Gaining Tenure: Impact of Coursework on Hiring Decisions

[Hercuflea]

Say you are interviewing for a tenure-track position...you've got a PhD and a postdoc or two under your belt in your field of specialization. Would the specific courses that you took (or did not take) in grad school have a large effect on the hiring decision? Especially if there is a course that you did not explicitly take for assessment in grad school, but you might be expected to teach the said course as a tenure-track professor.

 

[Simon Bridge]

It would be surprising if they had a big effect - who you worked with can, what sort of testimonials you can get, but they will be mostly interested in the actual research you have done and papers published, and do you get on with people. Are you likely to be a good addition to the College?
It is very common for tenure-track people to teach courses they did not cover in grad-school - at this level you are usually expected to be able to bring yourself up to speed in a new discipline speciality very quickly - say a few days to a week.
However, if they are specifically looking for someone to teach a specific course then they are more likely to go for someone with experience teaching that course ceteris paribus.

 

[Vanadium 50]

What matters is what know and how well you learned in, not when you learned it.