Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode…

• First, Isaiah shares with you the 9 interview questions that PhDs transitioning today are being asked. 
• Next, Isaiah discusses Jeff Haden’s article ‘6 Interview Questions to Start Asking Every Remote Work Job Candidate (Covid Edition)’
• Finally, Isaiah offers some inspiration and hope to those struggling in the job market right now.

From This Week’s Show…

The 9 Interview Questions PhDs are being asked

We’re talking about interview questions that PhDs are hearing right now. These questions have changed quite dramatically since six months ago. 

Employers want to know that you’re open to either working remotely or onsite or in any fashion that might come up in the future. They want to know that no matter how the working environment changes, no matter what new regulations occur, that you are willing to do that.

They want to know how you manage your productivity. 

Tell me about a time you’ve been lonely on the job? I think as PhDs, certainly we can handle working alone autonomously, but there are those times when you need some sort of interaction.

Is there some work life balance that you could discuss to show them that you aren’t going to get burnt out or lonely? 

Tell me about a time you felt misunderstood on the job. What they’re asking is how did you reconcile that misunderstanding? How did you communicate with your superiors, with people working cross-functionally with you to become understood?

How are you recording your work to know if these changes are having a negative impact on performance, on productivity, on other business data, profits, and beyond. 

What’s more important people or data? Data objectively is very, very important. But to get big things done, there’s a team in place for a reason. And if you have a weak link on that team, for whatever reason that person’s having a bad day, they’re tracking the wrong data and they don’t realize it, people make irrational decisions often without knowing it. If we just follow the data and know every decision was rational, this would be easy, but it’s not. People can be irrational. Yes, tracking KPIs are important, but checking with people, communication matters. People are more important.

They’re looking for that certainty, give them that certainty. 

I really wouldn’t apply to a job right now if you’re not certain that you can be adaptable and flexible. 

6 Additional Interview Questions For Remote Work

There is a great article, written by Jeff Hayden, that has six additional questions.

Number two, how do you keep your team engaged and connected?  They’re looking for you to answer in terms of your leadership. So not just how you keep yourself on task, how you manage yourself, but how you would manage others.

What are the five things you always have in your workspace? And why? That’s focused on finding out how you keep yourself productive.

They want to know that you can work autonomously and also with a team. 

When you bring work home with you, it is more difficult to define a style. Is it more difficult to define a stopping point? 

Are you able to communicate when you need some balance or will you just wait and wait and wait until you explode?

So, look back throughout your professional career. So far, what helped you get to where you’re at good or bad? What new skills do you need to leverage? What new ways of communicating your current skills? 

You can get hired right now. You can get into the right job and you shouldn’t let anything hold you back as PhD’s, we know how to adapt to change. 

** for the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

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