PhD in Germany-Advice appreciated.

WesternZulu

I am posting here just to maybe get some advice from people who have done interviews for PhD's, even better if the interview was for a PhD in Germany or Europe.

The PhD itself is in Germany but done through English, the pay seems to be good (better than what I'm on at the moment anyway) and even though I am working at the moment,I think I will find it hard to turn down, that is if I'm offered it at all. It would be a great opportunity and not something that i could pass up.

The interview is set for a few weeks time and it is for an hour, 15 mins at the beginning to give a brief introduction of myself with special respect to my skills and experiences in the research field.

I am wondering how to approach this and are they expecting a great amount of depth in terms of how I would approach and ideas that I would bring to the research?

The interview is gone through Skype and although handier than travelling to Germany does have some restrictions when trying to but yourself out there in the best possible way (ie cannot do slides etc).

Thanks in advance for any help.

Fremen

Is it in science, business or humanities? As a general rule, they'll first try to establish that you're interested in the subject and that you're competent - they might ask you something like "what was your favourite course? Why?". They may ask you questions that you should be able to answer from your undergrad learning. They won't expect miracles, so if you think "out loud" and approach the problem in a sensible way, you'll do fine.

If you've done any project work, be prepared to talk about it, and to "sell" it if necessary. A major project is as close as an undergrad gets to a PhD so they'll want to know all about it - what did you do, how did you approach it, how could you improve it, etc...

WesternZulu

Fremen wrote: »

Is it in science, business or humanities? As a general rule, they'll first try to establish that you're interested in the subject and that you're competent - they might ask you something like "what was your favourite course? Why?". They may ask you questions that you should be able to answer from your undergrad learning. They won't expect miracles, so if you think "out loud" and approach the problem in a sensible way, you'll do fine.

If you've done any project work, be prepared to talk about it, and to "sell" it if necessary. A major project is as close as an undergrad gets to a PhD so they'll want to know all about it - what did you do, how did you approach it, how could you improve it, etc...

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.The PhD itself is in Economics and it has a lot of crossover to the Thesis I did for my Masters a couple of months ago and linked to subjects that I also did so I have some idea of what I'll be talking about...although I know that there are things that I will not have a clue of if they ask me, but I suppose that is to be expected.The PhD sounds interesting but it would be a big move without the language even though the PhD is done completly through English.Ah well sure we'll see how the interview goes and take it from there