Friday, February 28, 2014

Toxic Avoidance

A reader e-mailed with an interesting question: If you are on the job market and interviewing for jobs, how can you find out whether a particular work environment would likely be toxic for you? Can you ask about this during a visit or interview? Can such environments be avoided?

My experiences as an interviewee may be too ancient to be relevant, although I will mention anyway that I accepted a job offer from a place that I had been warned was hostile to women (they had a terrible record of hiring, retaining, tenuring women); it turned out to be a great place for me. I think it is important to have up-to-date information about a department's work environment and to realize that how certain longtime faculty members interact with each other may or may not be relevant to the experiences of a new colleague. (It could be very relevant if everyone in a department hates each other and/or if the last n women faculty members quit or no one has gotten tenure there since 1989.)

Otherwise, if you feel that the department head is supportive and there are some likely faculty allies, that may be a good indication that you will do well in that department/unit. Or not, but maybe it is worth a try. If you do well and want to leave, you may have options.

Perhaps some of you have experiences to share about whether you had any inkling in advance about a hostile work environment or whether it was a complete surprise to find yourself in this predicament.

If you had information in advance, how did you learn this? Did you ask or was the information volunteered? If you did ask, how/whom/when did you ask?

Have any of you turned down a job offer because you learned in advance that the department (or company or whatever) would be a difficult place for you?

Probably it is better to ask some general leading questions such as "So, what's it like to work in this department?" than to ask "Hey, is this place totally toxic?"







22 comments:

Kerry said...

This may be different in academia, but I've had fairly good success in filtering out places by asking questions like,

"How many women are there in the upper levels of management?"

"How many women will there be in my department?"

They're factual questions so they can't just go "oh, yeah, we're great for women, totally! yeah!", and most importantly the way interviewers react to that kind of question is usually pretty telling.

Colleen said...

Well, one tell tale sign at the last university where I worked, was that almost all the research collaborations in the department had fallen apart, many due to personal conflicts. If a department doesn't/can't collaborate I'd call that a bad sign. Lots of collaborations, especially interdisciplinary ones, suggest some rudimentary ability to interact with other humans :).

Anonymous said...

I think it's a 2-way street. As much as the department is (tactfully) evaluating whether you are a psychopath, you are also doing the same through your own reading and face-to-face interviewing. My most positive interview experiences were in departments that were clearly diverse (as far as research interests, ethnicity, gender, etc). The worst interviews were in those departments that I found to be the opposite. The dinner, where everyone gets a chance to interact, can also be revealing. In short, I do not ask such blunt questions, but rather gather information based on my own observations during an interview.

Alethea said...

When I was interviewing for postdocs, I always made sure I got to have some one-on-ones with other postdocs in the lab. I used that time to ask questions like, "What kind of hours do you keep?" "Have you/anyone taken maternity leave?" "Who do you collaborate with inside/outside the lab?" Etc.

I also made sure to look at the training record of the PI to ensure that women progressed to similar positions at similarly prestigious locations as former male trainees.

Anonymous said...

Great question. I posted it on academia.stackexchange.com, I think it might get some interesting answers there as well.

Anonymous said...

When I was interviewing for faculty positions, one place had a Chair whom I'd interacted with previously and knew to be a...difficult person - so I was already a bit uncertain if it'd be a good fit. During the interview, (1) one faculty member, while talking to me in his office, very candidly told me he was very unhappy and didn't like the Chair's management style (without my asking), and (2) a postdoc of the Chair pulled me aside in the hallway while I was walking back from the restroom and spoke to me quickly under his breath - very clandestine. He said I seemed really nice, and therefore he felt obligated to warn me not to come there as it was an awful environment. From what I've heard since (I did NOT take that job), most folks there are miserable. So, I guess if it's a REALLY awful toxic environment a kind person or two might clue you in...?

Anonymous said...

