Link to Part-1: JobHunting - Part 1 - Applications
In Part-1 of this two part article, I explained about my strategies for finding and applying to jobs as PhD student. In this article, I will explain about my interview experiences. Starting from January 2020, I have been through 20+ interviews, of which only one was in-person interview (In January 2020, Germany didn’t have any COVID-19 cases).
Writing code to solve a problem to explaining my approach to address a scientific question, there were different flavors of interviews. However, many things are common across most of the interviews. Here, I will try to pen down how to increase your chances of making a good impression during interviews.
1. Get to know calls
These are usually the first interactions between you and the company/interviewer, for around 40min to 1hr. In my case, most of the times, the respective department head contacted me for short discussions to let me know what they are seeking and what I have got to offer.
This is your first chance to make a good impression on how your experiences and interests fit to the advertised position. Usually, they will direct the conversation by explaining who they are, overview of the work they are doing and a few additional details about the position. Then, it’s your turn to pitch.
Make a simple story of your education, work experiences, skills you gained through your work and how these skills are useful for the position you are interviewing and briefly about your long term interests. You may repeat this part in several interviews, so spending some time on making it interesting is worth it.
2. Questions to you from them
Interviewers usually ask you some technical (not very deep) questions to understand your knowledge that is required for the position. These are basically from the work you explained before and relevant areas. You can give them a high-level overview of your technical expertise and add some additional information on what’s your critical opinions on current state-of-the-art methodologies. This way you are conveying that you are being careful about the methods you use to address a scientific problem.
3. Questions to them from you
Every (good) interviewer will give you a chance to ask some questions. This part of the interview has a great impact on what interviewer thinks of your candidacy.
I always prepared some (read many) questions before the interview that I want them to clarify and discuss. Alongside, I took notes while they were explaining about the work, team and techniques they use regularly in their labs. Do not hesitate to ask as many questions as possible related to the position. Some applicants think asking too many questions is annoying. NO IT’S NOT. In fact, every (good) interviewer expects you ask many questions. The more questions you ask, the better impression you leave.
4. Talks and discussions
If you made a good first impression and company thinks you might for the role, they usually invite you to the company for a full day interview which involves giving a talk on your work, discussion with team members and HR. To my understanding this is what happens in the absence of the pandemic. Due to 2020, some companies did split this part into multiple days and others organized 5-6hr straight zoom interviews. Yes, 5-6hr straight.
Usually, you will receive an agenda with information on who will sit for your talks and with who you will have separate discussions. Research about these members and prepare your talk accordingly. There might be people from very different background and you might want to simplify a few things to reach your content to all members.
HR round of interviews are something completely new for people coming from academics. It’s not a thing in academic job interview process, at least until the point of PhD, postdoc positions. In one of my initial interviews, I didn’t really think of HR round and during the interview I struggled a lot to answer some questions. It’s not that they are difficult to answer but you need to storify them beforehand instead of on the spot because these questions involve a bit of hyping yourself. Spend time researching about HR round questions.
5. Rejections
You got the interview call. You did a pretty good job with all rounds and very positive. You receive an email that starts with ‘we are sorry to inform you. . .’
Yes, it’s a NO from the company. Though you did your best at every stage of the process, at the end, you only have 50% chance of receiving the offer. Recruiters from companies always prefer experienced individuals (there can be exception where positions are only meant for freshers). If you are competing with someone who has more experience than you (even by marginal amount), your chances might go down, with some exceptions.
If you are someone who achieves everything in the first attempt (do they exist?), great. But if you belong to rest of the cohort, better get comfortable with these kind of rejections to save yourself from emotional toil they cause. At the end of every interview, reflect on your discussion and where you felt difficult to take the conversation forward. Focus on those areas for the next interview.
Please feel free to comment/DM (@itsvenu_) if you have any questions. Good luck with your transition!
