How to Captivate Your Future Employer: Interview Workshop Part 1

Hey friends, you are in for a treat. I got to go to UMass virtually of course, which is my alma mater, and I gave an interview workshop yesterday and it was so much fun. There was really good engagement and I think the lessons that I taught there are really valuable. So I decided to take that recording and split it into two podcast episodes. The first one, this one is going to be on some interview techniques. We're going to go over some actionable things like how to structure a star story for a behavioral based interview, question answer, and how to choose the right type of elevator pitch for the situation. So stay tuned for this first half. We're gonna go into some actionable things and if you want to join us in the Slack community, you can ask questions about these things, workshop your interview skills, et cetera. So without further ado, here is our interview workshop, part one. I am Karina and I was a UMass alum and Lisa was asking me when I finished and I couldn't really remember. I think it was 2013. I think I officially graduated in 2014 because of the walking schedule. I have founded two companies at this point. So Reconomics Consulting is my talent acquisition consulting firm. And recently, because of all of the layoffs and all the turmoil we've seen in our industry, we founded the Collaboratory Career Hub to help people to understand how to make the transition, whether they're transitioning from academia into industry or they're transitioning from one job to another due to a layoff or something like that. So I just wanted to put a nostalgic picture up here for you. That is me. Some sometime in the late, maybe 200910 era, I worked on the ninth floor of the LRB. I was in Shawn Ryder's lab. So some of you may know Sean, he's fantastic. And that was a really happy time. Since then I have gone on to work in biotech with a number of companies. You may know, I've done some hiring for some very large companies like Moderna. I work with Flagship Pioneering, which is a venture capital firm, and some really small companies maybe you've never heard of. And I am really big on teaching and so I have been featured in a number of different places. Most recently we launched a podcast for biotech called Building Biotechs. It's pretty cool if you want to check that one out. We talk about career paths in there a lot. We always start by asking our guests, what did you want to be when you were 7? What are you now? And how did you get there? Because we think it's really important to, to demystify that process and to show you that career paths are not linear by any stretch. Most people have a really winding, fun career path. And so when we talk to these biotech execs, these founders, these really high powered folks, it's interesting to see how they got there. So we always like to explore that. And then most recently, I do write a monthly column in Biospace and it is called the Career Coach. And so if you want to check that out, I can maybe give Lisa the link to that. But there I just answer job seeker questions and early career questions as well, not just job seekers. But as you're starting to get your feet wet in industry, it's a different area. It's a new, it's a more corporate environment. You know, how do you excel there? How do you make sure that you are setting yourself up for a really good career? So that's what I talk about in that. All right, so we're going to start with pre interview preparation. So thanks all for using the chat. So I noticed that a lot of you are in the pre interview stage. You have not yet started applying. And so this is great for you. This means you have time and there's some things you can start to do right now to start to prepare yourself for that. It is never too early to start thinking about where you might want to work. And I left things till quite late. I sort of was finishing my PhD and then I thought maybe I'd go into industry. And what I realized was that I really hadn't laid a good groundwork, a good network for me to work on, to reach out to. So right now in the pre interview stage, there's a lot you can be doing. So first of all, researching companies, if you are able to identify some companies that are interesting to you, LinkedIn is a fantastic tool then to grow that list of companies even further. So if you start by finding a couple of bigger companies, perhaps that are doing a technology, they're working in a therapeutic area that you're excited about, you're just excited about them for some reason. If you start there and you start to follow those companies on LinkedIn, so you actually go to the company page and hit follow, LinkedIn will start to suggest similar companies to you, which is really nice. So they'll either, they'll surface right there. When you follow a company right under that, you'll start to see a list of companies. But then as you're browsing LinkedIn, you're going to see companies popping into your feed as well. LinkedIn is, it's owned by Microsoft. Microsoft has 49% investment in OpenAI. So they are really leveraging AI and they're trying to make it a really good matching tool for your interests. So feed the algorithm what you want and it's going to give you back even more. So start to follow those companies. Look at social media, start to link in with employees. So here's the trick. I'm going to just belabor this one point on this slide because we want to get into the meat of the interviewing. Networking can never be started too early. So starting to network with current employees of companies that are interesting to you on LinkedIn is going to set you up for your job search in the future. When you're linking in with folks, don't link in with the CEO or the VP of Development or something. Link in with the scientists, LinkedIn, link in with the research associates, the folks that are going to be the peers of yours in the lab. And those individuals are going to have a lot