The chronological or work history interview at BioRender is a type of structured interview in which we will review your past work and educational experiences in - you guessed it! - chronological order, starting with your early career and ending with your most recent role. This interview is 1-3 hours long and conducted by a hiring manager and a tandem interviewer to help with note taking and asking questions.
This is how we get to know your professional journey to date, what motivates you, and where we can support your growth.
<aside> 💡 We want to hear specific examples so we can get a solid sense of your successes, challenges, and the experiences that have been formative in your career!
</aside>
We will ask you structured questions to learn more about your impact in past roles, how you collaborated with others, your strengths and improvement areas, and your readiness and potential for the role you’re interviewing for.
Typical questions we may ask:
At the end of our interview process, we will ask you to help us arrange reference conversations with some of your past managers and colleagues (typically 5 in total, and there are no surprises - we’ll share the list with you when the time comes, and won’t reach out without your permission). References, especially past managers, are a key part of our process. It is important for us to understand your highs and lows - we go into all reference conversations with the context you’ve provided and our eyes open, and we wouldn’t turn someone down based on a less-than-stellar reference. We use references to help set you up for success and learn how best to work with you, and we find it’s most beneficial to speak with a broad cross-section of people you’ve worked with throughout your career.
We evaluate all candidates at this stage against the core competencies needed to be successful in the role and at BioRender, using our values to guide us:
Ensure we have an up-to-date version of your resume. If there are any gaps or roles you’ve left out, please let us know in advance so we can structure your interview with enough time to review your full professional journey.
Use specific examples and context. Try using the STAR method to provide context around the situation, your responsibility within it, actions you took, and results you had.
Be engaged, and listen to the question at hand. We know that interview prep means you’ll have some key stories in mind to share with us. We appreciate when candidates spend the time to think deeply about their experiences beforehand, but one way this can go awry is by focusing too much on your prep instead of the question(s) being asked. We want to get to know the real you, and that means engaging with the questions and keeping your answers relevant!
<aside> 💡 We can’t wait to get to know you better! For more general information on our interview process and FAQs, check out BioRender Candidate Resources
</aside>