9 people?? Seriously?

[finally]

So my interviews/visits are starting on Friday.  Tonight I received an itinerary for the second one, which is in the middle of next week.  During a skype interview my POI asked me who else I'd like to meet (outside of the department) when I visit, so I flipped through the faculties of a couple of related departments and gave her a couple of names.  REALLY WISH I hadn't.  She included individual meetings with both of those and 7 other people including herself.

 

In a single day, 9 individual meetings, lunch and dinner with the department and a brown bag talk to attend.  And then home, in a single day.

 

I don't even know half the names, and I certainly don't have time to do more than a cursory review of their work...I have another interview that I have to fly to and from before that.

 

I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  This can't be normal.

[TakeruK]

This is pretty normal. You don't have to be an expert on the work of everyone you talk to. In my experience, academic interviews are not the same as regular job interviews. Definitely look deeply into a few people you might be interested in, but otherwise, spend time thinking about how you want to portray yourself. Learn/develop effective ways to communicate your research interests and explain/sell your experience and skills. 

[rising_star]

Sounds like the schedule of an academic job interview! You'll be fine. Just take every single bathroom break you're offered, even if you don't think you need to go. Carry some water and a nutrition bar of some sort (Clif, Luna, PowerBar, whatever you like) to snack on during your break.

[Eigen]

Sounds pretty normal- I'd even say a bit light, at least for my department. 

 

Most of our prospectives meet ~9 faculty, and then breakfast, lunch and dinner with grad students and other faculty. 

 

Most of my visits at other schools were about the same. 

[Queen of Kale]

This was my experience also, but the meetings were each so brief that I didn't have to do a great deal of research to be able to have a conversation with each person.  Mainly I just needed to remember the general overview of each persons research (as they would have on a website) and be able to explain my research, my fit, and my reasons for deciding to go to grad school.  After the first visit like this you'll have your elevator speech down pat.

 

Have fun!

[Eigen]

All of ours were 30 minute interviews. Definitely a long day!

[spectastic]

is it basically a personality fit thing or are they going to be digging into your technical knowledge? 

[TakeruK]

My meetings ranged from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, sometimes with one person at a time and sometimes with a couple of grad students at a time (usually those in the same office would chat with me together). In my case, all the visits were actual visits, not interviews (we had all been accepted already), so the point of the meeting was for both of us to get to know one another. For the profs, it was useful to chat to know what they are working on and what kind of projects they have for the next Fall. In many programs, you have to do one or more projects (whether it's rotations or otherwise) in your first year, so this is a good way to get a preview of what kind of work you could do if you attended. Also, a good way to gauge how you get along with a prof. Some people I talked to, I realised right away I would not want to work with this person.

 

The chats with the grad students are mostly to get to know one another too. It's also a useful way to find out information about courses, profs, the department, how they like the city, where to live, etc etc from the point of view of a grad student!

[Eigen]

All of mine were solo, and most of them were dig into my knowledge type chats. 

 

Either presentations of the PIs research with time for me to ask questions and comment, and/or questions about my research, what I'd been working on, and details of schemes and synthetic transformations and such. 

[punk123]

 I had a similar experience.  They ultimately just said (and I quote one of them), "This will be Dr. [POI]'s decision so we can talk about whatever you want."  Others told me they did not have any questions for me and expected me to ask questions, and others had such casual conversations with me that even cursed during the interview.  That was because I asked, "so what is your research about?" and they went off about it and they suddenly were on a 10-minute speech about why their research is so important and relevant.  Remember that academics tend to be high on narcissism (just because they are usually doctors), so use that your advantage.  

[aphdapplicant]

I had a similar experience.  They ultimately just said (and I quote one of them), "This will be Dr. [POI]'s decision so we can talk about whatever you want."  Others told me they did not have any questions for me and expected me to ask questions, and others had such casual conversations with me that even cursed during the interview.  That was because I asked, "so what is your research about?" and they went off about it and they suddenly were on a 10-minute speech about why their research is so important and relevant.  Remember that academics tend to be high on narcissism (just because they are usually doctors), so use that your advantage.

This.

Narcissism. My smoothest interview was with a narcissist...actually it was a monologue (his)...

[Plissken]

I don't know if I'd call it "narcissism." I mean, to be sure, there are certainly narcissists in academia, and I've met my fair share of researchers who are full of themselves, but for the most part I would say it's more that they're really passionate about their work and love to talk about it. Although I didn't have any formal interviews (I'm a thesis Master's student, not PhD), I did have several less formal interviews before being admitted. I'd tried to familiarize myself with their work before speaking to them, but found that they didn't expect me to know much; rather, they enjoyed speaking at length about their various projects and interests.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Plissken