Advice for AEA Interviews
R. Moffitt
11/30/2010
1. Start with a summary of your job market paper--what field it is in, what the main question is, what you did, and what your results are. One minute or less. This gets the whole thing on the table in case you later get interrupted.
2. Then begin an approximately 5-to-10 minute more detailed summary of your job market paper. But be prepared to be interrupted and to answer questions.
3. If you don't know who the interviewers are, assume they are non-specialists who don't know your field or your area, and prepare #1 and #2 for such an audience. However, watch for the kinds of questions you get and, if it is apparent that one or more of your interviewers does know something about your field or your area, address that person's questions as if he/she is a specialist, and give more detailed and specific answers. In the rest of the interview, be more specialized as a result. If you do know in advance that at least one of the interviewers specializes in your field, you can start off being somewhat more specialized, though not completely because the other interviewers may be non-specialists.
4. After approx 10-15 minutes into the interview, or occasionally longer, the discussion of your job market paper will stop and the discussion will go onto other things. One possibility is to talk about the other papers in your thesis. Sometimes interviewers want to hear about that and sometimes they don't. If they ask you explicitly to talk about them, do it. If they don't, feel free to ask them directly if you should go on and talk about the other parts of your thesis. You should only give brief summaries of each, certainly less than 5 minutes; far less detail than your job market paper. Of course, if you hit a specialist who really wants to talk about one of them, accommodate that.
5. Another possible topic at that point in the interview, or after talking about the rest of your thesis, is what you want to work on in the future. They will want to make sure you have some ideas for what to do next. I suggest that you give two projects. One is an extension of your thesis, to show that you want to keep working on it and address unanswered questions. A second is a new project, unrelated to any of your dissertation topics, but in your major field. This will show that you want to branch out, too, and have other ideas.
If you are interviewing with a non-academic organization, you probably won't get this question, but, if there is an opportunity to say so, you should say you are eager to work on the topics that that organization studies. Both of these should be very brief, and summary in nature.
6. Schools will often ask you about what you want to teach. You should have done your homework and know what they areas they are looking for. Say what you are willing to teach, undergrad and grad. Do not overpromise; e.g., do not say you are willing to teach 2nd-year advanced econometrics if you don't think you can; they will think you are being unrealistic.
Sometimes they will ask you to describe a course in more detail--topics, etc. So be prepared to

talk very briefly about that.
7. Toward the end, academic organizations will ask you if you have any questions. You should never ask about money; never ask about computers. I also recommend that you not ask about courseload. All these things can be asked about if you get a flyout. I would advise asking them about the research environment in the department in your area. Say that you have looked at their website (they will assume you have) but would appreciate it if they could say a bit about how many other faculty they have in labor, applied micro, development, or whatever. Also ask about seminars. The point of these questions is to show that you are most interested in doing research.
For non-academic organizations, you should just ask about how the work is organized, what kinds of projects they imagine you being assigned to, etc. Don't ask about "free time to do my own research," since that sends the wrong signal.
8. Many places will offer some information about what they are looking for, will describe their department or organization, etc., without your prompting.
9. At the end, ask them what their schedule for making a decision is.
10. Some “behavioral” advice:
(a) be confident, self-assured.
(b) speak up, don't mumble
(c) look the interviewers in the eye when talking to them
(d) try to be as enthusiastic as possible about your research, in your manner of speech and talking and body language
(e) sit up straight in the chair.
(f) don't be afraid to admit weaknesses or limitations of your research; say that's for future research.
(g) remember you are trying to "sell" yourself, so be very positive about your work; avoid self-deprecation