Andy Hibel 0:01
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs Podcast Ask the Expert Edition. I'm Andy Hibel, the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

Kelly Cherwin 0:09
And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy. We're excited to have Chris Lee back for our first 2024 Ask the Expert edition. Chris is currently a managing director with Storebreck Search. Over his career, Chris has served as the chief human resources officer for William and Mary, Bates College, and the Virginia Community College System. We also are fortunate to have Chris as a regular contributor with us at HigherEdJobs. Chris, thanks for being here.

Chris Lee 0:35
Yes, my pleasure.

Kelly Cherwin 0:36
So the question for today is, I have been a dean for four years and would like to progress into a vice president of academic affairs role. I have applied to several positions and have made it to the final interview stage and yet have not received an offer. I would like to know what else I could do in my Dean role that would make me more attractive for a VPAA position. Chris what are your thoughts on this?

Chris Lee 0:57
Yes, well, this is a very good question. I'm sure others may have had the same kind of question for themself. So I think here the big thing is to diagnose the situation. If one is getting multiple interviews for a similar position, then they are likely very qualified. Then it becomes a diagnosis of what am I doing in the interview or am I looking for the right kind of position? The question here seems to say that I should do more professional development like I'm, getting the, interviews, but I'm not getting the jobs. Like, what else could I do to be more attractive You are attractive If you've gotten a pattern of interviews such as three or more, then you're probably well qualified. Now, having said that, being qualified and competitive and being a good fit have always been my way of describing the three levels of qualification for positions. Qualified candidates don't get interviews. People say that all the time, especially in my career. as an HR person, you know, Hey, do you think I'm qualified for this position? Oh, I'm very qualified for this position, but I didn't get an interview, well qualified candidates don't get interviews because, you assume people apply for positions they're qualified for. So the way I've seen pools is that about 50% of the people who apply are qualified. Then you've got to be competitive, meaning that you have the good plus a few other things. And then the final stage is fit, meaning that you have the goods, really get context and then you have some strengths that are coordinated with things that are important to the job and the institution. That's the fit part. People use the word fit all the time, and usually they describe fit the wrong way. Sometimes fit can be related to what people look like, their gender, their race and things like that. That's the discriminatory version or the biased version. Fit is really about, Do you appreciate our mission? Do you understand our students? Are you familiar with the type technologies and things correlated with this position that are important to us? if you're an H.R. person, or student affairs, we maybe finance do you know, Banner or PeopleSoft, or Oracle, have you worked in, the Big Ten? You know, have you worked in a community college versus a liberal arts college? Those are fit criteria. So you've been a director of X, Y, Z multiple times. You're prepared. But have you worked with other kinds of students? So that's kind of a summary of what I think is going on with this question. So then it kind of pulls you back to what's happening in the interview, right? You know. How competitive is the person interviewing in interviewing? It's an art. I've been in my career, as you know, having written a couple of books on this subject and have been at each person and doing an executive search. I've been in way more than a thousand search committees. It's not like my first job in Higher Ed, which led me on the search kind of path, was the president of the college, this junior college in Georgia, made me ex-officio and all committees. So for five years, I served of every college search me. That's how I developed my expertise. And you can't always predict what a group of people will do. You know, I'm pretty good at it, having a lot of experience. But you can never really predict it because I think there's some art in it. But you can, as a candidate, prepare yourself well. Right. And I think that's what this person who's asking this question should be doing in preparing will probably has two or three elements. One is doing your homework. being fluent on the institution is priorities and things about it. One is knowing themselves and understanding how they present. And then finally, practice, practice, practice, rehearse. And today, with the world of Zoom and things like that, there's no excuse for people not to take themselves ask their friend, a colleague or relative. Ask me some questions, pull them from Higher Ed Jobs, the Internet, and pretend you're in an interview and then go back and look at that and see how are you communicating what you're intending to communicate. So it's mastering that art of presenting oneself, responding to questions and things of that sort.

Kelly Cherwin 5:10
That's great. Chris I liked how you kind of summarize it into the three areas of being qualified, competitive and fit, because it almost seems like you're saying it's kind of a bit of art and science that, yes, someone might have the qualifications they can check off the boxes of what job posting or what what you know is desired. But someone might not be able to control if they are the perfect fit. And that's kind of up for the search committee to decide do your research, make sure that you understand what their mission, what their values are, but then also what your as the candidate, what your internal values are and what your mission is. And if they don't align maybe that's not a bad thing. Maybe you're just not the right like you're saying, fit for that that institution. And I know that sometimes that's that's hard. So kind of if I'm if I'm saying the wrong thing, please correct me. But this person asked like what could they could do to make themselves more attractive. And it's it's not like, you know, in their current position. I know it doesn't sound like they're doing anything wrong. It's just

Chris Lee 6:05
exactly,

Kelly Cherwin 6:05
you know, like circling back to those three things, making sure that they're qualified, competitive, and a good fit.

