By: Emily Tan, DO
Congratulations on your interview invites! 聽Before you reach into that closet for your lucky interview suit, take a moment to celebrate how far you鈥檝e come. Medical school has been quite the trip and you are now at the precipice of the next chapter of your career!
And now, back to work. 聽The interview trail will be another part of your hero鈥檚 journey with weeks of聽multiple interviews a couple days apart. 聽As professional students, you have perfected the art of sniffing out expectations and meeting them. 聽However, successful interviewing requires a different set of skills. 聽Come interview day, you must confidently look your future directors and peers in the eye and tell them who you are and why you deserve to be trained there. 聽Let鈥檚 address how to prepare for an unforgettable interview.
Step One: Soul Search
This is the most important and often overlooked step. 聽For many of us, much of medical school has been a bit of a blur. 聽Lack of sleep and the sheer amount of information processing has overshadowed some of our most important moments as doctors. 聽In the last several years you have likely witnessed your first birth, your first death, touched internal organs, and handed out a lot of tissues. 聽Somehow, you鈥檝e also decided on a specialty that you are ready to devote the rest of your life to.
Take some time to reflect on how you鈥檝e grown. 聽Process with a friend (nonmedical friends will be especially insightful). 聽Journal. 聽How have you changed? What core qualities about yourself have not changed? Have you surprised yourself? 聽The better you know yourself, the easier it will be to show people who truly you are, not just who you think they want you to be.
, bestselling author and entrepreneur puts it this way: 鈥淸Get] clear on your attributes, identify which of those attributes is most vital to your success and then define what you offer to the world as a result of those attributes鈥� Image is a fragile thing. Sincerity is rock solid.鈥�
Step Two: Create an Answer Bank
If you watch political debates, and it鈥檚 been hard to avoid them lately, you鈥檒l notice that the candidates only address the question for a couple seconds before they transition to a carefully scripted oratorium on their achievements, credentials, and positive attributes. 聽They can鈥檛 possibly have a direct answer for every question so they use an answer bank. 聽聽Once they find a question that is remotely related to a good answer, they select from the bank and deliver.
Interviewing for residency is much less complicated but nearly as predictable and the same techniques can be leveraged to help you prep your way to the perfect debate, I mean interview.
This is where the endless hours spent practicing for test taking and answer recall actually helps. 聽Go to my blog post on the for some sample questions to formulate answers to.
How do you best answer these questions? Ernest Hemingway鈥檚 iceberg theory says, 鈥淚f a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.鈥� 聽Basically:
Show, don鈥檛 Tell.
A more intuitive way to approach your answer bank stems from the art of a good first date. 聽How off-putting and boring would it be if your date responded to your opening 鈥渟o, tell me about yourself鈥� by listing their attributes? 聽鈥淚鈥檓 hard working, self motivated, blah blah blah.鈥� 聽Instead, as humans, we respond more naturally to stories. 聽You鈥檙e much more likely to feel like you know who your date is and their strengths through the colorful glimpses of life experiences that they share with you. 聽This approach will also help you deliver a good date, I mean interview. 聽For more on the specifics of the perfect interview story, jump to my blog post on the . 聽Make sure you have a story for each answer that you can deliver the moment the right question comes along.
Step Three: Practice, practice, practice
While being an intelligent people person with solid credentials might get you by, to truly shine you must practice, practice, practice.
Practice in front of the mirror. 聽This way you can hear what your stories and answers sound like. 聽Make edits and also identify the areas that you frequently stumble on and smooth them out.
Practice in front of a camera. 聽This will make your go-to comfort phrases (um, like, etc) and non-verbal tics (wringing your hands, rocking back and forth, etc) painfully obvious.
Practice in front of a real live person/people. 聽Recruit a friend, a partner, a family member, or a stranger to put the pressure on. 聽Pay for an interview coaching session that can help you tweak your verbal and non-verbal presentation.
The key is to practice until it flows. 聽If you only practice enough to get it right one or twice, during interview day your mental energy will be focused on recall. This defeats the whole purpose. 聽If you practice until it comes out without effort, your mental energy will be free to engage with your interviewer.
鈥淲e don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.鈥� – Archilochos
Step Four: Deliver
Beyond the common sense prep (iron your outfit, write down/print out directions in case your phone dies, charge your phone, etc), here are a few tips that can help boost your confidence on interview day.
Before you leave your car, have a calming moment (here is one of my favorite five minute guided meditations, ) and set your intention for the day. 聽Being grounded and confident will help you deal with the curveballs you get. 聽Sometimes interviewers will ask a question they don鈥檛 expect you to know to gauge how well you think on your feet. 聽Relax and maybe even put some humor into the answer.
Get your caffeine dose right. 聽Too much coffee can lead to rambling and frequent bathroom breaks. 聽See more about common mistakes in .
Right before your interview, Amy Cuddy鈥檚 鈥減ower posing鈥� can leverage your body to calm and empower your mind. 聽Stand with your arms up in a giant V, lift your chin, and smile as though you just crossed the line a toe in front of Usain Bolt. 聽Or, put your hands on your hips and do your best Beyonce pose. 聽This can be done quietly almost anywhere, preferably somewhere secluded. 聽Watch Amy鈥檚 TEDTALK on . 聽Be your best self to everyone. 聽Many applicants have been blacklisted because they were rude to receptionists or two faced when talking to a stranger in the hall who turned out to be an important faculty member walking through. 聽Even though you are under a lot of pressure that day, remember to be present with everyone you interact with.
After all that work on your presentation, remember that the interview is just as much a chance for you to gather information about the program. 聽Get a feel for the culture fostered by the residents and attendings. 聽Be curious. 聽This is where good questions come from.
In conclusion, the best and most frustrating interview advice passed on to me from program directors and residents alike is this:
鈥淏e yourself鈥�
Maddening, isn鈥檛 it? 聽But hidden in its simplicity is a lot of work. 聽These four steps will give you the confidence to engage with your prospective programs and represent yourself authentically. 聽Go knock their socks off.
Emiliy Tan, DO, is a coach at 聽and this post is presented by the聽. Emiliy’s an artist, turned horse trainer, turned surgeon. She says it鈥檚 been quite the journey with some rough patches. As an MS4, Emiliy went unmatched. Disappointed but undeterred, she regrouped, did some soul searching, picked up some new tricks, and successfully reapplied. Not everyone fits the match formula as presented by our deans and guidance counselors, she says, and she’s excited to share what she has learned so far.
