Transcript | Academia et al: S03E03

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Female voice 00:00:00 

You're listening to an IOE podcast powered by UCL Minds. This is Academia et al., the podcast for anyone and everyone figuring out life in academia. 

Keri Wong 00:00:23 

You're listening to Academia et al., the podcast for early career academics by early career academics. I'm Keri, an Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. 

Alina Pelikh 00:00:54 

And I'm Alina. I'm a Senior Research Fellow in Demography, also at UCL IOE. We’re the co-hosts for this podcast and like you, we’re early career academics, just trying to figure it all out.  

Keri 00:01:15 

This episode is a special one. Instead of interviewing a guest, listeners will be stuck with just me and Alina. As friends and colleagues outside of podcasting, we've spent a good amount of time sharing tips on job interviews of different kinds, navigating the next stages of our careers and supporting each other along the way and in out other roles.... 

00:01:26 

And in my other roles, I've also spent a lot of time advising students on their careers, but also recently going through a fair share of job interviews in academia, industry and policy roles as well. So we thought, well, hang on a minute here: maybe our beloved community of early career academics will also benefit from these conversations. 

Alina 00:01:48 

That's right. And in previous episodes we talked about various strategies of maximising the PhD experience and building up a portfolio of transferable skills. So tune in for our episode with our lovely guest, Jenny Chanfreau. And of course, many of us have a love-hate relationship with interviews. You really want one because that's a good sign of getting your foot in the door. And yet, it's always very stressful preparing for them. 

Keri 00:02:10 

So let's unpack this scary thing that is applying for jobs and preparing for the interview. I think we can separate this into two aspects: skill set and mindset. Step one. Great. You've submitted your application package, and all sorts of questions might be going through your head right now. When are they going to respond? 

00:02:34 

Did I include enough information? Should I be doing something in the meantime to prepare or am I just going to get on with my PhD or current job as I'm behind. All these questions and emotional states are valid. And really, it's not until you've been shortlisted that you are forced to think about the next steps. Often, you'll have very little time to prepare, say, a week. So in this crunch time, the natural question would be, what's next? What should I do to prepare for the interview? 

Alina 00:02:59 

Is it going to be online? Is it going to be in person? Do I need to prepare a presentation? How should I structure the presentation? These can all seem a bit stressful amongst all the other things you have to do in life. So this episode is all about the tips, the things that worked well for us that might give you a steer and save you some time along the way. 

Keri 00:03:22 

So we'll talk a bit about the application and CV, followed by the interview. Let's start. What do you usually do, Alina? 

Alina 00:03:41 

Wow, there's a lot to unpack. So I would say that step number one, that you read the job back very, very carefully. So the key point is once you've done it, you get as many people as you possibly trust to read it... because you might forget something. You might overlook certain things, or say the people who you will get it to read will not have known the desirable and essential criteria. So you just hand it on to them with a job pack. 

00:04:01 

And another thing is that you use the exact terms and words from the application. So for me that was a big thing to learn because it seems a little bit dull. Why would you use the exact words that they put as a desirable criteria? Like why is it, you know, everyone can read? But the thing is that you forget that not everyone who is going to be shortlisting you would know this desirable and essential criteria by heart because they might well... because someone else’s colleagues who is hiring will be handed over [the application] the same way you hand it over to your friends. So if it says specifically to show the application of your skills, say in longitudinal research, you literally just have to say, I have experience in longitudinal research of many years, a, b, c. 

00:04:49 

See, another thing I would say, don't forget that your CV needs to be up to date and it's important to have it structured. There are multiple surveys out there online and look up CVs of people in your department because that would be a good starting point. See how your supervisor, line manager or mentor or anyone else that you trust, like how their CVS look like and something that I've recently been advised is don't be shy to use words like leader or organiser. 

00:05:26 

So say you’re organising an early career network or you’re organising a seminar series or anything else. So rather than modestly putting involved in organising or part of organising committee, just put leader, put organiser. And to be honest, that's something I've been recommended from by someone who actually does that for, who actually does screen other people's CVs for their job. 

00:05:52 

So, I’ve said so far about CV and about getting the other people to read and how to structure your application. Now, the next step would be a mock interview and a practice where you arrange mock interviews with as many people as you can, your critical friends who will give you honest feedback. It usually takes a few runs. 

00:06:16 

It's never the first go and you might restructure the whole interview. You might restructure, not the interview, the whole presentation package, and it inevitably will happen. So, don't be frustrated if after the first interview you get so many questions that it will feel like you failed. But that's a learning curve. It means that by the time of the actual interview you will be super prepared. 

