Nailing the Job Talk: Tips for a Terrific Talk

1. Preparation is the Key

 As Prof. Enquist and co-authors put it so well:  “do investigation and discovery, do your research, create your theory of the case, and moot your presentation.”

2.  Discovery

   --Find out everything you can about each school’s interview process. 

The best way to learn this is by asking your contact on the Faculty Appointments Committee (maybe the chair of the Committee or a faculty member who seems enthusiastic about your candidacy—they invited you for a call back and they want you to succeed).

You need to know what is the school’s format for the job talk—length of presentation, the physical location of the room in which you will give your job talk, and, most important, what kind of technology and IT support does the law school offer.

Although I am not a power point person myself, I think a good power point can help you keep the attention of your audience (all of whom are very bright, but many of whom are easily bored and unfamiliar with your topic).

3. Topic Choice 

       --choose a topic that is interesting, but not overly controversial. Stay away from the culture wars, and especially avoid same-sex marriage, gay rights and abortion like the plague. Never forget that you are an exile in Babylon, seeking employment at Babylon School of Law. Consider who your audience is and remember that your goal as a job applicant is to win friends and get an offer, not to change minds nor win a debate.

       --choose a topic that you know inside out. The best topic may be a work-in-progress that is almost finished, but not yet published.

       --choose a topic that is accessible to your audience. Topics that are overly technical or obscure may make great law review articles, but they are not great for job talks because your goal is to get as many faculty members interested and excited about your topic as possible.

       --choose a topic that is theoretical and analytical, one where you have an interesting idea or theory that you are prepared to present and defend. And remember, you only have 20 minutes to explain and develop your theory, so keep it simple and cut to the chase right away. Stick to the big story, and leave the subplots for the published piece. Tell your audience from the get go what your theory is and why you think it works.  Shoot for a good but brief overview of your paper--you can develop a lot of the finer points in the Q & A session in response to questions or challenges.

4.  Moot Your Job Talk

      --as many times as possible and before as good an audience as possible.

      --Consider this good advice from Prof. Glynn: "This is not because you don’t know what you are talking about – if you don’t, practice won’t help. It is because, despite your knowledge, you need to be able to 1) communicate your ideas effectively in a short period of time and 2) answer questions from, and engage in give and take with others who may see your subject through entirely different lenses. The only way to ensure that you are doing these things is to practice. Your best option is to arrange a mock with a group of professors (your mentors or others). If you can’t, put together a panel of colleagues, and make sure they know to interrupt you with difficult, wide-ranging questions within about fifteen minutes and to critique you at the end."

      --Another bit of advice I have heard several professors share is to schedule your call-back interviews so that your top choices are later in the schedule. This enables you to get some real practice presenting your job talk in a real--not moot--context at some of your less-favored law schools. But remember, the job market is tough and your "last choice" school may turn out to be your best actual opportunity. So do your best, even at schools that are not high on your personal list.

5. Claim Your Turf

       --"We who are about to die, salute you." To know the Coliseum, is to live to fight another day.

      --You have arrived in Podunk, Nebraska for your interview. You had dinner last night with some faculty members who told you what a great law school dear old Schiz is and what a great and cosmopolitan town is Podunk, a wonderful place to raise a family yadda, yadda, yadda. 

      --Now it is the morning of your interview and someone picks you up and drives you to the law school. Make sure that your tour of the law school includes a tour of the room in which you will give your job talk. Check out the room carefully, figure out where you will be and where your audience will be. If time permits, ask your friendly tour guide to demonstrate the technology in the room. 


    --the idea here is to become as comfortable in the room before giving your talk as possible. Familiarity breeds confidence, not contempt, and you need as much confidence as you can muster.

6. Twenty Minutes To Strut Your Stuff

    --unless the particular law school has a different tradition, you should plan on limiting your presentation to about 20 minutes. You want to leave time for Q & A, because responding to questions from faculty members is the most important part of your job talk.

     Here is some good advice from Daniel Solove about the body of your talk:


     --"Don’t try to deal with every issue in the talk.  If there are some objections or responses to your thesis that you anticipate, let them come out in the discussion...  In many cases, it is better to let the faculty raise the objection and you respond to it than to try to weakly preemptively address it in the talk. Remember, you don’t need to do everything in the initial 20 minutes.  The talk should just set up the discussion."

