Anthropology Instructor Interview Questions

The interviewer wants to see that you plan lectures around what students should learn and that you can keep a room engaged. Walk through your process in order: setting goals for the session, choosing readings and examples, building the slides or notes, and checking understanding during and after class. Mention how you adjust for undergraduates versus graduate students. Sample answer: "For a lecture on fieldwork methods in my intro course, I start with two goals, such as telling participant observation apart from interviewing. I build the talk around one case from an ethnography we read, then stop every 15 minutes for a short activity, like coding a few lines of field notes in pairs. With graduate students I lecture less and spend more time on the debates behind the method. After class I read the one-minute papers students hand in and open the next session with whatever confused them." Pitfalls to avoid: describing only your slides and not what students do; giving one approach for every level and class size; leaving out how you know whether students learned it.

The interviewer wants to know that you advise students based on their own goals and give them a realistic view of the paths open to them. Walk through your steps: learning what the student wants, laying out options, and connecting them with people and experience. Sample answer: "I start by asking what parts of the major the student enjoys most and what kind of daily work they picture. Then I lay out a few paths honestly. For a student drawn to archaeology, that might be cultural resource management, where I would check current entry-level postings and field school requirements, alongside the time and research commitment of graduate study. If a student is drawn to public outreach, I would suggest talking with a museum educator about daily work and checking current internship requirements. I would help the student prepare questions rather than promise a placement. I follow up each term to see how plans have changed." Pitfalls to avoid: steering every student toward graduate school; promising job outcomes you can't know; giving advice without asking about the student's goals first.

The interviewer wants to understand how you make completed research understandable and available to the people who can use it.

Use Situation, Task, Action, Result. Briefly name the project, explain your responsibility for sharing it, describe your choices and give the response. State the outlet and audience. Spend most of the answer on communicating the findings rather than retelling the entire study.

For example: "I presented a completed study of pottery fragments at a regional archeology conference. My task was to explain the classification method and the limits of our interpretation to other researchers. I organized the talk around the research question and used labeled photographs to show the differences between categories. I separated observations from conclusions about how the pottery was used. Audience questions showed that one category needed a clearer definition. I revised that explanation in the written summary I shared after the talk."

Avoid burying findings in jargon, claiming a publication that has not appeared, or leaving your own contribution unclear in a team project.

The interviewer wants to learn how you help students do reliable field or lab work while learning the methods.

Use Situation, Task, Action, Result. Describe the setting, your supervisory responsibility, the training and checks you provided, and the outcome. Focus on your actions rather than only the research topic. Include how your feedback helped students correct their work.

For example: "In an artifact cataloging lab, I needed students to keep each object linked to its excavation context. I demonstrated how to record context numbers and label bags before they started. When I noticed inconsistent labels, I paused that part of the work and compared the bags with the field records. I walked the students through the corrections and clarified the form instructions. Their next entries matched the field records, and they could explain how to check a context number before labeling a bag. I continued spot checks as they worked."

Avoid skipping required safety or consent training, leaving recording errors unchecked, or describing student mistakes without explaining your feedback.

The interviewer wants to see that you notice when teaching falls short, use evidence to fix it, and check the result. Use Situation, Task, Action, Result: the course and the problem, what told you, what you changed, and what happened next. Illustrative sample answer: "In my upper-level archaeology course, the final paper kept coming in weak. Students summarized sources but rarely made an argument about the evidence. Course evaluations said the assignment felt like a surprise at the end. I split it into three steps across the term: a proposal, an annotated bibliography, and a draft with peer review, each with feedback from me. I also added one class session on reading site reports critically. In the next term, I reviewed the drafts against the same criteria for evidence and argument. Students were citing site reports, but some still listed findings without explaining their claims. I used those drafts for a class exercise on linking evidence to an argument." Pitfalls to avoid: blaming the students for the problem; describing a change without saying what evidence prompted it; claiming exact improvement figures you can't back up.

The interviewer wants to know that you stay current in a field that changes quickly, and that new work actually reaches your teaching and research. Name a few concrete habits, then give one example of something you learned and used. Sample answer: "I keep a weekly hour for reading. I follow the main journals in my subfield through table-of-contents alerts and read one or two articles closely rather than skimming ten. I go to at least one conference a year, and I go to sessions outside my specialty too, because that is often where I find new teaching examples. I also trade drafts with two colleagues at other schools. Last year a panel on new dating results for an early site changed how I teach that unit. I rewrote the lecture to show students how the evidence shifted and why scholars disagreed." Pitfalls to avoid: a vague "I read a lot" with no specifics; listing sources without showing how they changed anything; naming only work from many years ago.

