Doctoral students in political science are understandably concerned with job placement. Most students enter graduate school with an eye to academia and want to know what they must do to secure their ideal academic position. Faculty members readily offer guidance on how to increase students' likelihood of obtaining an academic job. And PS has published many articles that focus on this topic, ranging from empirical descriptions of the job market to personal accounts of job-hunting experiences. Unfortunately, graduate students often receive anecdotal or contradictory advice. To help rectify this, we undertook a more systematic examination of the qualities department hiring committees seek when granting interviews to job applicants.The authors would like to thank John Coleman, Katherine Cramer Walsh, Charles Franklin, the anonymous reviewers at PS, and the survey respondents.