Talking to other postdocs or lab members may be helpful, but it is essential to get feedback from people that have considerable experience with chalk talks. Therefore, seek out one to three faculty members that have served on search committees and request their feedback. Unfortunately, writing down our ideas does not initially lead to recognition of the flaws. We’re so close to our projects that they sound rich and melodic to our ears, while others perceive our research description with nasal squeakiness that eludes us. It’s the same issue with our own science. We hear ourselves clearly when we speak, yet it’s surprising to hear how different one’s own voice sounds in a recording. This is analogous to the phenomenon of how alien our own voices sound to us. Yet the same postdocs fall prey to the same mistakes that they easily identify in others’ programs. Nearly all postdocs can ably critique research programs by others. Therefore, you’ll need the perspectives of others. One can describe the mechanics and steps of bike riding with considerable precision, but riding a bike is not intuitive and takes practice to keep the bike upright. However, describing how to prepare a chalk talk is analogous to explaining how to ride a bike. Considering that last point, how much time should one should devote to developing a chalk talk? If you’re going to ask for a million dollars, you had better have a sophisticated polished sales pitch. The candidate’s task is to answer the questions with grace under pressure, convince the faculty members to accept her/him as a colleague, and give him/her a million dollars or more for a startup package. Candidates get 5–10 minutes to present a research program plan and then the committee will ask technical questions, practical questions, and sometimes even insulting questions. The candidate stands in front of a dry erase board with some markers in a room of 10–20 faculty members for an hour. The chalk talk is a faculty candidate’s opportunity to describe his/her proposed research program.
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