What’s the worst thing about interviews for chemistry jobs? With recruitment for the Chief Editor of Nature Chemistry in full swing, I’ve been thinking about this recently – and no, that doesn’t mean that I’ve applied for the job…

In particular, I was thinking about one of the most contentious and feared aspects of chemistry interviews (in the UK at least) – the technical questions. This is where interviewees are grilled about any aspect of chemistry; for organic chemists this usually means that you’re presented with a target molecule and asked to come up with one (or more) synthetic routes on the spot. In many respects, this is fair enough. But the whole thing can be very arbitrary.

As regular readers may know, I was unlucky enough to work at an industrial site that was closed down, so my colleagues and I suddenly found ourselves going through lots of technical interviews. Several trends immediately became apparent. The first was that we would always be asked about the pKa values of acids and bases. We’d also frequently be asked to write out mechanisms of reactions such as the Swern oxidation. Many people felt that this sort of thing had no bearing on how they performed in a lab, it was just a memory test.

But the worst thing was when interviewers were inflexible on synthesis questions. One company in particular asked people how they would make a certain diamide. There are, of course, many ways to do this, but if the hapless interviewee didn’t suggest an Ugi reaction, they were deemed to have got the answer wrong. Now the Ugi reaction is a wonderful thing, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first option that springs to my mind for such a target.

So, what do you think – are technical questions a reasonable way to assess chemists for jobs? Or should candidates just be asked to put on a lab coat and do a recrystallization? And what’s the most bizarre thing that you’ve been asked at an interview? The most random question I got was about redshift and the expansion of the universe…

Andy

Andrew Mitchinson (Associate Editor, Nature)

A new academic year at Imperial College brings a shake-up in the organisation of sciences with a biological bent. What do those affected think?

Anne Corbett

In an effort to encourage large-scale collaborative projects across different divisions at Imperial, three of them, the Divisions of Biology, Molecular Biosciences and Cellular and Molecular Biology, have been combined into one ‘super department’, the Department of Life Sciences.

Professor Ian Owens, who heads the new department, praises the high quality of research carried out within the divisions and emphasises the great potential for successful joint projects, which have been hindered in the past by the split of money, staff and resources. “There are some large areas of science that don’t fit into just one division and we want to get big funding projects for them," he says.

The department will also help to alleviate the administrative stresses that the three divisions, which Professor Owens likens to three bickering children, have previously struggled with. “We have fallen into the trap of squabbling over the small things even though we all have similar aims,” he comments.

Owens is also sensitive to the risk of smaller groups losing their identity within such a large department, which includes over 100 independent research groups, many of whom are fiercely independent. He values the cooperative family ethic of these groups, saying “If they end up feeling like worthless cogs in a big department then we’ve really screwed up”.

Senior staff: Colleagues not competitors

Over the years researchers at Imperial have suffered frequent reshuffling, finding themselves under a different identity every few years. The new head is aware that this new move could meet with a jaded response from his colleagues. Dr Pietro Spanu, who leads a research group within the Division of Biology, voices the frustration of many of his contemporaries: “People have been very irritated by one change after another".

However, he feels that the new department will be a great improvement on the previous situation. He explains that the Divisions were so small that they did not have the clout required to fight for large-scale funding for projects. “This is going to make administration much easier," he says. "The hope is that they let us get on with that we’re doing. We can work as colleagues rather than as competitors.”

Junior staff: Cosmetic changes

The implications for more junior staff members are less clear. It is seen by some as an administrative shift that has no bearing on their own research. One post-doc, remaining anonymous, argues that “it doesn’t make any difference to the scientists. If I want to collaborate with someone I just get in touch with them.” Some, including a number of group leaders, view it as a purely cosmetic move to give lesser-known research groups more focus. “It makes it more visible to the outside but on the inside it makes no difference,” claims one.

Students: Ho-hum

As for the students, many are unaware that a change has taken place. Undergraduate students are unaffected because the department does not manage teaching schedules, although it is hoped that lecturers will be more readily available now they all fall under the same administration. Meanwhile, post-graduate students take an apathetic outlook, although one says of the reshuffle, “I think its just another bureaucratic rehash – everything is renamed when in reality it’s no better. Nothing changes except the way the budget is controlled.”

For now, each division will continue to run itself as a separate unit and Owens is cautiously optimistic that by listening carefully to the needs of the groups and working on areas that require improvement, the new department will “let the everyday science happen, and act as an umbrella for all the administration that falls around it".