Interviewing Tips for Health Schools

Alex Dudley Author

12/19/2024 Added

3 Plays

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Learn strategies for approaching your interview and having your best interview. The Explore Center offers mock interviews throughout the year to practice what you learn!

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[00:00:08.650]Alex Dudley: All right. I know there is only 4 of us in this room right now, but we do record these so they can hear it in the presentation.
[00:00:15.370]Alex Dudley: So a little heads up for that. But Welcome! Today we are going to be doing a workshop on interviewing tips specifically for health professional school. My name is Alex, Dudley. I'm the pre-professional coordinator in the Explore Center. We're located right downstairs. So I know it's a small group. So if you have any questions, please interrupt, ask questions, engage there'll be a few activities and stuff.
[00:00:40.050]Alex Dudley: So thank you guys for being here.
[00:00:50.940]Alex Dudley: Alright. So first, since there's only 3 of us. I figured I'd have you guys go around to share your name. If you have any interviews coming up, let me know what those are, and for what area? And if you're early on, don't have any of those yet, just let me know.
[00:01:03.710]Alex Dudley: Student Speaking: I did not know this was for Pre-Health at all. I just saw interview tips, and I was interested.
[00:01:09.510]Alex Dudley: Totally fair. Student Speaking: Oh, I just got done with interview like
[00:01:12.940]Alex Dudley: now, a hour ago. For what? Oh, for a software engineering. Okay, not everything might apply. But hopefully, you get a couple tips. Anyone else? I am Barret, I am applying for physical therapy. I have 2 interviews coming up, one for Mayo clinic, one for
[00:01:33.480]Alex Dudley: Iowa. And then I'm hoping to get back from UNMC. And KDMC this week.
[00:01:41.562]Alex Dudley: My name is [inaudible] and I am Pre-Med. I don't have any interviews anytime soon.
[00:01:48.960]Alex Dudley: Absolutely wonderful. Thank you guys for coming. Wonderful. All right, quick, little agenda overview for us. We're going to start by just talking about some things to consider before the interview, for the interview, after the interview, and then resources.
[00:02:04.900]Alex Dudley: 1st thing I like to do is just give a note of confidence out there. If you got an interview. You are capable of being there. Going in with just that sense of confidence, and knowing that you are meant to be there, and you deserve to be there will go a long way. They'll feel that, you'll feel better, you'll perform better. So just remember that when you're going in you have that spot, you're meant to be there. They're excited to learn more about you. Share it.
[00:02:30.380]Alex Dudley: All right. So let's jump on into some things to consider before the interview.
[00:02:34.880]Alex Dudley: So the purpose. What is the purpose of an interview? For the most part your purpose is to assess your ability to connect with others. So they're looking at how you interact with people. Your interpersonal skills. Is it easy to connect? Is that awkward? Is there a struggle there?
[00:02:48.540]Alex Dudley: They're going to evaluate your verbal and nonverbal communication, your level of sincerity and enthusiasm that fits with the field in the program, and they also want to see if you're consistent with others on paper. Again, they liked what they saw on paper. They want to see if you're consistent with that, and if you kind of grow from that.
[00:03:05.260]Alex Dudley: The fit with the field and program is something that I encourage you to think about as well. And I'll say this a couple times throughout. But this is a big commitment, no matter what it is. If it's a job or a professional school, you're looking at a minimum of
[00:03:17.640]Alex Dudley: 4 to 5 year commitment. Right? So we want to make sure that their values align with yours and your values align with theirs. So when you're thinking about this. They want to make sure that
[00:03:27.240]Alex Dudley: their culture matches yours. But make sure that you're thinking a little bit intentionally about that.
[00:03:33.380]Alex Dudley: All right. Impact on acceptance. I think it's pretty obvious to say that it does play a pretty significant part in the decision process, and it's definitely your chance to distinguish yourself from others. Stand out a little bit. Show some of your personality.
[00:03:46.160]Alex Dudley: Once again it allows a program to kind of assess how you would fit if you were to get the position or the
[00:03:52.350]Alex Dudley: job, or whatever. A good interview can definitely enhance your application. But a bad interview can hinder it. So I've had stories. I've known students who were stellar on paper 4.0 S. Fantastic MCAT score, whatever it was, but they came in, and they were very arrogant or spoke badly about somebody else, or they just had enough of those red flags that a committee was like. No, this isn't the type of person you want
[00:04:15.140]Alex Dudley: to work with patients. Right? So really, overall, a good interview can help. The bad interview can hinder your application.
[00:04:22.290]Alex Dudley: All right. So we'll go ahead and talk a little bit more specifics here about some interview formats again. This is a little bit more geared to pre-professional stuff. 1st is file open and close. This is definitely going to be more specific for pre-health. So what this means is your application. Do they have a full awareness of it? Do they know your GPA, did they read your personal statement? If so, that's going to be an open.
[00:04:45.090]Alex Dudley: Close file is going to be they know essentially nothing about you. Maybe they know a few small things, occasionally they'll read one of your essays or something or maybe just your GPA. For the most part closed means close, and they do that purposefully, so they can evaluate the person in front of them without anything else.
[00:05:04.520]Alex Dudley: So OT school, I just had a student tell me they had a closed file interview for OT school coming up. So it's definitely a thing that happens if it's around.
