It’s not a big-versus-little conference thing. I go religiously to my major field conference, the African Studies Association, which is just as big as the AHA.

Actually, I just had an interview with presentation for a academic science position over skype. Using screen sharing and a projector on their end, you can give a projected powerpoint presentation to an audience and answer questions afterwards – they had to speak close to the mike, but it worked!
(Amusing side note: If you do this, you will answer questions after the talk as a Big Giant Head on a screen. I caught my reflection in a mirror in the room I was talking to and my nose was like a foot wide. I laughed so hard – after I hung up. )

I think everyone has made great points here about the advantages and disadvantages about the Skype interview. But given the cost savings for everyone involved, I think it’s a slam-dunk to use Skype and (as Janice suggested above) for the various academic professional organizations like the AHA and the MLA to develop interview protocols to guide both hiring departments and job candidates.

I agree that the backdrop/staging of the interview shouldn’t be a priority for either the interviewing department or for the candidate, and am a little concerned about how that might potentially affect a search. But my sense is that there’s more economic/class discrimination built into the convention interview compared to a Skype interview. Anyone who is qualified to be interviewed for a faculty position has access to the kind of technology and high-speed connection that one needs for a Skype video call, whereas there are a lot of starving ABDs and new Ph.D.s who can’t really afford the travel.

ProfSweddy’s comment about the wifi connection fritzing in and out is perhaps my greatest concern. It might be a courteous and useful thing for Ph.D.-granting departments to provide access to a computer with a high-speed ethernet connection in an “interview suite” so that their grad students could do Skype interviews there. That kind of environment might offer a more stable connection, and a quieter and more dignified surrounding than one might find at a coffee shop or even at home!

But even with technical difficulties, if everyone approaches these interviews with a spirit of understanding and a sense of humor, these technical difficulties can be worked out. There are all kinds of difficulties involved in getting physically to an interview: planes cancelled/delayed, connections missed, hotels too noisy to sleep in, etc. One of our best hires was a guy who arrived sweaty and obviously scared because he was 10-minutes late for his interview because he found himself in the wrong hotel and had to sprint across town to get to us. At least the technical difficulties with Skype would be visible and obvious to all present, whereas the other difficulties, because they’re not obvious to everyone, remain more in the realm of personal problems for which a candidate might be unfairly judged.

In retrospect, it’s a really odd way to hire someone, particularly (as you point out) there was no opportunity for them to really see me in action.

I did think it was strange not to do a presentation, which is de rigeur for these jobs normally (this is my fourth post of this nature), and I am not sure whether the other candidates were made to do that? But clearly, they decided it was enough just to interview in this case.

In fact, even though I’m tech-savvy, I’d prefer videoconferencing over Skype. Skype is easier logistically on the surface, but as others have pointed out, it’s not always reliable. I liked having a professional tech person responsible for the technology on my interview day, especially since it was my only interview in five years on the job market.

I have little interest in the AHA, and have therefore never attended–and I never went to the MLA when I was pursuing a graduate degree in English, either. (I went to my Ph.D. discipline’s big conference once, and found it not a good fit, either.) Instead of “chronological” conferences, I prefer methodologically or genre-focused ones, like the National Conference on Public History or Museums and the Web–those are the places “my people” hang out, and I’d much prefer to interview amidst the interesting conversations that take place at those conferences.

My one question to those of you who have been on an interview committee that used Skype–how did you all manage to fit in frame? I suspect there was a good deal of huddling at one end of the table, yes?

We’re now trying to make AHA annual meeting work better on a social level–for example, by providing real opportunities for grad students to meet early in the conference and begin to know their cohorts at other schools. All suggestions welcome! But the subspecialties are, I think, going to be the centers for most of our networks in the years immediately ahead of us.

From a practical standpoint, Skype fricken rocks. Why fly to San Francisco for one interview, which I’ve done? Why be penalized by not going to a gigantic conference when the market is saturated with Americanists this year again and only one school has picked you for an interview?

Oh, I’d miss the booksellers’ conference discounts and everything, but I could live without the extra trip during my winter break.

HJ (deceased)