Sometimes the toxicity comes to you. Then what do you do? I'm in such a position right now. I joined a lab as a postdoc that seemed at the time to be a good fit for me, and I think it was the right decision. However, a newcomer to the lab brought with him a horrible bag of lab morale-diseases: he's a sycophant, a not-so-subtle misogynist, and borderline bipolar (yelling insults in front of poor first-years). The PI is unaware of all of this, I suspect to a degree that he chooses to be unaware due to their apparent friendship. In any case, I find myself in a situation where I try to avoid the newcomer as much as possible and look forward to the day he leaves. What to do in this situation?

EliRabett said...

Talk to the undergrads, talk to the postdocs, talk to the graduate students. Look at their Facebook, Linkedin pages.

Ask Edward Snowden.

Anonymous said...

In my first tenure-track interview there were so many signs that this was a terrible place to work: one faculty basically telling me that if I was hired I needed to be his 'assistant' on all his research projects; one faculty who dropped his wife at home and took me out VERY late (after the big interview dinner with many of the faculty together) and asked "just how badly did I want this job?" wink wink?

In another different tenure track interview no one could be bothered to pick me up from the airport. So I had to find my own way to the hotel and blow off an entire evening alone. They were willing to pay all that money to bring me in but couldn't be bothered to pick me up and have dinner with me? That was very telling.

I think you just need to keep your eyes and ears open to everything around you, and carefully ask questions when you think you are talking to someone who won't hold those questions against you.

I have been on the other side of things and seen my fellow colleagues completely reject good candidates because of questions they asked during the interview (which was horribly wrong but they got away with it because of dysfunctional dynamics in the department and an administration unwilling to change things).

Anonymous said...

I could probably have avoided a somewhat toxic environment (for everyone there, not just women) at the last place I worked if I had, during the interview, paid more attention to things like how the people interviewing me interacted with each other, whether they seemed generally happy, and how they behaved in informal settings (like mealtimes as opposed to the scheduled meetings). I got smart and paid a ton of attention to such things the next time I was looking to go somewhere new... and I also asked a lot more questions about things like work expectations, collaborations, what different people like best and least about the place they work. Then I paid attention both to what they said and to what they didn't say, and to their body language and tone. People who really genuinely like where they work will often volunteer this information without much probing -- green flag. People who don't like where they work... might give very guarded responses with a lot of strange silences and pauses -- red flag. Do your prospective colleagues greet each other in the hall when they pass? Do they seem to smile a lot? Do they spontaneously say nice things about each other behind each others' backs? Those are big green flags. Do they fail to make eye contact with each other? Do they not know what any of their colleagues are working on? Are they constantly complaining? Do a large fraction of people look stressed and unhappy? Do they seem to be trying to hire you to do something that someone else in the department already does, and nobody mentions why? Those are (possible) red flags. Paying attention to things like this helped me to end up in a much happier place the second time around.

Anonymous said...

I took a job in a hostile department. Everyone took pains to hide their complete lack of civility and nastiness during my interview, and I didn't really inquire because I wasn't all that interested in it anyway. The signs were probably there. But it was the only offer I had and I was desperate. I discovered the mess I had landed in by my second week on the job, and it really was horrifying.

That said, my department has changed a lot. New leadership, new hires... it's much better now. Even toxic jobs can work out and I'm glad I took the position now. Kinda. On a good day anyway. Lol.

Ankh said...

Talk to the grad students! They know what's what. If grad students are happy, it's a good sign that the department is pretty functional. My husband and I are currently in a department that is great, but came from an environment that was more on the snake-pit end of things. It's amazing how much better our lives are now, and how much more efficiently we work, in the new, better environment. Don't discount the value of a non-toxic work environment for productivity and long-term success.

Anonymous said...

Being in the middle of one of these now, I wish I knew. Looking back at my interview, I wish I'd asked the women faculty why they were not full rank despite being here a long time. And hidden startup surprises should have been a clue as to how much people were willing to lie. And watching the dean refuse to talk to me because I was a woman? All clues I should have noticed but didn't. I intend to do better next time, assuming I can figure out how to get out of here.

Anonymous said...