[00:05:14.940]Alex Dudley: That makes a difference for a few reasons. When it's an open file, you kind of have that understanding or kind of that guarantee that they already know a lot of things about you, right? You don't feel as much, pressure to fit in a lot to that interview that you want them to know.
[00:05:30.270]Alex Dudley: So they would already have the chance to say, no, you don't have to make a point of saying that you took. You know you got a 4.0 or a 3.8, because they already saw that right. So when it's closed, you have to be a little bit more intentional about saying what things in my application do I want to make sure I'm getting
[00:05:44.990]Alex Dudley: in this interview because they don't have that.
[00:05:48.910]Alex Dudley: Then we have type.
[00:05:50.210]Alex Dudley: So there's a lot of different types of interviews. Single 1-1 is probably one of the most we're aware of. It's actually, it's popular for pre-health programs, but channels a little bit more popular. And we'll talk about that in a second, but a single 1-1 is essentially exactly what it sounds like. You one other person you sit down. You have one interview that day.
[00:06:09.310]Alex Dudley: the time, as we'll mention, will vary but a lot of times the single 1-1 will be 45 min.
[00:06:16.080]Alex Dudley: Then we have multiple 1-1. This is essentially the same as having a normal 1-1. But you have multiple throughout the day. So I had a grad school
[00:06:23.620]Alex Dudley: cohort member who interviewed for a job in higher education, and she had 7 different 10 min interviews with 7 different people.
[00:06:31.630]Alex Dudley: So instead of being in one big, all of them together. She had 7 different. So not super popular, I would say, in pre-health, but still a possibility. And then panel, I would say, is by far our most popular receiver for pre-professional that's going to be a panel of people and then one of you. So a lot of times, it's different representatives from
[00:06:48.790]Alex Dudley: different areas related. So admissions, a student, a faculty member, and it's all there so they can get kind of different perspectives. Group, occasionally, I would say this is going away. But that's obviously when there is multiple interviewees being interviewed. This is kind of a balancing act of making sure your voice is heard while not
[00:07:11.300]Alex Dudley: controlling the whole conversation.
[00:07:14.250]Alex Dudley: and MMI's or multiple mini interviews, I'm actually going to open up a little document to take a look at those.
[00:07:20.760]Alex Dudley: There's a very unique type of interview.
[00:07:31.620]Alex Dudley: So someone once told me that MMI's are some kind of like speed dating. So essentially, it's a series of short kind of timed.
[00:07:44.150]Alex Dudley: Short, timed interview stations a lot of times it's in like a big auditorium or something similar to that. And they just have stations or kind of loops to go around. And it's much more about how you react to a situation or respond to something than it is a traditional interview.
[00:08:00.600]Alex Dudley: So it's usually like, I said, 5 to 6 stations where you have questions or more scenarios that they ask you to kind of react to. So you usually have a couple of minutes to go through each kind of one to evaluate and prepare. And
[00:08:13.990]Alex Dudley: [inaudible]
[00:08:16.520]Alex Dudley: part
[00:08:18.078]Alex Dudley: I'll make this kind of quick
[00:08:20.180]Alex Dudley: One thing I like to know about MMI's, is that they are not asking you or testing your knowledge on things, they're not expecting you to know.
[00:08:26.880]Alex Dudley: You know, they're not going to ask you the anatomy of a body or anything like that it's much more about critical thinking, ethics is a really big one, cultural competence, problem solving. So we'll
[00:08:38.780]Alex Dudley: [inaudible]
[00:08:40.820]Alex Dudley: [inaudible]
[00:08:42.039]Alex Dudley: So scenarios are popular. So this is like an ethical decision making one.
[00:08:47.780]Alex Dudley: An 18 year old man is diagnosed with suspected bacterial meningitis. He refuses therapy and returns the college dorm. What would a physician do in this situation?
[00:08:56.300]Alex Dudley: Discuss the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana?
[00:08:59.250]Alex Dudley: How does it impact the physicians present ability to
[00:09:02.670]Alex Dudley: write out prescriptions. And then there's role. So roleplaying are the ones where they're actually going to ask you to. Sometimes they have a 3rd party person. They'll ask you to kind of interact with that person and play out the scenario.
[00:09:17.391]Alex Dudley: These aren't super popular, but they have been kind of coming back a bit. So that's why I spent a little bit more time mentioning them.
[00:09:25.300]Alex Dudley: It usually just
[00:09:26.880]Alex Dudley: It's usually a school specific thing and not really a program specific thing. So UNMC and Creighton, those ones aren't super known for it.
[00:09:37.840]Alex Dudley: But yeah, just something to be aware of. We have resources for it. It's the hardest to prepare for, because that's kind of the point. The point is that they want to see your reaction to situations, not to have you critically think things out. So it can be kind of scary or intimidating, but there are ways you can prepare for it. I definitely recommend making an appointment with an advisor, if you do have it in mind.
[00:10:07.330]Alex Dudley: Alright. And then a quick note on time. I think this is obvious. But obviously they're gonna vary on how long they are. I would say the average is 30 to 45 min with that panel being the most popular
[00:10:19.010]Alex Dudley: but you have some that will last up to an hour, some that are going to be short as 15 minutes, it just kind of depends.
[00:10:27.100]Alex Dudley: One other thing, too. The formality of them is also going to vary, and that does kind of depend from what I found mostly on the schools or the program. So like UNMC is really big, they kind of pride themselves that their dental and med applications are very informal, and feel more like a conversation than they do kind of an interview. So
[00:10:44.230]Alex Dudley: that's just kind of a cultural thing. And that's just gonna vary. Usually, you just hear about that.
