You're at the white board in a conference room or sitting at a nice restaurant at lunch and someone leans over the table and says:
- So tell me about your experience with angry bosses.
- Did you have experience working on the weekends in graduate school? Did you like it?
- You're not one of those chemists that insists on proper PPE, are you?
- You don't expect a W-2 at the end of the year, do you?
- How would you feel about a part-time position in Bangalore?
- Do you know how many other candidates there are for this position?
- Are you in chemistry for the money? I'm not.
- Do you think NMR is important for structure elucidation? How good are you at using IR for functional group identification?
- Here's the complex natural product that my company is working on -- how would you synthesize it?
- Do you prefer to be paid in drachmas or lira?
- You know, 70's vintage analytical equipment is quite good. Do you have any experience repairing old televisions?
- We have weekly naked group meetings -- got a problem with that?
Enjoy the weekend, folks.
I resent number 8, as I am a spectroscopist.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to induce resentment.
DeleteSpectroscopists are soooooo thin skinned, CJ....
Delete;)
So sad! #11 is my graduate advisor's mantra. I was actually trained on a GC built in the early 1970s.
ReplyDeleteMy PhD advisor was sad when we replaced the 30-year-old GC.
ReplyDelete13. We have a cap of $0.5/g for all chemicals. Can you start again using less expensive starting blocks?
ReplyDeleteOr
We don't want the waste issue of having metal catalysts in-house. Please revise your synthesis to avoid anything heavier than Scandium.
I was asked if I had any issues with flying in small planes during an interview for a quality control management position for a company with labs in several pulp and paper mills. I thought the question was odd until they told me the position was open because the previous manager had died in a plane crash when traveling between sites in the company plane.
ReplyDeleteAt one interview, I was informed that sweeping the lab and taking out company trash were normal parts of the scientific job. At another, I was asked if I thought owning a watch (which I wasn't wearing) was important or not, and when I glanced over at the interviewer, noted his expensive suit and new Rolex. I didn't get that job, either.
ReplyDeleteAt another, they asked me to "think outside the box," and for "greatest personal strength and weakness." I think I may have actually laughed out loud...
You could have said your weakness was corporate-speak.
Deletemy standard interview reply is, one of my strengths is that I have no weaknesses. They can't argue with that
DeleteOne I actually got, and had to try very hard not to laugh/ be snide, "If we called your references, what would they say about you?"
ReplyDelete