It’s faculty recruiting season at many universities.

One of the most opaque and intimidating parts of this process for applicants is the chalk talk.

A thread:

One of my greatest privileges this year has been to sit down with a number of @McKayLaboratory and @pennbioeng postdocs who are on the market to give my meager advice on their chalk talks.

Thought I’d collect some of my thoughts here.

First of all: if these folks are at all representative of the next generation, the future is *bright*, y’all.
They are brilliant, thoughtful, careful, & accomplished - and they’re tackling truly important and elegant questions.
They’re also light years ahead of me at their stage.

Which brings me to my caveat:
I’m the proud giver of the *worst* chalk talk in the history of chalk talks (story for another day).

So take my advice with a generous helping of salt.

(instert survivor-bias warning here)

To begin:

Your goal in a chalk talk is to communicate the following:

What is your program’s overall goal?

(Hiring committees love the word “Program”. Use it.)

Why would meeting this goal be transformative? (Why should it be worth $$$ to your hiring committee?)

What is the first key question you need to solve to kick off this program (ie what problem is your first R01/NSF/VA/etc. going to solve?

Why is this problem so important? (How will solving this problem change your field/move you toward your overall program’s goal?)

NB: most folks jump to specific aims too quickly and fail to communicate significance. This is bad. If they don’t care about your problem, they won’t care about what you’ll do about it.

Why are you the only/best person in the world who can solve it?

Why is this place (and your potential collaborators in the room) the best possible to make it happen.

Lastly, how are you going to solve this problem? (Specific aims, approach)

Anything you can map out on the board prior to your talk starting is good.

This helps clarify your communication & simplify complex concepts, but also helps you to focus the discussion and keep your committee taking about the things you want to talk about, at your pace.

You want to present the 1st part w/ such a narrative that it makes the expmts you’re going to do almost obvious to your clever committee.

You want them on the edge of their seat hoping that you’ll propose X. Then when you say “we’ll solve this by X”, the payoff is priceless.

Learning to control the room is the #2 thing i spend time on when I give chalk talk advice

You will have a spectrum of people in the room, with two extremes

There will be one person who loves everything you do and wants you hired.

There will be one dude who feels insecure in his position in the department and who uses chalk talks as his chance to show off/be aggressive.

(dont worry, everyone in the dept understands what’s going on here)

When person 1 asks you a question, swing for the fences. When person 2 asks, bunt.

Answer the curmudgeon quickly, but gracefully, and move on.

If they persist, tell them you’ll get to it in aim 3 and point to your diagram where you have aim 3 (even if you won’t).

If they keep pushing, give them a saccharine invitation to discuss at length after the chalk talk. There won’t be time. So it goes.

When your friend asks you questions, this is your chance to show you can play jazz.

But keep it close and come back to your diagram so you stay on track.

A chalk board gives you this unique ability to both go with the flow and also lay out an objective outline that can keep everyone on track.

If you have to use slides, try to keep it dynamic. Don’t just give another seminar.

Above all, try your best to see the chalk talk as an awesome opportunity to get a room full of brilliant people together to think exclusively about the ideas that you’re most excited about for an hour.

Find some local faculty to give you mock chalk talk.

Have fun!

You’re going to do great!

Updating this thread because it’s still chalk talk season, but it’s also #COVID19 season.

So let’s talk about giving a #VirtualChalkTalk

First, to all the hiring committees who have moved your recruitment online: thank you!
#FlattenTheCurve

Second, do your best to give those whose only option is virtual a fair shake. There will be glitches, it’s not their fault.

For the applicants:
Your goals are the same (see the thread above). But you have to play the game a bit differently.

I strongly encourage you to do the extra work to keep it a "chalk talk" and not a slide show.

The biggest challenge will be how you control the room.

it may be more of a presentation and less of a back-and-forth than usual, but do your best to make it dynamic and conversational.

set the stage and really take control at the start. explain how you want it to go. Maybe tell everyone ahead of time that you'll do 10min presenting, then take 10 min for discussion, and back and forth

the hardest part of virtual meetings is that they feel impersonal

and one of the main goals of a chalk talk is to provide an opportunity for the faculty to get a sense for how well you'll fit in

so anything you can do to give a personal touch, show your personality, make connections, is good.

I recommend borrowing an iPad with a stylus and project your “chalk talk” to your audience.

alternative is to put yourself in front of a white board but these are *very* hard to see on camera

Focus on showing your excitement for the questions you’ll chase, and how this department is the best place to do it. Excitement is hard to communicate virtually, but be yourself! And have fun!

Would love to hear best practices from others here!