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It is this time for the year again when university graudates are looking for a job after graduation
As someone who has only held one job all his adult life, I am hardly an expert to talk about the art of preparing for a job interview. However, Here I am talking about “interview” in the general sense of selling yourself or your ideas and convincing others (to hire you, to adopt your ideas, to appoint you to be in charge of a task, etc.) Everyone everyday throughout our lives are either consciously or unconsciously engaged in this endeavor. For scholars, whether it is writing a paper to be published, a proposal to win a grant, or giving a presentation, you are SELLING something. It may not be a one-on-one situation as in a job interview, but nevertheless you need to “put your best foot forward”.
Here are my own experiences presented to share with you, particularly for young scholars starting out.
1.BE PREPARED: This is the boy scouts’ motto. It should be yours also. Let me say you can never be over-prepared. Here both “substance” and “form” are important. Substance or content means doing deep research on whatever it is you are selling, e.g., on the company you are applying for a job or the presentation you are about to make on a paper. Unless you have the real stuff, superficiality will be found out sooner or later. And it is usually the former since the party to whom you are trying to sell yourself is either your potential future boss or someone more experienced than you, e.g. an expert reviewer of your manuscript. Beside, you cannot fool anybody all the time.
As to form. I have previously written about how to “make a presentation”, “how to write a paper” and other related topics http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=274536 . There is no need for me to repeat them here.
2.BE PASSIONATE: Skilled interviewer will very quickly detect whether or not you are sincere in your quest. Thus, even if this job is your second choice and you are applying merely as a backup plan, you must conduct the interview as if this is your first choice. Otherwise, it is a waste of time both for the interviewer and interviewee. Look at it this way, an interview is a chance to learn, to grow, and to test your skill in selling your ideas. Behave to maximize the potential of this opportunity and you will be genuine.
3.KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: Nowadays with PowerPoint, there is no excuse not to modify your slides and talk to suit the audience you are addressing. Skilled politicians will routinely adapt their stump speech with local color, personalities, and jokes. Same rule applies when you are given an interdisciplinary talk to different scientific groups. In a job interview, of course you will not know beforehand the persons you will meet, but it should be possible to research the culture of the company. Google has very different styles of operation from, say the Bank of China.
4.Don’t forget to write a thank you note afterwards. This little courtesy can go a long way because so few people actually do this.
5.Finally, I am not familiar with the situation in China. But in the US if the company interviewing you decides to offer you a job, there comes the question of salary negotiation. This is a delicate zero-sum game situation. I know of no better place for advice on how to play it than the following website http://www.todaysengineer.org/2010/Mar/interview.asp
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