Questions to Ask a Chemist
For a student on a career interview or a class visit, and for anyone curious with a working chemist in front of them, whether that chemist is at a university, a plant, a testing lab or a formulation bench. The list follows the order the conversation tends to take: what they make or measure, the day in the lab, safety and what has gone wrong, why chemistry and which branch, the route in, then the chemistry in everyday things.
Want questions from the whole vault instead? Try the random question generator.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The Work
What do you make or measure, and who uses it once it leaves your bench?
Why ask it
This sorts chemists faster than a job title does. A synthetic chemist names a compound, an analytical chemist names a number and a formulator names a product on a shelf. If the answer stays abstract, ask what physically leaves the lab: a vial, a report or a batch record.
Which branch of chemistry is your work, and where does it blur into another one?
Why ask it
Organic, inorganic, analytical, physical and biochemistry are how courses are divided, and working chemists rarely stay inside one. The overlap they describe, a polymer chemist who spends most days on analysis, say, is a truer picture of the job than the name of their degree.
Is your job closer to discovering something new or to making something reliable?
Why ask it
Research, process development and quality control suit different temperaments. Someone in quality control talks about specifications and consistency, and someone in discovery about ideas that mostly fail. Notice which one they describe with pleasure, then ask yourself which would suit you.
What problem took you the longest to solve, and what finally cracked it?
Why ask it
The good answers are stubbornly specific: an impurity that kept coming back, a reaction that ran at one gram and failed at a kilogram, a method that drifted with the weather. The attempts that did not help are the part rarely told, so ask for those too.
Which molecule or material do you know best, and what is it good for?
Why ask it
Hand over a pen, because a chemist who knows a molecule well can usually draw it from memory. Have them say what one small change to the drawing would do. How structure decides behavior is the central idea of the subject, and here you get it from a real example instead of a textbook one.
How much of what you work on are you allowed to talk about?
Why ask it
Put this early in a career interview so you know which later questions to drop. Chemists in industry often cannot name the product or publish the result, while a university expects publication. A follow-up on whether they miss sharing their work usually gets a thoughtful answer.
What have you made or worked out that you are proudest of?
Why ask it
Give them room to pick a way of working over a discovery, since the proudest answer is often a method that now runs every day without them. Then ask who knows it was theirs. In a company it may sit inside a patent or a product with no name on it, and how they feel about that shows you what recognition looks like in the job.
Where does a chemist's job end and a chemical engineer's begin?
Why ask it
The two degrees are easy to confuse from outside. The short version you are likely to hear is that the chemist works out what to make and how the reaction goes, and the engineer works out how to run it safely at the size of a plant. If the equipment sounds more appealing to you than the molecules, that is worth knowing before you apply for either.
Who do you work with who is not a chemist?
Why ask it
A long list (engineers, biologists, regulatory staff, sales teams, customers) means much of the job is turning chemistry into a decision for someone else. That is worth knowing if you pictured working alone at a bench, and it is why writing and presenting tend to come up when you ask what a new graduate lacks.
What counts as a good year in your job, and who decides?
Why ask it
An industrial chemist may name a product launch, a cost target or a patent filing, and an academic will name papers and a grant renewal. Either way you learn what the work is measured by, which shapes the job more than the chemistry does.
In the Lab
Can you walk me through yesterday, from the time you arrived?
Why ask it
Yesterday is harder to tidy up than 'a typical day'. You will probably hear about less glassware than you pictured and more waiting on instruments, writing up and meetings. If you are weighing the career, count the hours at a bench against the hours at a screen.
What hours do you keep, and does an experiment ever decide them for you?
Why ask it
A reaction that has to be watched, a long instrument run or a plant on shifts can set the day more firmly than a contract does, while a desk-heavy role may keep office hours. It varies a great deal by employer and by role, so ask how it is at theirs and how it was when they were starting out. Weekends in the lab mentioned with a shrug deserve a follow-up on whether that was a choice.
Which instruments do you use most, and what question does each one answer?
Why ask it
Names such as NMR, HPLC, mass spectrometry or infrared will come up, and you do not need to know them. What matters is the question behind each: what is in this, how much of it, how pure. On a lab visit, have them read a real printout aloud to you.
How do you know that what is in the flask is what you meant to make?
Why ask it
Nobody can look into a flask and see molecules, so this sits underneath most of chemistry. A careful chemist lists several independent checks and says what each one cannot rule out. One test offered as proof is a thinner answer.
