Medicine offers holders please share your interview tips!

Congratulations on your offers!

I am re-applicant, have being rejected 5 times post interview so far from SGUL, Leicester, Southampton, Manchester and UEA (where my UKCAT should be compensating the interview score!). I currently work as HCA, was volunteering in the hospital for 15 months and had plenty of work experience. My stats:

GCSE: 3-A*, 6-A
A-levels: A*AAB
UKCAT 705

Please share your interview experiences. How do you approach the interview? How do you prepare? What do you think is working for you and making you a successful candidate? How did you feel your interview went? Please share any tips you can think of. I will be grateful for any contribution!

Reply 1

Cei

5

More to the point, where do you feel your interviews went wrong? Attempting to imitate successful students isn't necessarily a recipe for success, because you're then tempted to come out with pre-prepared answers and fail to actually answer the questions put to you.

Reply 2

Little Voices

2

Original post by Cei

More to the point, where do you feel your interviews went wrong? Attempting to imitate successful students isn't necessarily a recipe for success, because you're then tempted to come out with pre-prepared answers and fail to actually answer the questions put to you.

Cei has a good point- the interviewers can tell if you are just reciting textbook or pre-prepared answers, and am sure they get sick of hearing multiple applicants saying the same thing over and over... Use your own experiences, your own words, make your answers unique to you, and feel free to take a few seconds to think before you speak. Don't just blurt out answers containing buzz-words that you think they're looking for.

Get some feedback from the unis, see if they can shed some light on where you went wrong, but don't take it personally! It is constructive criticism and can be used to your advantage next time.

Some pretty good tips on this website- https://www.medicalcareers.nhs.uk/considering_medicine/interviews.aspx

If you have the passion- don't give up!
Best of luck to you :smile:

Reply 3

portaferissa

OP

4

Original post by Little Voices

Cei has a good point- the interviewers can tell if you are just reciting textbook or pre-prepared answers, and am sure they get sick of hearing multiple applicants saying the same thing over and over... Use your own experiences, your own words, make your answers unique to you, and feel free to take a few seconds to think before you speak. Don't just blurt out answers containing buzz-words that you think they're looking for.

Get some feedback from the unis, see if they can shed some light on where you went wrong, but don't take it personally! It is constructive criticism and can be used to your advantage next time.

Some pretty good tips on this website- https://www.medicalcareers.nhs.uk/considering_medicine/interviews.aspx

If you have the passion- don't give up!
Best of luck to you :smile:

thank you for advice, I very much appreciate it! I would love to get some feedback from universities and have e-mailed to Manchester and UEA.

Reply 4

Cei

5

Feedback is definitely worth it - though some universities are remarkably stingy and non-specific.

Self-reflection on your performance is really the only way forward. What questions were you asked, and being harsh on yourself, did you actually answer them? When interviewing I'm looking for people who don't mess around with buzz words and phrases, but can look at their past experiences and relate them to healthcare/university. You can chat about what you did on work experience for ages, but ultimately I don't care, what I want is what you learnt and how that influenced your decision to apply for medicine.

Reply 5

ryanb97

15

Learn from your mistakes

I got rejected from Birmingham, Keele and probably have been rejected by barts. These were my first 3 interviews. I got an offer from SGUL after my 4th interview.

Go over your interviews and make sure that you try the interview questions again. Say your answers out loud. Record your answers. Work with a partner who will give blunt feedback.

Try not to feel too downhearted about the rejections though. I received my feedback from my Birmingham interview about an hour before my keele interview. I found out i was in the bottom 10%. I ended up failing the keele interview as well. What im trying to say is that you can improve!! Even in a month!

Reply 6

QuidditchFan

6

Practice was key. More to the point work out where you are going wrong. Do you sound to robotic? Have you prepared enough (I did about 40 hours for my interviews, starting with 20 hours with my first interview and around 40 hours for my last). Do you have a realistic view of medicine and have learnt enough from your work experience? Personally mock interviews really helped and I made sure that my unique experiences, leadership skills, enthusiasm and realistic idea of medicine really came across to them. Make a list of what you want them to know and make sure you address ALL of them in your interview. Really pinpoint what makes YOU different and if you have a panel interview (as all 4 of mine were) then you HAVE to engage with them and make it more of a conversation than a grilling.

I'm afraid i can't really say much else. It comes easier to some people more than others but by far practising with my siblings and parents, while slightly awkward, and any medical students I could find, was the best preparation I had!

