In June/July 1997, I started my job search to find a full-time academic job. The 1997-1998 academic year would be my fourth and final year as a Ph.D. student at Florida State University. Thus, I needed to find a job after graduation. I joined the Association for Information Systems (AIS) and registered for their job placement service. I began watching the placement listing to identify possible jobs. Annette told me that we could go anywhere west of the Mississippi.
At the time, most universities did their initial recruiting interviews at two major international conferences hosted by AIS: A) the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) held that year in Indianapolis Indiana during August and B) the International Conference on Informations Systems (ICIS) held in Atlanta Georgia during December. I had several screening interviews with schools in August while I attended the AMCIS conference.
SIDE NOTE: From about 1996 to 2002, many universities around the US had a surge in students who chose MIS as their undergraduate major. As a result, many universities were hiring MIS faculty in 1997.
In the September/October time frame, I met with my advisors Bob Zmud and V. Sambamurthy to review the list of schools with posted job openings. At the end of our meeting, we had a collection of about 30 schools they advised me I should consider. In late October, I submitted a letter of application to each school. One of the schools on the list was the University of Oklahoma (OU).
By Thanksgiving that year, I had heard back from most of the schools. I scheduled first-round interviews with about 15 - 20 schools that would occur during the ICIS conference in December (some interviews were technically second-round interviews because I talked with the school in August at AMCIS). However, other schools replied to my application letter to let me know that I did not make the shortlist of candidates for their school (including the University of Oklahoma).
While I was at ICIS in December, I received an email message from Al Schwarzkopf at the University of Oklahoma. He asked if I would be willing to meet him and a colleague from the Accounting Department at OU (Dipankar Ghosh) for a few minutes at the conference. I agreed to meet them and learned that OU had an opening in the accounting department for an accounting information systems (AIS) professor. Dipankar was the search committee chair. Because the market for AIS PhDs was tight, Dipankar had suggested to his department to consider hiring someone with a Ph.D. in MIS but a background in Accounting.
I eventually received invitations from Brigham Young University (BYU), University of Oklahoma (Accounting Department), University of Minnesota, and Michigan State University to make campus visits to continue the job interview process. I visited each campus across a three week period in late February to early March 1998 in the sequence list in the previous sentence.
Shortly after my visit to BYU, I received a job offer.
While I was in Norman Oklahoma for my visit to the Price College of Business at OU, one of my first interviews of the day was with the Dean. During my interview, he told me he had received a resignation letter that morning from an MIS faculty member. As a result, OU would have an opening for an MIS faculty position. The dean asked if I would be interested in interviewing for both positions (i.e., one in accounting and one in MIS). I agreed. So, they shuffled the rest of my interview schedule to include MIS faculty as well as accounting faculty.
Shortly after my visit to the University of Minnesota, the department informed me they offered the job to a different candidate. Shortly after my visit to OU, the accounting department chair called me to say they made the offer to a different candidate. A few days after that call, the MIS department chair called me to say they made the offer to a different candidate.
Shortly after I made my campus visit to Michigan State University, the department chair called me to say they made the offer to a different candidate.
It looked like I was on my way to BYU.
However, it turns out the person that Michigan State hired was previously on the faculty in MIS at OU. As a result, OU now had a second job opening in MIS.
And...
A day or so later, I received a phone call from the MIS department chair at OU with a job offer.
After a few days of consideration, I accepted the job offer from OU and declined the job offer from BYU.
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