Just a reminder that the Quarterly Society for Judgment and Decision Making newsletter can be downloaded from the SJDM site:

http://sjdm.org/newsletters/

Enjoy!

The Human Social Dynamics Group in Yahoo! Research is seeking highly qualified candidates with strong quantitative and computational skills for a post-doctoral research scientist position. The successful candidate will contribute to the HSD group’s research agenda, and also work on applied problems of relevance to Yahoo! consumer and advertising products. Candidates must have completed (or be able to complete before starting) a PhD, preferably but not necessarily in CS/IS, statistics, or in quantitative social science and must be skilled programmers.

Desired skills include but are not limited to:
* Mining web data
* Statistical analysis of large data sets
* Building 3rd party apps (Open Mail, Facebook)
* Designing, building, and running web-based “virtual lab” experiments
* Designing, building, and running web-based field experiments

Application Instructions

Applications, including a CV and names/addresses of three referees, should be emailed to:

Duncan Watts, djw at yahoo-inc.com

For more information on HSD personnel and publications, see

http://research.yahoo.com/Duncan_Watts
http://research.yahoo.com/Sharad_Goel
http://research.yahoo.com/Dan_Goldstein
http://research.yahoo.com/Jake_Hofman
http://research.yahoo.com/Siddharth_Suri

The Operations and Information Management Department at the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania, is home to faculty with a diverse set of interests in decision-making, information technology, information-based strategy, operations management, and operations research. We are seeking applicants for a full-time, tenure-track faculty position at any level: Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor. Applicants must have a Ph.D. (expected completion by June 30, 2013 is acceptable) from an accredited institution and have an outstanding research record or potential in the OPIM Department’s areas of research. Candidates with interests in multiple fields are encouraged to apply. The appointment
is expected to begin July 1, 2012 and the rank is open.

More information about the Department is available at:
http://opimweb.wharton.upenn.edu/

Interested individuals should complete and submit an online application via our secure website, and must include:

-A cover letter (indicating the areas for which you wish to be considered)
-Curriculum vitae
-Names of three recommenders, including email addresses [junior-level candidates]
-Sample publications and abstracts
-Teaching summary information, if applicable (courses taught, enrollment and evaluations)

To apply please visit our web site:
http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/home/recruiting.html

Further materials, including (additional) papers and letters of recommendation, will be requested as needed. To ensure full consideration, materials should be received by November 14th, 2011, but applications will continue to be reviewed until the position is filled.

Contact:
Maurice Schweitzer
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
3730 Walnut Street
500 Jon M. Huntsman Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6340

The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented students, faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds. The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. Women, minority candidates, veterans and individuals with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.

Here at DSN, we know that some readers are gearing up to interview for a professorship at the AMA conference and for this reason provide tips here. This year, AMA goers will also have an opportunity to interview for a couple very nice government fellowships that put behavioral economics to work:

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Fellowships in Household Finance and Credit Markets

The Office of Research in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking to fill up to two positions in its Fellows Program and one position in its Senior Fellows Program. Appointments will be for up to two years.

Researchers with expertise in the following areas of psychology and marketing are strongly encouraged to apply:

Judgment and decision-making, heuristics and biases, risk perception; financial decision-making, mental accounting and budgeting; self control, identity, discrimination, social influences in decision making, cognitive psychology.

Fellows will have half time for carrying out independent, self-directed research in these areas. Fellows will also provide analytic support to various aspects of the Bureau’s work concerning financial products and consumer protection, including policy development, regulation, supervision and enforcement.

Interested candidates should apply for these positions through the CFPB website. The positions will be posted during the AMA Summer Educators’ Conference and for a short time afterward. Candidates who are ranked highly based on their application materials will be invited to the CFPB to interview and present their work.

Senior members of the Office of Research will be present at the AMA Summer Educators’ Conference.

We will hold informational sessions and host a gathering (with light refreshments) on Friday and Saturday, August 5 and 6.

All individuals interested in learning more about these positions, the Bureau, and the application process are encouraged to attend an event. To help candidates with planning, we are committing to the following schedule.

Meetings are in Room 2948 at the Marriott Marquis:

Friday, August 5
45 minute information sessions with Q&A at 8am, 9am, 10am, 11am.
Reception 5:00pm-7:00pm. Location: TBA
Saturday, August 6
45 minute information sessions with Q&A at 9am, 10am, 11am, 12pm.
Reception 5:00pm-7:00pm. Location: TBA

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a new agency that will be an independent bureau within the Federal Reserve System. Created in July 2010 by the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act”, the CFPB will help empower consumers with the information they need to make financial decisions that are best for them and their families and will set and enforce clear, consistent rules that allow banks and other consumer financial services providers to compete on a level playing field. For more information on the CFPB, please visit our website at http://www.consumerfinance.gov/

Photo credit: Some images taken from the CFPB’s YouTube Video.