of insight for you about the company and they're going to be very willing to link in with you because you're, you look like a peer to them. Right. So why. What I always try to do is I always send a note. So from this day forward, when you link in with someone, you will not send a blank note. Just do it. Send a note. It's hard at first, but you know, my favorite, my favorite little note is something very simple. Hey there. You know, I see we have a few mutual connections. I am really interested in XYZ company. I'm curious how you like working there and get that conversation started. If you do that every single day and you link in with 10 to 20 people from now until you are ready to apply, you are going to have a good network. You are going to be ready to leverage that network when you want to actually put yourself forward for a position in the company. I'm going to stop there for a second. Does anyone have any questions about that LinkedIn networking piece? Does that make sense to everyone? Awesome. I have a whole pre recorded masterclass on LinkedIn and how to use it for your job search if that's of interest. So I can send that along to Lisa as well. I have a question. Sure. I feel a little uncomfortable reaching out to people that I don't know at all because I feel like I'm bothering them, you know, natural feeling actually like being approached to. They do on LinkedIn. They really do. So here's the thing. We're actually a really Friendly bunch. So scientists especially, we like to help each other. So I would encourage all of you to start by linking in with me. So after this, go to LinkedIn and send me a connection request and don't leave that note blank. Say who you are and why, where you found me. I may not remember everybody's name from this cause I can't actually see you all but right now on the screen. But send a little note, say, hey, I was in your talk earlier, you know, would love to be in your network. That will open your network up to my network of almost 15,000 scientists. So what LinkedIn does is it looks for connections. And so right now if you have a few hundred connections or less, many people have far fewer because they're not using LinkedIn very much. That means that people, people are hidden from you there. You can't always see their full profiles and things like that. So go ahead and link in with me. You'll instantly be second degree connections with 15,000 scientists, many of them here in the Boston area. And then you have a conversation starter. You may not know me personally, there's no way I know 15,000 people personally, you know, by name, by sight. But I have interacted with people you know consistently every single day in LinkedIn. And when you're asking, you're not asking for anything when you're linking in with them, you're asking to make a human connection. And so if you say, you know, I'm just curious, you know, how do you like your job? Or you know, something that has to do with the company, the job they will be really. And people love to talk about themselves. They will be very happy to share their experience with you, especially if you are a peer. So this is where I'm warning you against going and linking in with the CEO of the company or the VP of xyz. Link in with the folks that you'd be working with naturally in the lab, side by side, does that make sense? It is scary and it is natural to feel scared about it. It is a nerve wracking thing to put yourself out there. But I will tell you that the people who do go further in their career, they just do. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Any other questions on this? All right, we have just. I'll say this early on in case I forget to mention it. I do have a free Slack group where I am in there answering questions and actually love getting questions in there because those turn into things that I can talk about in my career column. So come in there and ask any other Questions you have about LinkedIn, things like that, I'm very open to that. But link in with me. If the only thing you take away from this is to link in with me, do it. All right, let's move on. So I just really want to harp on this for one moment. It is extremely important when you're choosing companies to think very deeply about their mission and values. And this can be hard to understand if you're looking at really small companies. For example, some of the companies I work with are in, what's it called, stealth mode, which means their. Their IP has not been filed. They don't want to talk about what they're doing. They want to be very secretive. They may not have a website. So sometimes this is a little bit difficult to understand. You know, what the company's culture and values might actually be. But if you're looking at slightly larger companies, there's usually a good indication of what they stand for out on social media. LinkedIn, sometimes Instagram, very rarely there. Synlogic is the exception. They have an amazing Instagram account for some reason. And, you know, if you can start to, again, link in with those employees, start to get a feel for what the company stands for, you are going to spend a lot of time at work. A lot of time at work. And so you really need to be happy there. And I have heard from a lot of candidates. Right now we're working with candidates that have undergone layoffs and things like that. And it's really interesting because we have a mix of people who are viewing layoffs as some of them a blessing because they were not happy. And this is almost a forced opportunity to go find something that really sparks joy and resonates with them. Do your homework on that. It's not an irreparable decision to go join a company, but it's not great when you land someplace that you don't feel that sense of belonging to. All right, moving on. I. This is not a trick question. Put in the chat if you know what these are. What are these? Lisa, what are people saying? These are. I can't hear you, but it looks like pipettes.

