Had a telephone interview for an industrial PhD position with two supervisors yesterday, which was an interesting experience. Had been studying the whole week for it, but didn't go quite as I had planned :-/

I liked one of the interviewers who asked direct, to the point, specific questions. I could answer most of them correctly and he was quite encouraging about it, but unfortunately, he's not the main supervisor.
The other prof (who is the main supervisor) asked very general, vague questions like "tell me what you know/studied about subject X". When I would answer, he would just say "That's OK, but its very general/basic, not specific/advanced". At one point he named a subject which isn't on my transcript. I pointed out that I may still have studied it under a different subject or name (which after googling it later, I found out I have), so if he could give me the name of a specific topic or technique he has in mind, I would be able to confirm if I've done it. I asked him this twice, but he kept on saying "oh, no no, just in general about subject Y". He kept on repeating the titles of the subjects he wanted, without asking anything specific - and if I gave a general answer, he'd say it was too general/basic.

Then he also asked me about my university ranking and how indexed my publications are (ISI, impact factors etc). I must say it was all quite unexpected for me and left me feeling a bit negative about the whole experience.

Was wondering if these types of questions are usual in PhD interviews??

Hi Lude, I can't speak for industrial PhDs but I had two interviews for health sciences PhDs and they were both completely different. One involved a five panel interview board who wanted to know all about me and my qualities and was very formal while the other was much more relaxed but wanted to know more about my knowledge of research methods etc. so I essentially am saying there doesn't appear to be a strict format for PhD interviews and it varies from institution. When will you hear if you're successful?
Best of luck
A

I liked one of the interviewers who asked direct, to the point, specific questions. I could answer most of them correctly and he was quite encouraging about it, but unfortunately, he's not the main supervisor.


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watson

Sounds frustrating. Makes you wonder what that individual would be like as a supervisor...

Thanks for the replies.
Yes, it was a very frustrating experience. I know that there isn't any set interview questions and they vary highly, but what really got me was the questions on my university's ranking and my publication indexing. I have already put my university's world ranking (which isn't GREAT, but ok), and my citation count (which is quite ok) in my CV. But the bothersome interviewer kept asking "how is it ranked in the region? in the country? for engineering?". I just don't see how that's relevant to the position. Or questions about why I didn't submit to the best journals.

He even sighed several times and asked the other guy about how much longer they have for the call, and ended with "well, all the best with your future endeavors". The nicer guy tried to cut him short with a "you'll hear from us by about end of next week". I'm not quite sure there's anything left to hear - or that I want to :-/
Well, experience.

I can't get over how rude that second guy was, or the Spanish inquisition on your impact factor/university ranking. I don't have any experience with Industrial PhDs but I would think that potential candidates going in would be even less likely to have publications than a purely academic PhD? Many candidates go into PhD programs having no publications, let alone a few in some B or C ranked journals (I'll be honest, I think those journal rankings a little bit bullsh*t but understand the premise).

I wouldn't get too upset about university rankings, they can be rather arbitrary in the grand scheme of things and some are based on exclusion rates.

That second guy sounds like he just wanted someone who already had a PhD/level C academic as opposed to an actual PhD student and is too preoccupied with status. A good supervisor understands that the PhD is a learning process, and you'll undoubtedly come in with little knowledge, and come out with some good experience (hopefully!).

It's a horrible experience, but the fact that you have publications already is really good! I hope you have better luck with future applications!