00:06:40 

So do all those practice rounds. And do you think about different kind of interview questions? We're going to talk about them in a minute, but try to stay focused and try to not give too lengthy answers. So try to think whatever you get asked, you will have a very, you have a good benchmark of a few minutes how to wrap it up. Okay. So that's been lots. Keri, what would you throw into this bag as well? 

Keri 00:07:11 

I think just a few points for me, especially on the receiving end of applications, when it's important for you, when you're preparing the application package to remember that the person reading it again might not be in your area of expertise. They are actively looking out for those desirable characteristics. 

00:07:32 

So it's almost like a checklist method of making sure you use those exact words. I think that is a good tip. Something that has helped me in the past is printing out my whole application package, making sure that everything looks right ... the formatting of the whole application. But also it will be easier for you to spot any mistakes or grammatical errors once you print it out. 

00:08:00 

So that has been super helpful. I think oftentimes when you're writing the application, you forget because there are so many different parts to it, you don't know which to prioritise. And I would highly, highly suggest that for your applications that you prioritise your personal statement, this is usually where you're addressing how you meet each of the criteria and why you are the best, most suited person for the job. 

00:08:28 

I think the statement is really probably the first thing that people are likely to read, followed by all the other aspects such as your CV and supplementary documents. When you're writing the statement, it's important to make sure that the people reading it really understand what you're saying without having to flip across documents. Chances are they are reading it on their tiny screen on the computer, and they might not have things printed out as well the way you have it. 

00:08:58 

And so making it as easy as possible and almost spelling out your experiences is crucial. Another thing that helps, I think, is quantifying your experiences. Where possible, use numbers. Use feedback from participants or students, in this case, for... say, teaching experience. Add those in and it really does make a difference to the reader when they're trying to understand to what extent you have this experience and how you are qualified. 

00:09:30 

And so moving on then, more, maybe tips on interviews. Alina, I know you've recently been in one as well. Are you able to share maybe your experience of that academic interview and what you had done there that might help?  

Alina 00:09:51 

Sure, yeah. I think first impression was that I was taken aback by the amount of questions. I honestly thought that 30 minutes lasted like 90 and it felt that the questions will never end. 

00:10:02 

And some of the questions were very similar to each other. So you have to keep it cool without saying, like you've just asked me that, what else do you want from me? So it's kind of the point is you have to repeat yourself multiple times. That's okay. I mean not with the same questions, but you will genuinely repeat yourself and that's okay. 

00:10:24 

And if you have a message that you want to deliver to the panel that you are whatever A, B, C, pro-active or attentive to the detail or networking at the speed of light or, you know, you’re great at organising events or you already, I don’t know, consult in UN, WHO or anyone else, any other big international organisation. So you want that to come across very clear. 

00:10:51 

So use your, you know, use your thorough experience, use very concrete examples. So that's I think important as well. So if you asked about the difficult situations, it has to be something very, it has to be an example of a thing that happened to you. If it's... there’s a general question about what would you what do you find challenging in modern teaching? 

00:11:15 

You can talk, say about what you find challenging, but then come up with an example, what was challenging and how you overcame it. So I think it's a strategy of always showing that there's going to be a thousand challenges on your way, but you can manage them because you will come up... you don't know what those challenges are going to be yet, but you know that you will be able to come up with a reasonable solution to them. 

00:11:40 

Maybe another thing that jumps to mind and we'll talk more about the questions later... But one thing that really surprised me and I only found it out when asked for feedback. Oh, that's a that's a tip as well. Ask for feedback after the interview. Even if you don't get the job, ask for feedback and talk to the panel and ask, you know, what their impressions are and whatever they can share. 

00:12:04 

Use it for all of your future interviews. So, for example, one of the questions where I was told I could have done better, not from that point of a substantive answer, but from the point of not really knowing what this question was about. So I was asked to talk about my dream module that I could teach, and I think I did a very good job about that. 

00:12:26 

And then I was told what it actually was about is your research vision, which is kind of linked. But you can ask the question about your research vision directly and I think for me the trick was that if I use those words like saying everything that I've said, but I would start with I would bring my research vision into this module and then just say exactly the same words... 

00:12:47 

As I said, things would have flown differently because there are certain hidden rules that no one tells you. But the more you sit on panels, the more you actually know what they actually want from you is really like to tick this box of making, you know, like winking to them. I know. I know what it is, but it's going to be. 

