Is an invitation to 'chat' about a potential PhD position actually an interview? What am I to expect? I've been invited for a chat for a potential PhD position by a professor I'm interested in working with. He also wants me to give a short presentation on some experiments I've done in the past that I'm proud of. What am I supposed to expect from this? Is it going to be a real interview? My master's dissertation has essentially been on a similar field of study. Am I supposed to explain everything from the basics in the presentation or just talk about the experiments that he asked for and assume the professor knows/understands stuff? What am I going to be judged on? What are the right questions for me to ask?
Yes, this is an interview. Or at least a part of an interview - depending on your location, there may be a more formal one later. As a rule of thumb, both for academia and industry, whenever you meet with a prospective employer, be it for a coffee or lunch, a &quot;chat&quot; or something else, it is part of the interview.
As for the chat itself. If he asked you to give a short presentation, you should prepare to give a rather thorough one; ie. be prepared to explain basic stuff as well. If you have no idea about the format (time, place, equipment, audience (eg. is it just him?)), ask him. In my field it would be common to prepare some slides for such a presentation, but for others you would do without. It is always nice to know roughly how long time you have when preparing. Important: If the prof. says that you have, say, 20 minutes, then prepare to stick to that.
You can ask about details of the research, what is expected of PhD students wrt. teaching, possibilities for traveling and other things you are curious about.