Career Resources
Below I have compiled a list of questions (that I can remember) that I got when I was interviewing for tenure-track positions in 2022-2023. I hope this can be useful for someone. I will just mention that my experience was in materials science departments as well as physics departments and I interviewed in four different countries. Finally, I only made five applications in total so my experience is very limited. If you're interviewing, good luck!
DEI/Teaching/Mentoring
What experience do you have mentoring students from diverse backgrounds?
What is your plan for promoting inclusion in your group?
What strategies will you use for hiring diverse team members?
What is your ideal group size and how do you plan to reach it?
As an instructor, what action would you take if you witness microaggressions in your classroom?
What will you do to engage students who have to take your class but are not interested in the content?
If you were free to develop a new class what would it be?
How would you deal with a situation where two of your students are arguing over who will be first author on a paper?
How do you plan to organise supervision of your students and postdocs?
What will your first graduate student work on? What is plan B if that does not succeed?
Research Support
What infrastructure do you need in order to succeed?
How much will you need to budget to start your lab?
What are the main funding sources you will look into?
When will you submit your NSF Career/ERC StG and what will you put in it?
Research itself
Can you define your field? [Note: for me this question called for defining quantum materials]
What is the most important challenge in your field?
Who are your main competitors in your field and how are you doing to differentiate yourself from them?
How will you differentiate yourself from your previous advisors?
What would you like to be known for in ten years time?
How would you describe innovation in your field?
Beyond your group, how would you strengthen your field in our University?
What collaborations would you pursue in our department?
Why do you think you are a good fit for our department?
How closely would you work with theorists?
Other
How well do you think you would fit in with our culture? [Note: This was a country I haven't lived in]
What would be the hardest part about moving here?
Why did you apply here and not a higher ranked University?Â
Which of your achievements are you most proud of?