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Forgive me, dear TL, for all these blog entries.
So after being turned down from the PhD where I was interviewed, I spent some days in a very sad state. I looked for other opportunities on the net and hastily submitted an application for a project I have absolutely no background - even if it interests me. You know, just for the sake of doing it.
Barely ten days after the deadline they told me they are going to interview me on Skype o.o
I wasn't really expecting that. I spent many days on preparing projects which weren't even considered and now this institution wants to interview me over a random project? Also, I discovered another project and the professor is very interested. I will also apply to that one too, good vibes.
Anyways, In roughly one week I will have the interview. Let's hope it goes well!
For conspirators like me: I noticed that the spot was first put online around September. The original starting date was January - now it has misteriously become March. My theory is that they need an as***** for this project otherwise they are going to lose government money or some stuff xd
Best regards,
SoSexy
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Your suspicions are not unjustified. Definitely be wary if they seem oddly desperate. Maybe there are certain deliverables or objectives they must hit in order to renew funding, and they've neglected it until now.
Without going into specifics...
I've seen a situation like that a project had carelessly wrote some buzzwords in their funding application. But none of the people in the team were experts in that (sub)field. And they had no one assigned to that part of the project. Until they were starting to prepare their report with like 2-3 months to go, and went into OHSHIT mode. They tried to rope in people to do it but it simply wasn't realistic to achieve in the timeframe they had remaining.
Make sure you're not being roped in just to fight fires.
Beware of unreasonable targets and potentially being scapegoated for not meeting certain goals.
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Thanks for your tips! Being the paranoiac I am, I did investigate it. The position seems solid - salary is sure and fixed for the whole duration of the PhD and the institution is a big one. I simply believe that it's a new project where they trusted a young professor and the start is a bit hiccupish compared to more established phds.
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Good luck!
Hope things'll turn out all right 
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Glad to hear you've done the due diligence. Best of luck!
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Just an update, I did the interview and it went good in my opinion, much more than the previous time. At the end we were basically inserting jokes here and there and the atmosphere was very relaxed. We'll see!
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EPT