Pipettes and micropipettes.

Yes. Amazing. Okay, I'm so glad you all got that right. Put in the chat. Just put yes. If I told you, hey, I want you to pipette 500 microliters, would you know which pipette on your bench to choose?

Someone wrote wet experiments. Yes. Yes. Yes. Everyone wrote yes.

Okay, great. What if I told you I wanted 100 microliters? Would you choose a different pipette?

Yes. Depends. Yes. A different one. Yes. Yes.

Right. Yes. So I am not in your lab looking over your shoulder and making sure that you have proper pipetting technique, but I'm going to assume you do. So what I'm learning is that you know how to pipette and you know that sometimes you need to choose a different pipette for the job. Right? There are different pipettes and you need to choose the appropriate one. What does this have to do with interviewing? This is the nature of an elevator pitch. Believe it or not. We're going to talk about elevator pitches next. Elevator pitches. Learning to do that is just like learning to pipette. Someday you will find it second nature to deliver a short little blurb about who you are and why you're there. The CEOs that have climbed the ranks, the VPs of this and that, they have all been good at doing elevator pitches. I know they have been because it is something you use over and over again. So in the context of an interview, this is that dreaded tell me about yourself question. How do you answer that? Right. And how long is your interview and who's the interviewer? You need to trot out the correct elevator pitch. And there's multiple versions. These are all pipettes, but they are all. They all have a different function that is the same. With your elevator pitch, you are going to have a scaffold of your elevator pitch and you are going to be able to make it really short or really long, depending on the circumstance. And you're going to change the content a little bit, depending on the audience. Does that all make sense to everyone? I'm going to teach you a framework for the elevator pitch. And I have a worksheet that we can send along that helps you kind of get this framework nailed down. But this is so important. And the reason is it is the first thing during an interview that is an indication of how you are able to communicate. And communication is the key to interviewing success. So you can be the smartest scientist in the world. You could have won all of the prizes and done all the things. But if you cannot communicate your science to both scientists, other scientists in other areas, which sometimes you have to adjust your messaging, non scientists in the company, the investors, the public. Drugs are not consumed by scientists alone. They are consumed by the public. So really, we are in a process constantly of translating what we are talking about so that the public can understand it. Okay, so I'm going to tell you the three main buckets of elevator pitches that you're going to need. We're going to start with interviewing and interviewing. Elevator pitch is very much geared toward landing a job. So you are going to be tying your skills back to a job. When you're networking, you are going to have a slightly different version of that elevator pitch. You're going to want to convey who you are and what you do, and you're typically wanting to make a connection. So typically, the end of that pitch is an invitation to continue the conversation. So you would trot that out at a happy hour or something. And then the third is in a business meeting setting. So if you're ever pulled into a business meeting, which you definitely will be, as you move through your career, you may have to quickly introduce yourself and why you're there to a group of people who are all very smart and have their very own verticals, but maybe don't do exactly what you do. So this is the three sort of buckets that I think of for elevator pitches. I'm going to focus on interviewing, because that's why we're here. And you can't do the other ones until you get a job. So we'll stay there. All right, so here are my six steps to get this right. So, first step is going to be an introduction. You are always going to want to say your name and say it very clearly. It's really important that you introduce yourself. Even though your resume is sitting right there, you might think, they know my name. It's nice to hear the person's name, especially because sometimes we're not able to decipher what the pronunciation should be just from reading it off of a resume. Then you're going to want to share your passion. So at this step, you want to show that you're a human and that you have, you know, passions, you have dreams, you have aspirations. Then you want to bring in your unique skill set, your value proposition. And then you want to tie this back to how you're going to be able to contribute, in this case, to the company, to the job, and then always express gratitude for the opportunity to have the conversation in the first place. And then step six, just because Lisa mentioned how important this is earlier, before you all hopped on practice, this is not going to feel natural until you said it out loud a hundred times. And that's okay. That's totally normal. And the people who deliver these pitches really well just know that they sat in front of their bathroom mirror and they practiced this. They asked their mom to practice. They practice with their dogs. They practice with every single person that they came into contact with. And that's why you're all here. So buddy up and figure out a practice buddy. So I'm going to give you an elevator pitch. I actually had to write this down because it's been a while. I am rewinding time. I am a. I'm about to graduate my PhD and I am going to get my first job. And I'm so excited and very nervous. All right, so I'm going to start out. Hi, I'm Karina and I am truly a nerd about biochemistry. During my PhD research, I developed and optimized a fluorescence polarization assay to screen a library of over 50,000 small molecule compounds. My goal was to discover inhibitors for the RNA binding protein Musashi1. Science being science, my research took an unexpected turn when we found out that one of the most effective inhibitors was actually a natural compound, oleic acid. This discovery opened up a new can of worms, leading us to uncover a potential link between Musashi and brain development, which was both exciting and novel. Now, that was fairly early in my PhD, so for the next few years I pretty doggedly pulled that thread. I really wanted to explore the connection between natural compounds like oleic acid and brain development using biochemistry course. I'm happy to share more about that project if you're interested. It led to a really interesting publication in Elife. So that's why I'm really excited to chat with you today about this opportunity and about your company. Because this job in particular would allow me to leverage my passion for using biochemical techniques to study natural compounds that your team is working toward using in a therapeutic context. Thanks so much for inviting me to interview. So, of course I would need to rehearse that until it was a little bit natural and it would flow off my. You know, flow off my tongue. But that is the scaffold of an elevator pitch. And if a candidate gave that to me as an opener, I would be very impressed. I would say, okay, they have great communication skills. First of all, they were able to tie their passion back to the job. And I know why I'm excited about this candidate. So I can't see the chat, but put yes in the chat. If you are ready to go with an elevator pitch, you could give this today. We're getting any yeses?