[00:10:52.720]Alex Dudley: All right format considerations.
[00:10:55.230]Alex Dudley: We are finally getting back to the point where a lot of our interviews are getting in person. But we are still, since COVID, it's become very handy for people in places and organizations to utilize zoom, especially for that kind of 1st round. So it's definitely something you still might see
[00:11:11.420]Alex Dudley: Couple of just quick notes on that. Make sure you test your technology. You're in a quiet space, right? Distraction free. You can always reserve rooms here on UNL. So if you talk to Career Services, there's Chance in Career Services, she can get you a room to reserve specifically for interviews. So that's a good opportunity.
[00:11:28.300]Alex Dudley: There sometimes are live virtual and then asynchronous virtual. So live means it's essentially you and another person, right? You're live on Zoom, you're talking back and forth, Asynchronous would be they give you like a link. You have to record yourself answering the question, and they bring time later to come review that.
[00:11:44.670]Alex Dudley: A lot of time you only have like one chance to record it. So it's not a thing where you get to sit down and perfect your interview question. You get kind of one shot.
[00:11:56.680]Alex Dudley: For in person like, I said, this is becoming more popular again, and I do. Well, I'm always a
[00:12:01.350]Alex Dudley: I'm sucker for the in-person ones, because I think you get a chance to feel out that kind of program as a whole a little bit better. So
[00:12:09.800]Alex Dudley: some quick tips, make sure you know your travel arrangements. I always encourage students. If you can
[00:12:14.550]Alex Dudley: go there the night before. Figure out exactly what room you're going to, figure out where you're going to be parking. Sometimes you don't think about that, and you're circling for
[00:12:21.630]Alex Dudley: 45 min trying to find a good spot, right? So do your best. Think about this stuff ahead of time.
[00:12:28.310]Alex Dudley: Yeah, meeting location. Make sure you know where you're going. Sleeping. Something I'll mention later. But you want your routine to look as close to normal as possible. So sometimes, thinking intentionally this, you're not waking up till 11 AM everyday, usually, but this interview is at 8 AM. Maybe a few days leading up to that. You start waking up earlier.
[00:12:47.790]Alex Dudley: Alright. Yes? [Student asking question]
[00:13:11.220]Alex Dudley: [Alex answering question]
[00:13:19.000]Alex Dudley: Good question, interview day schedule. So
[00:13:22.540]Alex Dudley: I used to be pretty confident that every person that's going to offer you an interview is going to give you a really good outline of your schedule, but it's kind of gone through the cracks the last couple of years for what I'm hearing from students. It is a thing that you're always, always allowed to ask. This is your time as well. You need to know how long, you need to plan things and you need to figure out how long. So if they're not giving you some kind of like an itinerary.
[00:13:43.420]Alex Dudley: and like it's a day before, a couple of days before you have all the rights to ask if that's something you feel comfortable. Some things that you might see during that day, orientation, a tour, meal, panel interview, personal interview. Multiple Mini interview. Right? So a lot of times. These are full day kind of things, especially once you get to like the 2nd and 3rd interview, and they'll like, I said, include a tour, then they feed you, all those kind of things. If you do get this ahead of time, I encourage you to write it down, put it in your planner, your phone, whatever it is that you use.
[00:14:14.000]Alex Dudley: So you just kind of remember what's going on. I also encourage everyone to think of the entire da, so even when you're walking between places, a tour, when you're eating a meal, consider the whole day you're good.
[00:14:26.590]Alex Dudley: Right? So the way you interact with the people that you walk with there, the conversations that you have at a meal. You know I had. I heard once.
[00:14:35.440]Alex Dudley: There was one story of this student that was very anxious during the interview, and so we wanted to kind of prepare for the second part of it. So during the meal they kind of
[00:14:43.830]Alex Dudley: excluded themselves and kind of sat away so they could just kind of get their thoughts, which like, you can see how somebody would think that. But the way that they viewed that is like this person doesn't really care. They don't want to get to know us right. And so it kind of came up to them as like a little bit cold and a little
[00:14:58.410]Alex Dudley: bad/ingenuine. So just remember the whole day everything that you do.
[00:15:02.930]Alex Dudley: is interviewed.
[00:15:05.340]Alex Dudley: All right, addressing the fears. Interviews are scary, and that is just the truth of it. They're scary for everybody. I know very few people that liked interviews. So some things that I encourage people to do is kind of think about how you can address these fears and what things you can do to kind of make yourself feel more secure going in. So obviously a common fear is that there's no do-overs. It's true a lot of times. This feels like your one shot and has a lot on the line.
[00:15:30.830]Alex Dudley: But you can kind of contradict that by using a lot of new workshops like this right? Doing interview generator questions again and again, just practicing and practicing, because then you give yourself some new words. Right? We're going to practice answering one question here together, but sometimes just taking, saying things out loud. Sometimes we think, yeah, this is how I'd say that, but actually speaking it out loud is not the best sounding option.
[00:15:53.440]Alex Dudley: Pressure from judgment. Also true, right where it's literally what an interview is, sitting there and being judged, being evaluated by people so sometimes that can feel a little icky to us. So I encourage you to practice under stress. Explore Center has multiple mock interviews we have on virtual and in-person throughout the fall and the spring semester.
