Friday 28th September 2012 - Interviews as examinations

I have been interviewed three times in the last few days.  All the occasions were somewhat more straightforward than the experience I recounted in my second most recent blog dealing with an interview in Romania.  The first interview was broadcast live on Radio Sheffield and involved me and Cliff Allan (Deputy VC at Sheffield Hallam) answering questions from Rony Robinson, including at least one that he described as a 'googly', intended to put me on the spot.  The second was a telephone interview with a market researcher seeking to gain my views on another university - a 40 minute long discussion.  The third, of about an hour, was a face to face interview with a researcher seeking to evaluate a particular project that the University has been involved with for some time.

Interviews, particularly when live, are a little like exams.  There's little time to think.  It's important to structure the answer very quickly, to be coherent, and to retain the bigger picture and not get bogged down in anecdotal detail.  Some people find being interviewed an ordeal: fortunately I don't.  In fact I find them very productive sessions that often result in me rationalising a particular position or point in a way that I ultimately feel has been convincing where I have not produced such an articulation before.  The questions from a good interviewer also point in directions that one may not have thought of and prompt new thinking.

Teaching is also like that.  It challenges me to find ways of expressing complex ideas to students. But what often takes my thinking further is actually the questions they then raise - on issues that I haven't got fully covered, and from viewpoints I haven't taken into account.  I used to run the training sessions on conference presentations and 'getting published' for new research students in the Faculty of Social Sciences.  One of the pieces of advice I always gave students before their first conference presentation was that the question session would be more valuable to them than the giving of the paper. It would challenge their thinking and put them on the spot on key issues - they should look forward to it as the bit that would add greatest value to their whole research agenda.

So I believe that being questioned about one's work and ideas is inherently a good thing.  And the better the questioning the richer the value of the session.  On Tuesday of next week I am lecturing in London to a group of senior executives from around the world with the expectation that I will sum up the major issues in contemporary international migration in 45 minutes. The audience will probably number about 70, from around 50 different countries.  I am sure the question and answer session after the lecture will be adrenalin-producing, but also very stimulating.