What are the possible answers for such interview question assuming a new graduate with no funds! How much funding you will bring to the department?
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12"All of it! I shall crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentations of their postdocs!"– jakebealCommented Jan 18, 2015 at 0:16
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1 Answer
This is an invitation to discuss your plans for obtaining external funding. They want your answers to questions like the following:
What agencies fund research like yours?
What projects do you have that you think would be successful in gaining external funding?
Why do you think you would be successful? Can you point to similar (but not too similar) projects that have been funded? Why would a funding agency agree your work is worthy of support? Why would they agree that you are a qualified person to carry out the work, and that your project is likely to actually produce useful results? How would you convince them? What supporting evidence would you use?
How large would those grants be likely to be? How do you know?
When do you propose to begin applying for such grants? Is there anything specific that needs to happen first?
Do you have collaborators in mind with whom you might co-apply? Have you discussed this with them?
answered Jan 17, 2015 at 4:02
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So the original question is not about how much do you have "currently"? And how would someone know how much funding he can get, and prove that, assuming there wasn't a previous record of PI grants? Commented Jan 19, 2015 at 23:12
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4@Thomas: The question may have been meant to ask about how much you have. But if you don't have any, don't just say "none"; talk about how you're going to get it. Of course you can't prove that you will get such-and-such an amount, but you want to make a convincing case that you have an excellent chance of obtaining significant funding. Commented Jan 19, 2015 at 23:16