Academic job interviews are a bit challenging
because every single person on the panel will have their own, different, agenda, and all will have a say in whether you get the job or not. Which makes it impossible to predict what will interest them all. Add to it the healthy dose of rampant paranoia that exists in most senior academics and, frankly, it's almost not worth trying at all, as being good usually scares them.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 16 Jul 2013, 12:12, 1 reply, 11 years ago)

don't you just quote extensively from their last article/book
and delay your inclination to tear it to shreds until AFTER you've signed the contract?
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 16 Jul 2013, 12:14, Reply)

You flatter them by making sure you know their stuff, yeah.
But most unis get round that now by never telling you who will be interviewing you, and you can't read the most recent work of several hundred academics beforehand.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 16 Jul 2013, 12:16, Reply)