How to Ace a Virtual Interview

by Evelyn Beck

First off, to nab an on-line teaching job, you had better know your way around the Internet.

“The main thing I look for is somebody who’s got a degree of comfort on-line, who has navigated Web sites, set up e-mail,” says Catherine Flynn, Director of Faculty for the School of Arts & Sciences for Kaplan College Online. “I had an instructor once who applied to teach on-line who cut and pasted her résumé into an e-mail message instead of sending it as an attachment; that didn’t bode well for teaching on-line. Another asked about the possibility of doing face-to-face instead of on-line training; somebody who wants hands-on training isn’t a good candidate, either.”

When applying to teach in a distance education program, experience teaching on-line is a plus, of course, but the ardent use of technology in traditional classes is almost as good.

“Using a companion Web site when teaching a ground-based course is terrific,” says Flynn. “That’s an optional thing at many institutions. So if a faculty member was interested enough to post a syllabus as a support for students or has taken the initiative to learn how to use a system like Blackboard, I like to hear that and it should be included in the applicant’s résumé.”

Anyone who has accepted assignments via e-mail or encouraged students to post questions on a discussion board should also mention that, says Brian Hughes, a faculty recruiter at Capella University in Minneapolis. And he’s tuned in to the use of buzzwords.
“Some say they worked on a Webcast or attended a Webinar,” he says. “That indicates they are at least open and are seeking out the on-line environment.”

Though Capella faculty sometimes talk to interested applicants at residencies or colloquia held face-to-face at various locations, interviews for adjunct on-line teaching positions are almost always conducted by phone. During such a conversation, Flynn typically asks what the applicant finds appealing about teaching on-line.

“What I’m looking for is people who have the mindset that this really the place that higher education is going, that this is interesting, that teaching on-line offers a lot of other options for the classroom,” she says.
If, instead, the instructor replies that he or she is applying for the job because, gee, working from home would be so much more convenient than driving all the way to campus, well, let’s just say that that’s not an answer likely to impress.

While someone being questioned by phone can’t give the kind of teaching demonstration sometimes required at campus interviews, there are other ways to gauge the faculty member’s competence. In addition to the submission of a letter and résumé by e-mail, many colleges require a training period during which they can observe any potential new instructor. Kaplan courses, for instance, all include an hour-long live weekly seminar in chat format, so new faculty must attend one such session with someone like Flynn before they begin, and she looks for how they express themselves in that environment.

Then, once classes begin, it’s easy enough to monitor how the instructor is presenting information on the Web site and how he or she is interacting with students.

“The advantage with on-line classes is that I can begin monitoring from the very first day,” says Flynn. “I can pop in and remediate immediately if necessary. Teaching on-line is a different beast.”