8.5.1 Find out what your panel members are working on

Publish or Perish gives you a quick and easy way to find out what the academics on your interview panel are best known for. Simply do an “author impact search” for each of the members of your interview panel. You might also want to read some of these articles in order to be able to make intelligent comments about them.

Just like when you are preparing to meet someone in a more casual setting (Section 8.1), it would also be a good idea to find out what the recent research interests of the members on your panel are by sorting their publications by year. You might find out that some of them have similar interests or are even working on papers together. This is something you could comment positively on in your interview as something you aspire to in your job.

This strategy is even more effective if the panel members didn't know they were working on similar topics. Never underestimate how little many academics know about their colleagues! Although comments on this might work out negatively in some institutions, in most cases your panel will be impressed if you have spotted synergies they were not aware of.