Tag: interviews

How Long and How Often Should You Prepare for a Doctor Job Interview?

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Recently we ran a poll as part of some free training that we have been offering to doctors to help them better prepare for a doctor job interview. We ask the participants in this training what their approach to their last job interview was. So far over 100 doctors have registered for this training and the results are very interesting.

Only 11% of participants indicated that they just winged the interview (i.e. did no preparation) which is a good result. But 53% of participants indicated that they had only done some preparation the night before, versus equal parts having done one practice session 18% or more than one practice 18%. We have added the same poll to the top of this post and would be interested to see what your approach was last time.

So How Long Should You Take to Prepare For a Doctor Job Interview?

As someone who has coached hundreds of doctors through the interview process, I can definitely vouch for the fact that doing some amount of practice for the interview is much more likely to help you succeed. But the question is how long and how often should you prepare for your next doctor job interview? The answer to this question is a bit complicated but in general, the best advice would be to give yourself at least a few weeks and try to do a number of actual interview practice sessions in that space of time. At least some of these practice sessions should incorporate some form of feedback.

But let’s unpack this a little bit more. Because there are definitely a few ways of practicing smarter so that if you have only a little bit of time then your practice can be more effective and if you have heaps of time you will get the maximum out of your endeavours.

We will start by looking at why you should practice and then how you should practice.

Why Should You Practice For Your Next Doctor Job Interview?

I’m assuming that most of you are probably sold on the idea of some sort of practice for your next medical job interview and will skip over this section to the next heading.

A question I would pose if you are not sold on interview preparation is why? Perhaps you have always been good at job interviews. There are some lucky ones who are. Or perhaps more likely you have been lucky up until this point.

Did you study and prepare for examinations in medical school? For most, the answer to this question is yes.

I’d like you to think about a job interview as similar to an important clinical exam. In many ways, its even more important than an exam as it will likely determine the speed and progression of your career. A job interview is a performance. And performances are skills. Skills need development to get to a high level but also top up to sustain them.

The reason so many doctors struggle with doctor job interviews is not that they haven’t had the skills in the past to do well at an interview (for example a clinical examination). But we don’t sustain this skill over time. Because we don’t really need it all the time.

So, unless you are regularly interviewing for jobs. Which thankfully is not the majority of us. You won’t be getting the type of skills practice you need. Unless of course, you do some practice of your own.

Exactly How Much Practice Do You Need?

The answer to this question is a bit complicated. Because it depends on what type of practice you are doing. You should obviously be practising answering questions. But there are many ways of doing this. Apart from establishing that some practice is better than no or little practice, there is no real empirical evidence out there to guide us as to what a good amount of practice is for job interviews.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers explains that 10,000 hours is the key to mastery but this has been called into question.

If you are looking for a good rule of thumb based on my personal observations about 6 practice sessions of an hour each spaced a few days apart is a good medium to head for. This is based on about 100 coaching engagements where I was providing about 3 of these 6 sessions. So if you are practising without a coach you may need a few more.

Can You Practice Too Much for a Doctor Job Interview?

Absolutely you can over practice for an interview. But in my experience few doctor job candidates get to this point. If you are practising regularly you will eventually get to the point where you feel a bit bored about the whole thing. This may be the point where you want to slow down your process a little. As regular practice will help you overcome the anxiety of performance but if you are too practised this will show across in the interview. And you won’t have that small amount of anticipation anxiety that most people use to get themselves alert and awake for a good performance.

However, be wary that you are not just boring yourself because you are going over the same processes over and over again.

Which leads me to.

What Exactly Should You Practice for a Doctor Job Interview?

Questions obviously. But consider what types of questions. And also consider practising components of these questions so that you get better at structuring your answers.

You should be able to anticipate what types of questions you might get from a doctor job interview by reviewing the selection criteria.

Be strategic about what bits of what questions you practice. Use deliberative practice and feedback methods to accelerate your performance. When you notice that you are only making fractional gains. That’s the time to move on to practising another bit of another question.

What Forms of Feedback Should You Incorporate In Your Doctor Job Interview Preparation?

You have to be careful about who you choose to help you with your coaching. For a real case study wake-up call see the video below I made about Kevin’s experience.

