Number 1 Mistake

We have been having a little search here for a new faculty member. There seems to be one major mistake that some candidates have made. It happened when talking about future directions for research. They got stumped...and it was their own fault. They had something included in slides that they did not understand and could not explain. We saw this problem as part of a result and part of a technique but every time it was a major red flag for those, otherwise excellent, candidates.

In my own subfield, collaberation is very common. Not everyone is an expert in everything despite our best efforts to produce integrative results. While I would always assume that you don't put something up on a slide without understanding it, I know see that it can easily be done (looking back I am sure I have done it with my statistics here or there. I'm still too scientfically young to have collaberated on anything neat enough that I didn't do it myself). Also, it is a big deal.

So. Note to self someday: Only include things in your job talk that you FULLY understand and can discuss in detail. Even if it isn't your specialty or is just a tiny detail on a figure.

*Sorry for any spelling mistakes, spell check in Blogger is being all sorts of funny...