Pratica di Shadowing: PhD Interview: Questions, Answers & Explanation (by a PhD supervisor) - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Are you ready for a PhD interview? Do you know  what kind of questions might come up and why?

For example, why did you apply to us? How do you  generate ideas? What's your plan after your PhD?

In this episode, I discuss the questions that  you may face in PhD interviews and I will share some tips on how you can get prepared for them.  I will also tell you what many advisers look for and what they don't quite like and of course  what you should be careful about. At the end, I will also cover how to approach interviews.  Overall, I think this is very important for successful preparation. If you want to present  yourself in the best way possible, you want to come up with a general strategy. Uh the strategy  for answering those interview questions. This also can help you shape your vision for your PhD. And  this is I find to be very very important. You need to know what you want to get out of your PhD. You  need to know what you want your PhD to be aligned with. I will also try to explain the motivation  and some sort of reasoning of a potential advisor.

So if you want to be successful, I think it's  really important to understand how the advisors, so the other side of the interview, how they  see you as a candidate. But before we dive into questions, I want to emphasize three points.  First, there are no ready to go solutions. All interviews and all committees are different.  So I can advise you only generally on how to approach interviews. I can help you understand  the questions and what the committee wants to understand about you. But it's very important  that there is no guarantee of success. Even if you do everything right, you might still  get no offer. There are many factors that are completely outside of your control. So all you  can do is just to be your best. Number two, most students need preparation. I know that it's  probably hard to believe, but it's very common to see students who come to interview while not being  prepared, who have not even explored the website of their potential advisor. There are candidates  who don't even know what the group works on.

So, um I strongly suggest to see it this way. The  more questions you can go over, the more you will be prepared. This preparation will help you figure  out many other things including what specifically you want from a PhD program. And the third point  I wanted to mention is about the competition. So a typical competition for a PhD can be very high  can be one out of 50 or even one out of thousand students depending on the university. So from  the committee's perspective, finding the right candidate can become really really hard and what  what it means is that what exactly you say and how you say that can determine your success. And  that's why I decided to record this podcast to help you get prepared for these PhD interviews.  You can show your best there. I should also mention that uh interviews can have very different  formats in different countries and they depend on the university and even on the group. So from one  group to another you may find completely different formats of the interviews and different assessment  strategies. So you should be prepared for that.

All right. Now I suggest that we break questions  into groups. So this way it will be much easier to answer them because you can develop your answers  for entire sets of questions and the reason is because different questions can have significant  overlap. So the first set of questions is about your PhD program and your P and your overall plan  for your PhD. And this includes why do you want to get a PhD? What is your personal motivation?  Why do you want to do this particular research especially when the project is known in advance?  Why did you apply to us? And what makes you the right candidate for this specific PhD position?  Tell us about yourself. What will make you happy during PhD? What makes you stand out among  other candidates? Can you tell us? And finally, what do you want to do after you finish your PhD?  So, as you can see, these questions are about you, your background, and how ready you are for a PhD  journey. It's basically the interviewer wants to see how well you understand what PhD is about,  the requirements in place that you reply to, and how well you fit there. So maybe we can go  into this questions a little bit deeper. The first question is why do you want to get a PhD?  Well, I often hear students at interviews saying that I just want to do research. So they don't  give any details as to why they want to do it and like what makes them excited about it. And  I should note was this that PhD is not quite about simply doing research. It's about learning.  So at interviews you need to explain your inner motivation. Okay? And by this I mean that if  you want to do research that's totally fine.

But during interview you need to go deeper. You  need to reveal that depth. You can explain why you want to do it, what you love about it, like  why you are the right candidate, what drives your motivation and you maybe you have some, you know,  short story to tell. Um maybe you have some past research experience. So what do you see yourself  doing after your PhD? Basically you want to show that your dreams, your passion and your curiosity  will become a very strong force during PhD and it will help you overcome all sorts of  failures and setbacks of course that many students experience and that's very important during  interview. Now it doesn't mean that you should say I'm very passionate so I will overcome all  failures and setbacks as a PhD student. That's not good. Okay, don't do this. Instead, tell a story.  A story that conveys your points and explains why you are so passionate. So, just stating that  you're passionate doesn't make you stand out.