How often does a reaction or a method fail, and what do you do the next morning?
Why ask it
Failure is routine, and the useful part is the procedure that follows: repeat it exactly, check the starting materials, change one variable, ask a colleague. Students who expect lab work to go the way the manual says tend to find this the most reassuring answer of the visit.
What goes into your lab notebook, and who reads it?
Why ask it
Record keeping is a bigger share of the job than outsiders guess. In some workplaces the notebook is electronic, signed, witnessed or audited, and in others it is a private habit, so find out how it works at theirs. Whatever the system, it is the one professional habit a student can copy this week.
How much of your work is done by hand, and how much by a machine or software?
Why ask it
Automatic samplers, robots and modeling programs have taken over the repetitive work in some labs and very little of it in others. For a student, the answer is a list of what to learn alongside chemistry: some coding, statistics, or how to keep an instrument running.
What changes when you go from a small amount to a large one?
Why ask it
Scale is where chemistry meets engineering. Heat that leaves a small flask easily has a much harder time leaving a large vessel, mixing behaves differently and cost starts to matter. Academic chemists may never face it and process chemists think about little else, so the answer places the person.
What is the most tedious part of the job that nobody warned you about?
Why ask it
Asked with a smile, this gets a franker answer than 'what do you dislike about the job'. Expect something like glassware, calibration, inventory or forms, and find out whether it takes an hour a week or an hour a day. If the dull part they name sounds bearable to you, that is a better sign than liking the exciting part.
Is there something in the lab we could watch happen?
Why ask it
For a class visit or a tour, and best sent ahead so there is time to set something up. A color change, a crystallization or an instrument drawing a trace is plenty. Watch from where you are told to stand, and do not ask to try it yourself unless the chemist offers and hands you goggles.
Safety
What is the most hazardous thing you handle, and what stands between you and it?
Why ask it
A good answer names the hazard exactly, that it burns skin, catches fire in air or is toxic to breathe, and then the layers: the fume hood, gloves chosen for that chemical, a small quantity, a written procedure. Bravado, or a vague 'you get used to it', is the worrying version.
What has gone wrong in a lab you worked in, and what changed afterward?
Why ask it
Expect a spill, a small fire, a cracked flask or an unlabeled bottle, and do not push for more drama than you are given. The second half is what counts: a rule that was added, a habit they kept. A lab where nothing changed afterward is the one to be wary of.
What do you do before you work with a chemical for the first time?
Why ask it
The usual routine is reading the safety data sheet, checking what the substance reacts with and deciding where the waste will go before anything is opened. Have them pull up a data sheet and point to the lines they read first. That shows you more than a description of the habit would.
Which safety rule seemed excessive to you until you saw why it existed?
Why ask it
There is usually a near miss behind the answer, whether the rule is goggles for a job that looks harmless, no food in the lab or never working alone. With a class about to start practical work, let the chemist tell it in full. One account of what almost happened does more than the rules pinned to the wall.
Is there anything you will not work with, or will only handle with someone else in the room?
Why ask it
Personal limits show how an experienced person weighs risk. Some name a family of compounds and others a kind of procedure, such as work under high pressure. Whether they are free to say no depends on the workplace, so a fair follow-up is how that goes at theirs.
Where does your waste go when you are finished?
Why ask it
Disposal is real work: separate containers, labels, collections and rules that differ by place and employer. It also opens the subject of greener chemistry, such as using less solvent or a safer one. If they light up at that, ask what they have changed in their own procedures because of it.
What are you more careful about at home because of what you know?
Why ask it
Ask for the other half too: what they do not worry about that other people do. You may hear that they never mix cleaning products and keep everything in the bottle it came in, and also that an ingredient with a long name does not bother them. Treat it as one person's habits; for anything in your own cupboard, the product label is the place to check.
Why Chemistry
When did you know it would be chemistry and not another science?
Why ask it
Listen for a moment and not a plan: a teacher, a demonstration, a summer job, the course where things finally made sense. Plenty of chemists nearly chose something else, and for an undecided student that near miss is the comforting part.
What pulled you toward your specialty, and what did you turn down to do it?
Why ask it
Specialties are often settled by which research group had a place or which company was hiring that year. The road not taken shows the range of the degree: the same graduate might have gone into medicines, coatings, food, energy or teaching.
Which part of your chemistry courses did you find hardest?
