So, you’re making the leap. Maybe you have decided that academia isn’t for you, or you’re ready for the next step in your career to be science communication. You’ve applied for jobs and you’ve bagged yourself an interview or two. Nevertheless, the panic sets in. You have no idea what questions you could be asked so you can prepare as fully as possible. Would they be the same as for any other job or are they going to throw a curve ball at me?
This was me!
This was me when I was finishing up my PhD and looking for my first science communication job, but also more recently when I was looking for the next chapter of my science communication career. I had no idea whether they would just ask the bog standard job interview questions, or whether there was going to be something unexpected. And Google was no help to me either. I was confused and preparing for interviews that I didn’t think I was cut out for.
I have been lucky enough to be interviewed for a variety of science communication and public engagement linked roles. I was unsuccessful in most, but each failed attempt allowed me to become more prepared for the next one. Why? Because I had more examples of actual questions that were asked for those types of roles, and more practice of course.
Now I want to share my list of science communication job interview questions with you, so that you can be more confident in your interview prep.
In this post, I am sharing 51 questions that were genuinely asked of me in my different science communication and public engagement job interviews, or examples that we asked candidates in job interviews when I was on the other side of the table. Science communication job interviews, of course, include some of the traditional job interview questions. My experience ranged from being asked purely ‘traditional’ questions, to being asked questions solely on one public engagement project. Some interviews I was asked genuinely about 25 questions, others I was asked about 10. No two interviews were the same, but I hope this list will help you feel a little more prepared for your science communication job interview.
For many of my interviews, I also had to complete an interview task, which I was quizzed about in my interview too. I share some examples of the interview tasks in this post so you can be even more prepared.
51 genuine examples of interview questions for science communication jobs:
- What parts of the job description excite you the most?
- What does success in this role look like for you?
- What goes into a public engagement strategy?
- How would you convince a senior academic to get involved with a public engagement activity?
- What science communication training opportunities should we bring to our researchers and why?
- How would you deal with someone who has a ‘bad’ idea for a science communication project, but is enthusiastic?
- Which parts of the job description will you find most challenging?
- Can you share an example of when you managed a public engagement project?
- Can you share an example of how you managed a disagreement between two key stakeholders?
- How do you maintain stakeholder relationships?
- How could your role in public engagement help tackle the spread of misinformation?
- What are some of the issues or concerns in the science communication field currently?
- Researcher X works on this topic and wants to engage with [this audience], what ideas would you suggest to them and why?
- How would you approach a researcher to write a blog post?
- How would you define your target audience?
- Can you tell us about any educational resources or materials you have created – both physically and digitally?
- Tell us about a project you were involved with that went wrong and how did you deal with it?
- Why are you interested in a science communication/public engagement career?
- What are three key parts to successful public engagement?
- What is the difference between a communications and an engagement strategy?
- What are the core components of a digital communications strategy?
- How would you ensure that our science communication initiatives are inclusive and representative of all roles at the organisation?
- What would be the most important thing for you to accomplish in this role and why?
- What would change about the organisation’s website/brand identity/social media content?
- What audiences are best to engage with [this topic]?
- What advice would you give to a nervous researcher who has been invited to interview on the radio?
- How would you measure success in your role?
- How would you empower staff to be involved or advocate for science communication?
- Can you give us an example of when you have had to tackle some misinformation or talk about controversial issues and how did you manage that?
- Describe your approach for planning a family science day at the organisation and what things would you take into consideration?
- Describe your approach to growing our social media channels?
- Why do you want to pursue science communication over public engagement?
- What were your key achievements from your current role?
- Having read the job description, what would be your first priority in this role and why?
- What would you evaluate in [this project]?
- Which area of the organisation’s research interests you most?
- You have a budget of £5,000. Knowing the culture of the organisation, what engagement initiative would you run and why?
- Given your interpretation of the role, your skills and experience, where would you make a difference in our team?
- What are the benefits of the community for the organisation and researcher? (This one was for a Community Manager role)
- How do you balance your job with your other interests?
- How would you embed equality, diversity and inclusion into science communication?
- What are your core values?
- How would you recognise those who got involved with public engagement initiatives?
- Who would you say the organisations’ competitors are?
- If there was one impact you could make in this role, what would you want it to be? How would you make that happen?
- How would you convert our in person events into an online format and maintain the interactivity?
- How would you manage scientist and artist relationships?
- Describe a time where you have worked with journalists to cover a research story
- Why should we hire you?
- How did you approach the interview task?
- How did you find the interview task?
Hopefully now you feel more prepared for your science communication job interview. Good luck. I am sure you will smash it.
If you have been interviewed for science communication or engagement roles, or something similar, please add any other examples you have in the comments so we can all help each other to be prepared as possible. Likewise, if you want to know more about the types of jobs I applied for when I was asked these questions, then please ask away in the comments, send me an email or get in touch on social media.
If you want tips on how to answer these types of questions, or you are just looking for some other top tips for scicomm job interviews, get in touch and I can get planning.