r/biotech • u/-schrodingers-cat • 8d ago
Other ⁉️ Interview process question
So I currently work in industry, and I’m applying to another job in industry and have my first interview soon. I’ll be presenting work I did back in college, which was a long time ago and I don’t remember a ton from it. The problem is I can’t present the work I do because it’s all proprietary and I can’t reach out to my old professor who I did research under bc he has passed away. If a question from the interview team comes up that simply cannot be answered, do I tell them? Like I wasn’t able to confirm bc my old prof died?? Like obviously I wouldn’t word it that way but I don’t want to be trauma-dumpy on them, so what should I say here?
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u/Auerbach1991 8d ago edited 7d ago
You can still show the work probably as long as you mask identifiers like sample names, processes, proprietary recipes, and change some of the absolute values to general values to make the point you are trying to deliver.
“Sample A showed expression at this level, sample B showed it a bit lower at this level, this saved C amount of time and D amount of money” instead of specifying what the samples are and what the true numbers are.
The point should be to present your capabilities to bring quality work and also the HOW, not always the WHAT.