. Our guy looked at the five of us, in turn.
“Everyone ready?”
Bleary eyed, running on caffeine and fast food, we nodded our heads. He stood up and walked to the door. He opened it.
“Welcome, I’m HAHAHA NICE TRY AS IF . The Famous One.”
There are two economists with the same name. The other one is much more famous.
You are probably wondering what was going on.
Unlike many other academic disciplines, in economics the hiring process is highly centralized. Often called “the job market,” it has three stages.
In late summer/early fall Ph.D. students who expect to graduate in May start putting the (hopefully) final touches on their job market paper and application packet. Universities with openings start advertising their positions on a centralized board maintained by the American Economic Association. Application deadlines are usually around Thanksgiving.
By mid-December hiring committees have narrowed hundreds of applications down to 30 or so for screening interviews, which take place in early January.
After the screening interviews in January, 3 or 4 candidates are usually invited to “fly out,” spending a full day or more being interviewed at the hiring department. Offers begin in late January and continue until positions are filled.
Nothing strange, in principle. Stage 2, though, is more involved than it seems.
From the early ‘70s until the onset of the pandemic, nearly every university conducted its screening interviews concurrently at the Allied Social Science Associations conference. This conference brings together more than 50 professional associations, and it is generally held during the first week of January in some freezing hell. The lucky ones get San Francisco or New Orleans.
Imagine 10,000+ economists and job candidates crammed into a few square blocks. The market is too massive for one hotel. There are usually around seven “official” conference hotels booked to capacity with a few other “unofficials” for spillover. Every hotel lobby looks like a mosh pit. Every public bathroom looks like a war zone. If you want a decent lunch be prepared to walk for thirty minutes, or wait in line for sixty. Forget about getting a coffee near the hotel. Just forget about it.
The candidates spend three days running from hotel to hotel, waiting for the elevator to arrive, then waiting to get off the elevator, looking for the room, realizing it’s in the other tower, and panicking about being late. Many candidates have twenty interviews. Some have thirty. One guy I know had forty five.
I had eight.
Everywhere you look, there are people you know. Friends. Classmates. Co-authors. People you met somewhere whose name you should remember. For the candidates, it’s different. They are all going through the same thing at the same time. They are all friends. They are all rivals. Academic Squid Game.
The candidates want to become the interviewers. The interviewers just want a coffee.
The best interviews were usually in suites. Most were in hotel rooms. Six economists sitting on beds or leaning against the wall. Papers everywhere. Water bottles. Energy drinks. Last night's room service. The lucky candidates got chairs.
The rooms were a problem, especially for the women. Things happened. Awful, disgusting things. Many women I know have experienced things like this. If you think she didn't, maybe you don't know her well enough.
Seriously, dudes. Stop. Just fucking stop.
There were other problems too. In Philadelphia in 2018, there was a huge blizzard the night before. Hundreds of flights were cancelled. Everyone tried their best to be accommodating, but there were major disruptions. There were interviews with half the faculty missing. Candidates were stranded in airports, sleeping on floors, desperately trying to reschedule their flights and interviews simultaneously.
I can't understand how anyone ever thought this was a good idea. Six people in a room for eight hours, interviewing a new person every thirty minutes. You couldn't leave. You could barely eat. Eventually, someone would have to take a shit. There was a perfectly usable bathroom ten feet away. For most of us, using it was unthinkable.
The interviews themselves were highly structured. The candidate knocks at the appointed time. Someone answers the door. We introduce ourselves. The candidate introduces themselves. Usually, there is a cursory offer of refreshment.
“So, please tell us about your research.”
The candidate begins a 15-20 minute rundown of their research. About 5-7 minutes in, the interviewers start tossing out questions.
“Explain again why people buy more when the price goes up. That doesn’t make sense.”
“How does this relate to such and such famous paper?”
“How do you control for people being stupid?”