There’s a lot of risk in asking friends, colleagues, and family to review your performance. They are cheering for you. So it will be hard for them to give you the critical feedback you need. Plus. They don’t really know what the panel is looking for.

My advice is to choose either someone who has sat on many similar panels before or think about hiring an interview coach.

Also, consider recording your sessions. So you can watch them back. Try to do one question or one part of a question and then force yourself to review the performance straight away. This is playing on the immediacy of feedback. It’s what high-performance athletes do. And it works.

Related Questions.

Question. What Is The Best Way To Record Your Interview Preparation?

You can record yourself easily on an iPhone or similar mobile device. However, it’s best to not be holding these “selfie-style’. Try seeing if you can rest it somewhere so you can be sitting relaxed. Ideally, you want to frame your shot so you can see from the waist up. Just like a real interviewer would see you.

If you want to step it up a bit. You can also get a free which allows you to record yourself in a meeting for up to 40 minutes. This is ideal for both live feedback sessions with say a coach or to review the recording later (and even send it to someone else for review). Zoom is the system we use for our coaching at AdvanceMed

Question. What Should I Consider In Selecting An Interview Coach?

There are a number of things to consider. Price is obviously one thing. But like in many endeavours you get what you pay for. So it shouldn’t be the only consideration. Actual knowledge of the doctor job interview process is quite desirable. Look for a strong track record and also consider that there are quite a few advantages of video coaching over face-to-face coaching. For more, we have written a blog post on this topic for you.

Question. How Can I Best Get Feedback On My Actual Interview Performance?

The best time to ask for feedback is at the end of the actual interview if you are brave enough. Check out this video we made about this topic.

February 25, 2020
Stop Asking Weird and Dumb Interview Questions. Ask These 5 Instead.
As a means for helping other doctors, at AdvanceMed we collect an open bank of real interview questions. These are questions that have been asked in a formal doctor interview process. Our community members regularly submit questions to this bank (thanks heaps by the way!). Not infrequently the questions that come through raise an eyebrow for me and I do wonder whether we are in fact providing a service to anonymously “out” weird, stupid and dumb interview questions and by proxy those that come up with them.

Here’s a recent example from a Pathology trainee interview:

If you can invite 3 people for dinner, who would they be? You can’t name family members.
Anonymous “dumb” interview question

So what exactly is wrong with this type of question and what makes it a “dumb” interview question? Whilst there is no issue with coming up with a challenging question for the job interview. The question does still have to make sense and allow candidates to provide an answer that helps you to judge them by the selection criteria that you have set out.

Context Is Important.

Everything is contextual in recruitment. So a question about inviting guests to dinner might well be very relevant for say an event management position, where one of the Key Result Areas is the ability to come up with a fresh program of speakers for the event sponsor.

But the selection criteria for most medical jobs that I have seen don’t include an event management function. They generally talk about behaviours such as demonstrating good clinical knowledge and skills, good communication, good teamwork, being professional, demonstrating ongoing learning, and practicing cultural respect and safety.

Maybe at a real stretch, a question about inviting people to dinner could infer something about how one goes about forming a team. But I can think of a dozen betters ways of constructing a question that gets to that issue.

Unfortunately, sometimes the doctors who attend interview panels in medicine think that because they are intelligent and perhaps have attended a one day course in recruitment and selection that they are all of a sudden an expert in human resources and recruitment and that it’s time for a “wacky interview question to challenge the candidates.”

Perhaps they may also feel that a creative thinking type of question gives them a different perspective on the candidate? Some useful insight into their personality or communication or teamwork style. But guess what? There are actual validated psychometric employment and other psychological tests that do a much better job of this than one interview question.

Stick To The Script.

I’d encourage all doctors and other professionals involved in the candidate selection process to stick to the script. By which I mean stick with the principle that each interview question should form a relationship to at least one of the selection criteria for the job.

I say this for three main reasons:
1. This principle actually makes it easier to design good questions and establish rating criteria
2. The information you gain from these questions from each candidate will be far more useful to you
3. Most importantly you are also avoiding getting into the tricky area of problems with discrimination and equal employment opportunity
Yes. That’s right. If you can’t prove how your selection process relates to the actual requirements of the position then you open yourself up to the possibility of candidates challenging the process as being unfair.