[00:16:11.080]Alex Dudley: We're not hopefully as scary as somebody that you're going to be really interviewing for. But it's still an uncomfortable, weird thing to do right? You don't know this person. So I encourage you to do that.
[00:16:19.930]Alex Dudley: You know. Sometimes you can
[00:16:22.570]Alex Dudley: pair up with somebody in your class to do mock interviews with. Just anything that puts a little bit of stress. That's not just in your comfortable and in my room and answering these questions, and I'm not by myself, right?
[00:16:33.820]Alex Dudley: Impossible to predict, also true, we're going to talk a lot more about research. But you are never going to be able to predict every single question they're going to ask. No school is going to give you a list of their interview questions ahead of time to allow you to prepare because that's the point of it. Right? So I encourage you to do as much research as you possibly can, figure out what's important to this institution. What's important to the people that are interviewing you. You can kind of give somewhat of a guess of like, you know, if they're really big into culture, I should probably know where I [inaudible]
[00:17:02.480]Alex Dudley: right? So again, you're never going to be able to predict everything. But the more research you do for where you're going to be interviewing
[00:17:11.920]Alex Dudley: And then it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to talk about ourselves positively or negatively. I have a lot of students that have a fabulous GPA. But when I'm doing mock interviews, and I ask "is your academic success show a good trend", you know, and they hesitate to say, "Yeah, it does" because it's an uncomfortable thing to do.
[00:17:27.970]Alex Dudley: So get to know yourself well enough, know your strengths, your weaknesses, and know how you can talk about those. Know how you can talk about yourself in a crazy manner without feeling like you sound like you're bragging, and make sure that you can talk about your weaknesses as well.
[00:17:43.170]Alex Dudley: Alrighty.
[00:17:44.450]Alex Dudley: So lots of other fears that are out there. And again, if you have something that you really don't know how to address
[00:17:49.310]Alex Dudley: talk to an advisor or advisor, or anything like that.
[00:17:55.040]Alex Dudley: Alright. So that was kind of before the interview. Any questions before we jump into the interview.
[00:18:02.900]Alex Dudley: Preparation? So it's definitely some things that you can do leading right up to it. Or for every interview so professional attire. Make sure that you know.
[00:18:11.310]Alex Dudley: I mean, this is pretty obvious at this point, but you should have an idea of what is considered kind of business. Professional on zoom. You just want to make sure you either don't blend into your background, or there's nothing that super distracting.
[00:18:23.300]Alex Dudley: And then research institutions. This is where we're going to talk a little bit more about research here.
[00:18:27.740]Alex Dudley: So the institution or the organization you could always do research. There's no time that you're going to interview, that you do not know what the place employing you is right? So this is something that is a given. You should always look at their mission statements, their values.
[00:18:43.290]Alex Dudley: Look for kind of those repeated words that you're seeing a lot right? UNMC is really big on community and giving back to Nebraska. Right?
[00:18:50.710]Alex Dudley: Think about specifically why this school. What is unique about this school compared to the other ones that you're applying to.
[00:18:57.210]Alex Dudley: and what opportunities do they have that really stand out again in comparison to what other ones are kind of thinking about. Knowing those things going in is just going to give you a better kind of head start when it comes to kind of answering those school specific questions that you will be asked.
[00:19:11.760]Alex Dudley: And then, like I said, faculty and interview is here. I have a little asterisk, because you are not always going to be given that information. They're not going to always tell you exactly who's going to be interviewing you, especially when it's a panel. So this might not always be possible. But if you do, give them a quick little Google search right? All of their criteria will come up. You can see what their training is in, their interest, their research right? And that's a great way to kind of
[00:19:35.580]Alex Dudley: say, Hey, I understand that you're doing this research lab. That sounds super interesting. They can tell that you are interested, right?
[00:19:41.240]Alex Dudley: How many faculty members, ratio, class sizes. So if you can get a chance to do that
[00:19:47.770]Alex Dudley: All right back to this preparation process. So number 3, there is. Build from items on your application or your resume whether this is closed or open file. This is going to be something that you'll want to do. So know your application well, know your strengths and weaknesses, and be able to kind of talk from that right? So you want to be consistent with what they're seeing on your application and what they're seeing in front of them. So even as simple as like.
[00:20:11.980]Alex Dudley: Why you wanted to go in this profession that should be similar to what they read in their essay. Right? It shouldn't be a completely different like, is this even the same student sitting in front of me right?
[00:20:21.706]Alex Dudley: Know your red flags from your application. Talk about growth. Red flags can be a lot of things. It can be maybe your GPA is a little bit lower than the average. Your took an interest exam jury or MCAT whatever could be low.
[00:20:32.110]Alex Dudley: Maybe you don't feel like you have as much patient contact hours. It's always usually some area that students, maybe not a red flag but like could have maybe done better there, right? So know about those and be able to kind of talk about their growth within there, right? Speaking of.
[00:20:50.150]Alex Dudley: But speaking of red flags, social media is a very real part of our world nowadays. So just make sure that if you do have your social media open for the whole world to see that it's clean, and that it wouldn't be anything you wouldn't want them to see, or a simple way to fix that is just not have it.
[00:21:06.860]Alex Dudley: I promise you. This is a very real part of their research. They are doing this. They want to make sure there is no red flags they're bringing you on. They want to make sure that you're
[00:21:14.980]Alex Dudley: you know again, not going to embarrass them or do anything that would be disrespectful or inappropriate.