PhD students in Marketing, Psychology, and Economics should have sent their “packets” out by the fourth of July in the hopes of lining up interviews at the annual AMA Summer Educator’s Conference. Each year DSN reprints this sort of “what to expect while you’re applying” guide, first published here by Dan Goldstein in 2005.

SHARE YOUR OWN AMA TIPS
I am more than happy to publish AMA tips , updated information, or just AMA horror storie,s as part of this post. You can reach me at dan at dangoldstein dot com and let me know if you want to be anonymous or the opposite (nonymous?).

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
I’ve seen the Marketing job market turn happy grad students into quivering masses of fear. I want to share experiences that I and others have contributed, and provide a bit advice to make the whole process less mysterious.

WHY SHOULD ANYONE LISTEN TO ME?
I’ve been on the AMA job market twice (mid 2000s), the Psychology market once (late 90s). As a professor I’ve conducted 20 AMA interviews and been a part of dozens of hiring decisions. I’ve been on the candidate end of about 40 AMA interviews, and experienced numerous campus visits, face-to-face interviews, offers, and rejections. I’m an outsider to Marketing who went on the market older and with more experience than the average rookie (35 years of age, with 8 years of research scientist, postdoc, visiting scholar, and industry positions). I’ve hired many people for many academic posts, so I know both sides.

HOW TO GET INTO THE AMA JOB MARKET
First, at least a couple months before the conference, find where it will be. It’s called the American Marketing Association Summer Educator’s Conference. Strange name, I know. Insiders just call it “The AMA”. Get yourself a room in the conference hotel, preferably on the floor where the express elevator meets the local elevator for the upper floors. You’ll be hanging out on this floor waiting to change elevators anyway, so you might as well start there.

Next, get your advisor / sponsor to write a cover letter encouraging people to meet with you at AMA. It helps if this person is in Marketing. Get 1 or 2 other letters of recommendation, a CV, and some choice pubs. Put them in an envelope and mail them out to a friend of your sponsor at the desired school. It should look like the letter is coming from your sponsor, even though you are doing the actual assembly and mailing. Repeat this process a bunch of times. It’s a good idea to hit a school with 2 packets, 3 if you suspect they’re a little disorganized. Certainly send one to the recruiting coordinator (you might find their name on hiring announcements, which are often sent to your home department’s secretary) and one to your sponsor’s friend. Mail to schools regardless of whether they are advertising a position or not. This is academia: nobody knows anything. This means you may be sending 50 or more packets. You want to have them mailed by the 4^th of July.

THEN WHAT?
Wait to get calls or emails from schools wishing to set up AMA interviews with you. These calls may come in as late as one week before the conference. Often they come when you are sitting outside having a drink with friends. Some schools will not invite you for totally unknown reasons. You may get interviews from the top 10 schools and rejected from the 30th-ranked one. Don’t sweat it. Again, this is the land of total and absolute unpredictability that you’re entering into. Also, know that just because you get an interview doesn’t mean they have a job. Sometimes schools don’t know until the last minute if they’ll have funding for a post. Still, you’ll want to meet with them anyway. Other times, schools are quite certain they have two positions, but then later university politics shift and they turn out to have none.

After the AMA, you’ll hopefully get “fly-outs,” that is, offers to come and visit the campus and give a talk. This means you’ve made the top five or so. Most offers go down in December. There’s a second market that happens after all the schools realize they’ve made offers to the same person. Of course, some schools get wise to this and don’t make offers to amazing people who would have come. We need some kind of market mechanism to work out this part of the system.

THE “IT’S ALL ABOUT FRIENDSHIP” RULE
Keep in mind that you will leave this process with 1 or 0 jobs. Therefore, when talking to a person, the most likely thing is that he or she will not be your colleague in the future. You should then think of each opportunity as a chance to make a friend. You’ll need friends to collaborate, to get tenure, get grants, and to go on the market again if you’re not happy with what you get.

HOW DO YOU FIND OUT IN WHICH ROOM TO INTERVIEW?
The schools will leave messages for you telling you in which rooms your interviews will be. You’ll get calls, emails, and notes held for you at the hotel reception. Some schools will fail to get in touch with you so you have to try to find them. Many profs ask the hotel to make their room number public, but for some reason many hotel operators will still not give you the room number. Naturally having a mobile internet connection allows for emailing of room numbers. Try to take care of this early on the first day.