Please remember that many students think that just  stating obvious things make them stand out. It's not the case. Everyone is passionate. Just show  that there is a story behind your passion. Also saying things like it will help me find a better  job later or I want to continue my education. It will also not be enough. In most cases and the  problem is that there are many candidates who say exactly the same thing during interview. The  committee has to find the student that stands out.

So prepare your answer in advance. Make sure  they're genuine. They're truly yours. And make sure that you can go into those details that you  that that will make your answers stand out. Let's go to the next question of tell us about yourself.  So it may sound like a simple one, but in fact it's not. Remember that your first impression  on the committee is very important. So this question also gives you a lot of freedom and your  answers will probably show that what you think is important about you and how you see yourself  as a candidate. In reality, you know, many candidates just tell where they're from. Um they  list some points from their CV. But I should warn you because it's the least the student can say.  The CV is already on the desk of the committee.

So they have your CV. They don't care about you  going over your CV. They want to see the depth.

The depth that is not in your CV. You can use your  CV for you know the initial ignition of your story but show the depth. So my suggestion would be uh  the following. So you can provide some background information that you think is important for the  interview but don't go too deep into it. Okay. So you first you can emphasize your education, your  research experience and your skills and it's okay but then show how your past defines your current  dreams and of course how it defines your current passion and then try to bridge it all to your  future PhD studies. You want to demonstrate that your background makes you the right person for  this specific position with the right education uh right skills and the right mindset. Now the next  question is why did you apply to us and what makes you the right candidate for this PhD position?  H you know this question is not about how well you know what they're looking for. It's not about  this. It's more about how you see the fit and how you can justify yourself. Okay? Again, there are  many candidates, many, many candidates applying for the same position. Some have a better fit  than others, but you need to show what makes you stand out, what makes your feet the best. How do  you see it? So students with poor feet they can become uninterested in the topic or the lab and  they they may leave eventually. This happens. So your answers should convey I think one important  point that you see yourself as a great fit and that you will be dedicated to learning new things  whenever the fit is not perfect. For example, let's suppose uh you want to get a PhD in physics  lab after graduating with a degree in chemistry.

So for for this first you should explain where  and why your knowledge and experience overlap with your advisor's research and second whenever  or whatever you have a poor fit in you should describe your intention to learn with a within a  reasonable time. Basically, your answers should show that you will be successfully able to finish  your PhD even though you have an initial misfit with the announced position. And that gets us  quite close to a question of why do you want to do this particular project? So you know for many  professors a great great PhD student is key to the success of their project and most projects  are funded externally. So the last thing that a professor wants to see is a failure of a project.  As a result, before you discuss your PhD research, if the topic is known from the announcement of  the position, explore this topic. Please read research reviews on uh this topic. Do a proper  homework. There are so many students who come completely unprepared for such questions and who  have no idea what the topic is about. And this kind of conveys the message that they're not quite  interested in it. So again, professors don't want to have their projects failed. They don't want  to see students failed. They want to see that you are interested in the project. So try to study the  subject before you have an interview. Also, if you have some ideas about the project that you came  up with, you know, while reading about this topic, so many advisers may be interested to hear. You  can always frame it like uh I'm far from being an expert in this field but I my understanding from  reading this and this literature is that this idea may be an interesting research direction. What  do you think? Of course your ideas may be too naive or simply not workable. But by doing so you  demonstrate that first you can come up with ideas.

Okay, it's very important to be able to come  up with ideas. Second that you can dig deep into the field and you are curious. Curiosity  is so so essential for PhD. And third that you are professional meaning that you're ready for  the interview. You don't need anyone telling you that you should read papers on this  topic. Unfortunately, this still happens.

Finally, we have the last question in this group  which is what do you want to do after you finish your PhD? H so quite like before you know it's  not just about your plans because it's hard to plan what exactly you will be doing after your  PhD may take three to five to even more years.

