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I’ve been promising graduate school admissions post since before I even finished up my own trip to the rodeo because there are so many moving pieces. I was going to write a post about how to choose schools to apply for in the first place, but I think it truly depends on the level of graduate school and your field of study. I don’t actually know if I have a ton of readers who plan on pursuing a biomedical Ph.D. at the moment, but if you’re out there please say hello in the comments!!
So, I thought long and hard about how to incorporate my knowledge from a hectic interview season during my senior year of college into something that would be the most useful to a majority of our audience. Today, I’m talking all about interview weekends. Whether you’re applying to graduate school program, Ph.D. programs, or entry-level jobs at major corporations, your interview is critical to you actually securing the job/position in the program.
What should you know before your first interview weekend?
Some of the tips I’m sharing today can also be applied to how to impress during any visit [first look at company headquarters after your summer internship or a meet and greet weekend after you’re already accepted into the program of your choice. Anyway, let’s get to it.
Note: This outfits isn’t interview attire; I just hadn’t used the pictures yet. Typical.
1. Know [+ ask if you don’t] the dress code and stick to it.
One of my strongest pieces of advice is to stick to the dress code. If they say its business casual, dress in that range. There’s truly no need to go business professional. You won’t be comfortable and there’s usually a reason that they want you to dress a certain way.
Most east coast schools will want you in a suit, but pretty much everywhere else will be okay with business casual separates and comfortable walking shoes. One of the things you have to bring with you on interviews and visit weekends is confidence. My confidence is almost always tied to my outfit and so I always make sure that I have well fitting and stylish [to me, at least] options for each day.
2. As much as you’re selling yourself to them, they are selling themselves to you, too.
No company, school, board, or organization is going to spend money on candidates they see having no future at their institution. It’s basic economics. I actually have no idea if that’s the case, but I’d assume it wouldn’t be economically sound to waste money. I used that simple idea to boost my confidence more than a little bit.
This also gives you the opportunity to see how a company or school treats its new recruits. Are they disorganized? Do they have plenty of sessions and ways to get to know the school/company environment? How are current employees, staff, students communicating their experiences? These are all things that you can pay attention to during your visit.
3. You don’t need to feel forced to accept the interview during the initial call.
So, most schools and companies will email you when they would like to invite you in for an interview. These are easy to hold on to and wait to schedule out once you know more of your options. Some schools have extremely dedicated admissions and hiring personnel. They will call you and they will pressure you into scheduling your interview immediately. I interviewed at all of my programs in the heat of spring semester when I was still taking midterms and completing class assignments. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to take every interview if offered. So, I had to be pretty strategic in how many interviews I scheduled when I first started hearing back in December.
My tip is to politely ask if they could send you the available interview dates over email and if you could schedule the interview once you had a chance to look at your schedule. Remember, they’re trying to woo you, too. Get back to them within a week or two when you should also start to hear from other places too. You’ll feel so good when you don’t have to make any awkward, actually I need to cancel emails/phone calls.
4. Go easy on the free drinks.
For some reason, graduate students and young twenty-somethings are known to drink a ton of alcohol. Actually, the reason is that there is department happy hours frequently and we hustle to any opportunity for free food which almost always has free beer and wine associated with it. Now, this was a lot of fun because you get to mingle with the current students and sometimes faculty in a more casual setting. It is super relaxed and a nice way to untangle your brain after a long day of interview inspections.
Two notes about this: 1. if you’re not a drinker, literally no one is watching you. Drink the water or ask the bartender for a soda. 2. if you are a drinker, that’s fine, as well. Just make sure that you aren’t drunk by the end of the evening. That’s a terrible look and they everyone is watching you. You’re thinking to yourself right now: “Gabby, I would never.” I believe you, but I’m also just telling you to not be that person.
Random Things To Remember
Check the weather.
Have all your flight and travel information organized and on hand.
Communicate with your professors if you have to miss class.
Know if there are any other activities you need to pack for. [Kayaking was an option at UC San Diego.]
Top | Skirt (similar) | Shoes (similar) | Necklace | Sunnies (similar)
I have full faith that you’re going to rock it at all of your interviews. Once you get the first one out of the way, it’s an easy battle through all the rest. Hopefully, this was useful! I might just do my other graduate school posts in a more Q&A style post so I’m really hitting the right questions and topics. If you have anything you want to ask me, you can sound off in the comments or submit them anonymously here.
keep on keepin’ on,