[00:21:19.520]Alex Dudley: So they will be looking into those things. They're not going to follow you or anything weird. But again, if it's free and it's open, they're gonna click in.
[00:21:27.430]Alex Dudley: So just be aware of that.
[00:21:33.760]Alex Dudley: Always have questions prepared. You're interviewing them also. I'll come back to this point a couple more times, but always always have questions prepared. So even if you don't necessarily feel like you have any.
[00:21:45.530]Alex Dudley: Do a little thinking ahead of time, and have a list prepared. I even recommend to that if you know that you're going to be seeing different kind of entities of people, right? Professors, admissions, students, kind of think about which questions could geared
[00:21:57.270]Alex Dudley: towards that.
[00:21:58.660]Alex Dudley: Right? So
[00:22:00.230]Alex Dudley: you want to know the day in the life of a PT student, you probably ask a PT Student that right instead of maybe a faculty. But if you're asking about research, that's going to be better for faculty. So I usually recommend more than less, because you're not always going to be able to ask every single one. But at least when you go through, you're going to get some of them answered. And it's going to eliminate that opportunity to ask that question. So the more that you have, it just shows that you're prepared and you are putting an effort into it.
[00:22:27.600]Alex Dudley: and then practice and have examples for all question types. We're going to talk about the different question types here. But you truly can not practice interviewing enough. I don't think it's anything anybody, ever [inaudible]
[00:22:40.730]Alex Dudley: [inaudible]
[00:22:42.250]Alex Dudley: little bit about different question types.
[00:22:45.204]Alex Dudley: [Student asking question]
[00:22:50.510]Alex Dudley: [Student asking question]
[00:23:00.390]Alex Dudley: And so it's a little bit of
[00:23:02.780]Alex Dudley: counteracting that with what you do have right? So like, you know, if you don't feel like you have as much work experience coming in as maybe somebody else, you bring in some other perspective that you do have. That kind of is similar or gives you. I mean again, something that is unique to you, you know, you had a unique internship or research that's been a little bit different.
[00:23:22.140]Alex Dudley: If not, when I say talk with growth. It's really saying like.
[00:23:26.670]Alex Dudley: This is an intention I have, right? Like, this is an area I'm passionate about. During school. I was pretty busy, and I didn't have as much time as I wanted to commit to volunteering per se right or to commit. I was working. Assuming that you're in software. You probably have a hard engineering major, right? I was really busy during undergrad, and I didn't have as much time as I wanted to work, but I was able to do a few things right, and then you can twist it to
[00:23:49.790]Alex Dudley: fit into what you are lacking.
[00:23:52.430]Alex Dudley: And then again, you can always say, you know this is something that I am looking forward to, or that is why I'm here today. I haven't gotten enough work experience. So I'm here today because that is what I am working towards and
[00:24:02.490]Alex Dudley: starting on that. And many kind of realize that, too, especially when it's entry level jobs. They're gonna recognize it.
[00:24:08.840]Alex Dudley: There's just not a lot out there, and you might not have had that ability to get traction in it. {Student asking question]. Addressing them.
[00:24:21.050]Alex Dudley: Yeah. Great question. Yeah. It's more so, being prepared to. If they put you in the spot and say, "Hey, I haven't seen, you know,
[00:24:29.350]Alex Dudley: I don't see that you have a lot of work experience" or they ask you a question about "tell me about a time that you worked on this computer" And you don't have an experience. It's more of a way that you know how to answer that, you never really want to highlight anything that you feel like is a red flag. Don't bring that up unless they bring it
[00:24:44.900]Alex Dudley: to you, unless you think that it's really significant. So I'm thinking, like.
[00:24:51.110]Alex Dudley: I don't know, even that you'd probably not say in an interview. Yeah, because I'm thinking, like, even if you have like a weird addendum thing where you had a law thing. You got in trouble with the law or something. Even that you're not going to bring that up. You don't want that to be the main topic, right? So usually, that's something that like you have to say it, you're going to have to own up about your addendum, but yeah, good question always kind of yeah. You don't have to bring up negatives, don't but be unprepared.
[00:25:15.180]Alex Dudley: [Inaudible]
[00:25:15.990]Alex Dudley: [Student asking question]
[00:25:19.930]Alex Dudley: [Student asking question]
[00:25:26.950]Alex Dudley: Great question. I think you can't really go wrong either way. I think that would be a good time to bring that up. It kind of depends on how glaringly obvious it is as well right, like some things are less
[00:25:38.780]Alex Dudley: ambiguous than others, right? Like, if you got a really low MCAT score, that's pretty like that's something you probably have to own up to
[00:25:44.720]Alex Dudley: because it's obvious, right? So I think that like, it's just kind of a balance of like, how important is it? How blaring of a miss, you know it's a red flag of it.
[00:25:54.290]Alex Dudley: Yeah. But I would say, honestly, weakness question is one that we don't see quite as often anymore. But I think that either either can be fun.
[00:26:12.850]Alex Dudley: Question types. So there's kind of 3 main question types that we kind of think about for interviews. So the general is going to be the very open ended. Tell me about yourself. Tell me why you want to do this, very kind of open. We're going to actually kind of do a practice. Tell me about yourself thing. Second, behavioral questions are going to be asking you to describe
[00:26:35.900]Alex Dudley: a previous experience that you had, that you demonstrate where you can excel. So an example of this would be like, tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult person. How did you handle it right? So those ones are. You're thinking back. You're using the experience that you previously had and you're pulling it back.