So how do you know? Of course, you can't  know plans. Whenever you have plans today, they will change along the way. This question is  about your vision. A plan is not a vision. This is a very similar to why do you want to get a PhD?  Basically, how will PhD be useful in your future career? If you want to have a vision for it, um  perhaps it's time to also think about how a PhD degree will help you in your next journey. Maybe  you want to open a company. Maybe you want to become an outstanding expert and work in whatever  research and development division somewhere in a company or maybe you want to pursue an academic  career. Just make sure that you can explain why you think this is a great pathway for you and  what role your PhD degree will play in it. It's very important. So basically the committee wants  to see that you're careful in your analysis and you can think deeper than most other candidates.  Now here I should warn you that's an important warning. Unfortunately, there are still many  professors who prefer the candidates who want to stay in academia. Personally, I think that PhD is  about gaining unique experience. It will help you as a student push the boundaries in the future.  So, it should be absolutely up to you to decide what to do next. It's your life. But this is not  the way it's done in some labs. So, be aware that some supervisors may have a very different opinion  on this. and some of them may want you to say what they want to hear. The next group of questions  is about your past research and experience. And this is especially common at universities where  master's degree is required for your PhD. So the typical questions can be what excited you  the most in your past research? What are your strength and weaknesses? Describe the challenges  that you faced before and how you overcame them.

What was the most frustrating experience during  your master thesis? So the first question is about what excited you the most in your past  experience. And here the goal is to probe how you perceive your past research experience  and which of your qualities help you succeed.

Can you explain that? Remember that the committee  normally doesn't care about your past research itself. They have their own projects. That's why  they hire you and they mostly care about how good you will be as a PhD student if you join the lab.  So your answers should always show that you're a great thinker, you're a great learner, and you  know how to cope with challenges. Of course, you should not say just like I'm a great thinker.  I'm a great learner. Please hire me. And you should demonstrate who you are without saying  directly who you are. And with this, let's look at the next question. What are your strengths and  weaknesses? And I should say this is a very common question. I ask it myself. You can easily describe  your strengths. You know, it's very easy. Just try to stay professional when you do so. But where  most students have problems with is weaknesses.

So how do you describe them? My suggestion is try  not to present it in a negative way. For example, I don't like organic chemistry or um I'm quite bad  at public speaking. That's not what you want to convey. Instead of discussing weaknesses, try to  show that you want to overcome them. For example, you can say something like, uh, I haven't had  enough practice in public speaking so far and I hope to become proficient in it during my PhD or  I wish I will have an opportunity to get better at organic chemistry because I really want to become  an expert in this. I want it to be part of me. So, do you see that you don't have to give a list  of your weaknesses? Even though the committee may seem to be interested in that list, don't do  so. This can be damaging to your chances during your interview. Instead, you want to use these  questions to demonstrate where exactly you want to improve and where exactly you're ready to learn.  The next question is describe the challenges that you faced before and how you overcame them.  Well, actually this is a very good question.

The reason is because it helps the committee  understand how you reason about challenges and in general you know and how you evaluate your  abilities to cope with those challenges. So you can describe your challenges, it's okay. And you  can even describe your most frustrating experience from the past. That's totally fine. But make sure  that you have a smooth transition from what you had faced before to how you eventually solved  it. The same goes for um just most exciting experience. you know you can name that experience  but try to always outline that that excitement transitions into a possible PhD um also some  students describe their bad experience with the previous adviserss right uh for example during  master thesis that's that happens and this may look tempting for you because you may try to show  you know that some of your failures are not quite your fault if you had that bad experience in  the past. But here I should warn you that many committees may see it as a red flag. For example,  that there is a likelihood that this student may not be able to maintain um positive relationship  with the adviser. Personally myself, I don't see it as a red flag because there are many students  I know who experienced awful supervision. It's totally fine for you to have had bad experience  in the past because you're not at fault. But I also think that it's really important to make  sure that you're aware of this aspect and you're careful when you discuss your past experience  with the committee. Just stay careful. Try to get an offer and then you can decide if the group  is worth joining or not. Also um try to not say that you could you know you you uh don't like  challenges or you don't want to be frustrated you during your doctoral studies. So this is  something that happen sometimes during interview like it or not but PhD is a lot about  failures. So a great candidate is the one who's aware of them and who's ready to solve them.  Basically, your answers should show that you can stay excited despite setbacks, that you  are resilient, and you're ready to learn along the way whenever needed. The next set of  questions is about your expectations for the PhD, the expectations for the advisor, the group, and  so on. The examples can include the following.

