Career Advice and Reflections

My biggest passion is not doing research (myself), but mentoring and supervision. I especially enjoy mentoring research students, PhD students, and ECRs (early career researchers). Based on a lot of personal feedback (and a shelf full of presents) as well as a very high research output of those I supervised (usually 1 top-tier publication per PhD student and year, and sometimes also from small undergraduate research projects; see list of project supervisions), I believe I'm not doing a bad job (at least not always). Hence, I created this page to share some of the advice and reflections I've found worth passing on, including resources for further reading. (Let me know what you disagree with or what should be added.)

But first, I'd like to ground everybody in a bit of humility: those who are outstandingly successful* might be mistaken in believing it's all due to their own efforts, leading to some putting their noses into the air. I love the following video by Veritasium, pointing out the survivor bias and how much luck one requires to even get there. (It also helps those who had less luck so far, to motivate them keep pushing forward!) Hope you enjoy it:

(* I'd also like to add that "success" is a matter of your personal definition; and a win/investment in one area usually goes hand in hand with losing in another -- a fact not everybody always sees. In that sense, both reactions to learning about an outstanding track record (say, many publications per year) are perfectly valid: "wow, amazing!" and "sad...". :) I advise reflecting on this so that you don't accidentally optimize the wrong metric.)

Back to the topic!

Early Career researchers (say, post-docs or very young Professors) might have slightly different questions or concerns than PhD students or even undergrads who are still wondering whether they should do a PhD in the first place (and whether they'd like to stay in academia/research or go to industry afterwards). I hence will structure this page along these two main categories.

I didn't compile a full page yet (will do so in the future at some point), but until then have a few point that might still be useful already:

Undergraduate and PhD Student Advice

  • I gave an invited talk at ICAPS Launchpad 2025, with slides available here, covering multiple different topics. This is the talk announcement: Doing a PhD can feel like solving a partially observable planning problem with ill-defined actions and an unknown goal. In this talk, I'll reflect on my own (decidedly suboptimal) trajectory and the heuristics I wish I had early on. Topics include choosing research directions, the power of colleagues and reviewing, and time management strategies, among others. It's a mix of reflections and well-meant advice - some of it hopefully helping to derive a better policy for navigating a PhD (and convincing you to start one in the first place).
  • Check out my section on thesis writing advice, as it contains several resources including a "LaTeX template" that also contains a list of (very!) frequently done LaTeX/typesetting errors and points towards typical marking guides etc.

ECR Advice

  • At the Third SET & SysCom HDR/ECR Conference 2024 of UNSW Canberra, I gave an invited talk on Success in Academia. 80% overlap with the presentation linked above -- and those parts that do overlap are actually much, much better in the above presentation (since it's newer), yet there is one section here (on academia vs. industry) which isn't included in the above.

Interview Advice (Promotions/etc.)

Many of us (academics) will be interviewed regularly, for example,

  • For promotion (e.g., for climbing the ladder from Lecturer (B)-> Senior Lecturer (C) -> Associate Professor (D) -> Full Professor (E1) -> Full Professor (E2) in Australia/New Zealand),
  • For conversion from from tenure-track to tenure (i.e., from fixed-term to continuing).

The questions asked by the committee might depend on the specific purpose, and even on the specific committee, which again might depend on the purpose.

Regardless, I collected a bunch of questions that might help you prepare for such interviews; they might be a starting point for your preparation, even if they might not perfectly fit your exact circumstances. Note also that these interview questions are specifically tailored towards promotion for conversion interviews -- for initial Professorship applications, they might not quite fit perfectly; I'll cover them separately below. Also, the weight of the respective categories also changes based on your level. For example, when applying for Level B or C (more junior), they might ask for service, but maybe no or little Leadership. In contrast, when applying for D or E (very senior), clearly Leadership will play a major role. Anyway, these questions were collected over years, based on interviews I participated in as interviewee or interviewer; and also incorporates feedback from colleagues. I hope you find them helpful! (Good luck!)

Questions are usually asked long the different categories you are evaluated as an academic, namely Research, Teaching, and Leadership/Service.

General / Other

  • Would you like to tell us briefly about your journey to this point in your career? // This might be an ice-breaker question they might ask in the very beginning.
  • Why do you think you're ready for promotion now? Or a variant thereof: Name one category where you are already acting at the level that you are aiming at
  • How do you balance research, teaching, and service?
  • What are your short- and long-term career goals?
  • What do you see as your greatest achievement since joining [this University]?

Research

// achievements

  • What are your main research contributions so far? Or a variant thereof: What is it that you are most proud of?