No, not quite. No.

This is scary. I get it. Guys, this is ridiculous.

I have some work to do. Not yet. I think I need to do another.

Workshop, so I'm going to send over. There's a. I have a little worksheet that helps you piece this Together. And then what I recommend doing, because this is a workshop where we can't actually workshop it live. You do need to do the pre work, write this out, get it down, really choose a friend that is also in the same sort of stage with you and meet up and have, you know, have coffee and work on this together. Because really that's what it takes. So.

Excuse me, I have a question.

Yeah, Hector?

Yeah. Some of us don't have English as a first language. So therefore we are not eloquent like this. How would that work? Because, like, I can rehearse as much as I want and I would never talk like this, you know, that's okay, though.

First of all, you are a perfectly good communicator. This. Thank you. Your question was clear. I have no issues with that. Just know that everybody's different. And my personality that I inject into this, I do inject a little bit of humor. I, you know, I call myself a nerd. You want it to be true to your personality because ultimately you're the one interviewing for the job. So don't get so hung up on, you know, whether it's going to come out just perfectly or eloquently or if you're going to be using the right words. That's not actually what's important about this. It's going to be the confidence that you put behind it. That's what's really going to shine through for us. I would say more than half of the candidates we interview, English is not their first language. And that is not only okay, but it shows a great diversity of experience. And so we are not looking for people who are totally perfect and, you know, their usage of the English language or anything like that. We're looking for somebody who can tell us a story, and that story is your story. Does that make sense?

Yes, perfect sense.

Great, thank you. I would love to hear your elevator pitch when you get it polished up.

Okay, thank you.

Not on the spot. Not today. All right, so I'm going to send this worksheet over. Don't panic. You don't have to do this. All right.

Now.

Okay. Anything else?

I also have a question.

Yeah, Sarah, I guess the question is.

About breadth versus depth in an interview. If you're going to do an elevator pitch. So say I'm interviewing at two biotechs. One's for structural biology and the other is for like assay design. At the structural biology interview, I guess I would give a different pitch. But do I mention that I also do assay design or what's been your experience with that. So if I have a breadth of skills, do I talk more in depth about the skill that's relevant or do I mention everything?

