The season for medical school interviews is quickly approaching. If you have completed your secondary medical school application and been offered an interview, then congratulations! Schools don’t typically bring you in for an interview unless they are strongly considering your candidacy. Bearing this in mind, many times the interview is more about your fit with the program rather than your scores and credentials. Schools use an interview to evaluate your professionalism, maturity, and personality. They want to hear in your words – spoken not written – what your motivation is in pursuing medicine.

Effective preparation is critical to the success of your interview. Here are some things you should know before going to each interview:

• What type of interviewing format does the school use? Schools may do traditional, in-person, one-on-one interviews; Skype interviews; group interviews; or even a mix of them all. Find out more about your school’s format by looking at their Web site and/or asking the admissions coordinator. You can also find information about the interview style and format for each school on The Student Doctor Network.
• Will it be an open file or closed file interview? In an open file interview, the interviewer may have read your whole application or just parts of it. The interviewer could also be reading your file for the first time during the interview. In a closed file interview, your interviewer has not seen any part of your application.
• Do they do Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)? In an MMI, there are generally six to ten stations. You go around and have about two minutes to read a scenario based question. These tend to focus on situational and/or ethical dilemmas. You are then given six to eight minutes to answer in a way that demonstrates your logic and creative problem solving skills.

Once you understand the format for the interview, you anticipate (or plan!) how you will respond to potential interview questions. Here are a few groups of sample questions to think about:

Basic

   * What experiences have most motivated you to pursue medicine?

   * What concerns you about medical school and a residency program?

   * How have you tested your commitment to pursue medicine?

Behavioral

  * Tell me about a time when you demonstrated leadership.

  * What was the most stressful situation you have faced to date; how did you handle it?

  * Walk me through an experience where you made a mistake. How did you fix it?

Traditional

   * Tell me about yourself.

   * Why did you choose this school?

   * What are your three strongest qualities?

   * What is the most important thing you would want to convey to the admission committee?

There are many, many more possible interview questions you could be asked! While you will never be able to fully anticipate each question, it can be helpful to review lists of interview questions and begin thinking about how you would frame your answers. To prepare for behavioral questions, you might reflect on personal interactions/situations in your past, considering how you might frame them as stories and what personal characteristics they demonstrate.

Starting on August 18^th, the OITE is offering group medical school mock interview sessions to help you prepare. A total of seventeen sessions has been scheduled over the subsequent three weeks. If you are part of the intramural program, you can attend ONE session in order to practice your responses and learn from not only your peers but a facilitator as well.

Traditionally, soft skills were viewed as a secondary bonus to an applicant’s technical skill set; however, in today’s extremely competitive job market, employers are looking for proof of a mix of both hard and soft skills. In fact, recruiters will view a lack of demonstrated leadership or extracurricular activities on your resume as a potential red flag.

Illuminating this fact is a study which shows that 60% of managers agreed that soft skills are the most important factor when evaluating an employee’s performance. Recognizing the extreme importance of soft skills, The Department of Labor (DOL) developed an entire curriculum on the subject entitled, “Soft Skills to Pay the Bills: Mastering Soft Skills for Workplace Success.”

Targeted toward teens and young adults, this program was created as an introduction to workplace interpersonal and professional skills. The DOL’s list of key soft skills is very similar to OITE’s core competencies; it includes:

1. Communication Permeating almost every aspect of a job, this skill is often ranked first among employers. It includes your ability to speak, write and present.
2. Enthusiasm & Attitude Employers get frustrated with employees who are resistant to change or unable to adapt to new directions. Having an open and upbeat attitude will help your group generate good energy and move forward on projects.
3. Teamwork There will be aspects of teamwork within every job. Leaders and project managers often lament that most of their jobs are spent trying to get colleagues to work effectively together. Therefore, it is essential to your career to work cooperatively and be able to participate in group decision-making.
4. Networking Like teamwork, networking is about building relationships. It also involves critical elements of communication and the ability to represent yourself effectively to others.
5. Problem Solving & Critical Thinking There is no shortage of challenges and issues that can arise on the job. Employers want employees who will be able to face these problems critically and creatively by gathering enough information in order to develop a solution.
6. Professionalism No matter the job or the industry, professionalism is a critical key to your success. Professionalism isn’t one trait – it is a combination of characteristics. It often means conducting yourself with a high level of responsibility, integrity and accountability. Part of professionalism is having a strong work ethic and being willing to go that extra mile. Another integral component is being dependable, trustworthy, and always following through on your projects.

Soft skills are no longer undervalued by employers. Make sure you are practicing these skills in your current position and/or seeking out opportunities to develop these skill sets.

You will not only be helping your professional development, but you will be especially thankful the next time you are in an interview and they ask you a common behavioral question like “Tell me about a time when you had to utilize effective communication skills within a group setting,” and you have a stellar anecdote to share.

For better or worse, LinkedIn has become the new résumé and whether you like it or not, you are being searched online. Generally, only the top four or five results are being reviewed, so it is imperative that you use your LinkedIn profile to optimize your online presence and control your professional branding. Not on LinkedIn? Well, your lack of a presence says something too, especially with 60 million users in the United States. If a recruiter can’t find you on LinkedIn, they might falsely assume you aren’t tech savvy or that you have antiquated views of the world of searching for work. When utilized during a job search, LinkedIn can be a powerful tool and it is crucial to make sure your LinkedIn profile is professional and up to date. Here are some more tips for optimizing your LinkedIn profile:

1. Upload a photo. Many people have concerns about uploading a photo to LinkedIn, especially since photos aren’t usually included on résumés or CVs in the United States. Worries about ageism, racism and sexism obviously trump more innocuous concerns about simply not being photogenic.  Ageism, racism and sexism are all extremely valid concerns within any job search; however, the benefit of a photo is that it makes you human and not just a hyperlink. Profiles with photos get clicked on seven more times than those without. Further highlighting the importance of a photo on your profile can be seen in a study done by Ladders which used heat maps to review the eye tracking techniques of thirty recruiters over a ten week period. They found that recruiters spent 19% of their total time looking at your picture. Where did they look next? Your summary, so…
2. Avoid long, boring summaries. Your summary is not meant to be a data dump or a novel of long paragraphs that will potentially overwhelm, or worse, bore the reader. There are two possible solutions. Solution A. Keep it simple with one sentence, which will hopefully encompass great keywords and will encourage the reader to keep scrolling down to read more. Solution B. Use an overarching key statement and then bullet points.
3. Make sure your groups add to your brand. Groups are a great way to connect with like-minded individuals; however, being a member of too many disparate groups can begin to dilute your professional branding. An easy fix is to go in and make some of your group memberships invisible. To do so, simply go to the group section within your profile and you will see a visibility setting which you can adjust by unchecking the box “Display the group logo on your profile.”

Finally, another way to optimize your LinkedIn profile is quite simple: use it more. The more you use LinkedIn, the better it works. By doing some searches for jobs, groups and even people, LinkedIn will begin to recognize what you are looking for and it will offer suggestions. An additional way to increase your visibility is to participate more by asking thoughtful, professional questions to your groups and/or by commenting on industry-specific articles. With that advice in mind, what other LinkedIn tips could you share? Feel free to share any comments in the OITE NIH Intramural Science group on LinkedIn.