[00:26:52.870]Alex Dudley: Situational is going to be more kind of like, they're going to give you a situation, and you have to respond how you would handle it.
[00:26:59.340]Alex Dudley: So,
[00:27:00.570]Alex Dudley: you know, there's a patient in front of you that's 13 years old, and they are asking for birth control, but they're not with their parents
[00:27:10.595]Alex Dudley: For these situational ones. It's a lot less about being exact and saying the exact right thing and answering, and more kind of just how you process. So it's a little bit like those MMI's, right? That are very scenario heavy. It's just trying to get kind of how your thought process, how you handle pressure, and how you kind of process 9 times out of 10, if you're putting the patient first. That's going to be kind of the right.
[00:27:35.490]Alex Dudley: Alright. So tell me about yourself. So this is the kind of general question we love to hate. We all think that we know ourselves. We all think this is going to be really easy to answer. And then someone asks us it. And we're like.
[00:27:46.240]Alex Dudley: Yeah, I'm good. So I encourage you to think about this. This is the one that again, I don't want you to memorize any question. This is one that you should kind of have most of your mind bullet points of what you want to say to kind of answer this. So when they 1st kind of ask you. Obviously, you're going to describe yourself your name where you live, right? Maybe where you came from, what you're doing now. So a lot of times it's kind of like student from UNL
[00:28:09.300]Alex Dudley: Doing this, this, and this.
[00:28:11.320]Alex Dudley: I grew up here blah blah blah.
[00:28:13.910]Alex Dudley: Doing a little bit of what you've done and why you're passionate, right? So what experience have you done that kind of led you to here?
[00:28:19.410]Alex Dudley: You need strengths a little bit. That one, I'd say, maybe not quite as much. It's a little bit clunky to kind of throw that in there.
[00:28:26.780]Alex Dudley: Then you always kind of want to bring it back to. And that's kind of why I'm here today. We're gonna look at example gathered here. But like, I'll kind of give my example real quick and then [Inaudible]
[00:28:37.520]Alex Dudley: So
[00:28:38.650]Alex Dudley: If I were to answer this, I'd maybe say, you know, I was an academic advisor, and I just got this pre-professional job. So when I was interviewing, I maybe would have said.
[00:28:45.970]Alex Dudley: Oh, Hi! My name is Alex Dudley. I'm the Pre-Professional Coordinator of the Explore center. I work with undeclared and pre-professional students. I've been here for a couple of years, and I've really found a passion for working with
[00:28:58.460]Alex Dudley: pre-professional students in that environment. One of my top strengths is a learner and developer. And I think that with this position, that is what brings me here today. So that's really condensed, not perfect one, but kind of an example of how you can incorporate into a few of these
[00:29:18.810]Alex Dudley: while answering the big question.
[00:29:22.980]Alex Dudley: How much you balance what you have done as an adult versus what you did as a child is completely up to how much of an impact that has had on you.
[00:29:30.180]Alex Dudley: So this one we're going to look at together here is much more kind of focused more than I did significantly on kind of that. So
[00:29:39.155]Alex Dudley: we'll say this is Cody. Cody says "I grew up in a rural area in Colorado. I'm the oldest of 4 boys. It was a great place to grow up because my parents are avid mountain bikers, and we would spend summers learning all we could about the outdoors from them, everything, from how to start a fire to identify constellations. I'm close with all my siblings, and my youngest brother Carl and I have a special bond because he was diagnosed with autism ate age
[00:30:00.890]Alex Dudley: 2. There's a 10 year age gap between us. So when I was in high school. I played a big role in helping him adjust to mainstream classes when he was able to transition. That experience sparked my interest in helping young children with special needs. And as a student at Penn State I joined a pediatric neuroscience lab which solidified my desire to pursue a career in medicine."
[00:30:19.170]Alex Dudley: This is almost a little bit too perfect because he wrote it, right. You're never going to be able to have it as perfect as
[00:30:24.946]Alex Dudley: this.
[00:30:26.590]Alex Dudley: and you know it's just never going to be as perfect. So as you can see Cody here.
[00:30:31.420]Alex Dudley: The big thing that kind of led him to a career in medicine was his relationship with his brother right? So it made sense for him to have a little bit more focus on his kind of childhood. I would say that this one is much more heavy on the childhood than a lot of students. Usually it's kind of just a quick, you know, I grew up in a small town in Iowa.
[00:30:51.080]Alex Dudley: Alright. So I'm gonna give you guys a few minutes here, probably 5 to 10 minutes for you guys to kind of think about this and kind of practice. So just take 5 minutes here. Practice, write this out. I know again it's writing instead of
[00:31:05.760]Alex Dudley: speaking it, but make some bullet points even, or write out. Just kind of think about what things are important to you that make up who you are, that you would want to kind of mention in your discussion.
[00:32:34.710]Alex Dudley: [Practice]
[00:35:26.021]Alex Dudley: Hopefully that was enough time for you guys. If not, obviously remember that we record this and upload it into our website. So if you do want to get back to this and try it again. You're more than welcome to. But yeah, just wanted to be a little intentional about that.
[00:35:43.930]Alex Dudley: [Inaudible]
[00:35:46.660]Alex Dudley: A few other common general questions that you might get. 1st of all, there's lots of interview question generators out there. A lot of them, even for the kind of specific fields. So feel free to kind of Google that see if you can find kind of some interview generators. What they'll do is just literally pop up with a new question, kind of randomly and have you answer them.
