demand side here. Your assumption is less than wise. English skills are not the main reason most job talks are terrible.
Interviews matter. People can be great on paper, but it won't matter if you don't nail the campus visit. Or, at least perform reasonably well.
This is true in general, but I doubt this guy, who is a native speaker, did worse in his interviews than the Japanese guy who landed the Yale job.
I've witnessed enough interviews to know that English skills do affect candidates' ability to both understand the question they're being asked, and answer it effectively. Granted, English skills alone won't take anyone very far if there's not much substance to communicate. But I suspect someone with a Harvard degree and a solo APSR is at least a decent candidate.
Sure, he's obviously a decent candidate. But your presumption that a non-native speaker could not possibly have done better in the multi-day interview than the subject of this thread is... misguided. You simply don't have the relevant information to make that claim.https://lsa.umich.edu/polisci/people/faculty/shiraito.html
this guy's job talk was bad. could not understand his english. but he got the job.
Exactly. Because an interview is much, much more than the job talk.