Good Job Interview Questions. Challenging Questions That You Should Ask.

Ok. So you have looked at the list of questions you are asking for the job and they are predictable and the same as last year. You would still like to be able to stretch the candidates a bit. What can you do?

Here are 5 questions that you can probably use in your next medical job interview. Bearing in mind that you do still need to ensure that they line up with the selection criteria.

Good Interview Question Number One.

What Single Project Or Task Would You Consider Your Most Important Career Accomplishment to Date?
C/- Loud Adler

Acknowledgements to Loud Adler for this question. This one question can tell a lot about a job candidate in medicine. Starting with whether they value outcomes and achievements in their work. It can also provide insights into how they go about accomplishing success, how they manage their time and incorporate feedback into their process, whether they get chosen to work on challenges and why, and how they work with others to marshall resources and create a common cause.

There are so many supplementary questions that can be explored off the back of this one single question.

And this question is easily related to the selection criteria of most medical jobs. For example:
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively & harmoniously in a multidisciplinary team.
- Demonstrated good organisational, time management and problem-solving skills within a complex clinical environment.
- Proven commitment to ongoing learning and professional development.
- Ability to contribute to quality improvement and / or clinical safety in the hospital.
Good Interview Question Number Two.

Tell Us About A Difficult Day You Had At Work
Example Questions Are Great For Getting To the Truth

This is one of my current favourites. Once again it requires the candidate to dig into their career and choose an example of how they have performed. This time under difficult circumstances. If the example doesn’t seem all that difficult. Then this may imply that the candidate has not been truly tested. If the example blows you away it probably means that they are up for the challenge. But its also what they found difficult and how they handled it that matters most. For some, it might be difficulties in communicating or dealing with under-resourcing. For others, it might be difficulties with the emotional impact of work. Whatever the circumstances look for evidence of personal insight, coping strategies, advocating and escalating for help and of course, relying on one’s team.

This question is easily related to selection criteria such as:
- Demonstrated good organisational, time management and problem-solving skills within a complex clinical environment.
- Ability to work independently in a supervised environment and work in a multidisciplinary team
Good Interview Question Number Three.

Tell Us About Some Research You Discovered That Affected Your Practice.
Example Of a Question To Explore Evidence Based Practice

Most candidates can talk the talk when it comes to using evidence in their clinical work. But it is surprising how many are stumped when asked to actually recall an example where they have used evidence to alter theirs and their team’s approach to care.

This question applies to selection criteria where you are wanting to see the demonstration of up to date clinical knowledge and practice (which is pretty much in every doctor position description), but often there is also a criterion about demonstrated commitment to learning and research. So it can address two criteria at the same time.

Good Interview Question Number Four.

What Does This Position Offer You And Why Do You Want To Leave Your Current Role?
Organizations Tend to Try To Hang On to Good Employees. So Its Important to Explore Reasons For Leaving.

A much-overlooked question is why a candidate is applying for the position. Granted in many doctor interviews its a matter of progressing from one stage of training to the next. However, as we go up the seniority ranks there tends to be less turnover. If a doctor is a genuine asset then usually their manager is trying really hard to keep them. So there needs to be a good positive reason offered in terms of things like:
- desiring more responsibility
- experiences that are not on offer in the current post
Any sign of negativity towards the current employer or service should be treated with caution. Strong candidates will be more sanguine about their current experience and less likely to say anything negative regardless of how bad the experience has been.

This question is often a better alternative to asking candidates to either “Tell Us About Yourself?” or “Tell Us Why You Are Good For the Job?” It invites a candidate to address any or all of the selection criteria. Although in Medicine, most will tend to focus on the clinical requirements first in their answer.

Good Interview Question Number Five.

Could You Demonstrate To Us The Following…
Skills Tests Are Under Utilised In Medical Interviews

The last good question is in fact not a question but a test. And the test will again depend on the position and the selection criteria.

In the majority of jobs, which includes medicine, there is normally a key task that is important for the role and which can be simulated in an interview environment. Successful demonstration of this task will normally address selection criteria around clinical capability as well as often communication skills.

The “Skills Test” is used surprisingly sparingly in medical job interviews in my experience. But often very easy to deploy and quite useful.

