Great advice on the application and interview process in academia from Jon Dantzig, the chair of the faculty recruiting committee at UIUC's Mechanical and Industrial Engineering department.

By Dave Jensen, Science's Next Wave. "Perhaps the best advice is that because there's nothing you can do about it anyway, you might as well be yourself. There's something liberating about the idea that you don't really have to perform, to pretend to be something you're not."

by Dave Jensen, ScienceCareers. "Telephone interviews can be one of the most uncomfortable pieces of the job-seeking puzzle. For one, there’s none of the human warmth that can (some of the time) make an interview tolerable or even fun. Instead, your fate is being decided by a tinny, disembodied voice on the other end of the line. Still, employers resort to these interviews because they are a necessary step, primarily for cost reasons. Without them, companies would overburden themselves interviewing candidates face to face who could have been disqualified much earlier on."

Dave Jensen, ScienceCareers. "It is by reading about other people's successes and failures that you can develop a game plan for the continued management of your career. So, in this month's column, I'd like to use OPE to relate three small job-search mistakes that can have very big consequences."

"Most people, young scientists included, believe that job interviews are a one-way process. You, the interviewee, present yourself as well as possible, while the interviewer carefully evaluates you in relation to all the other finalists. That is only half the story."

"As a doctoral student or postdoc seeking a professorship, your academic job talk may well be the most important presentation you will ever give. An excellent talk can get you the job, while a poor one will almost surely eliminate you from contention."

"If you have been selected for an interview, you have obviously impressed your potential employer - your next challenge is to maintain their positive perception of you in the interview stage."

From the CV Centre

The interview is going along smoothly. You're psyched that "this may be the one." And then it happens. Out of nowhere. "Are you considering having children?" Or, "How long has your family been in this country?" Or, "Your people place a high value on that, don't they?" Or, "You've done amazingly well for someone in a wheelchair." Here's how to handle the situation, courtesy of Job Hunter E-Zine.

"In any interview, even one wrong turn can change you from a dream candidate to a potential nightmare. eWEEK rounds up 10 errors that could cost you your next callback."