00:13:04 

Yeah. See, so that I find really hard. That's just some very quick thoughts and I might ask some more. But Keri, what are yours? I know that you've had not only academic, but also industry and public sector interviews. So please share your knowledge with us. 

Keri 00:13:26 

Great. So not that different to what you just said. And I think the first thing for me, especially sitting on the other side of the panel, is how the candidate is structuring their answer. I think you have very short or a limited amount of time to convey to the panel that you are the best person for the job. It's very important that you have those key, almost topic sentences when you start speaking rather than rambling on and then later realising, no, I haven't structured my answer properly. Something that has always helped me is thinking about, kind of the power of three. 

00:14:02 

I always come up with, say, three examples or maybe three areas that I'd like to change, or in most academic interviews, they would ask you something about research, something about teaching, something about your administrative capabilities or organising, you know community citizenship and that sort of thing. So if you're able to think just with those with those headings in mind, what are my key research contributions? 

00:14:28 

What are my teaching contributions, what have I done and shown that I can contribute to the community in terms of being a good citizen, those things will help better structure your responses and answers. I usually also think up of, kind of the concrete examples that Alina thought about. I like to put them on kind of flashcards and lay them out on the table, literally, so that when I am practicing interview questions, I can look at all of the examples that I have or of things that I've done to see how each of those might fit in to answering the questions specifically. 

00:15:10 

I think this definitely applies for both academic and also maybe industry, and in another case, kind of civil service interviews where they're wanting you to have concrete examples of things you've done and to show how you've dealt with that situation and what the result of that would be. So one thing that was quite a challenge between switching from academic interviews to, say, industry and civil service interviews was this idea of framing and structuring your answers using the star structure. 

00:15:42 

Some of you might know this already, but Star stands for, S stands for the specific situation and then T for task, A for action, and then R for results of the situation you're describing. I think it's helpful to think in that term, kind of the acronym, but for many academics, I certainly was one of them, really struggled to think of my answer or structure my answer in that way. 

00:16:09 

So it does take practice for you to think of an example that fits in that way. So practice is key. And then finally, you know, at the beginning of the episode, we talked about skillset, but also I think the importance of mindset for interviews is also key. So certainly, you want to rock up to your interview kind of early and not rushing to get there, especially if it is in person. 

00:16:36 

Figuring out the transportation, where that places for your interview is, is crucial, especially if it's online as well. You almost have to overemphasise your enthusiasm for the job that you want. I would say it really has to come through. Your voice is very key, also in terms of also your body language. I'm sure there are different ways or more formal ways of showing keenness, but you certainly want to show the panel that you're willing to contribute to the department and faculty, that you have your own ideas about teaching, yet you're also flexible in helping out with whatever is needed. 

00:17:13 

That's also really key. You're great, you're a great researcher. You can handle things well and you're able to contribute to the community. And so, I think all of those things together really determine the mindset that you go into the interview with. And certainly this is one thing I'm still practicing, which is remembering to smile. When you're at the interviews, oftentimes we get very stressed out thinking about what to say, that we then forget that actually it is as much of an experience of you figuring out whether this is a department or group that you want to work in. 

00:17:46 

So show that you are also enjoying the process as well. Finally, always ask a question at the end. It also shows how prepared you are, how much you know about the faculty, how interested you are in them. 

00:18:03 

And I think sitting on the panel that really comes through as something that does or can set candidates apart from each other. So those are my tips for interviews.  

Alina 00:18:24 

I agree to everything you said, with everything you said, and especially with the last point about asking a question about the faculty, you can look up what kind of project you’re being hired for. You can ask about the future vision of the centre. You can ask about the funding, you can ask, you know, certain questions that would show that you can picture yourself as part of this department. Or also, if you're not, then that's the way to test it as well. Whether you want to be part of this department, if they tell you no, we're not, we don't have any money for that, you're going to be forever a slave teaching with no research time that's it. 

00:18:52 

You need to know what you're signing up for. One thing I just remembered is that you can, you’re always allowed to take pen and paper to the interview and you can use the time that you smile or think about the question, you can always say, let me just write this down or you can ask in the beginning, Do you mind if I take notes? 

00:19:10 

Because sometimes the questions are very long and you’re like, Jesus Christ, like, could you just not split that into three? So sometimes I just write down very quickly, okay, there was 1 point, 2 point, 3, and then while you’re answering the question, yeah, it does happen that, okay, I see that your also ask this point. So let me just elaborate a little bit on this point because you might not remember, you might be taken too far away in your answer and you need to bring yourself back.. to like a structured... structure. 

