Interviewers’ Questions Why are you interested in joining our department at ____________ (company/agency)? Your background is mostly in XXX (e.g. physics) and our department focuses on YYY (e.g. oil permits), how do you see yourself fitting in? Describe your term projects or work experience (problem, conclusions, significance). Why did you decide to seek a Master’s Degree? (there are political implications here) What are the limitations of your work or preparation? What research or term projects have you planned for the future? Describe your master’s program experience for me. How did it prepare you for this internship? Do you have any questions about our industry or company? What projects are you prepared to carry out? What experience do you have working in teams? With diverse groups? What do you think makes some teams more successful than others? Do you tend to adopt a particular role in teams? How do you handle conflict? Where do you see yourself in five years?

Questions You Can Ask What are your department's or company’s (institution’s) main goals? How is the institution structured? How would you describe the company’s culture? What kind of core facilities do you have (e.g., imaging, mass spec, sequencing, primer generation, etc)? What are the challenges and rewards of this position? What will my specific responsibilities be? How would you describe your clients or customer population? How many interns are in the department/ institution? In what ways do you see me as a good candidate for this position? What else could I do to prepare to be useful to you? How will my performance be evaluated? How have your recent interns fared in the hiring process? Do you have a formal or informal mentoring process for interns?