Interview Days

[PsychGirl1]

So, I have inquired about the interview day/weekend format at most of my schools. This seems to be a fairly standard response: "You will meet with your POI one-on-one, and in addition, meet with other faculty in the same track, either one-on-one or in groups.", or, "You will interview with multiple faculty, one of which is your primary faculty of interest."

 

How do you prepare for these? Should I come in only knowing my POI's research and what I want to do with them or is that the kiss of death? Do I have to simultaneously prepare- to some degree- my interviews with every single possible faculty member, including knowing their research? I only specified one POI in my application, but I know that sometimes other faculty are still interested in possibly working with you despite that. I know that I can ask them general questions about clinical training, research-clinical focus, interdisciplinary work, research opportunities, etc., but not sure how much more faculty-specific it is supposed to be.

 

Anyone have any thoughts, or has anyone been through this before?

[psychsquirrel]

I would say you should be very familiarized with the POIs research and what you want to do and just briefly know the other faculty members' research! Good luck )

[psychdork]

The schools I interviewed at usually sent me my itinerary a few days in advance so I knew which profs I would be meeting with (besides my POI).  Now I don't know if all schools do this, but if your schools do, definitely take advantage of this.  Depending on the size of the department, you might only be interviewing with a handful of the profs, so in this case only research the background of the profs who will be interviewing you.  You do not have to know the other profs research interests as detailed as your POI's.  Just have a good idea what they do...skim their research interests on the department's webpage, and if you have time maybe skim the abstract of one or two of their publications.  I usually bring a portfolio with me to interviews and along with the questions I want to ask I usually try to sum up each prof's research interests into 5-10 words as a reminder.  You are applying to work with your POI - not the other profs and they realize this.  In my experience, they will not quiz you on their research.  In some cases, they might summarize for you ("I'm Dr. So-and-so, and I do research on blah blah"), in some cases they will spend 80-90% of the time talking about their own research in depth, and in some cases they will not even talk about their research at all, and focus solely on you.  Now if you are thinking that one day you might collaborate with them, then yes maybe have a better idea on their research but that's it.  If anything, having some knowledge of their research can be helpful if for whatever reason you both run out of things to talk about (although in my experience, that is probably unlikely).  Depending on the school you might find this preparation to be unnecessary, but the way I look at it is it can't hurt to be prepared.

 

Now as far as your POI, definitely do your research (if you haven't already) and have a solid idea of his/her interests.  Ideally, read a few of his/her articles before you go.  You do not have to know exact details of the studies but you should have a good idea.  Now they will not test you.  I have yet to hear of a POI who asked, "In my June 2012 publication, what was the total sample size?" but like I said, have a good idea.  Some POIs will ask about possible research studies you would want to conduct, so have something in mind in case this question comes up.  

 

For one-on-one interviews, typically you end up meeting with each faculty member for about 30 minutes.  In my experience, this time goes by fast!  I'm not a very talkative person and yet it seemed that most of the time I could have talked with each prof for at least another 30 minutes.  Because of this, there is no possible way for you to ask all of your questions to one professor alone (specifically your POI) so make sure that you have specific questions to ask him/her, and then the more general questions about the school/department to ask the other professors.  Also, it is perfectly acceptable to ask the same question to multiple professors, unless the question you ask is very odd they will never know you asked it to multiple faculty, and sometimes you end up with different answers.  Also, have questions for the graduate students.

 

Now, I'm not in clinical psychology, but I found my interview experience to actually be pretty enjoyable.  Yes, it can be stressful, especially leading up to the actual day.  However, you get to talk to multiple people about a field you both love.  You get to talk about your research and their research and the field in general.  And yes, you are being evaluated the entire time, but at the same time you get to evaluate them so keep that in mind.  

[PsychGirl1]

Thanks!! Definitely great advice, from both of you :-) Appreciated!