00:19:40 

So and then you can always quickly bring yourself back. Sorry, I just am coming back to the point of your question and that's what we’re going to do. Definitely, that's something that I would add. And as well as smile and confidence and arriving on time and just doing something before the interview that you know, would put you in a good mindset, if it's taking a walk in the park to listen to some good music or anything else that might help you. 

00:20:11 

So don't start writing an email. Don't read an email before you go into the interview. So get your head very straight and focused and do... It's like a game of tennis. Like you have to keep the focus. But in this case, a ball is your interview panel. So just get this eye contact and keep it on so, keep smiling at them and continue to smile back. 

00:20:33 

And even if they don't. So I usually try this strategy. But and of course, coming back to the next point, we already talked about some of the questions, but inevitably you try and guess what the questions might be. And judging by the length of the interview that you are being told in advance whether it's going to be an hour, half an hour, 15 minutes, you can sort of imagine how thorough is it going to be? 

00:20:58 

And above and beyond what Keri said about the three different sides of teaching and research, admin, you would know whether that's going to be more of some than the other. And prior to this episode, we've also reached out to our community of academics and asked them what interview questions have taken you by surprise or which one you find the most ridiculous because you need to get prepared for anything, even if you find the question ridiculous, you're not allowed to laugh out loud. 

00:21:28 

You should be just like, nice of you to ask.  

Keri 00:21:31 

Very interesting question.  

Alina 00:21:43 

Yes, like very interesting questions. And so, yes, here is... here are some of them. So we're going to read them out loud and we're going to discuss them a little bit. And the first question was, the first thing that our... okay, the first thing that we received was: Rarely got invited for interview because I graduated during COVID 2020. 

00:21:59 

Nobody has even talked about this difficult time. I still feel stagnant and trapped by those last years. I think this is an incredibly important point and just for anyone of you, to remind that this podcast came about during the isolation of COVID times, and we didn't know... 

00:22:25 

I just joined UCL. I didn't know anyone. I didn't know how to, how... which groups to join. Everything was a little bit slow and not moving. And only after discovering the IOE Early Career Network, I started feeling a little bit more like home and we started talking about all the things that matter, about isolation, about mentoring and about career stages, so that literally anything that you just didn't know who to talk about because there was no there was no community or there was no one to listen to, we didn't know how to find them. 

00:22:59 

And it was incredibly helpful to find the people to talk to and I think especially for those who are looking for jobs, it's an insanely difficult time because like scheduling those coffee talks or mentoring chats over coffee via Zoom, they just got old very quickly. And it's... it became... it's nothing like just catching someone in a corridor and asking for their opinion. 

00:23:26 

And I think we just wanted to highlight that we feel you and there's so many people who... and especially early career academics who were affected by it and who are just now landing on their feet and learning about all those intricacies of job talks and negotiating job offers, and I don't know Keri whether you can add something to that. 

Keri 00:23:50 

Yeah, I think I think especially during COVID, the interviews where you've either moved online and now some of them are still online versus in person. And so for PhD students who are in this position, as I said earlier as well, it's really important that you're able to show how keen you are through your voice. Almost as oftentimes things can be still online and you'll be presenting online and so forth. 

00:24:19 

So it's important that you almost have that readiness. You're almost expected to be very good at Zoom and teams and sharing screen and all of that, that stuff. So making sure you're ready for those moments as well I think is important.  

Alina 00:24:39 

Okay. Moving on to our next answer. I was asked if I could explain how is it possible to feel lonely in a crowd, relevant to the post, but it took me by surprise. That's a really interesting one. I think that takes some time to think about how to answer this.  

Keri 00:24:51 

Yeah, definitely. And I guess, you know, as we said, sometimes these questions are thrown at you on the spot and it is okay. I've certainly done this as well. In an interview when asked, okay, can you give me some time to just kind of think about that question or as Alina suggested, writing the question down? 

00:25:17 

Certainly, don't rush into giving an answer. Think about it clearly before you respond.  

Alina 00:25:50 

Excellent. The next one is questions about how to deal with difficult team members. And someone made a note that doesn't really set good expectations. I see what they mean. But I always say that it's a question that you will inevitably, inevitably be asked. How do you handle multiple people? People from different cultural backgrounds? How do you organise people? How do you organise meetings? So I think that's... it's very important to think how you can answer those questions. And I wouldn't say this is necessarily about the expectations, but it's about testing whether you can deal with challenges. 

