Interviewing Doctoral applicants

What to expect when interviewing Doctoral applicants.

From January 2026, Victoria University of Wellington requires that there be an interview of every applicant to whom we wish to offer a place on one of its doctoral programmes. This means that you can expect some sort of interview, if your application proceeds to this point in the process.

This document explains why we introduced this requirement and what you can expect.

Rationale

Doctoral candidates work closely with their supervisors for at least three years. It is important that the University is confident that doctoral candidates will be able to complete a degree successfully and that the supervisors and candidate will be able to work effectively together. Selecting appropriate candidates is important. Selection cannot reasonably be based solely on paperwork.

The University is also aware that many applicants are unsure of what a doctorate involves. A conversation prior to making an offer helps applicants to determine whether the doctorate is for them, and whether a doctorate at this University is the right doctorate for them.

Selecting good doctoral candidates is as important as selecting new staff members. When selecting staff members, we normally have a formal interview; we want to have some similar process for selecting doctoral candidates. As with choosing staff members, we do not interview every applicant, only those who we would seriously consider admitting having read the submitted paperwork.

The interview provides an opportunity to check on the applicant’s understanding of the subject matter, the applicant’s understanding of the doctoral degree, and the applicant’s ability to communicate effectively. These checks have always been useful but they take on extra importance in an age when applicants are able to leverage AI tools to produce written applications that are not an accurate reflection of their actual capabilities.

How we interpret ‘interview’

‘Interview’ here is used as a broad term encompassing different approaches, according to the needs of each discipline. It may be something equivalent to a formal job interview, with set required questions, but it may also be approached as one or more conversational meetings to engage in peer-to-peer discussion about potential research. The key is that someone from the University must have engaged conversationally and verbally with the applicant for a reasonable length of time, rather than depending on paperwork submitted by the applicant or on email communication.

If the applicant is already known to the potential supervisor

Where an applicant is already known to the potential supervisor, the potential supervisor’s previous conversations with the applicant may be sufficient to be considered equivalent to an ‘interview’. In such cases, schools and institutes can use their discretion and waive the need for any further interview.

Interviewers

Ideally any interview (or other meeting style) would be conducted by the potential supervisor, because they are the person who would be working with the applicant most closely for at least three years. Where practical, an interview could be conducted by more than one person, as this can provide a useful check on any unintentional biases. However, there may be circumstances where someone else is asked to conduct an interview.

Length of interview

There is little academic evidence for the optimum length of a formal interview, there being so many factors in play. Many applicants take some time to relax and there needs to be sufficient time to address the checks above. As a rough guide, 10 minutes is too short while an hour is likely too long.

What sort of questions?

The University has a set of recommended questions but each school can develop its own approach appropriate for its discipline, so there is no guarantee that you would be asked the same questions as an applicant in a different discipline. Even within a discipline, questions may differ from applicant to applicant, as we expect the interview to be personalised to the particular research topic and the particular circumstances of the applicant.