In a past role, I recruited doctors to fill Resident Medical Officer posts in mental health. The role required a basic ability and knowledge of mental health (we could and did teach the rest) but importantly required the doctors to have up to date medical skills.

We would give each candidate a couple of ECG readings with a scenario which demonstrated common abnormal findings. This test was remarkably discriminating and quite reassuring in terms of hiring doctors who were able to interpret basic ECGs.

Some other examples where a Skills Test may be relevant:
- Resident demonstrating how to complete a pathology form or prescription
- Surgical trainee demonstrating a knot tieing technique
- Surgical trainee consenting interview member for surgical procedure
- Radiology trainee interpreting and completing a report on a Chest X-Ray
- Psychiatry trainee watching a short video of a patient and reporting mental status findings
- Advanced Trainee being asked to give a presentation on a recent update in their field
- Consultant being asked to prioritize a ward round list
Related Questions About Dumb Interview Questions.

Question. Are There Any Interview Questions That A Panel Is Not Allowed To Ask Me?

Answer. Yes. There are. These are called discriminatory or illegal questions. There are laws in Australia and most other countries to prevent panel selecting people on the basis of background, preferences or characteristics which do not relate to the ability to perform the role. We have a post about this here.
September 18, 2019
How To Predict Interview Questions. A Sure-Fire Method With Examples.
Are you looking for an easy way to predict the types of questions you will get at your job interview? I’ve worked with lots of candidates for various jobs both inside and outside of medicine and there is a reasonably simple and straightforward method that I show these clients which can help you to predict interview questions for the majority of questions that you will normally be asked during the interview. And this method also set you up for any unexpected “curveball” type questions.

So how can you tell what sort of questions you are going to be asked during the interview? The simple answer to this is that the genesis of each interview question should come from the selection criteria that are attached to the job description. If you can identify these selection criteria then you can also identify the types of skills, strengths, evidence and examples the panel will be looking for in the interview and practise questions formatted in the various interview question styles.

Whilst, it’s never 100% possible to completely predict the actual question you may be asked. I find that this sort of analysis paired with an intensive practice regimen will pick up about 80% of the actual questions fairly closely. But it’s always possible for the interview panel to go “off-script” on occasion, especially on medical panels, where some of the panel members can view themselves as self-taught experts in the process. For these occasions, I have a couple of other methods so you can handle the more odd question comfortably as well.

For the rest of this article, I will take you through my method for identifying questions in more detail. Give you a couple of examples and then talk about a couple of more tips to have you extra prepared.

How to Predict Interview Questions Step 1. First Find the Selection Criteria.

When you know how and where to look. It’s actually pretty easy to predict most of the questions you will be asked.

So here is a typical Senior Resident Medical Officer job from the NSW Health site.

SRMO Post

You can see that its for a role in Intensive Medicine. So the sort of doctor who might be applying for this role is someone in their third year of Medicine who is looking at potentially training in ICU or perhaps Anaesthesia in the future.

These jobs aren’t formally accredited for training. So they are almost 100% done as a small panel interview with perhaps 3 or 4 people on the panel.

So its obviously worth reading through the whole position description to see if it is a job that is good for you.

But once we have decided we are interested in the job. If we want to work out the sort of questions we will get asked then we need to look at the Selection Criteria. Because in most countries like Australia the common practice (and normally also the policy) is to ask questions based on the selection criteria. Here are the Selection Criteria:

Selection Criteria

In theory, you should not be asked a question which is not related to one of the selection criteria.

So for this job we have 8 selection criteria which is the maximum allowed in NSW Health. Let’s look at some of these criteria. I am going to skip over the first one which is about having a medical degree and being registered with the Medical Board. You will need to be able to prove this when you apply. So you are not going to be asked a question about this. Unless there is a specific doubt or query about the evidence you have given.

Questions About Relevant Experience

Lets look at Selection Criteria number 2.

“Completion of at least two postgraduate years including relevant experience in intensive care medicine.”

On the surface, this seems similar to the first criteria. In that, you either have this or don’t have this. But there are actually a few ways this criterion could come up as a question

AND a few ways of answering it.