Why ask it
Organic and physical chemistry are frequent answers, for opposite reasons: one leans on recognizing patterns and the other on math. If the course you are dreading is the one they struggled with and still passed, find out what got them through it.
What part of the work still feels like play?
Why ask it
The answer tends to be small and physical: crystals that formed overnight, a clean spectrum, a mixture that finally stays mixed. It tells you who lasts in the job, which is someone who likes that particular pleasure enough to sit through the tedium around it.
How is being a chemist at a company different from being one at a university?
Why ask it
Someone who has done both can compare the pace, the freedom and the way a project gets cancelled. Someone who has only known one will give you the view from inside it, which is useful as long as you weigh it that way and put the same question to a chemist on the other side.
What do people assume when you tell them you are a chemist?
Why ask it
Explosions, a television drama, or a pharmacy counter, since in some countries 'chemist' is the everyday word for a pharmacist. Their correction is a quick sketch of the real job, and it makes a strong opening line if you are writing the interview up.
If you were starting again, would you still pick chemistry?
Why ask it
A flat yes tells you little, so follow with what they would change inside it: another branch, more programming, an earlier move to industry. A hesitant answer is not a warning in itself. Find out whether the doubt is about the science or about the jobs around it.
Getting In
What did you study, and how far did you have to go to get the job you have now?
Why ask it
Some roles are open to a bachelor's degree, others expect a master's or a doctorate, and some places have technician or apprenticeship routes. It differs by country, sector and employer, so find out what is expected where you plan to work, and whether this chemist would hire someone with less than they have.
Where did the people you studied chemistry with end up?
Why ask it
A better guide to where the degree leads than a careers brochure. The spread is usually wide: lab work, teaching, patent work, selling instruments, data jobs, medicine, and a few who left science altogether. Which of them seem happiest, and why, is the follow-up.
What experience outside class counted most when you were hired?
Why ask it
A summer in a research group, an industry placement, a part-time job in a testing lab or a final-year project: get the one thing they would point to. Whether it weighed more than grades depends on the employer, so ask how it went at theirs. How they found it and how early they applied is the step a student can act on this year.
What do you look for in a new graduate, and what do they usually lack?
Why ask it
Chemists who hire tend to name habits over knowledge: careful notes, asking before guessing, finishing the write-up. Take the second half as your own to-do list. If they do not hire, switch to what they noticed about the newest person on their team.
What skill do you use every day that no chemistry course taught you?
Why ask it
Whatever they name, whether it is writing a clear report, statistics, a little code or explaining a result to people who are not chemists, you can start on it before you ever work in a lab. Find out how they picked it up: a course, a patient colleague or a mistake they had to fix.
How much math and computing does your work need?
Why ask it
Students who love the lab and fear the math deserve a straight answer. It runs from concentrations and unit conversions to heavy modeling, depending on the branch. Seeing one calculation they did this week shows you the real level better than any description.
How does the pay compare between university, industry and government jobs where you live?
Why ask it
Framed as a comparison and not as 'what do you earn', it rarely makes anyone uncomfortable, and you can add job security to it in the same breath. Figures depend on country, region, sector and degree, so treat whatever you hear as one data point and check current job listings or a salary survey for your own area.
Which areas are hiring chemists at the moment, and which are shrinking?
Why ask it
Their view is from one seat, and demand shifts by region and by year. The reasons they give are worth more than the forecast, because you can test a reason against the job advertisements near you.
What is one thing I could do in the next twelve months that would move me toward a job like yours?
Why ask it
One thing in one year forces a concrete reply: a course, a lab to write to, a society to join, a book. Write it down in front of them, and tell them later that you did it. People remember the student who followed up.
Everyday
What in my kitchen or bathroom is more interesting chemically than it looks?
Why ask it
Let them choose the object, because the choice gives away their branch: a formulator reaches for the shampoo and an analyst for what is in the tap water. If they hesitate, offer soap, baking powder or a non-stick pan and have them say what the molecules in it are doing.
Which claim on a product label makes you roll your eyes?
Why ask it
'Chemical-free' is the classic, since everything is made of chemicals. Get past the joke by asking how they would decide whether an ingredient is worth worrying about. How much of it and how it reaches the body will come up, and that way of reasoning is what to take home.
When someone says natural is safer than synthetic, what do you say?
Why ask it
Expect to hear that where a molecule comes from does not decide how it behaves, with a natural poison or a harmless synthetic to make the point. It starts a discussion and settles nothing about any one product, so skip it if someone in the room is likely to take it personally.
