Thanks everyone for the advice!

I will look into the University a bit further to see if there is something that I like and can bring up in the interview. Otherwise I'll just go with the "I love the project" (which is true :P). Pm133, I wasn't really thinking of "faking", it was more of an expression, but noted!

Hi, everyone!

I have just received the invitation to chat with a PhD project supervisor. I am guessing that this is an informal interview (he mentions the chance to talk about my background and interests, skype with the other supervisor and current PhD students) and so I have started going through the list of possible questions that I may be asked.

This is a project that really interests me for the subject itself, and because one of the supervisors has several publications of impact in the area, and I haven't paid much attention to the Uni where it is held... So should I be honest and say it's not because of the institution but project+supervisor? Or should I "fake" my answer?

Mmm... I think your supervisor might be right. It depends on what you are doing. Are you doing Rna-Seq or analysing chromatin remodelling? (Or any other technique to check expression levels)

Different cells express different genes depending on function (differentiation). The genetic code will be the same for blood or tissue sample, but to truly compare what is going on you need to know which ones are being expressed in tissue (if healthy patient has gene A and disease patient has gene B instead , but these genes are not being expressed in your target tissue, it has no value for the question you are asking).

But, if you have:
Genes 1, 2 and 3 expressed in healthy samples
Genes 1,2, 3 and 4 in disease ones
You can make an assumption that gene 4 causes disease.

Thank you all for your advice, I have decided to send a short follow-up email because I won't see any of them in the following weeks. I have not mentioned my performance, just thanked them and apologised for tardiness again. I do hope they realised I was really nervous already.

Is it common to send a follow up email in the UK? I am just worried I may come as "pushy". I may wait til I see them I guess..

I really did not know which title to give to this post. I had an interview this morning for a funded position. The project I interviewed for would be based at the centre where I am currently doing a MSc and all 4 interviewers in the panel have been or still are lecturers in the masters.

I feel like the interview went really bad even before it started: taxi cancelled on me twice, I had to call in to say I was going to be late... I think that the presentation went Ok, but then the interview started with 2 strong statistics questions (not my background, and supervisors knew this), which got me really nervous and for the rest of the interview I was really blank... I think I gave 2 really coherent answers, but the rest were really bad (one of the supervisors "helped" me with one, leading me to some options to answer).

So, after what I consider to be a really bad interview I don't expect to get the position. However, this is people that I really respect and would like to work with in the future, and I really feel like, not only didn't I show my potential but also like I have shown myself as incompetent. What to do when I am seeing most of this people on a daily basis? I really don't know if I should address this or let it be...

Does anyone have any experience like this?


Bonus: One of the interviewers asked what would I do id I got stuck with research; to what I started answering things like revise the literature again, test some new methods, blablabla... When suddenly she looks at me with a weird face and says:" I mean... wouldn't you ask your supervisor?" So yeah... that bad (and asking supervisors for help is obviously something anyone would do and I have done before... so don't know how that looks).

(Apologies for the rant)

Thanks a lot for your suggestions! I have taken the powerpoint suggestion and put some slides to both help me and distract them (hadn't thought about that one!). It's finally finished so it's all practise, practise and practise tomorrow.

I've been doing it today and took me ~ 8 minutes, so I may try to add something else and pace myself.

@TreeofLife Sadly I know there is no way of going powerpoint-free in a PhD haha. I have done a few presentations during my masters but still, I struggle a lot with nerves...

Thanks again!

Hi, everyone!

I have just received an invitation to do a PhD interview next week and I have instantly entered in panic mode. I am asked to do a presentation (max. 10 minutes) about how my background is relevant for the PhD project that I have applied to and the programme in general.
Here's the issue... I am bad at presentations, or at least I think I am: I don't like being the centre of attention and get really nervous when talking in public. I welcome any pointers that you can give me regarding this!

Anyway, with the PhD project that I am applying to, I am shifting a bit from my background (I come from biology/bioinformatics and the project is mainly based on statistics, although applied to health) so I am unsure on how to address the presentation topic and, even more, how to be talking more than 5 minutes! I have thought on focusing on transferable skills, but I cannot think of anything else to say...
Do you guys think that transferable skills will be enough to present? What about time? I really think I don't have much to say, so I am worried about being too short.

Any help is welcome, thanks in advance for reading and your suggestions!