Chris Lee 6:10
Yeah. You bring up another point sometimes you're targeting the wrong organization as well. So to give you a stereotypical example, when I worked at, the community college, we'd get all these people and they'd have an impressive background. They wanna be a faculty member, very impressive, published this research, this all of this stuff or whatever. And those people will be put to the side because they were not good fits because the Community College system had a55 teaching load. You're not doing research.That's what you do in your own time, right? So versus an institution that has a two, two or two, three or three, three teaching load. So the point is you're eminently qualified, but you're speaking to us, telling us that you want to do these kinds of things. So in that situation, from some of the other blog posts we've done, clearly you need to curate that resume because if you're telling us about research, research, research, you're communicating to the wrong audience, right? You should be saying, I'm about student, studen, student and teach, teach, teach for that particular environment. Same thing. If you were at a liberal arts college versus a research university at a research university, I mean, you've got to put all that stuff there and all the grants you receive or whatever. And then a liberal institution, you're probably talking about deep learning engagement with students and things like that. So that goes back to fit. So prepare your materials to apply, should speak to that fit criteria, and then your interviews should speak to that and you should know who your audience is. We prioritize these things over these things because it's closest to our mission. the writer here may be getting good interviews because they're well qualified, but may not be targeting the right kind of as well.

Andy Hibel 7:51
Thanks, Chris. coming back to the interview there's lots of things we've talked about in the podcast over the years. I'm not sure there's anything that's been scarier to me to hear or suggested than to record myself on Zoom, talking to somebody and then having to watch that. That sounds painful. Like it's painful going to see going as a parent, going to see the Smurfs movie, sort of painful. And so how would you suggest to folks if that So I can't be the only one that sounds painful for how would you suggest to folks if you're like, Well, I don't know if I can do that. I mean, I think obviously if there's issues interviewing as a pretty darn effective way of doing it, but getting to that point where you're comfortable doing that and not completely losing whatever sort of confidence and momentum you have in your search to really go back and look at the video and do that, How would you suggest folks do that? And there any other places where you can point to where kind of balancing your your mental health with having to probably do what you need to do to solve some issues they're having in the interview?

Chris Lee 9:05
Yeah, I'm eminently unqualified to answer that question. Andrew, because I have rarely ever heard any of the podcasts we've done or any of the things it's like, I don't know about you, but it's like I have to be in a good mood on a good day be willing to be open to feedback, and improvement. when I go back and listen to stuff, it's usually like, Oh, me should I did this, you know, I'm this way or whatever, and you kind of learn the pattern of who you are, but truthfully, you have to. It is painful. There's no substitute about it. You have to do that. And then you have to talk to people you know and trust and ask them their opinions. Because the parts of you think you may have been weaker, they may disagree, or the parts you thought you were stronger, they may disagree. And is having some dialogue about it, because at the end of the day, it's a communication exercise. We rarely know how we present ourselves to others.Right . you know, that's why communication is so complicated. We intended to say this, but others received it differently. with your intonation as well as your words and things like that, did you come across as genuine or authentic or robotic? You don't really know that unless others tell you You don't want to find out on game day, which is the interview you want to find out in practice. So there's no substitute for recording yourself and getting the feedback from others. So as a matter of fact, I haven't thought about it, but maybe when you're looking at your recording, maybe you look at it with other people, right and say, Here's what I thought. What did you think? You know, and kind of calibrate because it is a performance at the end of the day, you have to dance for your supper. That's half of what interviews are, right? The best example is the first question, which is always tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're interested in this job, which is really saying, tell us why we should hire you. Right. Why you're so great, you know, and we really don't care about you. We really want you to tell us how great we are. That's what that question really says. But it's it's a performance. And so one should prepare

Andy Hibel 11:13
Thanks, Chris. And maybe this is the point. And we normally do this towards the end and I think we're winding down. But in general, if you have any questions or comments or thoughts you want to share with us, please tweet me at at higher ed careers or please feel free to email us at podcast. at higher ed Jobs dot com. particularly if you're somebody who takes Chris's advice here and does that maybe buy pizza for your friends and you guys sit down and make some fun of a pretty serious situation and enjoy some company with friends as you're reviewing the video. If you've done that, please email us. Please tweet us. We'd really love to hear from you because I think more people do that and I think everybody has the ability to interview well, but the more people feel success and you're the others have had success doing that. I hope maybe that would maybe get some people over their fears. Maybe that would get me over some of my fears of having to do that. So, please, this is a place where you can help your fellow members of the academic community. Tweet us, email us, we want to get your story out. If you've felt like you've done that and had some success.

Chris Lee 12:13
And Andrew also, I think about it. That actually happens often, but it usually only happens for presidential candidates who have executive coaches and things like that, because that's exactly what people do. Those mock interviews, you walk into a room, you're dressed, you're prepared, they record you, So if it's good enough for the really high stakes at bat, you're trying to get a presidency, then it's probably good enough for everybody else. Well.

Kelly Cherwin 12:37
Well, thanks, Chris This was great insight We appreciate you being here today.

Andy 12:41
Thanks again, Chris, and thank you all for listening. We look forward to talking soon.