Interview Skills

Throughout your medical career, you will be subjected to various interviews, which will hopefully lead to roles that will further advance your career. As such, it is highly important for you to be well prepared and confident during your interviews.

The aim of a medical interview is to assess your competencies as a doctor and to analyse your personality. As a first step, you should refer to the Person Specification document, published by MMC, to see if you are eligible for the role you may be applying for.

Below is a checklist to help you prepare for your interview:

Past experience

• Are your past experiences sufficient to apply for the current role?
• What medical experiences and knowledge did you gain from your past work?
• Why did you decide to take your previous role?
• What are your weaknesses and how can you improve upon them?
• When should you call a consultant?

The Job

• What are your reasons for applying for the current role?
• What do you expect to gain from this job?
• Why should the interview pick you? What have you got to offer?
• Are there any issues you think you may have with the job?

The specialty

• Why are you interested in this specialty? What you do expect to achieve/learn from it?
• How do you keep up to date with the latest developments?
• What is the most interesting/least interesting aspect?

Research

• What research ideas do you have in mind?
• What are your thoughts on …
• Are you going to continue your studies further, if so on what?

Audit

• Tell me what you understand about an audit
• Give some examples of audits undertaken

Teaching

• What teaching experience do you have?
• What do you think is the most effective method of teaching?

Management

• What management experience do you have?
• Have you done a management course in the past, or do you intend to take one?
• What are your thoughts on the management of various medical organisations such as the NHS, MMC, etc.

About yourself

• What can you bring into the role/organisation?
• Give a good example of work you have done
• Describe a mistake you made and how you came about to a resolution
• What was your best/worst moment?
• How do you balance work and home life?