When recruiting for biotech roles at your company, some industry and role-specific interview questions will need to be asked to determine if candidates are actually qualified for your open positions. Below you’ll find interview questions for various biotech and life science roles.
Biomedical scientist interview questions
A biomedical scientist is a scientist trained in biology in the context of medicine. Their primary role is in understanding how the human body works and reacts to different medical treatments and cures for diseases.
- Why are you a good scientist?
- Are you an ethical scientist?
- How do you handle pressure (both personal and work)?
- What would you do if your experiments don’t work out?
- Describe your preferred methods for notation and reporting.
- What do you think is most important when it comes to your reporting processes?
- Do you believe it’s necessary for the research and science team to collaborate with your sales team? Why or why not?
Lab operations interview questions
Lab operations staff are responsible for maintaining equipment and systems in the lab to ensure compliance and accuracy of medical data.
- What lab instruments, equipment, and systems do/have you used? Do you prefer these over others? Are there any you think would be necessary for this role?
- Describe your process for ensuring proper maintenance of lab equipment.
- How do you ensure new lab equipment is properly installed and functioning?
- How do you ensure projects stay on track for specified timelines?
- What are your ideal processes for maintaining data integrity?
- What risk based strategies do you use/are you familiar with?
Biostatistician interview questions
A biostatistician is responsible for analyzing complex medical data sets and results from clinical trials and studies.
- Describe how you organize, plan, and prioritize your work.
- Please share a method you have used to report results of statistical analyses that was effective.
- Describe a time where you analyzed data, evaluated the results, and guided your team/company to the best possible solution.
- What tools do you prefer for analyzing data and doing your daily tasks?
- Tell me about a time where you had to pull data from multiple sources that was challenging. How did you overcome this? What was the outcome?
- Can you provide me with an example of your work that demonstrates your programming and analysis skills?
Laboratory compliance interview questions
Laboratory compliance staff are responsible for ensuring all lab equipment meets compliance standards for use by the lab and research teams.
- Describe how you would begin putting together an annual lab audit plan.
- What size of budget do you typically work with in regards to audits? Would you prefer more or less?
- What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced when conducting internal and external laboratory audits? How did you overcome these?
- What systems do you think are necessary to establish compliance with clinical and pre-clinical teams?
- What do you do to provide ongoing support to lab teams/your company?
- Describe a time where you found an issue. How did you escalate and manage the risk of this problem? What was the outcome? What would you do differently?
Medical and regulatory affairs interview questions
Medical and regulatory affairs team members have the responsibility of getting market authorization for various medical products and treatments, as well as ensuring you meet regulations and guidelines from different geographic markets.
- Tell me about the input you provide for labeling and regulatory strategies.
- Have you ever had any issues when dealing with external policies and regulations? Tell me about the issues you experienced and how you overcame them.
- Describe the process you use to enforce pharmaceutical regulations, guidelines and practices.
- Are you familiar with preparing submissions of license variations and renewals? Have you ever had to do these with strict deadlines? What challenges did you run into?
- Tell me about a time where you had to negotiate with regulatory authorities over market authorization? What was the outcome? Is there anything you would do differently?
Clinical trial and research interview questions
Members of the clinical trial and research team are responsible for testing medical treatments, pharmaceuticals, products, etc through studies and medical monitoring.
- Describe your process for monitoring a study site and collect data.
- What processes do you prefer for ensuring proper management of regulatory documents and compliance?
- How do you ensure you’ve properly reviews all regulatory documents and development plans?
- Describe a time where you had to manage medical monitoring of clinical trials, including assessment of eligibility criteria, and other safety surveillance. Is there anything you would do differently?
- What do you do to ensure you properly collect and analyze clinical data for internal analysis and review?
- Tell me about a time where you had to provide scientific guidance to other staff at your current or past companies.
Finding staff for biotech positions can be difficult. By leveraging the above biotech interview questions, you’ll be able to discover which candidates will be the best fit for your company.
Learn how our complete talent acquisition suite can help you improve your sourcing, nurturing, and interviewing approaches. Schedule a one-on-one LeverTRM demo today.
