STEM PhD Interviews: My experiences

Applying for a PhD can be very different to applying for undergraduate courses. For starters you’ll have more experience under your belt and you’ll need to maximise on this expertise to distinguish yourself from other candidates. Once you’ve perfected your CV and submitted your application you may be faced with the prospect of an interview.

PhD interviews vary between institutions and depend on what you’re applying for: from a specific project through to a more generalised doctoral training programme.

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Specific Projects (Imperial)

In my experience if you are applying directly for a project then they can be less of an interview and more of an informal chat with a potential supervisor to check that you both get on well.

In fact when I first applied to Imperial I met with a potential supervisor to chat about projects prior to submitting my application. I included my supervisor’s name (as required) on the application and a week or two after submitting it I had an offer (though no funding), no “interview” required!

Often if you’ve already proven your academic capabilities it is sufficient for the university that your supervisor is happy to take you on.

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Doctoral Training Programmes (Leeds and Oxford)

My experiences with doctoral training programmes were quite different. Under these circumstances you’ll likely not have spoken to individual supervisors yet because you’re effectively applying for a course rather than a specific project. Therefore the interviews tend to be more formal and rigourous. I had interviews for two different DTPs: one at Leeds and one at Oxford.

My experience with the University of Leeds

At Leeds there were a panel of three interviewers all of whom were involved with different aspects of the  course and as such questioned me on varying topics. I won’t go into the specifics of the questions but they were a mix of the typical “why do you want to a PhD?” and more technical “how would you define [insert scientific term]?”

The interview panel were friendly and as long as you’d done a bit of homework none of the questions would have come as too much of a surprise.

My experience with the University of Oxford

My Oxford interview was similar to what you might expect. About a week in advance of the interview I was notified of a few general, but quite different, topics to prepare for. Two professors formed the panel and there was very little fluff with almost all the questions being technical.

Many of the questions involved doing some calculations on a pad of paper with the two professors watching over. It goes without saying to make sure you are as comfortable as possible with the suggested topics, however one of mine was as broad as “basic biology” which can be difficult to interpret as a non-biologist!

You might not be able to predict every question but there are certainly some which you should be prepared for.

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Ten Frequent Questions You Might Get Asked at a PhD Interview

Motivation:

1. Why do you want to do a PhD?
2. What relevant experience do you have?
3. What difficulties do you expect to face during your PhD?
4. Describe to us a time you’ve overcome a problem.
5. What do you want to do after your PhD?

Topic-specific:

1. What interests you in this field?
2. Why do you want to work with [this supervisor]?
3. Why do you want to study at [this institution]?
4. What are some recent advances in this field?
5. Where do you see this field developing in the future?

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What Interviewers Are Looking For

More than anything potential supervisors seek motivated students who want to learn and develop academically: this includes admitting that you do not know everything about every topic. So if something goes wrong in the interview, don’t panic.

Any academic experienced enough to conduct an interview will have seen lots of different responses from potential students. The best you can do is maintain your composure and take on board any feedback given to you.

If you’d like personalised help with your PhD application I am now starting to offer a small number of one-to-one sessions. See here for further details.

Best of luck if you have a PhD interview coming up. I hope that this article has been useful, if it has I’d love to hear about it! You can also subscribe for more content: