Academic hiring has never been free of interpretive judgment. Search committees routinely weigh intangibles (e.g., “fit,” “potential” and “collegiality”) alongside more concrete indicators such as publications and teaching experience. Recently, however, one term has begun to carry disproportionate evaluative weight in faculty searches: authenticity. Merriam-Webster chose “authentic” as its 2023 word of the year, and advocating for authenticity has been on the rise, reflecting our anxiety about presenting the self and how it is perceived and judged by others.
Both the word and the sentiment it conveys are pervasive in the advice literature on job applications, which often encourages applicants to “get personal” and “embrace your true self.” In professional academic settings, reflecting the larger societal trend, candidates are also praised for sounding “genuine,” faulted for seeming “performative” and assessed on whether their teaching or research statements feel like expressions of a “true” intellectual self. This shift may appear benign, even ethically motivated, but in practice, it is deeply flawed. As a tacit criterion in professional evaluation, authenticity can distort academic judgment, as it is neither stable nor accountable.
