D6: Perform well at interview
Introduction
As with cover letters and application forms, there is little difference in the advice we would offer a researcher to any other applicant. How you prepare and perform is almost the same. For this reason, we have provided a list of useful resources and advice at the end of this section.
The main difference about being a researcher is that the employer is bound to be intrigued about your research and ask specific questions about that, as well as your motivations for leaving academia.
Expect to be asked these and have some constructive and positive answers ready that show you as a forward looking, reflective person who learns from experience.
For example, if you are asked why you are choosing to leave a research career for a different role in a different sector, it might be tempting (and the honest reality!) to say:
“I tried to get funding for my research and also applied for permanent teaching posts, but after several years of rejection and uncertainty, I have decided to try a new career”
Try to make sure your answers are constructive and forward-looking, informed by evidence or your experiences in the past:
“Being a researcher and negotiating the fixed-term nature of that career has made me very resilient but has also helped me to realise that I want to have the opportunity to use my skills to have a longer-term impact. I can see that in this new role I would be able to progress and develop and see that I can make a long term and sustainable contributions to the project/industry/organisation/world”
Describing your research skills to employers at interview
The advice in previous sections about marketing your skills apply to interviews as well. At interview, however, you will have the opportunity to expand on and add to the examples that you provided in your application.
The key to articulating your skills and experience to employers is to look beyond what you are and do specifically and reframe it in terms of how and why you do things, and what this means in a broader context.
For example, you may be a postdoctoral organic chemist, you may be researching a very specific field or conducting very specific experiments. Many non-academic employers will neither understand nor be interested in this. You need to explain your skills and experience in a way that helps them to:
· Understand what you have done (in non-technical terms)
· Interpret why this is important (the skills you used/experience you gained) and that it is of high quality.
· See how this will enable you to do the job well and help them to achieve their aims.
If you can explain your experience and skills well it not only shows that you understand yourself, but also that you understand them and what they need (and that you have commercial awareness).
Interviewing the interviewer and discussing salaries
Use some of the questions you have generated in activity 2 in section
C2 to interview your potential employer about their culture, working practices etc. These will guarantee you can get beneath the surface and really find out about the job and organisation. If you are still stuck, get some inspiration from
Prospects’ 7 good questions to ask at interview.
Top tip: don’t try to negotiate salary, flexible working or other benefits during the interview. Only raise these in your negotiations once you have been offered the post. See section
D7 (Responsd to job offers and negotiate salary). That said, you may be asked at interview to disclose your current salary and say what you would expect as a starting salary. Prepare in advance for this question. You can use some of the guidance in section D7. Also, do some market research on salaries for similar roles elsewhere on sites such as
Glassdoor and
jobs.ac.uk which have salary checkers.
Case study quotes
Learn to tailor your explanation appropriately: the answer you give about your dissertation to a book editor is different than what you’d tell an executive director of a non-profit you’re interested in or a director of a government agency, or what have you. Learn to be strategic — not in a manipulative way, but in a way that uses the sharp thinking skills you’ve built and shows that you can make innovative connections between disparate ideas, topics, contexts, etc. And don’t forget how hard it is to complete a PhD, and how meaningful it is that you are in that tiny sliver of the population who has managed to do so. It’s easy to downplay it when everyone around you has one; but outside of academia, it’s pretty unusual, and really sets you apart from the crowd as someone with drive, commitment, intelligence, and broad skills. (And who is also lovably nerdy.). Alisa Harrison, Beyond the Professoriate career stories
Though on the surface it doesn’t look like I use my doctoral training in my current work situation, many aspects of doctoral study prepare you for starting a business. For example, as a doctoral student and in teaching you have to be aware of your positioning and branding. This is in finding a gap to research and focus on, and in communicating the value of this to peers. Successful academics are successful because they can sell their work to other academics. Source: Vitae researcher career stories – Kenneth Mostern.
Further resources and reading
Almost all of the websites on the main reading list have advice on preparing for interview.
Back to D: Take action D7: Respond to offers and negotiate salary
