Job Interview Questions

When you apply for a job and are invited for an interview, it can be a source of great anxiety. How do you prepare for such an interview? Here is a list of job interview questions put together by Sam Alxatib and Jason Kandybowicz (CUNY Graduate Center) that you might find helpful.

• Tell us about your dissertation research.

• What are some of the more important issues in X currently?

• What are some of the most important discoveries in your field in the last n years?

• Name/discuss a piece of research that you read recently that you find highly noteworthy.

• What are some of the hot topics in your field and how does your research fit in?

• How does your research blend with our program?

• Where do you see your research going in n years?

• Talk about a case from your own research where at the time you thought the analysis was correct but where you changed your mind about it later.

• Where do you see the field in n years?

• What courses can/would you teach for us?

• How would you teach a course/a sequence of courses on X? What textbooks would you use?

• What topics would you cover?

• What do you see the course goals to be?

• If you could teach your dream course/seminar (or some other class not in our program's catalog), what would it be and why?

• How will you be able to cope with the demand of teaching and the need to continue your research? i.e. How will you balance your time for teaching and research?

• Do you have advising experience? How would you advise someone who is working on a topic that you know little about?

• How would you deal with uninterested undergraduate students?

• How do you teach students to become independent critical thinkers?

• How would you contribute to our mission of increasing academic diversity?

• Is Linguistics important? Why?

• What are some of your strengths? What are some of your weaknesses?

• Do you have any questions for us?