BlogU

  • Ask the Administrator: Self-Paid Interview Travel?

    By Dean Dad June 11, 2008 5:03 am

    A new correspondent writes:

    I've found myself in a little conundrum lately. I was contacted last week that I got an interview for a community college job I applied to in the Spring. I'm assuming this job starts in September, since that's when their school year starts. Today, I got an email with interview times, which were all next week... My problem is that this interview is across the country, and flights at this time are $500. I assume I'll be paying that since there was no mention of reimbursement. That's quite an investment for a 1-hour interview! I'm very nervous about this, since the only possibilities are that this would be the first in a string of interviews (so more $500 flights) or they're basing their whole decision on just 1 hour! This is a full time tenure track position, so that seems unlikely. I very interested in this job, since it would involve some awesome teaching possibilities. But I'm not quite sure how to proceed and be professional about this. I'm willing to pay for travel, but only if I stand a chance!

    Ugh. I know budgets are tight – believe me, I live it every single day – but paying reasonable airfare (by which I mean 'coach') for tenure-track candidates just strikes me as a basic, minimal professional courtesy. Hiring (potentially) permanent employees is a high-risk proposition, since a good hire pays you back for a long time and a lousy hire can be an organizational migraine. Laying out a couple thousand upfront in travel reimbursements – and thereby vastly broadening your applicant pool – is money very well spent, if you have any ability at all as a talent scout. You'll get it back, and so much more, in a stronger faculty, over time.

    My first thought is that just because they didn't mention reimbursement doesn't mean they won't do it. Call the HR department there and ask specifically about it. Sometimes they'll reimburse up to a certain amount, sometimes they'll reimburse entire costs, and sometimes they won't pay you anything but they might arrange for someone to pick you up at the airport (if that needs to be done). I've heard of colleges ( cough) that won't volunteer the fact that they reimburse, but that will reimburse if asked directly. It strikes me as weaselly, but there it is.

    It's not unheard of for colleges to conduct 'airport interviews' for the first round. Typically, they'll get some space either in or very close to an airport, and interview 6-8 candidates for maybe an hour each, intending to call back two or three for full-day, on-campus interview gauntlets. It's a relatively time-efficient way to do a first in-person screen, even if there's something vaguely surreal about it. (Full disclosure: back when I was trying to escape Proprietary U, I had an airport interview for a gig at a quirky college in a quirky and distant place. Flying out and back on the same day is a weird experience. As it happened, I made it to the next round but didn't get the job.) As technologies like Skype become more refined and more common, and airfare more expensive, I wouldn't be surprised to see airport interviews give way to video interviews, although I don't think we're there yet.

    If the HR department responds that yes, they'll pay you back, then congratulations. If they decline, then you have a decision to make. It's typically not the case that a college will pay for some applicants and not others; usually, they either pay or they don't. So don't take it as a personal affront. But five hundred bucks is five hundred bucks, especially if you're living on grad student money.

    At Proprietary U, I saw a candidate hired who had to pay his own airfare for the interview. So it has happened, though it was certainly a gamble on his part.

    I suspect emotions run high on this one, so I'll throw it open to my wise and worldly readers. Voices of the blogosphere, what do you think?

    Good luck!

    Have a question? Ask the Administrator at deandad (at) gmail (dot) com.

Go to comments (7) »
Advertisement

Comments on Ask the Administrator: Self-Paid Interview Travel?

  • Paying for travel to an interview
  • Posted by Maggie Davis on June 11, 2008 at 10:00am EDT

  • I am the Director of a Career Center, and a former faculty (tenured)member. This year I had a grad assistant fly from our midwest city to Texas for an interview. I did not know that she paid for the trip herself, or
    I would have advised her not to do it. The hiring organization was unprofessional when she arrived. It was a waste of her time and money.

    Think about what an institution is saying when they want to hire someone and refuse to underwrite any part of the travel. That is not a commitment on their part at all. I don't want to work there.

    While our college is small, when I have invited out of town folks to interview I do reimburse their travel by paying mileage and some costs.

    It makes me think seriously about who I am inviting to interview.

    I know the market is tight, but that doesn't mean you just accept treatment like this. Remember that in a job search you don't want just any job- you want a good fit.

    I wish the person with the question nothing but the best as the job search continues.

  • Interview travel costs
  • Posted by T. Craig on June 11, 2008 at 2:40pm EDT

  • I have had several interviews for either VP or Dean of Student Services position in California Community Colleges in the past 10 years and most often they do not offer to pay for travel costs for the first interview. I don't like this as I believe they may just be putting on a show of searching for new people when they are really planning to fill the position with an internal candidate. The other possibility is that they are using me, a white male, as a part of their applicant pool statistics and have no intention of hiring a white male for the position in question.

    My last trip was to a college in Los Altos Hills in California and I had a one-hour interview with no real indication of interest other than this. No one offered to provide me with a tour of the campus nor did they invite me to meet anyone on the administrative staff. I accidentally ran into the president of the college early in the morning prior to my interview and she said good morning to me but she had no idea that I had travelled across the country from Florida at my own expense to be interviewed by a committee that didn't seem to be that interested in me as a candidate.

    I don't think I'll bother interviewing in California in the future as I am sick of their lack of professionalism and courtesy.