HOW TO TREAT YOURSELF WHILE THERE
My sponsor gave me the advice of not going out at night and getting room service for breakfast and dinner. This worked for me. Also, the ridiculously high price of a room-service breakfast made me feel like I was sparing no expense, which I found strangely motivating.

HOW DO THE ACTUAL AMA INTERVIEWS GO?
At the pre-arranged time you will knock on their hotel room door. You will be let into a suite (p=.4) or a normal hotel room (p=.5, but see below). In the latter case, there will be professors with long and illustrious titles—people you once imagined as dignified—sitting on beds in their socks. The other people in the room may not look at you when you walk in because they will be looking for a precious few seconds at your CV. For at least some people in the room, this may be the first time they have concentrated on your CV. Yikes is right. Put the important stuff early in your CV so nobody can miss it.

THE SEAT OF HONOR
There will be one armchair in the room. Someone will motion towards the armchair, smile, and say, “You get the seat of honor!” This will happen at every school, at every interview, for three days. I promise.

THE TIME COURSE
There will be two minutes of pleasant chit-chat. They will propose that you talk first and they talk next. There will be a little table next to the chair on which you will put your flip book of slides. You will present for 30 minutes, taking their questions as they come. They will be very nice. When done, they will ask you if you have anything to ask them. You of course do not. You hate this question. You make something up. Don’t worry, they too have a spiel, and all you need to do is find a way to get them started on it. By the time they are done, it’s time for you to leave. The whole experience will feel like it went rather well.

PREDICTING IF YOU WILL GET A FLY-OUT
It’s impossible to tell from how it seems to have gone whether they will give you a fly-out or not. Again, this is the land of staggering and high-impact uncertainty. They might not invite you because you were too bad (and they don’t want you), or because you were too good (and they think they don’t stand a chance of getting you and they don’t want to waste a precious fly-0ut on you). The latter fact means that “playing hard to get” is a bad idea.

DO INTERVIEWS DEVIATE FROM THAT MODEL?
Yes.

Sometimes instead of a hotel room, they will have a private meeting room (p=.075). Sometimes they will have a private meeting room with fruit, coffee, and bottled water (p=.025). Sometimes, they will fall asleep while you are speaking (p=.05). Sometimes they will be rude to you (p=.025). Sometimes a key person will miss an early interview due to a hangover (p=.025). Sometimes, if it’s the end of the day, they will offer you alcohol (p=.18, conditional on it being the end of the day).

HOW YOU THINK THE PROCESS WORKS
The committee has read your CV and cover letter and looked at your pubs. They know your topic and can instantly appreciate that what you are doing is important. They know the value of each journal you have published in and each prize you’ve won. They know your advisor and the strengths she or he instills into each student. They ignore what they’re supposed to ignore and assume everything they’re supposed to assume. They’ll attach a very small weight to the interview and fly you out based on your record, which is the right thing to do according to a mountain of research on interviews.

HOW THE PROCESS REALLY WORKS
The interviewers will have looked at your CV for about one minute a couple months ago, and for a few seconds as you walked in the room. They will never have read your entire cover letter, and they will have forgotten most of what they did read. They could care less about your advisor and will get quite annoyed that you didn’t cite their advisor. They’ll pay attention to everything they’re supposed to ignore and assume nothing except what you repeat five times. Flouting 50 years of research in judgment and decision-making, they’ll attach a small weight to your CV and fly you out based on the interview and their gut feeling.

IF ENGLISH IS NOT YOUR MOTHER TONGUE
Your ability to speak English well won’t get you a good job, but your inability to do so will eliminate you from consideration at every top school. Understand that business schools put a premium on teaching. If the interviewers don’t think you can communicate in the classroom, they’re probably not going to take a chance on you. If you are just starting out and your spoken English is shaky, my advice is to work on it as hard as you are working on anything else. Hire a dialect coach (expensive) or an english-speaking actor or improviser (cheaper) to work with you on your English pronunciation. In the Internet age, it’s quite easy to download samples of English conversational speech, for instance from podcasts, for free. It’s also very easy to get a cheap headset and a free audio recorder (like Audacity) with which to practice.

TWO WAYS TO GIVE YOUR SPIEL
1) The plow. You start and the first slide and go through them until the last slide. Stop when interrupted and get back on track.