So an elevator pitch, you're not going to go very deep on an elevator pitch. If you notice, in mine I talked about a wide range of things. I talked about a small molecule screen, I talked about developing an assay, I talked about biochemistry, I talked about natural compounds. What I was tying back, I was thinking about a company that uses natural compounds as therapeutics and there are quite a few of those popping up now. So that is not a deep thing. You are going to save the deep questions for further into your interview. But again, this is going to be situational. I can't give you one answer on this because it's going to depend on the company. It's going to depend on the interviewer what stage interview you're in. Again, this is choosing the right pipette for the job. So in a phone screen interview, which is usually with a recruiter and it's usually about 15 to 20 minutes, that's your first step. So you've sent in an application, you got a call back, you get to chat with a recruiter recruiter. Those are usually short and sweet interviews. You're going to want to keep your elevator pitch to about one to two minutes and know that you're not talking to a scientist there most of the time. Most of the time those scientific recruiters are not scientists unless you're talking to somebody on my team. So you want to trot out the version of your elevator pitch that makes sense for that particular stage, which is to at that stage absolutely beat the recruiter over the head with the fact that you are the person for the job. That is all you need to get across during that first 15 minute screen with a recruiter is I'm the right person because X, Y and Z. And so that's how you tailor that pitch. Then when you move into your on site and you're actually talking to say the hiring manager who has a deep understanding, you're going to want to spend a little bit more time because you have 30 minutes usually in that interview stage. So you might expand your elevator pitch by adding a few anecdotes or a few more examples to make the content deeper and to make it tailored for a scientist that's really within that field. Does that make sense? Yep.

That's great.

Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Sort of a non answer. It depends on the situation, but it really does. This is where this becomes A skill. This really does. And you're gonna. It'll be a muscle that you just know how to flex in the future. All right, next we're going to talk about everyone's nemesis, the star questions. Have you all heard of these behavioral based interviewing questions? Anybody heard of these before? So I have a little twist on this and this may or may not surprise you. I have a little twist on everything. So they're star questions, star interviews or star stories, but I like to call them stars stories with an extra S. And first I'm going to tell you just what we're talking about here. In case you haven't heard of it, these are the way you're going to answer what we call behavioral based interview questions. So I am not going to touch today on answering interview questions that are very scientific in nature. For example, you know, tell me about XYZ assay that you know how to do. You know, oh, you do hplc. Tell me when you've used it before. Those are not things that are as difficult to answer. These are very difficult to answer. So behavioral based interviews questions are becoming more and more popular. They're something that we encourage all of our clients to use because they allow us to bring storytelling into the interview process. And humans love stories. So they are questions that sound like tell me about a time when or describe a situation where. And they're really trying to get at soft skills. Okay, so soft skills are going to be things like communication skills, teamwork, leadership skills, things that are not as easily quantified as do you do hplc, yes or no? Does that make sense? So we are. I've added an extra S to mine. So STAR in its traditional context stands for situation, task, action and result. And I put silliness in here. And the reason is, and it's not necessarily silliness as it doesn't have to be silly, you want to inject a little of your personality in here so that it's a bit memorable. Because we hear a lot of these answers that are pretty rote, pretty stock answers and those are not as memorable. And the best thing you can do for yourself in an interview situation is to come prepared with some answers to these questions that you know you're going to get with some stories that are going to make you stick out in the team's mind for a good reason. So I want to give you an example of this. But first of all, you're going to be describing the situation that's pretty self explanatory. So if they say tell me about A time when you dealt with a difficult team member. That's a pretty common question. You're going to first break it down. Okay, here's the situation. And then you're going to say, and this is why I had to deal with it. So you have to lay out the task at hand. Why must it have been overcome? Or why did you have to do this? Then you're going to talk about the actions you took, what actually transpired to lead to the result. And what was that result? Now, just a caveat here, not every single story needs to be some heroic result. Sometimes the result is it didn't work out the way you'd hoped, and this is what you learned. So do know that there are some. There's a lot of ways to put these together. Again, I love worksheets, so I do have a worksheet with these, and that should help you to put some of these together. The silliness is just the personality piece. It's just think about how you could tell something or pull an unusual story out that kind of speaks to the heart of the issue and leaves the team thinking, wow, that was a really interesting answer. Or, oh, that's, you know, they have such an interesting backstory because you're trying to humanize yourself at the same time you are working with humans. Biotech companies, every company is just filled with humans, just to the brim with humans. And so you want to be a human with your other humans. Okay, so I want to share a story with you. And this story is really silly. So this would be something I would trot out in response to a question along the lines of, you know, tell me about a time when you had to work with a difficult team or team member. And that is one that, you know, I mentioned that earlier. That's one that we see a lot because it is. Biotech is a team sport. You don't do science in a vacuum. So it really is important that you're able to be a good team player. Now, really good star stories are going to be able to hit multiple soft skills at once. So they didn't ask about communication in there, but could you speak to communication? Also, they didn't ask about your leadership skills, but could you sneak a little bit in there about leadership skills so you can actually answer multiple questions, even when they just ask you for one. So I'm gonna tell you a story about dealing with a difficult team member. Okay, so this story takes me way back to when I was maybe about 11 or so, and it was a really significant time in my life, But I did not know it at the time because I was 11. Who knows that things are significant when you're 11? So I had to learn how to deal with a really challenging team dynamic, and it really stuck with me through the rest of my life, and it's really shaped how not only I work with teams, but how I lead teams today. So let me set the scene. I had just leased a pony. She was a very ornery pony, and her name was Mandy, and she had zero interest in being on my team. She had a very strong will, and she was really set in her ways. And my goal back then was to get prepared for a show that was going to happen in just six months. And here's the catch. Mandy had not been ridden in years. She was older. She was in her 20s, which is not exactly the prime of life for horses. And she had zero interest in joining me for that show, which was actually a crucial part of my development as a rider, because I belonged to an organization where I needed to go to that show so that I could level up in the organization. So horseback riding is the ultimate team sport. You are literally riding your partner. You're riding your teammate, and if they don't want to be there, you're kind of in trouble. It doesn't matter how good of a rider you are, no amount of skill can make up for an unwilling teammate in that situation, because it's a true partnership. So I learned the very first step to overcoming a difficult team situation is building rapport. And for a horse, building rapport meant showing care. It also is the same, incidentally, for humans. Showing care is a big part of building rapport. So I made sure she was well cared for, groomed. I looked after her, and I began to work with her daily. And as I spent time doing that, I built rapport and also started to earn trust, which is the second step of working within a team. And once I started to establish trust, we realized there was actually an underlying medical issue that was causing her pain, which was why she did not want to be on my team with me. So we brought in a vet who discovered she had actually two major problems. First, she had a parasite load, and anyone would be pretty ornery if they had worms. So we got rid of those. And she also had a tooth issue that was causing her pain with the bit in her mouth. And so we fixed that tooth issue and completely turned her around the next week. She was a fantastic pony. She was willing to work. We had trust, we had rapport, and we had become a team. And I went on to not only do well in that particular show and level up, but to pass her along to another child who was able to continue with her and go on and do the same thing just a few months later. So we really got the best from her by building rapport, building trust, and overcoming some of the underlying issues. So the thing I learned from Mandy that stayed with me throughout my entire life is that there's almost always an underlying issue that can be addressed once you've established the right rapport and trust, which is going to allow you and your team to perform exceptionally well. So that's my star story. That is an example of a little bit of silliness there. Who would expect you to trot out a star story from your 11 year old self? But that's incredibly relevant to leading teams. And I touched on communication, overcoming team member issues, difficulties and leadership. I have a worksheet that I'll send around for that. My advice is to put together three or four star stories that encapsulate your personality and touch on the main buckets of soft skills. And I have a worksheet with all the soft skills that you're going to be asked about during your interviews. So that way you have a couple of stories that you can trot out. You're not going to be asked usually more than one of these in an interview, but it is a place to humanize yourself, to connect on sort of a personal level and to share a story. All right. I hope you found the first half of that workshop extremely valuable. We are going to come back together next time for the second half of the workshop where I will give you some actionable exercises that will actually help you create a better mindset going into your interviews. And as always, join us in the Slack community. I love your questions in there. It is so helpful. And if you have any questions that I can add to my careers column, send those to hello collaboratorycareerhub.com we'll see you next week.