I’ve been told I’m on a shortlist for a postdoctoral position in CS in Italy: a miracle! I’ll be flying out in two weeks time for a “kick off meeting” (the program is funded by the EU and is about to start). Whilst the job isn’t exactly what my PhD was in, it’s closely related, and a good match for what I like and can do (it’s also partly based in Edinburgh, and I know some of the people involved here).
Is there anything to watch out for with academic interviews? Are they just like normal job interviews? Has anybody got any tips?
First of all, one little note: kick-off meeting and EU finance: I guess that this is a European research project, which is a multi-million euro cooperative projects. In brief, some labs, usually 4-5, designed a multidisciplinary projects, applied and got the jackpot. This means that now they have a lot of money and need to hire people. You have to know that these projects are more or less serious: in some cases the consortium of labs is actually actively trying to archieve some goals, in some others they just wanted the money and their involvment in the project will be to fill annual reports and otherwise let the post-docs do whatever they like (as long as they publish).
Anyway, if you are actually part of a EU project, they may appreciate if you are ready to collaborate between various labs, to make travels between various cities, to take part in writing reports, and if you are opened to multidisciplinary research.
The thing about academics in general is that they expect you to be bright, motivated and independent.
In a normal job, they open a position in order to work on a specific task. In academics, they may have a research project associated with the position, but they are frequently very opened to people bringing their own ideas and will favour them in a lot of situations.
The ‘job’ of a lab is to produce publications, if possible high ranking. You need to show that you are able to make these publications.
Congrats on the postdoc interview - I’d say they probably are like normal job interviews at heart, but minus a lot of the formalism and ritual that might attend a corporate job interview.
When I interview postdocs I’ll have a rough idea of how good they are anyway from their cv and references, so I’m more looking to get a picture of their motivations. Not just how motivated they will be in the lab, although that is obviously very important, but what are their goals for doing a postdoc? It’s surprisingly easy to uncover a lack of long term focus, even in very good people, who are drifting into a postdoc without clear goals. So I try to explore that issue, and look for evidence of their ambition within the field. Postdocs who are set on an academic career are (usually) gold-dust, but industrially-orientated folk can be just as good if they have that same focus.
The other big thing I look for is evidence of creativity, but with the qualification that I need people who will be creative within the broad parameters of my research. Labs thrive on new faces bringing in new ideas and methods (as Oukile says), and I certainly want to see some evidence that the person is going to take intellectual charge of the project, but I don’t want someone setting up camp way outside the realm of my interests - it’s too disruptive. Citizenship within the lab is also really important so I try to get a sense of that - I’m honestly fine with clashes of opinion over science / research direction, but if someone won’t contribute to general lab responsibilities, or makes a big deal out of me asking them to supervise a project student etc than I can’t work with them.
What can ruin an interview for me is hearing highly opinionated, ale-house statements about the field and the way it is. Talking shit about the state of the literature is pretty much part of a PhD student’s job description (I know I did enough of it :)), but needs to be kept out of a job interview. I’m sure you wouldn’t do this but I thought I’d mention it because I’ve had it happen a few times in my last round of interviews - must be the informal nature of them.
Anyhow, just some thoughts on a few things the interviewer might be thinking of. I’m a chemist, so obviously a fair way away from CS. Best of luck in any case.
Yes, the project is a collaborative project between three sites in the EU: one in Edinburgh, one in Bologna, and one in Germany somewhere (Munich?). I think they’re very serious about what they’re doing: I’ve just received an e-mail saying I may need to sign an NDA (I think there’s a lot of scope for commercializing what they’re doing), though this may be a function of the Italian bureaucracy, more than anything else.
I don’t mind supervising students (though the student may mind me supervising them :p). I don’t tend to pontificate about the state of the field, I leave that to my supervisor, so I should be OK there.