What does cooking look like to a chemist?
Why ask it
Everyone in a class has watched toast brown or bread rise, which makes this the easiest way to hear a reaction explained by someone who runs them for a living. Pick one dish and stay on it. Finish with one thing they do differently at the stove because of what they know.
What chemistry story in the news lately was reported badly, or unusually well?
Why ask it
Bring a headline with you, about a contaminant, a new battery or a drug, in case nothing comes to mind. You get to hear how a specialist reads a claim: what was measured, at what level and compared with what.
Do you have a favorite element or reaction, and why that one?
Why ask it
Nearly any chemist can answer this at once, so with a class it belongs to the youngest person in the room. The reason is the good part: a color, a smell from student days, or the first reaction they ran that worked.
What problem do you hope chemistry solves in your lifetime?
Why ask it
Follow the hope, be it a plastic that breaks down, cheaper energy storage or a new antibiotic, with what stands in its way. Often the obstacle is cost or scale and not a missing idea, which ties the big hope back to the daily work.
Interviewing a chemist without wasting their time
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you meet
Find out which kind of chemist you have
A professor running a research group, a process chemist at a plant, an analyst in a testing lab and a formulator of paints or cosmetics do four different jobs under one word. Look up the employer or the group's page first, then lean on the groups that fit. The Work questions sort the person in the first five minutes if you could not find out beforehand.
Pick about ten
A half-hour interview has room for eight to twelve questions with follow-ups, not the whole list. Take two from each group you care about and mark three you will not leave without asking. For a career interview that usually means one about the day, one about the route in and the one-thing-in-twelve-months question.
Send a few ahead
Anything that needs preparation goes in the email that confirms the time: a request to see the lab, to watch something happen, or to look at a real printout. It also gives a chemist in industry the chance to tell you what is off limits before you are sitting across from each other.
For a class visit, hand the questions out
Give each student one question and have them write it on a card with space for the answer. Open with the Everyday group for younger classes and with Safety for a class about to start lab work. Agree who asks the follow-up, or nobody will.
While you are talking
Ask for the instance
General answers ('we do a lot of analysis') are polite and forgettable. 'Can you give me one from this month?' turns nearly any answer into something you can write down: a sample, a failed batch, a meeting. Use it whenever a reply could have come from a job description.
Say when you are lost
Chemists slip into abbreviations and reagent names without noticing. Stop them and ask what the instrument tells them or what the compound is for. Nobody minds, and an explanation pitched at your level is more use to you than nodding through one that was not.
If you are in the lab
Wear what you are handed, stand where you are put and touch nothing on a bench. Ask before taking a photograph, because a whiteboard or a label in the background may be confidential. Closed shoes and long pants are a safe guess for clothing, but ask your host what their lab requires.
Write down the nouns
The name of an instrument, a course, a company, a professional society or a book is what you will want afterward and will not remember. Opinions are easy to recall. If you are recording, ask first, and expect a chemist in industry to say no.
What tends to go wrong
Asking only about explosions
Most chemists have heard it many times, and it gets a practiced joke. The Safety group reaches the same stories by a better road: what the hazard is, what stands in front of it, what changed after something went wrong.
Asking them to rule on a product or a medicine
A chemist can explain how they reason about an ingredient. They are not your doctor or your pharmacist, and most will not know the formulation in your cupboard. Keep the Everyday questions about how they think, and take anything about your own health to the person who treats you.
Treating one career as the map
Degree requirements, pay, hours and hiring differ by country, sector and employer, and one person knows one path well. Record what they say as how it went for them there, and put the same Getting In questions to a second chemist in a different kind of workplace before you plan around the answers.
Pressing on what they cannot say
If a chemist says a project is confidential, move on at once and ask about the kind of problem instead of the product. Pushing costs you the rest of the interview. The way a company handles secrecy is itself worth a question, and that one they can usually answer.
After the conversation
Write it up the same day
Notes from an interview are half shorthand, and by the weekend the shorthand means nothing. For a school report, four parts cover it: what they make or measure, what a day holds, how they got there, and the one answer that surprised you.
Thank them with something specific
A two-line message that names one thing you learned and one thing you are going to do about it is enough. It also keeps the door open if you later want to ask about a placement or a summer job.
Check the facts that will travel
If the write-up will be read by a class or printed, send the chemist the sentences that describe their work and let them correct the chemistry. Names of compounds and instruments are easy to mishear, and they would rather fix a line now than see it wrong later.