Tell me about the experience you have of working in the lab.
Research Laboratory Interview Questions
43 research laboratory interview questions shared by candidates
Overall some tricky questions, but nothing unusual. ex— you’ve never worked with lab animals, can you handle this or do you prefer working with human samples? This was tricky since there were two open positions, one with mice one with human biological samples.
Tell me a time you worked with someone that was being difficult.
Can you describe a mentor or a person you worked with in the past that you really liked working for, and why did you like working for them?
Do you prefer working in groups or alone?
How many samples can you process in one day, were anticipating around 50 per day?
They asked about my background with handling clinical samples and Illumina based sequencing.
Tell me about yourself? Do you have any work related research experience? If no, why not (was it not provided at your college, are you fresh out of college, etc)? Strengths? Weaknesses? Give an example of a time you weren't able to complete a project on time and what could you have changed to meet that deadline? Give an example of a time you work on group project? What do you like least and most about working in a lab? Do you work well with others? Name specific lab techniques and equipment you are familiar with.
Most questions from the PIs are science related to what I presented which were fine. They also have a list of behavioural questions such as how to deal with hypothetical conflicts etc. which are kind of standard in most interviews. Afterward the HR person asked about pass salary and expectation in front of both PIs and said things along the line that they will hire third party company to run a background check on me, which I find a bit uncomfortable.
The HR director, Joe Swanson, called me into his office and asked me these questions, and wrote while I responded. Why are you the best candidate for this job? What experience do you have that relates to this job? What is your best quality? What is your biggest weakness? What did you dislike about your last job that you hope is different here? What type of person do you dislike working with? What has been your biggest achievement at work? Do you have any near-future goals? There were others, but the questions were all similar. After this first interview, the lab supervisor came and got me, and we went to the lab. He showed me around, then we sat and talked for about 30 minutes. He asked about my experience in chemistry, and we spent the rest of the time talking about the day to day operations there. I asked when the final decision would be made, and he said 3 or 4 weeks. I never heard back, even though I was more than qualified. It wasn't an ideal job, so no big deal.
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