Time for interview

Maria had a long telephone interview with TM today.
With a seven hour time difference to Sweden it’s a puzzle to find times suitable for both parts. Now it was arranged so that TM called 8 am in USA (afternoon in Sweden) and to the lab phone (due to bad cell phone reception at home and also the cost of incoming calls). Most people in the lab arrived around nine, so most of the hour-long phone interview was “in private”, and if someone (at the end of the hour) heard something, they didn’t understand it. Just to admit it was a clear help that the interview was in Swedish.

Selected for interview

Quite a fast process with the application sent of to Umeå. The professor TM contacted me about an interview, which will take place in the nearest days.
It also strengthen yourself knowing that your resume is attractable (to some extent at least) and your expertise is requested.

The first step is done

The application to the position in Umeå was sent off, just in time for the deadline. This was the sixth application Maria sent off, others had been to labs in northern Europe (Copenhagen, Berlin, Berlin). So far only applications for announced positions have been sent, further on direct contact with specific labs will be done. Although the latter require more work to more or less write your own research idea (in the same field as the prospective research group). Finding the labs is the first step, but not always the easiest.

An open position

This story started when Maria found an announcement about an open PostDoc position in Umeå, the largest city in the northern part of Sweden. We had already decided to stay in Madison, WI/USA, until the end of February, and it was time to start looking for jobs in Sweden (or northern Europe).

Maria's first interview - background

Maria had a telephone interview today with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca about a position as researcher. The interview was really long, so it was good it was in her native language. Nervous to have a job interview, so long time ago since last time.

Note: Later on, two other top candidates with more exact experience were selected and Maria was not one of them. Hands-on experience of setting up and running HPLC-MS (high pressure liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry) was required.
Though, even if this didn’t generate a job, it was a good start in the job hunting process.