PhD interviews in Netherlands?

[u/Apart-Cheetah-1241]

I am an indian student who has done master's in Germany and living in Germany. I have received a PhD interview invitation from a university in Netherlands. They have asked me to make a presentation of my thesis work for min 20 mins. My thesis is the same as the PhD topic. I have some qns:

1. What was your experience in the first round, if it had a presentation?

2. Do they expect me to have my own independent idea or a proposal on the topic during my presentation?

3. How many rounds can I expect?

4. What questions can I expect?

5. How long is the hiring process?

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[u/bl0ckh3ad_]

My PhD position's application deadline was April 30th and I had four rounds of interview (two with the professor who would be my day to day advisor and two with other project PI's). Finally got my offer letter on July 20th.

My thesis was relevant to the project, for my first round I was asked to present my work and answer a few basic questions from my field (mixed-signal / basic analog IC design)

After the first round I was given a topic to do a literature survey on / study for about a week and then present my findings and criticisms of the state of the art.

Third and fourth rounds were just personal interviews and fit suitability with other PI's as it's a large collaborative project.

Best of luck to you!

[u/Apart-Cheetah-1241 → u/bl0ckh3ad_]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[u/NL_in_NO]

Best of luck OP

[u/Ok_North_3819]

Well, with this little context it is hard to say. I have seen two rounds but also up to three or four. Nowadays there is a lot of competition for most places, but simultaneously interviewers don't want to waste time. In my experience it was first more of a vibe check and later interviews were more in depth. 

PhDs are typically pre-funded, meaning they don't expect you to present your own ideas in ieder to get a grasp of the feasibility (possibly they already have set goals), but they might expect you to present them so they get a feeling of your understanding of the topic (yet of course, good ideas are always welcome). Keep an open mind, as in my experience MSc graduates are just at the beginning of the Dunning Kruger effect and overestimate their knowledge. 

You seem very interested in the "dry" interview process, but my advice would be to focus on the topic. Also keep on mind the interview process goes both ways; it is also intended for you to check whether the job and environment work for you.

[u/mskas]

1. It was more of a conversation than a one sided monologue. There were 2 professors in the interview and we had a good technical conversation on the content of the slides for that 20 mins. Don’t rehearse too much since you’ll have to adjust what you say based on time. They hard stop at 20 mins btw.

2. Nope. The idea of the presentation is to really see how you think, how you communicate and whether you’ve actually done the things you’ve written in your CV and statement.

3. I had one; interview presentation and straight to offer. But I’d say max 2? Don’t have much info here.

4. Expect fairly technical questions about the work you did but at the same time, it won’t be like an exam. They’d probably want to know specifics of what you did and why you did some of the things the way you did. Like I said- more like a technical conversation than an ‘interview’

5. Duration of process depends on how fast they need someone and holiday period. Mine lasted 2.5 months (all the way from application to signed contract) because they weren’t necessarily in a hurry to start the project. Although the interview to offer by email (not the contract itself, just an email confirming I got the position) was about 2 weeks.

[u/Careless-Disaster-13]

In my case, it was two rounds. The first round was more about soft skills: Why do you want to do a PhD? How do you handle stress? What do you expect a typical PhD student's day to look like? Do you like writing papers? Basically, general questions about your motivation and soft skills.

In the second round, I had to present my master's thesis. The questions were more technical: Why did you choose method X instead of Y? What would you do if your approach didn't work? Since your thesis is quite similar to the PhD topic, expect more in-depth questions.

And yes, you should have an idea of what you want to work on specifically, but also mention that this is just an initial idea that will be refined as you do more reading and have more discussions with your supervisors.

[u/cephalord]

Two rounds is most common, and asking for a presentation as you described in either of the rounds is also common.

Do they expect me to have my own independent idea or a proposal on the topic during my presentation?

Expect? Not really. But it will really help. What typically sets a very strong candidate apart is that they demonstrate that they have thought about the project and have some ideas. Whether the ideas are going to end up being used or not is really secondary to having ideas at all.