OMG, I've got a job interview!

[TinselianAstra]

I'm just finishing my PhD, planning to submit next week and then go away to New Zealand for January before coming back and dealing with the realities of life as a grownup.

I sent my CV to a friend of a friend at a company I'd quite like to work for on the 15th of October, and asked if he could pass it on to the correct people. Anyway, it has been a very long time, so I figured they weren't interested, but this afternoon I got an email inviting me for interview 'with regards to the role of X that you recently applied for'.

I am scared! What do I need to do?

PhD in what? What's the job?

Do you know what type of interview - CBI or presentation, Informal - all depends on the role. Best advice tho - relax and be yourself.

Good Luck x

contact the friend of a friend and pick their brains

Do you have the job description?

PhD in Molecular Biology. The job is at a local biotech/pharma type place, they've been bought out by big pharma but they still seem to do their recruiting independently, luckily for me.

The trouble is that I don't really have a job description, because I sent in the speculative application saying 'do yo have anything I might be suitable for?' rather than applying to a specific job. There is a job advertised on their website with a similar title, so I've been looking at the specification for that and it all looks like stuff I could do, but I'm assuming that's not actually the job I'm being interviewed for because it wouldn't still be advertising, would it?

If they are expecting me to do a presentation they haven't told me about it, so I imagine it will be just talking to people. What is CBI? Is that the 'Describe a time when you have worked in a team to overcome a problem and achieve a goal.'? I hate that stuff.

Sorry, I'm not being very helpful, just wanted to talk to some people about it. I've never had a real job interview before.

Well, I've just spent an hour adjusting the length of the trousers on my new suit (reagular length too short, long length waaaay too long), so at least I'll be dressed appropriately.

Congratulations - v exciting.
Teh job is likely to be the one still being advertised: companies keep the ads up until the job is filled, not just until they start interviewing. And it's possible that the co. usually uses a recruitment agency to do all the admin, filter candidates, do the negotiating on salary etc. As you went in sideways via your friend, you won't have had any info that the agency might normally provide to candidates, which could be why you don't have anything further. But it's definitely important to establish taht this is the job you're interviewing for so you don't waste your and their time. Haven't they given a contact name on the email? Can you give them a call just to confirm? It's unlikely that the person emailing you will be doing the interview.

A CBI is a competence-based interview. Yes, one where the questions are based on evidence of your skills instead of content-specific jobs. Competences often include things like problem-solving, working with others, delivering results. In some ways, these interviews are easier to prepare for because you can think up specific examples, but if you do lots of them in a short space of time they're quite tedious.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the info.

They do normally recruit directly, they advertise on their own website and also in New Scientist, so if the advertised job is the one they are offering me then I shouldn't have any less information than anyone else. I'll ask lots of questions about it at the interview anyway, of course.

I wasn't really relishing the prospect of going on the dole once my PhD is finished, I'm not sure what kind of conversation I would have with the people at the job centre.

You're doing pretty well to be getting interviews before you're even finished. Most PhD students in the latter stages are incapable of stringing any kind of thought/sentence together that is NOT related to their thesis. So congratulations on holding on to the bigger picture!

I'm afraid I'm not made from the typical obsessive mould, I needed to think/talk about other things (hence the applying for jobs outside of academia). MN has been keeping me sane! At least, I think it has. It's hard to tell what's sane and what's not after a while on here.

VG
My dh was a theoretical physicist many moons ago and lots of his friends did doctorates too in various disciplines, but mainly when there were fewer financial pressures on students.