Invited for an interview

Updated on 28 August 2023. 

If your proposal has been short-listed by the Interview Panel, you will be invited to an interview with the Panel.

The interviews will take place on Whiringa-ā-nuku October Rāapa Wednesday 04 and Rāpare Thursday 05. The interviews will be held in person at venues still to be confirmed. However, if need be, the interviews can also be held via Zoom.

The interview will last for approximately 20 minutes in duration and will have the following broad structure. The first ten minutes will be an opportunity for you to outline your proposal. A data show will be available and if desired you can present up to six PowerPoint slides. Note that the panel is not happy about excessive use of overlays/animations in your presentation that effectively means your presentation would be more than six slides.

It would be advisable to address the three criteria during this time:

• calibre of yourself as a researcher
• calibre of yourself as a research leader
• the proposed research programme. 

If you wish to use PowerPoint, you may prepare these slides in advance and email them to the Rutherford Discovery Fellowship Secretariat. This gives the Society a chance to check that your presentation works well and will shorten the time upload your presentation at your interview. The last day for emailing us your presentation will be Friday 29 September (see presentation summary below). For the remainder of the interview the panel will engage with you in a question and answer format. The interview will have an informal style.

We encourage you to refer to the purpose of the Fellowships and the Terms of Reference prior to the interview.

The Secretarial will organise your domestic flights if needed to attend the interview. If you are overseas, or otherwise prevented from attending the interview in person, you can ask to interview via Zoom.

Presentation summary

Our policy for the Rutherford Discovery Fellowship Interviews is that your presentation must only be up to six slides long (with the first slide being the title slide). The Interview panel will take into account if an applicant has exceeded this size limit by having excessive use of overlaid data.  

• IF you want the Society to test your slides on our audio visual equipment before your interview and have them ready for your interview, you must have your final slides in by Friday 29 September.
• IF you want to continue working on your slides past Friday 29 September that will be fine, however, you will then be responsible for your own slides and getting them up and running during your interview time. You will not be given extra interview time to compensate for time spent on uploading your presentation.

Q & A about RDF Interview Protocols for 2023

• Can I do a mihi? Interviewees may mihi before their interview and this will not count towards their 10 minute presentation.
• If an interviewee chooses to bring powerpoint slides on the day:
  • Are they to bring powerpoint slides on a memory stick? Yes, that is the easiest format.
  • Will the loading of/bringing up of the slides on the day take away from the 10 minute presentation time allotted? Yes, as stated in the presentation summary above.
• How will interviewees change slides? Is there a clicker/pointer? Yes a clicker/pointer will be provided.
• Will a time warning be given as interviewees approach their 10 minute presentation time allotted? There will be a verbal warning given when there is 1 minute left.
• Are you able to provide some context around how the room will be set up? For example, I’m assuming the interviewee will stand during their presentation? And then sit during the interview? Are you able to say anything about the layout of what this will look like? This information will become available when we have confirmed the venues.

• For interviews that are taking place on Zoom:
  • Will the panel members be together in one room (as opposed to Zooming in separately)? Yes, the plan is for the whole Interview panel to be in the same room.
  • Will time warnings be given in Zoom? If so, how are these communicated? The 1 minute warning will be indicated by a raised hand (reaction) from the Interview room.