GIVING SUCCESSFUL JOB TALKS |
Select candidates for teaching positions in academic departments will be invited to visit those departments. These job candidates will meet faculty and students and almost always will give a lecture to the department. Giving a good job talk is a good step towards success in the challenge of finding an academic position. The following are some tips about how to give memorable and successful job talks.
Keep it simple. Yes, you should give a talk that challenges your listeners and that explores interesting theoretical themes with reference to interesting archaeological material. However, you should not try to talk about all your interests or all your findings. Job talks are research talks, not archaeological autobiographies. Pick one interesting archaeological problem, and tell your story about it.
Practice practice practice. Give your talk to your teachers and colleagues before giving your talk for real. Give this practice talk soon enough to be able to consider and to respond to their recommendations.
Give an energetic talk. Your listeners will respond well to energy and enthusiasm. Pick topics that will interest you as much as or more than your listeners. Reading your talk is fine as long as you read it in a dynamic "speaking" voice rather than a dry "monotone" voice.
Show photos and other figures that enrich your story. Readable maps are very good. Beware of tables, which are often undreadable. Instead of detailed tables, show graphs or other visual representations of your datasets.
Answer all the questions people ask after your talk. Respond directly to each question, which you might want to do by giving the "short" answer and then elaborating with your "long" answer. As tempting as it might be to compliment somebody on the question that he or she has asked, don't. If you compliment one person's question, everyone else might wonder why you did not think their own questions were good.
Take everything out of your pockets before your talk begins. Some people end up shaking their keys or playing with pens and pencils, which is distracting.
Be ready, for your talk and for the comments and conversations that will happen afterward.
Be calm, and have fun talking about what you are interested in and what you would like to study and to teach.
Remember that your audience will most likely include people with a broad range of interests and backgrounds in anthropology and related fields. Yes, you will want to show specialists in your subfield that you know all the nuts and bolts and that you have expertise in your own specialty. However, also speak about how your archaeological research relates to broad themes in anthropology. Just tell your story. Show what you have done. And show where you are going.
This page was originally compiled by Chris Rodning, but thanks to Bruce Winterhalder and Vin Steponaitis for their contributions.
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