Interview worst case scenarios and how to deal with them

[VBD]

I'm sure people who've gotten interview offers or are hoping for them are planning what to say, and what to do to make a good impression. However, not everything will happen the way you want it to. Last year, I went on three interview weekends, and unfavorable scenarios happened. Let's have a compilation of the scenarios and how to overcome it for those extra cautious people. Basically, upon reading these, realize that it can't get worse, but you have a way to overcome it and not lose your head in the middle of the interview. Yay not losing your head!

 

Bad scenario: I went to an interview in the south of US, having lived and pursued two degrees in the Northeast. The interview was in February. I know I have pollen allergies, but decided not to bring it on the visit since, there's no flowers blooming that early. Wrong. The minute I landed, I started sneezing. I was pulling through it ok, until my third interview of the day (next to last one) during which I sneezed and blood came out. Cue my interviewer's horrified face at my sudden nose bleed. There was still 15 mins of the 20 min interview left.

What I did: I quickly grabbed tissues from my pocket (pre-prepared, yay!) and held it to my nose. I asked him if he wanted to continue. He agreed, and we finished the interview with me speaking in a slightly nasally voice. (Feel free to laugh, I'm laughing =D) Luckily it stopped before my next interview. After the weekend, I sent an email apologizing to the interviewer for scaring him. He sent back an email laughing it off. Yay
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Bad scenario: I had sent the interview weekend coordinator a list of POI's I would like to talk to. When I got my syllabus, half the people were not even close to my research interest. (They were in HIV stuff, I was interested in water-borne diseases) 

What I did: I'm still not sure if I handled this right. I had some questions about the general program that I asked them. I asked a little on their research (I looked up some of their work). But I tried to steer the conversation to MY experience and how I could benefit their department. Feel free to comment on what I could have done better. Maybe we could generate a better set of questions to ask an interview who's not your POI?
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Bad scenario: A POI I really wanted to interview with at the interview weekend. Backed out an hour before all the events were about to start. The coordinator asked me to meet with a random professor. The interview was awkward at the beginning, since he wasn't expecting me as well.

What I did: Ease the tension with a light joke. He laughed, and then with a more relaxed atmosphere, I asked him how he wanted to get started, did he want me to talk about myself. Delighted at my giving him an out, he said sure and we talked about my research for the full time. Also, I had been carrying extra copies of my CV just in case, so I was able to pass them to him and he could generate questions as we went. 
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Bad scenario: I really liked the work of this POI and had a lot of questions to ask him. Unfortunately, he's a bit of a curmudgeon. Upon asking him about X project. He interjected really quickly and said he wasn't doing that anymore (I was confused since the paper I was citing was from 2011). I then asked him about his other projects, and he gave extremely curt answers (ie. Not sure. Yes. No. Ask someone else.) I asked him if he wanted to know more about my research. He said No.

What I did: Yeah, I really don't think I handled this well. The interview ended awkwardly, and I'm pretty sure I failed to make a positive impression. So perhaps, I need to think of a good way to end a horrible interview on a good note. 
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I hope this doesn't make anyone more nervous about upcoming invites. >.<

[PhDreams]

This is really great. Thanks for sharing! Bloody nose... eek! I'm glad you got through it like a champ!

[SeriousSillyPutty]

Prepared with Kleenex and CVs... well played.

This isn't a worst case scenario, but one of my interviews was (fortunately) after my lunch with the current grad students who warned me that the head of the department wouldn't ask me any questions about myself; he would just ask, "what do you want to know?" Fortunately I had made a list of questions for each prof based on their online profile, and I could just review that before meeting with him. However, if I had gone into that situation unprepared, it could have felt awkward.

I had (have) pretty specific interests, so most of the people I met with weren't really related to what I wanted to do. I was glad I was able to look at their profiles ahead of time and find some common ground. Sometimes I had to go beyond the academic: One prof had worked with youth in poetry slams (I'm a science ed person) so I asked her if she'd done anything with the local story slams going on, because I've participated in those. She'd also worked with technology/gaming and education, so I asked her her thoughts on kids spending so much time on video games. She told me about a paper to read, I took note of it (always good to have a notebook on hand) and then had something to talk about when I sent the thank-you email.

The morning of my visit/interview (they never called it an interview, just a visit where I had scheduled meetings with several profs -- which just made it a wee bit more to plan for, but I digress) I put on my suit and realized that the jacket I planned to wear looked kinda dumpy, even though my other suit I knew didn't fit (ah the joys of weight fluctuation). I opted to wear the suit skirt and a sweater at the last minute, and it ended up being fine. I found out from the current students that the girls who tended to tress up had warn suits, while those who tended to dress down hadn't, and it all worked out. Still: Try on your outfit a few days before, just so that you know things fit how you think they do.

Oh: If you're driving to an interview, knowing the closest place to park and having a parking pass is NOT enough. Spots fill up fast, and you don't want that panic of not finding a parking space when you're barely making it on time because of a last minute wardrobe malfunction. (Trust me.) Assume that you will have to circle around the parking and then end up at the farthest possible place from where you want to be and then walk from there.