[00:36:06.635]Alex Dudley: So a few other "Why do you want to be a blank". You're going to be asked that probably for any pretty professional one. Why do you want to be a PT So make sure you have an answer in
[00:36:14.470]Alex Dudley: mind for that.
[00:36:16.030]Alex Dudley: School specific program specific will also be pretty guaranteed. Why UNMC. Why, Creighton. Why, Kansas City, right? What would you do if you didn't get in this year. This is another one that we're seeing more popularly. There's not really a right or wrong answer. To be honest, some students are like, should I not say another pre-health? Should I not say, take a gap year? There's really nothing right or wrong to say. What I usually tell students is to just be honest.
[00:36:39.590]Alex Dudley: And then what do you see is the biggest challenge for healthcare? It's a hard one, but a very common. So lots of issues within healthcare, and they want. This is kind of just testing your knowledge of healthcare generally, and what you kind of know.
[00:36:58.080]Alex Dudley: Specifically for pre-health and pre-professional. They're really looking for as many experiences that you can bring into that interview as possible. So what I mean by that is, you've done a resume work, an application work with experiences, shadowing, volunteering, working.
[00:37:13.720]Alex Dudley: They want to hear about those in detail, tell more stories that you can tell. They love to hear that. So these are some of the ways that you can connect experiences that you maybe had with competencies that they're going to be looking for right. They want people that can be in a team that have leadership that are resilient. So how can you bring experiences that you've had
[00:37:34.590]Alex Dudley: and kind of show that right? So cultural competence, worked at a free clinic, work with a lot of different diverse populations, right?
[00:37:41.440]Alex Dudley: Teamwork, group project that you had in medical ethics that really taught you something.
[00:37:46.560]Alex Dudley: Leadership, you're a peer mentor, you're a TA or an RA. Resilience. Maybe this is a chance for you to talk about in the red flag area where you grew. Maybe you're on academic warning. You had to kind of hold yourself back up. Maybe you had family issues that you had to be resilient back then.
[00:38:01.990]Alex Dudley: Improvement. You're always looking to kind of improve yourself. One of the biggest red flags that committees will tell us, is feeling like, you guys already know everything right.
[00:38:11.470]Alex Dudley: Even within medicine. Specifically, they like people to have open mind for specialties, even right? Because at this point you guys truly just don't know
[00:38:20.300]Alex Dudley: what whole of
[00:38:22.520]Alex Dudley: what healthcare can be. So being open to improvement, whether that's within healthcare or something like justice class, showing that you're always growing and improving, or a couple of ways that you can kind of bring in those experiences. So you can think about this in a few ways. Think about either the competencies that you're seeing reflected that they want about experience that you've had that exhibit that, or think about experiences that you really want to showcase, and what those competencies maybe reflect.
[00:38:49.420]Alex Dudley: All right, don't change your routine day up. So I mentioned this, so I'll keep it quick. Switching things up is just going to throw you off. So go to bed and wake up at your normal time, like, I said, if that throws you off with when the interview is, try and switch that up early so that it's part of your routine by the time that comes.
[00:39:06.030]Alex Dudley: Normally drink coffee, drink coffee. You don't, don't right. It's already going to be weird, because you're probably not in the normal place. Probably didn't sleep in the normal place, so do everything that you can to feel
[00:39:16.760]Alex Dudley: normal as possible. It can help you stay relaxed and give you less to kind of think about.
[00:39:22.780]Alex Dudley: When most of your day looks like a normal day the better.
[00:39:26.880]Alex Dudley: Alrighty we're gonna jump into after the interview
[00:39:30.600]Alex Dudley: Questions?
[00:39:33.050]Alex Dudley: Alright, this will be pretty quick for us. A thank you. So. You want to start off. Obviously, I guess I should say.
[00:39:39.710]Alex Dudley: Do a Thank you Letter. More than likely it's going to be an email nowadays. That's okay. Letters. Honestly, everything goes so fast nowadays that unless you're literally like, I did an interview once with like I wasn't interviewing. Well, I was interviewing, but there was another member that was also interviewing, and they like brought letters with them, and like stayed after and like wrote them, and then handed them out. And I was like, Wow, I guess I should have done that. So like you can do that, but most of the time
[00:40:02.950]Alex Dudley: it's totally understandable. Within 24 h, we say 8 h. Send that kind of email.
[00:40:08.240]Alex Dudley: I recommend don't use templates, you know. We want it to be unique. They will kind of compare them. So, when you are writing these, you're gonna kind of want to start out with, just like respectful greeting during the interview. A lot's going on. But if you can kind of write, capture those names of the people you're interviewing. You'll be really happy with yourself later that you can give a specific detail right? Instead of just saying.
[00:40:29.020]Alex Dudley: You know, dear, whoever right and so if you can grab at least one or 2 names or the main person you were interviewed by its really beneficial.
[00:40:36.169]Alex Dudley: You're gonna start by just giving the reason why your expressing your gratitude for interviewing me, incorporate something specifically that you appreciate about your time with them. Right? Really appreciate taking the time you told me about your research lab. It sounds like something I could really.
[00:40:48.840]Alex Dudley: You know, utilize later. So that's kind of learn more opportunities that you have that are available. Right?
[00:40:54.660]Alex Dudley: I'm really excited to hear back from you. Seems like Creighton would be a really great fit. Thank you again.