The interviewer wants to understand your contribution to research funding proposals and your judgment about what makes them credible.

Use Situation, Task, Action, Result. Choose a proposal you helped write for anthropology or archeology research. Explain the funding goal, your responsibilities, how you matched the methods and budget to the funder's criteria, and the actual outcome. If you also reviewed proposals, describe that work without revealing confidential applicants or ideas.

For example: "I helped write a proposal for archival research followed by field interviews. I drafted the methods and linked the travel budget to the sequence of visits. I checked the funder's criteria and asked a colleague to review whether the schedule was realistic. The application was not funded. The feedback showed that we needed a clearer explanation of archive access, so I addressed that in the next version."

Avoid treating an application as an award, claiming sole credit for a team proposal, or copying ideas learned through confidential review.

The interviewer wants to know that your grades are fair, predictable and useful to students, even in large classes with several graders. Explain your process from start to finish: the rubric, how students see it, how you keep graders aligned, and how you give feedback. Sample answer: "For the short ethnography assignment in my intro course, I use a rubric with four parts: observation detail, use of course concepts, analysis, and writing. Students get it with the prompt and see two past examples. Before grading, my teaching assistants and I each score the same three papers and talk through any gaps until we agree. During grading I check a few papers from each grader. My comments focus on one or two things the student can fix next time, and students can ask for a regrade in writing within a week." Pitfalls to avoid: grading without a shared rubric; leaving only a letter grade with no comments; having no clear process for students who question a grade.

The interviewer wants a concrete teaching technique for getting students talking and keeping the discussion productive.

Name your method, explain why it works, and give one example from a class you taught. Mention how you include quieter students and keep the conversation on track.

Sample answer: "I often start with a think-pair-share. I pose an open question tied to the reading, give students two minutes to write their own answer, then have them compare with a partner before we open it up to the room. In one class, discussion had been dominated by a few voices. Once I started this routine, I could call on pairs instead of individuals, and many more students spoke up. I close each discussion by summing up the main points and linking them to the next topic."

Pitfalls: Don't describe a lecture with a few questions as a discussion. Avoid naming a method with no example. Don't ignore how you handle students who dominate or stay silent.

The interviewer wants to see that you design fair assessments and learn from the ones that don't work.

Describe both exams briefly. For the effective one, say what it measured and why it worked. For the less effective one, say what went wrong, how you found out, and what you changed. Honesty about the second example matters most.

Sample answer: "One effective exam asked students to solve a problem they hadn't seen before, using the methods from the unit. The results matched what I saw in class, and the mistakes showed me exactly what to reteach. A less effective exam relied on too many recall questions. Most students did well, but later assignments showed many of them couldn't apply the ideas. I rebuilt it with fewer recall items and more short applied problems, and the next term's results lined up better with students' other work."

Pitfalls: Don't claim every exam you wrote worked. Avoid blaming students for a weak exam. Don't skip what you changed.

The interviewer wants to see that you make yourself available to students and use that time to help them succeed.

Use Situation, Task, Action, Result. Describe a student or group who came to office hours, what they were struggling with, how you helped, and what changed. You can also mention how you encourage students to come.

Sample answer: "Early in one term, a student came to my office hours after failing the first quiz. We went through the quiz together and found the problem wasn't the content but how they were taking notes in lectures. I showed them how to turn their notes into practice questions after each class and asked them to come back in two weeks. They did, and by the midterm they were doing much better. After that, I started announcing a topic for some office hours, which brought in more students."

Pitfalls: Don't describe office hours nobody attended without saying what you changed. Avoid sharing private details about students. Don't skip the outcome.

The interviewer wants to know that you keep accurate, secure, up-to-date records, and that you look for ways to do it better.

Describe your current system in plain terms: where grades and attendance are kept, how often you update them, and how you protect student privacy under your school's rules. Then name one honest improvement and how you plan to make it.

Sample answer: "My grades and attendance are all in the school's learning management system, and I update them within a week of each assignment so students always know where they stand. I don't keep student records on personal devices, and I follow the school's privacy rules when I share anything. One thing I want to improve is how I record notes from advising meetings. Right now they're in separate files, so I plan to move them into the school's advising system to keep everything in one secure place."

Pitfalls: Don't claim your records are perfect. Avoid describing records kept in insecure places. Don't name an improvement without a plan.