2) The volley. Keep the slides closed and just talk with the people about your topic. Get them to converse with you, to ask you questions, to ask for clarifications. When you need to show them something, open up the presentation and show them just that slide.

I did the plow the first year and the volley the second year. I got four times more fly-outs the second year. Econometricians are working hard to determine if there was causality. I would not attempt the volley unless you are generally considered to be very good with words.

HOW TO ACT
Make no mistake, you are an actor auditioning for a part. There will be no energy in the room when you arrive. You have to be like Santa Claus bringing in a large sack of energy. The interviewers will be tired. They’ve been listening to people in a stuffy hotel room from dawn till dusk for days. If you do an average job, you lose: You have to be two standard deviations above the mean to get a fly-out. So audition for the part, and make yourself stand out. If you want to learn how actors audition, read Audition by Michael Shurtleff.

SOCIAL SKILLS MATTER
From the candidate’s point of view, everything is about the CV and the correctness of the mathematical proofs in the job market paper. However, for better or for worse, extra-academic qualities matter. Here are two examples. 1) The Social Lubricant factor. Departments get visitors all the time: guest speakers, visiting professors, job candidates, etc. Some departments are a bunch of folks who stare at their shoes when introduced to a new person. These departments have a real problem: they have nobody on board who can make visitors feel at ease, and sooner or later word starts to spread about how socially awkward the people at University X are. To fix such problems, departments sometimes hire socially-skilled types who know how to make people comfortable in conversation, and who know how to ask good questions during talks. Also, interviewers assume that people who can talk a good game will be star teachers. 2) The Soft Sell factor. Many people succeed in academia not because they are often right, but also because they are masters of making other people feel like they aren’t wrong. Defensiveness or determination to embarrass when responding to critique is an effective way to blow an interview.

HAVE A QUIRK
One of the biggest risks facing you is that you will be forgotten. Make sure the interviewers know something unusual about you. My quirk is that I worked internationally as an actor and theater director for over a decade; I even had a bit part in a Conan O’Brien sketch on TV. It has nothing to do my research, but people always bring up this odd little fact when I do campus visits. Some bits of trivia are just more memorable than others.

DON’T GIVE UP
Never think it’s hopeless. Just because you’re not two SDs above the mean at the school of your dreams, it does not mean you’re not the dream candidate of another perfectly good school.

Many candidates don’t realize the following: The students are competing for schools but the schools are also competing for students. If you strike out, you can just try again next year. I know a person in Psychology who got 70 rejections in one year. I know a person in Marketing who was told he didn’t place in the top 60 candidates at the 20th ranked school. The subsequent year, both people got hired by top 5 departments. One of them is ridiculously famous and considered among the smartest people in Marketing!

RUMORS
Gossip can mess with your chances. Gossip that you are doing well can hurt you because schools will be afraid to invite you if they think you won’t come. Gossip that you are doing poorly can hurt you because schools that like you will be afraid to invite you if they think no one else does. Sometimes people will ask a prof at your school if you would come to their school, and the prof will then ask you. To heck with that. Just say that if they want to talk to you, they should talk with you directly.

The danger of rumors can be summed up by the following story. At ACR in 2003, I was having a beer with someone who confessed, “you know, my friend X at school Y told me that they want to hire you, but they’re afraid your wife won’t move to Z”. I was single.

The University of Basel, Switzerland has an very strong psychology department going under dean Ralph Hertwig (DSN has visited to confirm this). If you are looking for a job in the heart of Europe, this is an attractive one.

Not that you should apply for other reasons than intrinsic motivation, but we should mention that Swiss academic salaries are really, really high.

The Department of Psychology of the University of Basel, Switzerland, invites applications for a professorship in social psychology, with the appointment to begin by February 1, 2012.

The successful candidate’s research focus will be in the area of social cognition. Research activities in additional areas – for example, consumer psychology, marketing, or experimental economics – are desirable. The successful candidate will represent social psychology as a core discipline at the bachelor’s and master’s levels with respect to both research and teaching (seminars and lectures may be held in English). At the master’s level, the teaching of social psychology will be coordinated with that of economic psychology and decision science.

Applicants should have demonstrated a high level of academic productivity and applied successfully for research grants. They should further be committed to teaching and to university and departmental administrative service.

Depending on the successful candidate’s qualifications, the position will be filled at the level of full, associate, or assistant professor.

The University of Basel offers attractive terms of employment, a modern infrastructure, and a stimulating scientific environment (www.unibas.ch). Because the University of Basel actively seeks to increase the number of women on its faculty, women are particularly encouraged to apply.

