Faculty hiring after campus interview I did a campus interview two weeks ago (US universities, R1, Engineering). I was not the last candidate, so, by considering the last one, the search was closed one week ago. In the last meeting with the department chair, he said the department will select the final candidate next week and it seems they have made some decisions based on the information I have. I received an update this weekend from the department chair indicating that they are working with the dean's office and I should get an update this week. First, I interpreted this email positively in a way that probably I will be their first choice since they should keep all finalists on hold until the first candidate (assuming to be me!) signs the offer, which normally takes time (negotiation, salary, lab space, ...). So, there is no reason to notify me if I am not the first candidate.
Then, I looked at this matter differently and thought maybe they already have offered another candidate and they are indeed waiting to get some approval from the dean for that person (probably the candidate has some requests). Because sometimes dean's office can approve the final candidate after a few days since it should not be a long process. I am not sure which case is more likely. I know that I should be more patient, but it is honestly difficult!
So, my question is about your experience with the hiring process and its timeline.
It is most helpful to think of the faculty hiring process as a black box. Decisions get made according to some opaque process of which only a small amount of detail is revealed to you, the candidate. But the bureaucracy of a university, and the dynamics of a job search involving multiple finalist candidates, are complicated, so the reality on the ground can involve a lot more that’s going on than what you are being told. I don’t mean a lot more necessarily bad stuff, or a lot more good stuff - just in general more people and more decisions (some perfunctory and some that are more uncertain) on which the outcome depends. Some of those decisions can be purely logistical or financial in nature (or even political) and quite far removed from the question of whether you are “good enough” to get hired by university X.
The bottom line is, if the department chair is competent then they have likely shared the maximal amount of information they can reasonably share with you at this point without risking misleading you into believing the outcome will be either better or worse than it might end up being. The only thing that’s reasonably certain at this point is that you’re still a viable candidate. For anything else, you’ll have to wait for the black box to do its thing. Good luck!