If you were (or are) on a search committee what would you think of the following situation...
On the due date, the applicant's file contains all the information that is usually sent by the candidate. It has a nice CV, a good cover letter, requested writing sample etc.
What is missing are the letters of recommendation. Obviously, those are being sent by other profs.
If a candidate were a potentially good fit, would that eliminate them?
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4 comments:
Not right off the bat; I'd at least email the candidate and ask if we could count on seeing those recommendations soon. It's possible that the candidate wasn't very organized in getting info to their recommenders, but also possible that the recommenders flaked out, and in the latter case the candidate may not even be aware of this. I'd give them a chance to fix it.
In this case, the candidate sent a follow-up e-mail to the chairs -- because they had an indication of a problem from one institution. Turns out nobody has seen the letters.
In my experience, our chair has contacted the candidate to let him/her know, and we haven't eliminated the person for that reason UNTIL things are really down to the wire. So at the final cut before the interviews meeting, if things aren't in, we'd cut, I think. (It's never actually gotten to that point; either the person was cut for other reasons--not convincing in the letter, not actually in the advertised field--or got his/her stuff to us.)
What bardiac and pilgrim/heretic said. Someone would have contacted the person to get the letters. OTOH, if the letters were not forthcoming at all, the regulations would not allow the person to be considered, since we would have to document whether packets were complete.
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