What is the ideal supervisor for you? Uh what  interactions do you prefer? Do you have any preferences for your mentorship? What skills and  expertise do you want to acquire and why? Uh list three to five fields where you would like to do  research. Not one, three to five. What number of publications do you expect from your PhD? If  you get into a disagreement with a supervisor, how would you solve it? What will be difficult  for you during PhD and uh what do you think which challenges will you face with this? You know these  are also questions that people can ask and so the more of them you can analyze the more prepared you  will be. Let's go over some of them. The first one is what is an ideal supervisor for you and what  interactions do you prefer? I should say you know this is not a just a a question. I think this is  a very important topic on its own. Essentially it's the advisor who defines your entire PhD  experience. If your advisor's views do not align with your expectations your PhD can quickly  roll into disaster no matter which university you go to. So the first step is to think about what  an ideal supervisor is for you. So talk to PG students and faculties at your current place.  Learn about their experience. Develop your own vision for what you expect yourself to have during  PhD. On the other hand, I think it's important to be realistic but also so on the one hand it's  important to be realistic. On the other hand, you should define the boundaries beyond which you  are not ready to accept an offer. For example, I would answer this question the following  way. For me personally, uh an ideal supervisor would be the one that helps me find um the most  interesting and impactful research direction and who can support me along the way. uh it's also the  person who can give me enough independence so that I could sometimes make mistakes but also I could  learn from them. Uh but at the same time this is the person who's available to provide research  advice whenever I need it. So it's important for me to attend also three to four conferences  during my PhD and participate in uh uh you know in different collaborations and other projects  so that I could learn to work in teams. I could expand my knowledge and then it's very important  that the adviser has enough time to mentor me on how to make the next career step and how to  develop different skills for example communication skills and how to do high quality research stay  competitive so that's all the role of a supervisor ideally I would also mention something Like of  course I understand that it's really hard to provide great mentorship and supervision to every  member of the group and yet I hope that some of it is possible in your group and that I can greatly  benefit from interactions with you and other group members. So you see this is my own scenario. This  would be an ideal scenario for me if I were a PhD candidate. But your answer may look completely  different because it depends on your preferences and your boundaries. Just make sure you do not say  anything that is not realistic. Simply speaking, you can in principles scare off your advisor.  So with this, we're moving to the next question, which is what mentoring do you prefer? Now some  of you may wonder what is mentorship and how it's different from supervision. Supervision is largely  about your research and mentorship is mostly about your personal development. So mentoring  can include something like improving your communication skills, your organizational skills,  uh navigating your career, uh gaining your first quasi management experience and skills and  basically understanding how the professional environment works. So a great mentor will help  you identify your strengths and weaknesses and can actually have a pretty good impact on your  career, on your development. And so there's a lot you can learn beyond your immediate research  during your PhD. My advice is to think about what sort of personal development you wish to engage  in and make sure that you still do not require a lot of time from your mentor. uh your mentorship  and the way you answer questions. Your interview should imply that you understand that uh it  requires only a reasonable amount of time and uh you don't expect your mentor and your advisor  to be 100% available for you. Next, what number of publications do you expect to get during PhD?  So here the committees may want to understand how you see publications. You know papers mean  different things to different students. So what do they mean to you? Some students say they  want to get over 10 papers and others say they have no expectations and maybe one to two papers  may be enough. So this is where the caveat is.

Let's suppose you're interviewed by someone who  wants to publish as many papers as possible. So this person would prefer a student like who you  know likewise is driven by the quantities. Then if professor doesn't want to publish a lot  and wants to make each paper a masterpiece or at least have a greater quality of research in  each publication and so they expect you to devote more time to each study then uh they may prefer  hiring a student who will not feel uncomfortable about a small number of papers. The reason is  that there are many students who are absolutely not comfortable when uh they are not out competing  others in terms of publishing. So how should you approach it? Uh my suggestion is the following.  So first make sure you know what you want. Second explore what number of papers each student gets  in the lab. For this, you can just check out the website and count them. It's that easy. I would  suggest that you stick to the middle ground. You want to find a balance. Essentially, your goal  is to get an offer because once you get an offer, then you can decide whether you want to join this  lab or not. You can interview the advisor. You can talk to students in the lab. You can see  the lab is a good place for you. But first, you need to get that offer. You don't want to  scare your advisor off by saying something that doesn't fit their picture. It's usually not a  good approach. So again, try to find a balance.