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 7

portaferissa

OP

4

Thank you all for your support and time to write replies.Most of the points made are not new to me and were already on my mind before Ientered the interview room. I have some ideas about what went wrong during my interviews last year but this year I took a longtime to prepare. I had four job interviews this year for HCA in differenthospitals, one at M&S and one at Waitrose and had a job offer every time. Thisgave me the reassurance that I am not hopelessly bad at it. My last two medical interviews this year (Manchester andUEA, both rejected) really went well and I truly enjoyed the experience. Well prepared,not too nervous, took a few seconds before answering, always tried to link the answersto my personal experiences (HCA, long term volunteering, I had plenty to talk about!).At UEA interview I could not wish for better questions with only one stations being slightly harder then the others but I still sailed through. I have thoroughly analysedmy performance since then and I don't know how could I have made it better. Iam not sure about one thing though. Could I be coming out as too serious?? Thetopics discussed at the interview are serious. Should I occasionally crack ajoke and smile more often that I probably have done? What puzzles me when some applicantshave said that the interviewers would even roll their eyes and tell them tostop talking but they still managed to get an offer! My high UKCAT was supposed to top up the interview score. How low it had to be? I can't wait to get the feedbacks from Manchester and UEA.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 8

username1155480

13

Original post by portaferissa

Thank you all for your support and time to write replies.Most of the points made are not new to me and were already on my mind before Ientered the interview room. I have some ideas about what went wrong during my interviewslast year but this year I took a longtime to prepare. I had four job interviews this year for HCA in differenthospitals, one at M&S and one at Waitrose and had a job offer every time. Thisgave me the reassurance that I am not hopelessly bad at it. My last two medicalinterviews this year (Manchester andUEA, both rejected) really went well and I truly enjoyed the experience. Well prepared,not too nervous, took a few seconds before answering, always tried to link the answersto my personal experiences (HCA, long term volunteering, I had plenty to talk about!).At UEA interview I could not wish for better questions with only one stations beingslightly harder then the others but I still sailed through. I have thoroughly analysedmy performance since then and I don't know how could I have made it better. Iam not sure about one thing though. Could I be coming out as too serious?? Thetopics discussed at the interview are serious. Should I occasionally crack ajoke and smile more often that I probably have done? What puzzles me when some applicantshave said that the interviewers would even roll their eyes and tell them tostop talking but they still managed to get an offer! My high UKCAT was supposedto top up the interview score. How low it had to be? I can't wait to get thefeedbacks from Manchester and UEA.

I got an offer from Manchester even though i completely failed one of the stations. But if you just act yourself, come across as a nice person, they will probably give you the offer.

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Reply 9

ryanb97

15

Original post by portaferissa

Thank you all for your support and time to write replies.Most of the points made are not new to me and were already on my mind before Ientered the interview room. I have some ideas about what went wrong during my interviews last year but this year I took a longtime to prepare. I had four job interviews this year for HCA in differenthospitals, one at M&S and one at Waitrose and had a job offer every time. Thisgave me the reassurance that I am not hopelessly bad at it. My last two medical interviews this year (Manchester andUEA, both rejected) really went well and I truly enjoyed the experience. Well prepared,not too nervous, took a few seconds before answering, always tried to link the answersto my personal experiences (HCA, long term volunteering, I had plenty to talk about!).At UEA interview I could not wish for better questions with only one stations being slightly harder then the others but I still sailed through. I have thoroughly analysedmy performance since then and I don't know how could I have made it better. Iam not sure about one thing though. Could I be coming out as too serious?? Thetopics discussed at the interview are serious. Should I occasionally crack ajoke and smile more often that I probably have done? What puzzles me when some applicantshave said that the interviewers would even roll their eyes and tell them tostop talking but they still managed to get an offer! My high UKCAT was supposed to top up the interview score. How low it had to be? I can't wait to get the feedbacks from Manchester and UEA.

I would consider doing mock interviews then. If you think you are doing well you may want to have a second opinion on this. What I noticed from my interviews that I got rejected from (eg bham) was that I was between the acceptable-good range for most stations. This simply isn't good enough ... Since nearly everyone is going to be atleast here. Most people who get offers (I expect) will be in the good - very good range ... Or higher.

Tldr : do mock interviews with people who know there stuff eg a medical student and not your average biology teacher

Reply 10

portaferissa

OP

4

Original post by ryanb97

I would consider doing mock interviews then. If you think you are doing well you may want to have a second opinion on this. What I noticed from my interviews that I got rejected from (eg bham) was that I was between the acceptable-good range for most stations. This simply isn't good enough ... Since nearly everyone is going to be atleast here. Most people who get offers (I expect) will be in the good - very good range ... Or higher.

Tldr : do mock interviews with people who know there stuff eg a medical student and not your average biology teacher

totally agree. there is no doubt, that the ones who get an offers have this little extra.. to make them to stand out from all simply good candidates. I wish I knew a medical student or even better someone in education with admissions experience!

Medicine offers holders please share your interview tips!

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