[00:41:01.040]Alex Dudley: Right? Doesn't need to be complex, but it does show that you've thought about it here, you took the time.
[00:41:06.655]Alex Dudley: And again, anything that is unique about you, any unique experience that you've had, any question that you have incorporate that.
[00:41:13.630]Alex Dudley: Do they can remember who you are.
[00:41:17.280]Alex Dudley: All right, post interview reflection. I just recommend doing this. It's not a required anything. I recommend it simply because it's not going to be your last interview, no matter what, unless you're, you know, lucky. And you get to stick in the same place for the rest of your life. Realistically, it's not going to be the last. So if you take a little bit of time to kind of reflect on how it went, it can hopefully kind of prepare you.
[00:41:38.660]Alex Dudley: So just kind of taking 20 min afterwards to think about, how did this interview go? Was it, as I expected. Did anything really surprise me? How did it feel when I was being interviewed? Was I really relaxed.
[00:41:50.050]Alex Dudley: anxious?
[00:41:51.350]Alex Dudley: What questions did I find really easy? Maybe you're really good at behavioral questions, but situational ones you need work on, right?
[00:41:58.001]Alex Dudley: What would you say or do differently if you're going to do it again or speak to that interviewer and the interviewer again.
[00:42:04.520]Alex Dudley: Whether it did or didn't go the way you wanted, what are some ways you can treat yourself so. Interviewing is stressful, and it is hard, and no matter what, you've gotten through it, and there's no change in at that point. It's kind of like finishing that final, right? Your grade is what is is.
[00:42:17.750]Alex Dudley: You might as well give yourself a little bit of break. The more we can correlate interviews with positive things, hopefully, the less scary it'll be.
[00:42:27.630]Alex Dudley: All right. So this is my last kind of reminder that
[00:42:30.910]Alex Dudley: make sure that you're asking the questions that you need to know to make sure it's a fit for you as well. So some things are going to be more important for some people than others, maybe finances, maybe location, demographics, special programs, research opportunities. So whatever is that is important to you, recognize that and make sure that you're evaluating that
[00:42:51.100]Alex Dudley: as well when they're going through here. When I was looking at grad schools, really, I just wanted somebody that I knew would fit well with me, and then I could have you know, I was really important for me to have a small professor to student faculty, you know. And so, whatever is important to you. Look for those things and make sure that they're at your value.
[00:43:06.880]Alex Dudley: So
[00:43:09.280]Alex Dudley: All right, the wait. The wait is a bad part. No one likes the wait, but couple of things that it does not help to do during this time is to stress about things you can't control. Once again, it is over. You cannot go back. You cannot undo something that you said. So. If you can
[00:43:24.380]Alex Dudley: avoid spiraling that in your head when you're trying to go to sleep right. I am a victim of it as well. Living things that you're like. Oh, gosh! That's cringy! Why did I say that right? Don't let stress and anxiety hinder you in your current life responsibilities just because that interview didn't go the way you want does not mean you should give up on your physiology test right? Make sure that you're still going through. And the more that you're going to distract yourself.
[00:43:46.284]Alex Dudley: You don't want to let you stress and anxiety throw you off for your next interview. That one is done. You cannot do anything for it. Best thing you can do for yourself is, learn from it, reflect from it, and then move on to the next one and do
[00:43:55.930]Alex Dudley: better. And then do not only think about the negatives, I almost guarantee you that you did something within that interview that you should be proud of. Focus on that, build on that, and like I said, the more we can correlate positive things with these interviews.
[00:44:08.790]Alex Dudley: Hopefully, the less mistakes we make on the next interview.
[00:44:12.720]Alex Dudley: Okay, couple quick resources out here.
[00:44:16.300]Alex Dudley: Explore Center. Like I said, we're right downstairs. We have mock interviews. We also have professional school reps that come visit students 1-1, for services you can always drop-in and talk with them. There's chances, you know, like I mentioned, if you want to get an interview room.
[00:44:31.249]Alex Dudley: Big interview is just something that you can go to just like a website. You can record yourself answering questions.
[00:44:36.740]Alex Dudley: Watch it back. Get kind of an idea of what you're doing, how you use those transition words, how much you use your hands like I do. Body language, all that good stuff.
[00:44:45.240]Alex Dudley: And these are just a couple AMC interview guide. You don't even need this link. Literally just research interview tip sheet. These will be the 1st things that kind of come up. And they're just kind of overviews again, AMC, specifically for medicine, right? So you'd probably look at the ones relevant to you or something similar. But essentially, there's lots of resources out there.
[00:45:06.160]Alex Dudley: but there's too many sometimes. So just, you know, utilize what's important to you, but make sure that you're putting yourself centered, and you know, you know, don't take a script from somebody else, because it sounds nice. Right?
[00:45:19.420]Alex Dudley: Okay, that is all I really have for you guys. Thank you so much for listening, couple of quick links here or QR codes here. This is just for our Instagram, if you're interested. And this is a feedback sheet, also
[00:45:30.780]Alex Dudley: if you want to give us some feedback. If not, thank you guys so much for coming in. I know there's a small group of us, but I appreciate your questions as one of the most interactive ones I've had.
[00:45:40.170]Alex Dudley: So
[00:45:41.440]Alex Dudley: thank you guys, and we have plenty of other kind of workshops throughout the semester. So lookout for those newsletters.

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Interviewing Tips for Health Schools

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