And for example, if you have a four to five  good papers that you want to publish for a PhD, that would be a reasonable amount. You can also  show that you are open to other approaches. So if you're not sure about your answer, you know, you  can always ask your um interviewer, the professor about his or her own preferences because they may  have their own preference. You can learn about it, but try to stay open and try to um show that  you're you're ready to learn. you're um you're not very rigid in your approaches at least at this  stage of the interview. That would be my strong suggestion. The next question is what will be  difficult for you during PhD and what challenges will you face? So this question is not about you  predicting what will happen during PhD. Okay? It's just about you showing your awareness that PhD  can or even should be challenging you. It's also about you identifying those challenges in advance  and seeing how you can cope with them. For many committees, you know, the worst case scenario is  when a student who has wrong expectations about PhD faces those challenges and eventually quits.  This happens on the one hand, you know, you uh you want to show that you understand it that it will  not be easy. On the other hand, you're ready to be challenged and you will certainly win. Now, how  to answer this question? One way is to look at the topic. If the project was described in the  announcement or if you know which topic you want to pursue, you can just think about the challenges  in this regard. For example, if your research will be in recycling of batteries, then you can just  say that you're strongly motivated because better batteries can help us solve so many problems with  energy storage, but the environmental impact of used batteries is too high. So, you really want to  spend your PhD and perhaps postphd time on solving this issue. However, you are trained in materials  engineering. You know, you're not an environmental scientist. You don't know environmental  chemistry. So um you can see it as an initial challenge because you will have first to learn  electrochemistry for your experiments and then um get some understanding of how batteries can impact  the environment. So you will have to delve into the environmental chemistry field. So obviously  learning new disciplines is a challenge that most PhDs have and that's totally fine to say that  you're going in there being ready and having a certain background that will help you excel. Other  examples can be poor skills in public speaking or you know difficulty with writing technical text  um proposals maybe um insufficient training on complex instruments but at the same time I suggest  that you avoid discussing challenges that are related to your most essential skills. you know,  the skills that you're judged on. Uh those can include um learning abilities, uh problem solving,  teamwork, core knowledge. For example, if you if you got a low grade in organic chemistry during  your bachelor, mentioning this will probably not be good, right? It will not improve your chances  during interview. The same goes if you say something like, I don't feel comfortable solving  complex problems alone. So some committees may be fine with it because they encourage teamwork,  but many many many adviserss will see it as a possible red flag because they want you to do your  PhD. Often you have to do it on your own. That's the reality. There is another very important  point. Uh each time you describe a challenge, make a breach to how you hope to solve it. Don't  just mention your challenges. Give a clear picture as to how you will try to solve them. And of  course um you know often one to two challenges is perfectly enough. Don't go over more than say  three to um two to three challenges. That would be uh too much. Now before we get to the next  set of questions uh I think that it's important to discuss a common one that uh is about the  conflict resol uh resolution. If you get into a disagreement with a group member or a supervisor,  how would you resolve it? So if you're in conflict with one of your group members over some sort  of lab related issues you know which happen and it cannot be reasonably resolved by you then  you should try to see if your PhD supervisor can help you which means you should say you would  approach the professor and discuss the possible ways to resolve the issue always peacefully. Now  while this is the right solution uh I I should also mention that there are you know different  types of supervisors. There are professors who want to know about the conflict. Great I am myself  like this and there are professors who don't feel comfortable resolving those conflicts inside the  lab who want to be staying out of the conflict like you have a conflict try to solve it yourself  don't get me involved. There are advisors like this. They may want to see that you will be doing  your absolute best to solve it yourself first. And that's essential. So in some cases, you want to  you want to say that you would look for an advisor from um your for an advice from your professor,  but uh that you will also try not to get him or her involved at the beginning. So you will try to  solve it first yourself. you will do your best.

