Interviews: shine during your postdoc or PhD student interview.

Interviews can decide whether you land the postdoc/PhD position of your dreams. Here are 4 general points to consider, and 6 interview common questions to expect and how to answer them! #phd #phdlife #postdoc #jobinterview #gradschool #academia #academicsuccess #academic #academicskills #interviewtips #interviewquestions #interview
0:00 Interviews can be decisive in hiring decisions
1:10 Four general points to consider
4:13 Six common interview questions and how to answer them
10:50 Wrap-up
Matthias Rillig, professor of ecology at Freie Universität Berlin, chats about life in academia.
Interested in our lab? visit rilliglab.org or follow us on twitter @mrillig.
Want a particular topic covered? Please add your suggestion to the comments!

[@mrillig]

If you have any great interview questions that you found useful or interesting, please share them in the comments. I'd love to hear about some excellent questions to ask....

[@starryabs]

You rock Dr. Rillig, I just secured a position! I watched your postdoc videos and applied your advice to my application and interview process!

[@mrillig]

That's wonderful! Glad to hear it, and congratulations!!!!

[@ronron2312]

My postdoctoral interview was rather short. I asked and his response: ‘I only fund foreign postdocs. If you want to join the lab do some research and put together a two to three page proposal for an individual postdoctoral grant along with you CV and a short summary of your thesis research’. A week later my hear my advisor given a reference over the phone and 10 minutes later about setting up time to start flushing out a grant. I learned a lot about how to think about science and why it is a good idea to have a firm understanding of the concepts of evolutionary biology.

[@mrillig]

There are many routes to a postdoc...thanks for sharing yours! Proposal writing skills are essential for success in academia, so I can imagine how you learn a lot from how someone performs in this respect.

[@YUZhuoyuan]

Dear prof, thanks for your advice in this video, it will absolutely be a great help for me!

[@mrillig]

That's great; good luck with your next interview.

[@DrWainkwasMentorshipMJ2022]

Again thank you so much for sharing this one. Your videos are always very informative. This is video is the best gift for any fresh PhD graduating student preparing to enroll into the job market.

[@mrillig]

Thank you so much! Always glad to hear you like the videos!

[@idowuatoloye7261]

Thank you for your educative videos. I am happy to share that one of my mentees found your videos helpful and was able to secure a Ph.D. position. Thanks.

[@mrillig]

That's wonderful! thanks for writing.... :)

[@MrUlamaca]

Really appreciated for your. Many constructive and systematic advice are there. I am sure it would be very helpful for my future application

[@mrillig]

Great! thanks for writing, and good luck with your future applications.

[@beccaapak0228]

Thank you so much for all of the tips. It will greatly help me to prepare for the postdoc position interview!

[@mrillig]

Thanks, and good luck with your interviews!

[@littlethings8067]

This was so useful . Thankyou so much for sharing.

[@mrillig]

Thanks for writing! Glad you liked the video.

[@nargesdamavandi5654]

Great video! Thank you so much 🌹

[@mrillig]

Thank you!

[@yingniantao4841]

very useful advice!

[@mrillig]

Thanks, I am glad you found this useful!

[@raco1993]

I’ve got the WiMi position . Thank sooooo much for your video 😊, it helped me a lot

[@mrillig]

That's great; congratulations!!

[@eliezerm542]

Thank you so much for this video. I will use your advices in my Postdoc interview.

[@mrillig]

Thanks; and good luck with your interview!

[@setarehkompanian7847]

Dear Professor, thank you so much for your informative video... you pointed out some details I never thought about.. I have a Ph.D. interview in 2 weeks and I am pretty sure I would use all of your advicess. Thanks again!

[@mrillig]

Thanks for watching, and I'm glad you found it useful. Good luck with your interview! :)

[@akabuoguemmanuel2984]

Thank you for this video, Prof.

[@mrillig]

Glad you liked it.

[@JabirKhan-le7xq]

Thank you so much, sir... this is an excellent video.

[@mrillig]

Thank you!!

[@wz_hou2130]

Thank you very much for sharing! I have benefited greatly from the information. feels like it was tailor-made for me. Once again, thank you! I hope my postdoc job interview next week goes smoothly. ; )

[@mrillig]

Thank you! And good luck with your interview.

[@bishnudas9757]

Dear Sir, Your Videos is beneficial for students. Thank you for making such a good video.

[@mrillig]

Thanks very much!

[@yasamint4968]

Pretty helpful..

[@mrillig]

thanks!

[@abouzarazarafza4381]

Thank you for sharing such an important video. My question is how about the communication skills and personality? How about outfits? Are these important too?

[@mrillig]

Communication skills and personality will not be directly coming up as questions, they will be continuously observed during the interview, and they are of course very, very important. In our field of ecology/ environmental science, outfits don't matter at all (but I still wouldn't come in shorts and flip-flops). But this may be different in different disciplines that tend to be more formal.

[@sebathomas3529]

Tomorrow i have an interview. Hope this video would be beneficial to me

[@mrillig]

Good luck!

[@growlerpig]

how do i ask a question that "signals my interest in the science" without appearing ignorant (i don't know the answer) or lazy (i want others to do the work for me) or insecure (i have a position but i won't defend it) ? i guess an answer to this would be something like "i'm happy to see you've done work in X, my take on Y is this but i'm curious what you think" -- instead of just blurting out "what is Y about?"

