Print This PostDear Nature,
I am currently in my second postdoctoral position, and I am looking for a new job, preferably in the health-science, data-analytics or health-care-analytics industries.
I have been applying for positions for eight months and I am worried that I am doing something wrong. I have responded to more than 500 job advertisements and have had more than 20 interviews, but none of them has led to a job offer. Often, I don’t progress past the first round of interviews.
Most of my colleagues are in academia and no one knows much about how multistage interviews for industry positions work. It’s a bit of mystery as to why there are so many interviews for one job.
Each stage involves different interviewers, and I don’t know how they fit into the process. I talk about my previous research and my skills, but I get the sense that those topics are not what they are interested in — or that I’m approaching the interviews incorrectly.
I know that job hunting is a marathon, not a sprint, but I feel like I’m not moving at all. I would like some guidance on how to approach multistage interviews. How do I prepare for these interviews and present my skills appropriately at each stage? — A struggling job hunter
The advice
Multistage interviews are common at scientific companies. Even if you have all of the necessary qualifications, it is easy to be unsuccessful during the interview process if you do not know how to prepare properly for each stage and showcase your abilities.
In a 2024 global survey, Nature asked more than 1,100 hiring managers from academia, industry and other sectors across 77 nations what they were looking for in candidates. The survey found that ‘soft skills’, such as communication and interpersonal skills, collaboration and how well people fit in with the team, were high up on the list of priorities for people looking to hire. But listing these skills on a CV or job application is not the same as convincing interviewers that you have them.
Nature’s Careers team spoke to recruiters, career coaches and hiring managers, as well as people who have experienced multistage interviews in the past year, to find out what to expect and how to shine throughout the hiring process.
What to expect
A recruiter or talent-acquisition specialist is usually the first point of contact in the hiring process. They have selected you on the basis of your CV and will decide whether you get through to the next round of interviews.
They are the gatekeeper, but they are also your friend, says Alona Bärtschi, head of the career centre at the Paul Scherrer Institute, a natural and engineering sciences research organization in Villigen, Switzerland. “You need to try to get as much information from them as you can.” Companies have diverse hiring processes; some might have four rounds of interviews, and some might hold more or fewer. These details are sometimes posted on their websites. If not, recruiters are the best person to ask about the organization’s selection process and who you will be speaking to at each stage. These screening interviews generally last around 30 minutes.
The first interview, the one with the recruiter, is crucial because it is where you can gather important information: who you will be speaking to at each stage, why the company is hiring someone and what elements of your CV are relevant to the job.
In all interview rounds, “it’s all about being concise in your communication”, says Hoffer. She warns candidates against rambling. “It’s not about fancy language, and it’s not about sounding smart. It’s about being clear,” she says.
You also need to remember that you are having a conversation with another person. Biologist Sophia Parks, who is based in Dalzell, South Carolina, spent months trying to find a job after her second postdoc position. Now, she is a project manager at the medical-analytics company Health Catalyst in South Jordan, Utah. She says that industry interviews are difficult for people coming from academia because “in academia, a question is an attack on your knowledge. But an industry interview is not like that”. She says that her job hunt became easier when she started “having conversations with people instead of lecturing them”.
Structure your answers
To showcase your skills, you need to be able to create an engaging narrative about yourself and your accomplishments. “It’s all about storytelling,” says Susan DiClemente, a communications and career coach based in Westborough, Massachusetts, who has spent 20 or so years working at a large pharmaceutical company.
It can be difficult to come up with a story about yourself on the spur of the moment, so you should prepare a handful of anecdotes beforehand. DiClemente recommends looking at the job description and role responsibilities and thinking of times when you displayed that ability or shouldered a similar responsibility. Bärtschi and Weber suggest that you draw up a list of common interview requests — such as ‘tell me about yourself’, ‘discuss a time when you failed’ and ‘give me an example of a moment when you resolved a conflict’ — and prepare stories for each.
Importantly, be able to back up your CV with real events. Weber remembers an interviewee who stated that they were resilient on their CV but, when pressed, was unable to give an example of their resilience.
The hiring managers and recruiters that Nature spoke to recommended using the STAR method as a framework for your responses, which stands for situation, task, action and result. The method encourages people to explain a scenario that they have encountered in their career so far and describe a task that they were asked to take on at the time. Then, they should discuss what actions they took to tackle the objective or problem and what the result of those actions was, as well as what they learnt from the experience.
Interview questions, especially behavioural ones asked by hiring managers, are often used to assess several things at once, Hoffer notes. For example, if an interviewer says ‘tell me about a time when you received negative feedback’, they will be on the lookout for whether you blame others or take responsibility. “It’s a way of understanding who you are and how you’ll fit in with the team,” she says.
Likewise, when an interviewer says ‘tell me about yourself’, Hoffer notes that “they don’t want your entire life story”. Instead, tell them what achievements make you a good fit for the position and the company.
It is also becoming common for organizations to ask candidates to prepare case studies — that is, asking them to prepare examples of how they would tackle specific tasks. For example, you might be given materials in advance that outline a problem or a project and asked to prepare a presentation on how to solve the problem or design and run the project. Finally, you deliver your talk and field questions from a group of interviewers. Case studies exhibit how you think and respond to real-world situations, says Bärtschi. They reveal whether your vision for the role aligns with the company’s, even though they can be time consuming to prepare.
Although daunting, multistage interviews are ultimately trying to make sure that you are the right person for the job. Bärtschi and other hiring specialists emphasize that you should be authentic in your responses, and be your best professional self, because you do not want to be hired for a role that you do not belong in.
“If you’re in the wrong position,” Hoffer says, “it’s not going to be good for you, and it’s not going to be good for the company”.
Nature 655, 1091-1092 (2026)
For the original and more great content visit the Nature Careers Website – doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-02234-9
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