And next, if the conflict is between you and your  advisor, that's where things become tricky. So, if you disagree with your advisor on the  approaches or on the project, you know, on the way it goes with something else, uh becomes  much less straightforward. In a good lab, it is great when PhD students try to convince their  supervisor and make the argument very politely and professional. Remember that during PhD, you're  learning and growing professional. But in general, real conflicts with advisors can be really hard  to resolve. This is why I strongly suggest not to go into this direction during interview. uh  just discuss the possible conflicts with other lab members and collaborations. Try to avoid  discussing any conflicts with your advisor possible. Now we're moving to the last set  of questions that can be about anything. So you can be asked any sort of questions and it's  uh not quite easy to guess what the interviewer wants to evaluate with that question. For the  committee, it's always about reading between the lines or you know just looking at the reaction  of the student. The examples can include something like um how do you generate ideas? What is the  most important question in your field? How do you view conferences? Do you like programming? You  know, and so on and so on. So again it can be something that looks a little bit random but in  fact it's an important question. For example we can look at the question of how do you generate  ideas. So the question is not quite about the generation of ideas. The caveat in this question  is that it probes how well you are aware of the importance of reading literature, talking to  colleagues, attending seminars and so on. So it probes your awareness. Of course you can always  say like you know the best ideas come to you when you are on vacation. Uh but I doubt that this will  work. Instead um you may want to explain this you know this importance of broader understanding of  the topic of interdisciplinary mindset uh and you can say that a broader understanding of different  topics require a lot of literature reading. So attending seminars talking to other scientists  and of course you want to brainstorm the ideas within the group. So you want to use other group  members for your ideas. That's what makes a group strong. It's this collaboration inside the group.  It's when you put all minds together and let them brainstorm the big problem. Another good example  is do you like programming? This question doesn't just probe only your interest in coding even  though it's framed this way. In most cases, it would probe how ready you are to do a  lot of programming during PhD. With this, I'm getting to the final part of this episode.  So, I want to re-emphasize a few general points and give you some pieces of advice that you may be  able to follow. So, first, be genuine. Don't make it sound like you rehearsed the answer. Never read  from the screen, too. It's very important because it's very easy to tell if someone is reading from  the screen. Number two, you may be asked questions that you already answered in your application  or in your previous answers, you know. So, don't be afraid to repeat yourself. Be consistent  in what you're saying. It's very, very important because that is what shows that you're genuine.  Number three, you maybe ask questions that don't make sense or maybe you don't like them. Don't  worry, just be prepared that these questions may be asked. Always speak politely and respectfully.  And if you don't understand the question, ask for clarification. A good adviser will  be happy to rephrase the question for you.

Number four, if the committee is asking you  something about your past research or your slides that you showed, but your past project,  make sure you don't say anything that is wrong.

and you don't become overly defensive. It's quite  common that a student become very defensive to the point that doesn't make sense scientifically or  logically. Um some student defend their work only because they think you know this is like a defense  this is an interview you should defend yourself right but that's wrong instead I suggest be ready  to say I don't know when you really don't know or when the committee disagrees with your approach  you can say something perhaps this was wrong thing to do during my master project so I do agree that  there could have been a better solution and I'm really open to your suggestions. This just shows  that you're open. You're not stubborn and the PhD is about resilience. That's right. But it's not  about being stubborn in uh the way you approach experiment. For example, let's suppose you're  showing a chemical reaction and the committee asks you like why you selected this particular  reagent instead of using something else.

Many students start defending their choice. But  that's not the point of this question. Often the committee wants to see that the student is ready  to listen to accept their mistake and is ready to reconsider the choices instead of building a  strong defense. That's very very important. The fifth point is the following. Don't pretend like  you know something when you don't. Number six, try to avoid generic and general answers. You  cannot stand out if you speak generically. Be specific. Give details whenever possible. But also  try not to make your answers too long. Interviews can be short and you don't want to occupy too  much time with your answer. Let your committee ask questions. The more they can ask you questions,  the better you will be. And finally, during most interviews, you'll be given a chance to ask your  own questions. So, prepare them in advance. In those questions, um you want to show that you're  curious and interested to explore the position a little bit more. So, you see it as an opportunity  to uh imagine to envision your future at that lab.

But please be careful. It's very important to not  raise red flags with your questions. There are a lot of questions you can ask and some questions  can put your potential advisor in an uncomfortable position. You want to criticize them or you  suggest that something is not done the right way.

Uh that's not the right way to ask questions. What  you want to do is you want to be exploratory in your question. So, show that you're exploring what  the position is about, what to expect um at that place, but you're not critical. The point is that  the interview is just a step to an offer. So, you want to get that offer first. Once you have that  offer, you can talk to the current students, you can talk to the advisor, you can talk to um the  previous group members, and you can collect all those opinions. You can um ask a lot more of those  uncomfortable questions trying to understand if it's a good fit for you. But my strong suggestion  would be not to ask these questions before you have an offer, but afterwards. With this, I  wish you the best of luck in your interviews.