Keri 00:26:25 

Yeah, I would probably just add to this, which is the star structure I spoke about earlier. I think it's great if you're able to come up or almost in your pocket, have a few examples where you've had to deal with difficult team members or had to overcome a difficult challenge or situation. That's also another way of phrasing the same question, in which case they're really wanting to get you to describe what was the situation, what was the task in that situation that you were involved with. 

00:26:56 

What then did you... what action did you take and also what the result of it is? So using that star structure can be quite helpful in this instance to show you've already experienced or had this experience and you're able to excel at dealing with that situation as well. 

Alina 00:27:16 

Definitely. Another one is tell me about an interesting scientific finding you read about recently, not related to your own subject. That's actually very interesting. I know actually a friend of mine was asked, do you... or something across the lines. Tell me who you read in those days. This is a very sociology question. But again, be prepared. You might be asked that. And it could also be teach us a complex concept in two minutes, pretend we undergrads with little background knowledge. 

00:27:43 

So you have to be prepared for that. And Keri also talked about the question about your greatest weakness. And many of you know that you have to turn it into your strength. But for those of you that haven't been out at the interview yet, this again, it is a very banal question that everyone should know, that you should turn it into your strength. 

00:28:02 

But again, that's not something that is easy to do on the spot unless you prepared it in advance. And you can really be taken aback for that and so the other one I would say is if you're straight after your Ph.D., then the panel will be testing how much of your PhD is actually you and how much is your supervisor. 

00:28:25 

So you definitely have to be prepared for detailed questions on methodology, coding, which software you use, who wrote up which parts, and have you considered who kind of came up with the main conclusions. So that is something that.. is not ...those are questions not against you, but those are the questions to test every candidate's ability to again think on the spot and also justify that what they've done was their own idea or whether it wasn't your own idea, you can still turn it as a few and into a learning curve. 

00:28:59 

It's something that you've learned as being part of the project, part of the team. 

Keri 00:29:09 

And then I guess before you know it, your interview will be over. So it’s super important that you actually enjoy the process. And after it's done, it really is... becomes a waiting game. You know, you've done all you can give at your best and you should forget about it because it's now out of your hands as the panel might still have other interviews to conduct. 

00:29:27 

And so I would usually suggest scheduling something nice to do after interviews. I certainly did this and went for tea or something like that after just to reward yourself on having a done a good job. 

Alina 00:29:44 

Excellent. And before we wrap up for today, we wanted to talk just a couple of words about where to find resources to help you prepare for the interview. 

00:29:50 

So first of all, it's very likely that somewhere on your university webpage there will be a list of potential interview questions. For example, we found one by a published by the London School of Economics, and you can find it in our notes alongside our own baby... our little additional list of questions that we put together between the two of us, and also asked those in our networks to contribute to. 

Keri 00:30:13 

And for those of you who are based at UCL, we highly recommend signing up for the UCL Careers Newsletter, which regularly advertises free courses on creating a CV and a LinkedIn profile. People should be able to Google you and find an up-to-date academic page as well as profile photo of you as well. UCL academics also have free access to LinkedIn learning as long as you have a LinkedIn account which will help you with job preparation, academic and non-academic career sessions, interview sessions and so forth. So I remember signing up for these courses during Cambridge times and they were really excellent. 

Alina 00:30:47 

And I did those do in Liverpool that were very, very helpful and give you an idea of how life is going to look like and what it's going to throw at you. Many thanks. And that's about wraps our discussion for today. We hope you find it useful and please share your feedback with us after listening. 

Keri 00:31:07 

Thank you for listening to Academia et al. I’m Keri Wong. 

Alina 00:31:10 

And I'm Alina Pelikh. 

Keri 00:31:11 

And thanks for joining us today. You can learn more about Alina's research on her UCL Q&A page and my Q&A page as well. Or you can follow her on at @AlinaPelikh on X. 

Alina 00:31:24 

And you can follow Keri on X, @DrKeriWong as well. You can also follow the IOE Early Career Network at @IOE_EarlyCareer. 

00:31:36 

And if you liked what you've heard, have suggestions for content or want to be our next podcast guest, send us an email at ioe.earlycareer@ucl.ac.uk. Thanks for listening! 

Female voice 00:31:52 

Academia et al. is brought to you by the IOE’s Early Career Network. This podcast is presented by Dr. Keri Wang and Dr. Alina Pelikh. The theme music was created by Roni Xu. Amy Leibowitz is the series producer, and Sarah-Jane Gregori is the executive producer. 

Thanks so much for downloading and listening to this IOE podcast.