Interviewing for Health Programs

Start general and work slowly into the more minute details. When talking about your research, practice describing it in one-two sentences as if the person is not familiar with your research at all. For example: “My research used a mice model to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on cognition.”

From there, you can drill down into details such as, “The current research shows that sleep deprivation can hinder our academic performance so we wanted to see if there was a clear amount of sleep that correlates to optimum academic performance” (aka “cognition”). From there you can delve more into the details of how the research experiment was designed, what techniques were used, and what trends were identified.

Make eye contact, relax, listen, be yourself, and don’t talk too fast.

Refrain from using terms such as “like,” “I like,” “really neat,” “awesome,” “cool,” etc. This makes you sound young. You want to express maturity, world and life experiences that have moved you beyond “liking” something to a more aware place of understanding how your knowledge of something can affect another person, contribute to a situation, add value to your intended career and patients alike.

Start with a general introduction sentence of your main point, followed by a very descriptive (use adjectives to paint a verbal picture) and specific account of what you mean to say. You need to define the meaning of what you are saying. Summarize with future considerations/alternative ways of thinking/future implications of the larger issue.

For example, if you say “When I observed physicians in the Emergency Room, they seemed to be under a lot of pressure,” you should define the meaning of pressure. “They had many conflicting interests, limited amounts of resources and time, and they were constantly reassessing their priorities in order to meet the ever-changing demands of a face paced community hospital in an underserved area. They used their team members such as the nurses, techs, and social workers, volunteers to a degree that allowed patients to receive the best care possible. I was impressed by their resourcefulness and the overall willingness of everyone to play a role in making a chaotic environment more manageable for patients and their families.”

This is a more effective response than “I shadowed physicians and saw lots of gunshot wounds, and gang violence. A few people even coded when I was there and families were upset.”

Describe your interests as they align with a career in medicine. Identify what skills you have, how you gained them, and then how they translate into the field of medicine and the art of providing healthcare services to others.

For example, instead of saying “I want to help people,” think of a different and more insightful way to express this idea. What does that even mean? What does that mean to you? How can you describe that and illustrate that idea fully to the interviewer? In what way can you use medical training to help others?

Another example: “I like science.” What is it about learning science vs. other academic fields that is interesting to you? Is it because you are good at it? Is it because you are challenged by it? I what ways? Why does liking science even matter? You have to dig much deeper than wanting to help others and liking science. There are thousands of other careers that fall into this category.

Yes. When interviewing, you should aim to identify the challenges we face when trying to deliver accessible, coordinated, and personalized health care in our modern society. Consider how much things cost and the economics involved in health care—health insurance, tax payers, etc. This article from Columbia University’s bioethics program provides a useful overview of these subjects.

Live Virtual Interviews connect you with an interviewer in real time. You will be asked to sit face-to-face with the interviewer(s) and answer their questions. You may be given an opportunity to ask questions.

Asynchronous Virtual Interviews are on-demand interviews that will not have an interviewer present. You will be asked to respond to questions presented via text or prerecorded video. Your responses will be recorded by your device’s webcam and shared with reviewers at a later time.

Before your interview, it’s helpful to know whether your interview will be live or asynchronous, what platform it will use, how many interviewers there will be, and how long the interview is. You should also try to determine what types of interview questions you’ll be asked and what competencies and skills the interview aims to assess.

While working in a virtual environment, you should keep these tips in mind:

• Make sure you have a stable internet connection and speed — an ethernet connection is usually more reliable than WiFi
• Use a laptop computer or tablet to improve stability, not your phone
• Check your microphone and camera – place in the same spot each time you practice interviewing
• Turn off all notifications and shut down all programs on your device before interview
• Have an outlet nearby
• Interview in a private, quiet, and well-lit space – free of distractions
• Avoid bright lighting and shadows – face lamp is good
• Consider your backdrop – keep it clean and neat and free of clutter
• Record practice interviews so that you can review your demeanor – should be calm and engaged
• Look at device’s camera, not the screen

Allow ample time to check your camera, microphone, internet, and computer battery before your interview — and make sure you have a backup plan in case your technology fails. It’s always a good idea to provide your phone number to the interviewer ahead of time.

If something does go wrong, stay calm and take a deep breath, regain your focus, and continue the interview. Contact the interviewer or coordinator if you are having technical issues, and follow their directions calmly.