To ensure full consideration, all application materials (CV, teaching statement, and teaching evaluations if available) should be submitted electronically by May 31, 2011 to karin.hettinger@unibas.ch.

For further information, please contact Ralph Hertwig (ralph.hertwig@unibas.ch).

The Harvard Decision Science Laboratory (HDSL), a university-wide biobehavioral research facility, invites application for a postdoctoral research position from qualified candidates with a recent (or forthcoming) Ph.D. in psychology, behavioral economics, or related fields. The Postdoctoral fellow will serve as a key member of the research team of Professor Jennifer Lerner, faculty director of HDSL, and as a critical resource to researchers working in the lab. In addition, the postdoctoral fellow will work together with HDSL’s executive director in directing a research experience program for undergraduates.

Mastery of experimental methods — encompassing the use of computer-based and web-based experimental modalities — is required. A demonstrated record of research accomplishment involving the use of psychophysiology monitoring systems — including heart rate and heart-rate variability, peripheral blood flow and temperature, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and skin conductance — will make for the strongest candidacy. Familiarity with study protocols utilizing salivary assays for neuroendocrine levels (particularly cortisol and oxytocin), and the use of these measures in experimental psychological science, is also desirable. Knowledge of MediaLab, z-Tree, SPSS, and E-Prime preferred, as well as experience in the experimental use of BioLab(tm) for physiological data collection and analysis. Interest in FACS coding is a plus.

This is a one-year term appointment from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012, renewable for another year upon review. The position is open to candidates who have recently earned their Ph.D. Salary and full benefits commensurate with Harvard-wide standards. Applicants should submit a cover letter describing their research interests, a curriculum vitae, up to two reprints (or preprints), and two letters of recommendation to Mark Edington, Executive Director, Harvard Decision Science Laboratory, at mark_edington@harvard.edu. Applications will be reviewed as they are received; fullest consideration will be extended to those received by April 15.

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW. DYNAMIC DECISION MAKING LAB. CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

The Dynamic Decision Making Laboratory (DDMLab) (www.cmu.edu/ddmlab) in the
department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU) invites applications for Postdoctoral fellowship positions in social
and decisions sciences.

Research projects require experience planning and conducting laboratory
studies with dynamic simulations and decision making games. Fellows will be
involved in a research project aiming at the study of socio-cognitive
aspects of cooperation and conflict, using a combination of behavioral and
computational modeling methods. The ideal candidates will have a Ph.D. in
Psychology, Decision Sciences or Human Factors, and should have broad
research interests in all facets of dynamic decision making research.

Appointment will pay competitive rates based on background and experience.
The position is scheduled to start August 1, 2011 and extend for one or up
to two years.

Applicants should send curriculum vitae, statement of research skills and
interests, relevant journal papers, and three reference letters. Electronic
applications are encouraged. Please send electronic documents (Word, Pdf)
to: coty@cmu.edu or forward paper documents to:

Professor Cleotilde Gonzalez
Dynamic Decision Making Laboratory
Social and Decision Sciences Department
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave – Porter Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Society for Judgment and Decision Making Newsletter Editor Dan Goldstein reports that the March 2011 SJDM newsletter is ready for download.

http://www.sjdm.org/newsletters/11-mar.pdf

Enjoy!

Society for Judgment and Decision Making Newsletter Editor Dan Goldstein reports that the final SJDM newsletter of 2010 is ready for download.

http://www.sjdm.org/files/newsletters/

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving is the time to eat with family, to attend homecoming games, and to find postdoctoral positions. (International readers may ignore this paragraph, except for the idea that late November is a fine season to hunt postdocs).

In a Decision Science News first, one (1) Center is offering two (2) postdocs on two (2) campuses. Regardless of which side of the Mason-Dixon line you choose to lay your head, there is a CRED (Center for Research on Environmental Decisions) postdoc for you. What’s more you’ll be working under the supervision of Eric Johnson & Elke Weber (under whose tutelage Decision Science News built is vast media empire) or Rick Larrick (who is competing with his co-author Jack Soll for sweeping the likeable*smart category in the 2012 Olympics).

DESCRIPTION
The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) is hiring two postdocs who will work on Decision Architecture projects related to energy consumption and related environmentally relevant decisions over the next two years. One postdoc will be located at Columbia University, working with Eric Johnson and Elke Weber, the other will be located at Duke University, working with Rick Larrick. Qualified applicants are invited to apply for either one or both positions.

LINKS
For more information, click on the links below:

Duke Postdoc
Columbia Postdoc