| Hi JC,
I've been on a bunch of search committees over the past 13 years - for just about every instrument and voice. I teach at a university of about 4500 students, so I think our searches might be typical of many of the jobs for which you are applying.
Most of our searches are pretty similar to each other. We usually begin by weeding out the applicants to about 15 based upon the resume and reference letters. Then we'll listen to the CD and narrow our list from about 15 down to 7-8. Last we'll call references of our final 7-8 and use that to narrow the list to our final 4-5. We typically invite our top 3 to an on-campus interview. (We don't normally do phone interviews. They are difficult for both the applicant and the search committee. It's very hard to get a true feeling about a person over the phone.)
In the on-campus interview we look for someone who will be a good fit. Obviously we want the person to play well, but that might not be the most important thing. We want someone who will be an excellent teacher, communicate ideas in a clear way, relate well to the students and faculty, and be a great colleague.
One thing that I have found to be interesting: In by far the majority of searches, the person we have hired has been the last person to interview. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but I do wonder if the last person has an advantage (assuming they are good) because they can leave the committee with a good, lasting impression immediately before the committee begins deliberations. Anyway, this is just speculation, but it is interesting food for thought...
Del |