<aside> 👉 Interviews are a great chance to show who you are beyond your application

</aside>

Preparing for Interviews

• Schedule the interview timeslot in your personal calendar and DOUBLE CHECK to make sure the time is accurate! Especially if there is a difference in timezone
• Ask the admissions team how the interview will be conducted:
  • how long will the interview be?
  • what platform (Zoom, Teams, etc.) will be used to host the interview?
  • who is going to be interviewing you?
• Research your interviewers
  • I Googled their names and read through their profiles on the institution’s website
  • I read through some of their papers or social media posts
  • Get an idea of what their role is, what their research interests are, what past experiences they’ve had (ex: what type of non-profits are they part of, what conferences did they attend, etc.)
• Prepare for common questions
  • why do you want to study here? why this program and not [similar program]?
    • ex: why global health and not public health?
  • what do you hope to get out of being in this program?
  • how does this program align with your career goals?
  • what are some of your strengths / weaknesses?
  • tell me about a time when you demonstrated [quality]
    • ex: leadership, problem-solving, etc.
• Reread your own application, because this is the only information that they have about you. Read it from the perspective of the interviewers, to see what knowledge they have of you before jumping into the interview
• Reread the program website, going over the main features of the program, including
  • courses
  • dissertation or research projects
  • student stories or blogs (if they have them on the website)
  • research the program has done
• Practice interviews with friends and family

In the Interview

• wear a clean and professional shirt
• make sure your face is visible and well-lit, and that you have a clear, non-distracting background
• do not ramble! I am quite guilty of this, but do not add any excess information. being concise and to the point is a valuable skill
• smile often! I put a little sticky note on my computer that said “don’t forget to smile” when I was in the middle of my interviews
• listen carefully and make sure to actually answer the interviewer’s question. this sounds obvious, but it is easy to slip up on this, because we often try to show off the best version of ourselves
  • for example, if the interviewer asks you what you want to do with your graduate degree, answer the question first, ex, “I want to pursue a PhD afterwards”, and THEN give context as to how you came to that answer: “I did a lot of research in undergrad and discovered my passion for research, etc.”
• Prepare a list of questions you want to ask your interviewers after the interview! Some of my favourite questions I ask are:
  • is there anything else that you would like me to clarify about my application?
  • what does a successful student look like in this program / what are the traits of successful students in this program?
  • when should I be expecting to hear back about the status of my application?