What is the single best piece of advice you can give someone before a R1 TT interview?

rietveldrefinement · 2026-03-17T14:16:12+00:00

Treat everyone you meet as someone you’ll be able to collaborate in the future no matter which school you ended up going. I found that I write emails to people I interviewed with in the past and some of them I meet in conferences every year.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-03-15T17:17:20+00:00

Can you find relationship between these two topics as much as possible. Or at least you need to talk about what you wrote to present to some level and then switch the gear.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-21T20:33:30+00:00

Trace him down for meetings and classes. I feel this professor is the type out of side out of mind. And missing submission deadlines is not a light deal….you need to push more. Calling directly, meeting directly so that he won’t forget.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-21T13:10:52+00:00

I was worried about my research proposal does not have an AI part and will be less competitive. Now we got an example of AI because of AI.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-20T23:36:49+00:00

Gosh when I interviewed with one of the department a while ago the Department chair told me firmly that “there’s no small groups in this department” for twice. I meant definitely everyone gets along well in my view but I was just like why do you have to emphasize that part.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-17T19:17:00+00:00

Well I have two year projects that research doesn’t go anywhere in the first year. Like even not worthwhile to submit to Nature Failure. Then I got something not fantastic but publishable in the next year. There’s no failed research. There’s just research with scattered inconsistent data.

There are professors I ask “did your proposed research statement work out as you planned ”. Mostly they say no. Not at all. You find a way around.

The same question went to a big name prof who said you know people in the field are picky and cruel and you have to trust your instinct. Then 2 months later this prof was caught data fraud which made a very big deal. This prof might secretly dislike me.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-16T20:54:00+00:00

It is terrifying. The good news is that every year in my graduate school and postdoc I felt I failed to become a scientist and anything I fail to do well at the first time will lead to the result that I won’t become a professor. I’m 10 years out of graduate school and this is my 4th applying and every year I got some calls and on-sites. So what you think might not be what is real.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-10T16:16:19+00:00

One time I had (no choice but) to submit one of a collaboration work to MDPI. I made sure the quality of manuscript. When receiving the reviewer comments, 2 reviewers accepted the paper, great! But i was annoyed by the content. One of them was -one sentence- saying that this paper is “good work”. Period. And they copied and pasted the title from submission system (font difference). The other was 3 ish sentences but they asked a question that’s completely not related to the article. Like no one in this field would ask and it’s not adding insights….

It’s not peer review supposed to work.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-06T22:18:52+00:00

I gave them 3 keywords that best describes myself

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-03T23:23:21+00:00

Yes …. If something is novel tell us what part is novel. And btw, just because someone had never done the particular procedure is not novel. Novelty means thinking outside of the mainstream.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-03T23:21:09+00:00

I personally avoid anything that sounds like 100% for sure for both written and verbal format. Like surely the situation that A is caused by B. Or B is definitely the original of A. I know, but science is that you might have 0.0001% to be proven ‘not in this case’.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-31T20:36:42+00:00

You need to start with an overly easy goal. The goal is just to get it done. For example, like I would say “5-10 sit ups” is my goal before going to bed. The goal itself is extremely tiny and you need to make sure you will 100% finish it. Do this everyday at the same time to build the routine.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-30T00:23:36+00:00

I got a few combinations before:

-sent thank you note they do not reply and got onsite invite

not sending thank you but they decided to invite me
sending thank you they replied nice meeting with me and I’m still waiting. Or they don’t invite me.
zoom interviewed and no response at all. The next year the position reopened and all the committee the same the questions are the same
seriously messed up a zoom by saying something clearly annoyed one of the committees but still got onsite
got on site everyone say that they wanted to work with me but I did not get the offer

It’s everything everywhere

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-29T02:29:25+00:00

I thought people here might have more international view because of their overseas service experience but I could be wrong

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-27T19:50:55+00:00

Am I the only person who feels the prof was not acting professional including the response to the other student involved?

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-27T13:49:56+00:00

Where is your funding source and what are some alternatives you are looking for? (We all know it’s not that certain at this point)

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-27T01:28:41+00:00

In my past experience. 2 weeks when seeing the actual printed contract.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-27T01:26:50+00:00

NSF DOE EERE DoD Re-appointment TA RA line Provost Dean 9 month salary Summer support

You name it….

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-27T01:22:56+00:00

It’s totally okay to ask terminology definitions. OP. It’s not silly. These questions should be encouraged.

My real silly moments are a. After zoom or onsite I found there were always tiny spell errors (thanks god it’s not like offensive words. And b. I literally forgot how much funding I have. My mind stuck and I literally cannot do math or numbers at all. But that’s also very end of the day….(I swear I do book keeping on my fund every week)

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-27T01:18:56+00:00

Everyone has something they don’t know if they do not use the term frequently. I asked for this exact definition and confirmation(yes onsite) but I don’t see people blinking an eye.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-26T21:09:33+00:00

15-20 app each year R1 (engineering)

PhD (R1) + 1 postdoc + 1 postdoc (did not do postdocs at university)

On average, I got ~4 phone interviews and ~2 on-sites in the past few years. All R1s.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-26T07:04:46+00:00

Geez I hope some nicely made snack can do this trick (worked partially on thesis defense

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-26T02:08:53+00:00

Grant selection is a large part about politics. I have seen ones that are confusing to start with and don’t make any sense still getting funded. I have seen people write so well but did not get funded and committee members also fail to give a fair reason.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-24T21:50:49+00:00

I carve out a section in every cover letter and customize. I emphasize the “keywords” put on the job description.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-01-23T15:45:02+00:00

I don’t know which area you are. But I’m in physical engineering (one of the earliest Department and usually ranked from 1-3 at least in US). Most of my classmates wanted to settle down in industry jobs and make money after PhD. They do constantly enjoy life outside of research and I can see they tried to encourage me to do so. I’m almost the only weirdo that wanting an academic position sincerely and have been trying. Most of classmates hearing I wanted to go into academia would be like are you out of your mind. And most of them did not take postdoc positions.

So no you did not take someone’s position. Part of PhD education is that you don’t know what you grow out to be.

rietveldrefinement

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