    --"Have an idea.  Many job talks don’t really have much of an idea.  Or they have an idea, but it is so muddled or unclear that people have a hard time figuring out what it is.  At the end of your 20 minutes of setting forth your idea, everybody in the room should be able to know what your thesis is."

   --"Choose a topic where you know the law and issues inside and out.  You want the job talk to be on your turf.  You’re leading the discussion.  Although the topic should be accessible to all, you must know what you’re talking about.  Many a candidate has faltered by not knowing a key case or a key article in a field."

   --"The bottom line according to Solove is this: "At the end of the job talk, the faculty should walk out of the room thinking: (1) I had a great hour; this was fascinating stuff to think about; (2) the candidate had an interesting idea; (3) the candidate could speak in a clear and articulate manner that was engaging; (4) the candidate was respectful of the questioners; (5) the candidate was able to respond intelligently and thoughtfully to the comments and questions; (6) this candidate is the kind of person that I’d like to talk with more and that I’d like to have commenting on my scholarship."

7. Q & A

Almost everyone agrees that the Q & A session, which could last anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes, is the most important part of your job talk. It is here that offers are often won or lost. The following are some tips:

    --listen carefully to the question (if you don't understand it, re-phrase it and ask the questioner if that captures his or her points)

    --take your time to think about your response. Just like a pitcher on the mound at a crucial point in a baseball game, pause, breathe, slow the game down and take control of the situation)

     --never, ever, evade the question or dismiss it flippantly. Don't be defensive and don't lose your cool. The job of a professor is to take ideas seriously, his own and those he disagrees with.  Even stupid questions (and you will get stupid questions, because law profs like to talk even when they don't know what they are talking about) should be treated with respect and given a thoughtful and respectful reply.

     --if you are in charge of "calling on" questioners, make sure you include everyone, especially women and minority professors.

     --your answers should be thoughtful but brief. Leave time to field many questions.

     --if there are some obvious challenges to your thesis, anticipate them and have a thoughtful answer prepared. But it should not look like you are reading it off a teleprompter. Prepared spontaneity always wins friends and influences people!

     --as one commentator on a law prof blog put it, acknowledge the weaknesses in your argument and "give a thoughtful response."

     --here is some great advice about Q & A from Daniel Solove (link):

As I said above, the Q&A is generally the most important part of the job talk. Some candidates spend too long on the lecture part, leaving an insufficient amount of time for the Q&A. Bad idea. It is how you respond to the Q&A that the faculty wants to see. The tougher the questions, the better. You should want the faculty to bring it on. If the discussion is energized and lively, then you’re probably doing a good job.Some candidates grow very hostile and defensive when they are challenged. That’s a big no-no. It shows a lack of confidence, a lack of courtesy, and it is a big turn-off for a discussion. Respond to the questions. Welcome them. Engage with the challenge. Try to enjoy it — after all, this is what you’ll be doing for a living. Don’t think of it as a session where the faculty is out to get you. What they want is to see you think on your feet. They want you to succeed, not fail. And answer the questions. Far too often, candidates just dodge the question and never really answer them.
If a question goes into territory outside the four corners of your paper, it is best to attempt to answer that question rather than state that it is beyond the scope of your project. If the question is very tangential and goes into an area where your knowledge is weak, then you might try to deflect it. But otherwise, engage with the question. For example, suppose a question challenges a fundamental assumption in your paper that you take as a given. You might be tempted to say that the paper isn’t really a defense of that assumption; rather, it is an argument based on the consequences of taking the assumption as given. But that might not appease faculty members who want to see how well you understand the arguments relating to that underlying assumption. So engage with them and show that you’ve at least thought about the assumption even though you don’t address it in your project. Candidates are often afraid to answer such questions because if the assumption is proven wrong, their entire paper might fall like a house of cards. But ignoring such questions makes you look as though you haven’t really thought your project all the way through. So explain why you made the assumption you did. Even if you don’t have time to fully justify it, demonstrate that you’re aware of the arguments supporting and undermining the assumption.

8. Mock Teaching
     --Beware that some law schools may ask you to conduct a mock law class rather than (or in addition to) the job talk.

9. Have Fun

    --Embrace the world of ideas. Demonstrate your passion for law and scholarship and living in a very special world, the world of ideas and intellectual discourse. If the faculty you are interviewing senses this joie de vivre of yours for their world, how can they not want to hire you as a colleague.