Sometimes it’s a real question. Sometimes it’s a test. Sometimes the interviewer likes to hear themselves talk. Sometimes no one, especially the person asking, has a clue what the question is about.
Eventually, the questions stop. Someone on the committee says, “Now, let us tell you a little bit about us.” This sounds friendly. Do not be confused: it means the interview is over. We tell the candidate the basics. Some candidates make the mistake of asking questions. Everyone shakes hands. The candidate leaves.
Two minutes later, there is a knock.
The candidate is expected to handle the interview with utmost poise. For some people, it comes naturally. For most people it takes practice.
Candidates are usually told to rehearse their explanation over and over again, but this is bad advice. “Over and over” is not good enough. When you first start practicing, you get tripped up. You lose your place. You stumble over an explanation. You must keep practicing. Eventually, you stop getting tripped up. But now you sound like a robot. Keep practicing. Eventually, you think you’ve got it. You can get through the whole thing. You sound polished. You can even handle interruptions without getting derailed. You think you are done.
No.
You need to practice until someone could wake you up in the middle of the night and you could launch into any part of your spiel without thinking. Until the pauses sound natural. Until the jokes sound completely spontaneous. Until no one could ever dream that you practiced at all.
We had one candidate who nailed it.
He was terrific from the start. His explanation was so natural. Everything was crystal clear. He was completely unbothered by questions, even some aggressive ones. We were entranced.
About ten minutes in, he made a mistake. He said some variable would go down when he meant up. No big deal. Everyone understood. He could have ignored it. He could have corrected himself and just kept going.
He didn't.
He hadn't messed this up in weeks. He had practiced so much. It was perfect. It had to be perfect.
So he did the same thing he had done every time he screwed up before.
He paused. Rewound the tape about twenty seconds. Hit play.
He repeated the two sentences leading up to the mistake. The words were the same. The inflection was the same. The pauses were the same. He breathed in exactly the same places.
He got to the mistake. This time, the thing went up.
The magician had been caught with the rabbit under his coat.
The other five interviewers checked out.
I kept asking questions. The candidate kept answering them. Someone tried to “tell him a little bit about us” eight minutes early. I shushed him.
What the actual fuck? Let him keep going. This is amazing.
The interview ends. I want to give the guy a flyout on the spot.
I had completely missed the rewind.
Everyone else is pissed. They could have used the extra time to take a shit.
11 a.m. Sunday. Last interview, last day. Sunday morning slots are often for unlikely matches. A famous scholar’s student, someone an interviewer wants to meet, someone no one was too excited about but the committee wasn’t quite ready to cross off the list.
By this time the interviewers were over the whole thing. We had been sitting in the same room, asking versions of the same questions, listening to versions of the same answers, for three days. The candidates weren’t much better off. They had been falsely offered refreshments more than 20 times.
The Famous One was was having an especially rough time.
His beloved Manchester United was playing an important match that morning. It was his last tether to reality.
He had been in every single interview. He held his shit for hours every day. He warmly welcomed every candidate.
We could all see the game streaming on his laptop. No one begrudged him this small joy.
The knock arrives. Someone else answers the door. The interview begins.
The candidate is unexpectedly incredible. Her research question is fascinating. She collected the data herself. She explains the paper beautifully. Engaging, funny, obviously smart. Within a few minutes, most of us have forgotten how tired we are.
As the candidate has been talking, Famous has been getting agitated. His eyes keep drifting to his laptop. Suddenly, he throws up his arms and yells, “UNITED!”
The soccer fans instantly realize what has happened.
The candidate instantly realizes what has happened.
Famous switches off the match, opens the candidate’s paper, flips to the bibliography, and asks her about a random paper.
The interview continues.
It’s about that time.
Famous opens his mouth to speak.
Now, let us tell you a little bit about us.
“Your presentation was not very engaging. You should practice a bit more before your next interviews.”
She looked up at Famous.
“I think I did OK. I already have six flyouts.”
I loved every minute with those people.
Thank God we stopped this madness.