Within 4 days of my on-site, they offered me the job verbally with a detailed offer on salary, benefits, bonus, holidays, etc., and the following business day I received the written offer!

I had a great feeling after I came home from the interview! I used the STAR method all the way for these questions.

Have you had any time management problems, how did you handle those.

Have you had any conflicts, how did you handle them,.

Since this job also has an Analytical Team Lead function, which requires working with people from many different departments, I was also asked some classic behavioral questions such as:

Within 3 days of my phone interview, they called me to schedule an on-site interview!Īt the on-site interview I gave a 45 minute talk and had 7 one-on-one interviews (30 mins each) with the various members of the group, the director, other team-leaders, and lunch with the scientists on the team. Some more detailed technical questions about assay development.How would I go about setting up some assays and.Do you have any project management experience.Tell me how you would fit into this role.They asked me some behavioral questions such as: This was really exciting news, but slightly nerve-wracking as well! This second phone interview, for this PhD level job, was more detailed than the first one.

I had to have patience and it was hard, and painful.ĭuring this time, I kept networking elsewhere for other positions.įour months after the initial phone interview, I decided to reach out again and asked whether there was any progress to bring me on-site for the position.Īnother month went by and I was able to reach out again to the hiring managers who told me that they thought I was overqualified for the 1st position, and that they wanted me to have another phone interview for a higher-level position that required a PhD. They never dropped me from the candidacy, but I learned that for several reasons their hiring process was going slower than usual. I kept following up every 2 to 3 weeks, for about 3 months, but didn’t hear anything about an on-site interview. Do you have any questions for me (we had already spoken for about 20 mins or so, so I asked him 3-4 questions I had already prepared to ask).Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years.Tell me more about your start-up industry experience.How do you think your experiences relate to the job.This was a 30 min phone call where the hiring manager described in detail what their department does, what the position entails, and asked me the following questions: I kept following up every 2 to 3 weeks and finally 2 months later, I had a phone interview with the Group Leader who was also the hiring manager for the position. The phone screen went well, but I kept waiting to hear back about the next steps. What is your flexibility with a start date.How did you hear about our company and this position specifically.What kind of challenges do you expect in this role.How does your experience fit into the job description.I reached out to him and expressed my interest in a couple of positions. I attended a networking event and made a few valuable contacts, one of whom gave me his email and asked me to send in my resume. I started polishing my resume and LinkedIn profile, attending as many networking events as I could in the area, connecting to people on LinkedIn, setting up informational interviews. So there’s that big ugly gap on my resume that I was so afraid of, but it didn’t even matter in the end.

My transition to this job took about 8 months. I knew that I wanted to have a job with a dual role, that of a bench-scientist, and also having responsibilities of a project to manage. I have been wanting to write a transition story of my own for so long….so here it is! I know I probably didn’t do everything right, made mistakes, had doubts, and my confidence faltered many times….but I kept on pushing. I am happy to announce that I have accepted a position as a Scientist / Analytical Team Lead.

Resume star method