  • NOT A CHANCE
  • Posted by Comm Prof on June 12, 2008 at 10:10am EDT

  • In 1995, I was offered an interview at a state school in Georgia and would have had to fly to Atlanta from Boston and then drive out into the middle of nowhere. On the phone I was told that if I were offered the job and didn't take it, I would have only half of my expenses reimbursed. This was to "keep people from vacationing at the taxpayers' expense." I was still laughing when I hung up the phone and haven't been to Georgia since.

  • Another Horror Story
  • Posted by Gary Fitsimmons on June 12, 2008 at 11:30am EDT

  • When I was trying to move up from a low-paying academic librarian position in Texas in 1993 I was offered an interview at the last minute on the east coast if I would pay my own way (well over $800). When I arrived at the set time, they had no idea I was even coming! I was give a 15 minute interview and sent packing! I don't mind sharing expenses, but I will not invest in any institution that is not going to show some committment up front. If I could afford to throw $800 down the drain, I would not have been looking for another position.

  • Travel
  • Posted by Sunbelt HR Professional on June 12, 2008 at 12:50pm EDT

  • Public sector colleges struggle with some interesting issues. For example, the citizens of my state tend to be a conservative group. Use of public funds is carefully scrutinized and the Office of the Attorney General objects to providing any sort of reimbursement for travel to non-employees, including out-of-state candidates for government jobs. Most of us do it anyway and cross our fingers that we won't be called on the carpet by the auditors.

    Comm Prof from Boston thinks it's amusing and offensive that sunbelt employers worry about candidates using the taxpayers money to vacation. When it's minus 15F in Ann Arbor and 75F in Phoenix, it happens. That said, the vast majority of candidates are honorable in their intentions.

    At my institution, we do not invite candidates for onsite interviews unless they appear to be viable candidates. We don't want to waste your time nor do we have the luxury of wasting our own.

    Do we provide the sort of welcome that we'd like to provide? No. I spend a few hundred dollars out of my own pocket to provide bottled water for candidates since the water in my community tastes awful, but can't afford to take them out for meals on my own nickel. We all try to be gracious and welcoming to candidates while juggling competing priorities,lean staffing and a limited budget. Sometimes we miss the mark, but it is safe to say that it is never the intention at any college or university to offend candidates.

  • A Vacation--Seriously?
  • Posted by KR on June 12, 2008 at 8:10pm EDT

  • In regards to the HR person above, at what point during a campus visit or comparable visit would a candidate have time for a "vacation?" I would imagine that the university would not give the person an extra four days, say, on either side of his/her on-campus schedule just to look around; usually the schedules are very tight as candidates are stacked up like planes at O Hare. And if that university did give extra time in town beyond the interview schedule, I imagine that either (A) the candidate is too busy at his/her current job to spend those extra days elsewhere, or (B) is one of perhaps two finalists, and thus needs the time to seriously look at--and learn about--housing costs, secondary schools, etc--all true components of a serious job search and certainly not a "vacation."

    I also interviewed at a small college many years ago where I was told, late in the day on campus and by the HR rep, that I would have to pay BACK the school for my travel expenses if I were offered the job and did not take it, for the same ridiculous "vacation" reason/paranoia. This for a visit to a campus in a small, isolated town in Wisconsin in January. Woo-hoo--now there's a vacation destination. I am grateful to this day to have not been offered that job.

    KR

  • Interview
  • Posted by Kristyn , Enrollment Srvs Officer at Broward Comm College on June 13, 2008 at 2:05pm EDT

  • I am from North Carolina and had applied to several jobs in South Florida (as I knew I was moving there). Not one school mentioned during my initial interview invitation that I might or would be refunded for the cost of flying down for an interview.

    I agree, I am not going to spend what few spare dollars I have on flying down for an interview that has no promise. I was pleasantly surprised to find most colleges were willing to conduct a phone conference with me for the initial interview. This seems like an excellent first step! Both the candidate and the college can get a feel for how the interview went and proceed from there. If an additional interview follows, then the candidate has a better idea of whether or not to spend the travel money!

    That being said, during one interview, basically nothing was accomplished, and I was invited down for an interview simply because all the other candidates had the opportunity to interview in person, so they wanted to be fair and give me that chance so I was invited to a second interview. Not because I made it through round one, or because they saw potential in me through my responses; they wanted to be fair. Luckily I was traveling down to Florida for housing purposes and timed the interview with that trip. SO glad I didn't waste my time and/or money coming down solely for the interview; they couldn't have been more uninterested in me, definitely an interview for the statistics value.

    This seems to have be a common thing among interview committies. At the college where I am now, I had a phone interview initially. Then I was invited down for a second interview, which went well but just before it ended I was given the "there are so many qualified candidates, keep trying even if this position doesn't work out for you." As it turns out, it didn't work out for me. The committee gave the job to an internal candidate who would have lost her job had they not selected her. They did, though, reimburse my travel costs (would have been nice to know in advance). Seems a little fishy to me that they should go out of their way to invite an out of state candidate to an interview where they already knew who they were going to select. Lucky for me, there was a similar "interim" position available that I DID get selected for in the end.

    Too bad candidates can't get the data on who else is being interviewed and from where, as well as the number of internal candidates. All I can say is, do the research and follow your gut. Ask for a phone interview first and go from there; feel out those administrators who are calling you for the interview and go with your gut, if it feels like a good lead, hopefully it is!

Print
© Copyright 2010 Inside Higher Ed