[@mrillig]

Right, exactly! That question should be an informed question, not one signalling lack of knowledge. In interviews, I've been impressed by people who made implicitly clear - by asking a question - that they had really thought about a certain topic, and that they had the background to formulate such a question in the first place.

[@nurcaninci5725]

Thanks for your videos! I have an interview this friday for Phd and it is really competitive. Would it be appropiate to ask about the details in project like 'is there already chosen agents or can we contribute to that part of the project? ' and I want to know about PI. Should I ask her if she is a supportive or directs students through research ...

[@mrillig]

Thanks! I think the first question is ok, as long as you're not asking too many of these kinds of detailed questions. If you ask one about something that's meaningful, then it signals that you have thought about the project. The second question: not sure I would ask this, because what is the PI going to say? That is something for a follow-up interview once you have been made the offer, to make sure you're not getting into a toxic lab. (I have another video on this, where you can find questions that probe this point) Good luck!

[@nurulahadakil]

Thank you for your detailed information Professor. If my potential Advisor in the interview committee, Can I ask him specific question regarding to his research in the interview? is that within the norm?

[@mrillig]

Thanks for writing. I would not ask detailed questions, but general questions about the research, if they show that you have thought about the material. When in doubt, save this for later.

[@nurulahadakil]

@@mrillig Thanks a lot

[@withJoman]

Doctor, they asked me to tell them about my approach for the doctoral research project I choose in a 10 min presentation. What does it mean? do I have to tell them all details about what I will do and what instruments I will use, like writing proposal? HELP!

[@mrillig]

Not sure, but they probably want to gauge if you know what the scope of a doctoral research project is. So it would be good to outline the (typically) three chapters of a PhD and how they're connected; and it would be good to have a rough idea about the methods/ experimental design etc. you would use, to the extent that you can.

[@jomanemad8628]

@@mrillig Thank you so much Doctor! 🫶🏽 Really appreciated your replay!

[@samsomaraya300]

How do you know the Ph.D. interview went well, when someone did an interview with several Professors for a single PHD Position, I did four hour interview in a row with 7 professors of the same research faculty, but different direction of research & they love to listen details on every question?

[@mrillig]

You will never really find out during the interview how it went. People will contact you afterwards with the results. You could of course have a gut feeling about it; but in the end, the interviewer(s) will always remain friendly and you can't really know what is really going on, and they also will have to compare you with all the other people they interviewed.

[@samsomaraya300]

@@mrillig The thing was, I got positive response from the five Prof and the other two they told me possible to work with some profs in the group, My gut feeling was good during the interview and after, I don't felt any problem, just friendly conversation. If you have time maybe will talk about the questions that I had for your future videos .

[@mrillig]

Right! If the interview is conducted professionally, you will always feel that this is just a 'friendly conversation'. Sounds like you did well, congrats.

[@samsomaraya300]

Thanks again, will see the results in future .

[@paakwesio]

​@@samsomaraya300how did it go

[@deeptimittal6547]

Hello Dr Rillig, I really like your videos and they are really informative. I just want to know that I emailed one of the professor and she replied me back and said that she do not have the funding available. I am not sure what to reply her back. Also I am interested to write a proposal for external funding. Can you please suggest me something.

[@mrillig]

Thanks! Not sure I understand the context, but after the interview there was then a message that the funding is not available? This could mean that a grant was cancelled or something like this. In this case you could just email back to say thanks for letting you know, and that you would be interested in hearing about future opportunities should they arise.

[@deeptimittal6547]

@@mrillig I sent her an email to enquire about the postdoctoral position so she replied that she don't have the funding to support.

[@user-gk6kg4yw6w]

A week ago, I had an informal interview for a post-doc position. During the interview, I asked them when can I get the decision for the position. They told me that It will take few weeks. One week has passed, but now, I am so curious about when can I get the results because I need to decide whether to spend time applying for another post-doc position. 😂 Is it a bad idea to email them and ask for the exact decision date? What do you think?

[@mrillig]

Thanks for writing. If it was an informal interview, then there may be different things going on, like they might still be securing funding etc. I don't know the specifics, but if they said it will take a few weeks I would probably wait two weeks. If in the meantime other interesting jobs pop up, you can still apply to those, of course. As long as you don't have an offer, you are basically on the market. I understand that this takes time, and so I would definitely write a friendly email after 2 weeks, letting them know that you are very interested in the position and would rather not apply elsewhere if it looks like this would work out.

[@user-gk6kg4yw6w]

​@@mrillig Thank you! And your comments helped my interview a lot!

[@sathiskakaumadi7306]

Bani oneda, idapn dennam langadima

[@mrillig]

?

[@Khaled_AbdelRazeq_GM]

An essential content for any phd or post doc candidate May I know your email address? I need your advice about some significant matter

[@mrillig]

Thanks very much. Sorry, but I don't have time to do individual exchanges - I run this youtube channel on the side.

[@Khaled_AbdelRazeq_GM]

@@mrillig ok prof. Matthias Thanks for your efforts and advises in your videos