For one place I interviewed, I managed to track down the person I would have replaced, who didn't get tenure. I contacted her and was able to have a phone conversation with her where she told me all about the departmental politics that led to her not getting tenure (molecular vs. organismal people in a biology department). I had been led to believe by the chair that I was going to get an offer from that place, but didn't anyway so I didn't have to make a decision on whether to go there or not.

I should have noticed on the interview for the place that I did go to, that at a department mixer they set up for me at someone's home, they were all talking about how they never see each other socially except for when they do job interviews. The place ended up being very dysfunctional, again with the organismal vs. molecular people politics with some sexism thrown in.

I left and am in a very collegial environment now.

Anonymous said...

I found it was all in the tone. The same question can be said very different ways and the differences are enlightening. For example, I was asked at every institution, "why do you want to work here". At the toxic institution, the question was "why (in the he**) do you want to work HERE". Another commenter pointed out assessing the degree of collaboration. The lack of collaboration amongst people in the department was also a clue at that institution as were the silos of groups that clearly never talked about things they should have, including fighting over to which group I really belonged. They also demonstrated paranoia about lots of issues - evidence of fear (of leadership, of lack of funding, of competition) is a bad sign. That department also revealed itself by how they responded to my seminar talk and by some overtly sexist questions but I knew well before those red flags went up that all was not well. My advice is to listen to your inner voice. You usually know it when you see it even if you can't quite put your finger on the problem.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Anon 11:20:00 PM

I went to a campus visit were there were subtle and not so subtle signs that things were not that smooth. For example, one faculty giving a list of reasons why the rest of faculty were ill suited to be my mentor. I didn't like that at all!! And you could see there was no real collegiality.

I ended up accepting an offer in a department with great collegiality, even if there was just 1 tenured female faculty. They were concerned about this issue and were trying to improve it.

So yes, to people interviewing...take a close look at how people interact between them!

Anonymous said...

When I interviewed I asked the chairs "Who should I talk to who will give me all the reasons not to come here?" There was normally a suggestion. Typically someone completely neutral in the hire politics who really just cared that any hire would be reasonably happy.

Now I do that. I am not a pessimist, just someone who knows there are many reasons not to take a specific job. One recent candidate turned us down because I told her that there were no homes close to campus, close to schools not massively wait-listed and affordable on a faculty salary. She had never thought about the second item, looked at real estate, called schools and then declined.

Anonymous said...

There are probably some questions that are best left for after getting an offer. At US universities with which I am familiar it is typical for an offer to be accompanied by an invitation to visit again. Even if a 2nd visit isn't possible you can call or email potential colleagues who seemed during the interview to be good people to ask more indepth questions.

Old Biddy said...

In 1996, I turned down a tenure track position at a place which seemed to have an overall toxic atmosphere. Three things cemented my decision. First, I had met my predecessor, who had left for a better position, and he told me about the department dynamics. Second, all of the junior faculty members seemed bitter and miserable. Third, there were no other female faculty members and I heard a lot of sexist comments during my interview. I knew I would be miserable there so I turned down their offer. I did not have any other offers that year and it took some guts to do so.

Anonymous said...

It's all about vibe. Go with your gut. Ultimately it's about the fit YOU will have with the dept, so you have to take comments from other people with the grain of salt.

PhyPhoFu said...

Ask people you know and trust. I found that while I was looking for postdoc positions recently, I almost always knew someone who knew someone at a particular place and could get the inside gossip, thanks to the large international contingent at my previous university. They always had useful stuff to say, eg. "This place is a paper factory. You will never have free time," or "That project is progressing very slowly," or "This place is good and has lots of funding, but the work environment is difficult due to various cultural reasons."

I have to say, I've been really active in the whole "social networking" thing, mainly just by keeping in touch with people I've met at conferences, often via facebook. Through helping organise a conference during my PhD, I got to know a lot of people. A lot of people knock it or say they can't be bothered with it, but socialising informally with your academic peers is actually immensely helpful for exactly these sorts of reasons.

Mark Thompson said...

Nice article and sound arguments. Just shared this post with a colleague...