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180 CAREER ADVICE FOR LIFE SCIENTISTS II

The Art of the Interview

Elizabeth Marincola

The American Society

for Cell Biology

S

cientists interviewing for jobs have a natural

inclination to focus on the “scientific information

exchange.” As important as this is, general inter-

view protocol and behavior are also critical. The fol-

lowing offers general advice about some subtle but

important aspects of winning an interview, making the

interview successful, and maximizing the chance that a

successful interview becomes a job offer.

The Initial Contact

Think of the initial contact as an opportunity for the

reviewer to excludeyour candidacy. Act on the assump-

tion that the employer receives many, many more indi-

cations of interest than the number of people the com-

pany or organization has the resources to pursue. For

this reason, a small misstep at this stage can lead to a

dead end. This does not mean that your prospective

employer expects you to be perfect—it just means that

there’s much more room for individual differences and

There’s much more room for individual

differences and imperfections in the

context of considering a whole person

than in the context of a description

of a human on paper in whom the

employer has no vested interest.

Think of the initial contact as an

opportunity for the reviewer to

excludeyour candidacy.