// research program

  • How do you see your research developing over the next 5 to 10 years?
  • How do you involve students and early-career researchers in your research program?
  • How do you differentiate your work from others in your field?
  • If you had unlimited resources, what research question would you tackle first? And why?
  • What strategies do you use to ensure your research has international visibility?
  • What do you do to make your research more prominently used or visible?
  • How does your work align with broader university priorities or national research priorities?
  • Do you have any interdisciplinary research? Do you deem this important?

// research impact

  • How do you define and measure research impact in your field?
  • Is your research impactful? (They wouldn't ask such a blunt question, but having an answer might help you prepare, anyway :))
  • Do you have any industry collaborations? Do you know potential industry collaborators in [your city/country]?
  • Do you ever communicate your research findings to the general public?
  • How do you make sure your research has long term impact?

// funding

  • Do you already have grant application experience?
  • What is your strategy for securing funding?

// collaborations

  • How have you built collaborations, and what are your future plans?
  • Did you already collaborate with people from the ANU?

// various

  • Were there any difficulties in research? How did you handle them?
  • Can you give examples of your leadership in research (e.g., supervising students, leading projects, organizing workshops)?

Teaching

// philosophy & delivery

  • What is your teaching philosophy?
  • How do you see your teaching portfolio evolving?
  • Do you integrate your research into your teaching?
  • What role do you think technology should play in university teaching? Are you using any?
  • Do you have good attendance numbers in your courses? If not, what did you try to resolve this?
  • How do you support student learning across different levels (undergrad, Master-level)?

// evaluation & improvement

  • Can you describe a time when student feedback led you to change your approach? Or a variant thereof: How were your SELT reviews? How did it influence your teaching?
  • How do you assess your teaching? // Careful, could be a trick question: Some people don't trust in SELT, so you saying good SELT (=student feedback) results might not be a good indicator since maybe only those vote who liked it
  • Were there any difficulties in teaching? How did you handle them?
  • How have you contributed to curriculum development or program coordination?

// Supervision / Mentoring

  • How do you support your students' career development and well-being?
  • How do you ensure quality supervision and timely completion?

Service / Leadership

  • What roles have you taken in service to the School/discipline/University? Or a variant thereof: Which committee roles or admin duties have you found most rewarding, and why?
  • Which service roles do you see yourself take in the future? And why?
  • How do you contribute to the research community (reviewing, organizing conferences, etc.)?
  • What does leadership mean to you?
  • How do you see yourself contributing to strategic initiatives at the School or College level?
  • How do you foster a positive academic culture within your team or department?

Additional Advice:

Please note that some questions might be a follow-up from your application. Consequently,

  • You could think yourself about what they might ask based on what you conveyed or focused on. Note that your interview might be a long time after documentation submission, so re-read all your documentation a few days before the interview!
  • Keep in mind that usually at least some, maybe many, committee members are not from your field. So, keep your answers simple. You can practice this friends who are not from your field. Also note that this transfers to very foundational knowledge, which might differ across fields. E.g., in some fields conference papers are the primary publication means and top-tier; in others they are entirely worthless and only journals count. You might have to clarify these things.
  • You can ask chatGPT/Claude/etc to hypothesize which questions might be likely, maybe even based on your application (if you are willing to share it with that LLM). You could also feed it this page, and engage in a fake interview!

Interview Advice (Professorship Applications)

When you apply for a new position, a lot changes. The committee wants to see that you looked into the new position, i.e., know their teaching portfolio and where you could support them, know which colleagues there are and which whom you could collaborate, and know how to obtain funding. They basically want to see that you are very well prepared, fit in perfectly, and can start to shine from the first day.

So, several of the questions above might still fit, others might not make any sense. Below are a few that might for specifically for this context.

General / Fit

  • Why did you apply specifically to this university? How do you fit the specific call?
  • How does this position fit your career trajectory and goals?
  • Would you be willing to adapt your research agenda to align with local priorities? If so, how?

Research / Integration

  • Have you looked at our faculty? With whom would you collaborate, and how?
  • How would your research fit into the priorities by our University?

Teaching / Contribution

  • Have you looked at our courses? Where could you contribute?
  • Which teaching experience do you have?
  • Are you looking forward to teaching?

Funding

  • Do you know relevant funding schemes that could bring with?
  • Do you have plans in acquiring funding?

Supervision / Mentoring

  • Do you know how PhD supervision and acquisition of PhD students work here?
  • How would you contribute to supervision here?

Questions you can ask them

  • Are there any courses where you would be happy if I could take them?
  • What are typical class sizes or infra structure to support teaching?
  • Is there infra structure to support with grant application?

Note that questions should be used as a tactical means to make them want you! You should not use them to compensate your incompetent preparation.^^ I.e., whenever you could possibly find something out yourself, don't ask unless it makes you appear in a better light (and even then: ask for confirmation of your research). Keep in mind that they do not know you, so you want to prevent them from drawing wrong conclusions about you.