The first way this criterion could come up is in what I call “The typical opening or first question.” Panels often like to kick off the interview with a question that gets the candidate to talk about themselves. So you might be asked something general like:

“Why are you a good candidate for this role?”

OR even more general like

“Why are you interested in this position?”

Or more specific and more targeted to the criteria. Like

“Can you outline how your experience makes you suitable for the position?”

If the panel was to ask this question in a behavioural format. Which they often like to.Then they might ask a question like:

“Can you give us an example of how your experience so far has prepared you for this role?”

Every Question Is An Opportunity to Highlight Your Strengths.

Now. I have just given you 4 questions that fit one selection criteria. So, you could now go off and practice all 4 questions. But actually, whilst the format of answering each of these questions will differ slightly. The content will generally remain the same.

With each and every question it’s an opportunity for you to emphasise your strengths to the panel. So in this instance, you would:
1. Give an outline of your experience so far. Especially if it is more than 2 years.
2. Talk about any specific experience in intensive care if you have had some.
3. But also talk about related experiences and training, such as working in emergency OR doing an advanced life support course OR being given the opportunity to participate on a Medical Emergency Team
4. And give the best example of a case of a patient requiring urgent or intensive care and how you contributed to that case and displayed skills and competencies relevant to intensive care.
Demonstrating the Ability to Work Independently.

Let’s look at one more of these criteria. Let’s look at number 3.

“Demonstrated ability to work independently in a supervised environment”

More often than not. The most likely way this selection criterion will be assessed is through a clinical scenario.

If you undertake any coaching with me or take my interview skills course. We talk about how the clinical scenario is both an assessment of your clinical knowledge but also an assessment of your ability to seek help and access other resources.

So, you are likely to be given a scenario where you have to have a method and approach for assessing a sick patient. But there will be a point where the panel expects that you discuss when you would seek help from more senior colleagues. And this is likely to be the more critical part of the question.

The approach to the question is to show a balance between being able to act calmly in a situation, collect information and conduct an initial assessment and then use your assessment to gain input from the senior colleague.

Once again. As always. An example. It doesn’t need to be the exact scenario but just something similar. That demonstrates how you have actually done this before in real life is EXTREMELY POWERFUL.

Some Other Tips For Being Prepared For the Interview.

Question Banks.

Another great tip for making sure you have practised the questions that you may be asked at the interview is to find out from previous candidates what sort of questions they have been asked.

You will find that if you ask around you will often be handed a bunch of “past questions”. If you get enough of these you will start to notice a bit of a pattern. That is the questions will start to repeat themselves. They may not be exactly the same. But in essence, they are the same question.

This is because medical position descriptions generally don’t change much year to year. So you can be fairly confident in using these questions to practice. And if you practice enough of them. Then you will find that you are familiar with most of the questions you get asked.

By the way, we have a page on the AdvanceMed site that lists over 500 interview questions. Categorized by various job titles. It’s worth exploring. Even if there are not many questions for your particular position. You will probably find questions under other categories are easily adapted.

Prepare an Example for Each Criterion.

My last tip is to have a good example for each of the selection criteria. This is useful. For a couple of reasons.

Firstly. You probably have had to do this anyway when you addressed the selection criteria in your application.

Secondly. Even if you are given a bit of a curveball question and you weren’t prepared for it. Having an example for each selection criteria will probably give you something to talk about that is relevant to that “curveball question”.

So that’s how you can work out the sorts of questions you may be asked at the interview.

If you are looking for even more guidance you may want to look at purchasing our book

Or check out the courses and coaching available through this site.

Related Questions.

Question. Where’s a Good Place to Find Evidence for the Selection Criteria?

Answer.

I find a good place to start is your CV. Look at each selection criteria and then go through your CV and highlight areas that meet that criteria. Ask yourself is there enough detail here? Are there quantifiable results or a good example? If not you probably want to add these into your CV for this particular job application.

Question. Why Do Interview Panels Like to Ask Behavioural Questions?

Answer.

Behavioural questions are when the panel asks you for an example from your past that demonstrates a selection criterion. This is based on some reasonable evidence from organizational psychology and human resources research that asking for an example is more predictive of future performance than an answer to a hypothetical question. Its based on the principle that past performance predicts future performance.
August 2, 2019