Curriculum Session 4 - Timing, Structure, & Bringing In You

Hi everyone, let's get going. Hi, come in. Hello, great to see you all. Hi everyone. All right, this is the 4th, um, final curriculum session of this cohort, which is very sad, and it feels like it's gone by very quickly, but excited to do this session. We've got lots of great stuff to chat about. I've put a question for you to consider as you get settled in and to post in the chat. So we're coming into— we're into the final week now, so I'd love to hear what you have found most useful going through the Academy so far with your prep. Just post in the chat. Okay, let's see what we've got. Structure, good. And we're going to talk a little bit more about structure today. USPs. Excellent. Pacing the prep, Kate. Yep. Making you make videos. Didn't make you, we just encouraged you gently, and I'm glad you found that helpful. Choosing your examples, structure, consistent practice. Yeah, so I'm really pleased, Johnny, you're starting to see it. You put in the reps, it'll start to get easier. 3-point structure, great. USPs. You've got a locum job in a great centre, that's fab. And we look forward to getting your substantive as well. Add a bio structure, more confident in your approach to interview, Ali, specifics. Yeah, so this is good. You want to bring in as many specifics as you can. The more you can make it specific, it means that it's not leaving stuff to the imagination of the panel. You're actually telling them what you did. And hopefully you've been seeing loads of examples of how much of a difference it makes when someone tells you something vague about a project to when someone tells you something specific, and usually you're just blown away by what they've done versus just thinking it's, you know, whatever it is you had in your mind. You've said seeing different perspectives, answers of the same question from different colleagues. Yeah, so this is good. And actually, Mohammed, this is one of the reasons why I do not love the idea of model answers, because there isn't a model answer. What you'll see is it's answers— there's no perfect answer. You can't get it right or wrong. All you're trying to do is use your knowledge, use structures to give you a range of points, use what you know about the team and what you know about yourself to make your best answer. And just like you've said, you see loads of different people giving different perspectives. So not everyone would ever be able to give the same interview answer. If you're doing a good answer, it should actually be one that only you can give to that place. And once you realize that, then it's more about how to meet what they're looking— understand what they're looking for and meet what they're looking for. So that is a good revelation to have or a good understanding to have. USPs and your golden examples, excellent. The panellists change their attitudes once they have in front of them someone who attended the course. Yeah, so you do the same thing, Livia, for your substantive. I can't remember offhand what your locum panel was like, but a lot of people will find that the locum is a bit more informal. You'll certainly have a smaller panel than you have for your substantive, but the reason we encourage you to prep in the exact same way is firstly so you know what's coming for your substantive interview, but also because you don't know what's going to happen with the locum panel, you're better to just assume it's going to be formal and go with the flow. So yeah, I would plan and prep in the exact same way, Olivia, for the substantive panel. You'll probably get more notice, you'll have probably more pre-interview visits and a bigger panel, but it's the exact same thing. Learning things on the course that you're using as a new consultant. Yes, so that is something that has been really nice when I speak to people after they've got their jobs to hear about, like, how they found the course. I know that it's like we don't really learn a lot about what it means to be a consultant when you're a trainee because you're so focused on training. So I'm glad that you're able to get that. And yeah, a correction of what you thought was a good enough answer. So there's answers that are okay, that are literally answering the question, and then once you start to understand what the panel are looking for and how to meet that, then you move to a whole new level of answer. So that's good. Remember that your learning should be ongoing, but it's good to see the things that you're picking up and I appreciate you sharing. This is where we're up to on the leaderboard. Well done. Sarish, I think you've been at the top, or Alex. Certainly a few of these people have been familiar names that have been up at the top the whole way through. Sarish, you're just in first place on your own, and then Ali, you are second. There's a couple of you on 13. So keep going, you're getting your badges by completing your milestones and going through the onboarding stuff. So please keep going through them, but well done to you guys. And some practicalities. So this is the final week of the cohort, and I know it's quite an intense period, and then it comes to the end. We've still got the rest of this week, so it ain't over yet. There's a lot to learn from the wins that people are posting and how they manage their prep, what happened during the interview. And remember that you take all of the stuff that people tell you, including what we tell you, on board and decide what makes sense for you. You can't please everyone and you can't accommodate everyone's views, and it's all just opinion. So you use what resonates with you, what you know about your panel, what you found out in your pre-interview visits. But there's loads of great stuff in the WINNs channel, so have a look through. Um, you hopefully have been doing your milestones 3 and 4 from last week. Still keep doing— you can keep doing, uh, posting your milestones, but also doing your milestones at any, at any point. And you can post your milestones during the cohort, keep collecting your badges. And, and like a couple of you have said in the chat, when you watch other people's answers, it can help show you— help also reassure you what other people are like, that everyone's just human beings answering questions and are nervous about the same things that you're nervous about. But it gives you a bit of insight and perspective that I think will help. So I Have a look through other people's answers too. So what happens after Sunday when the cohort ends? So after Sunday, the specific interview support space and the recorded answer review space close. Okay, this means that the daily feedback, the daily questions, it only happens during the cohort. It will happen at the next cohort, but we don't do it every day all year round, so they will close. But we do have ongoing weekly Sunday group coaching sessions that run in between cohorts, so you can bring your stuff along to them. And if you need extra support in the run-up to your interview, we have that available. You will all be able to join the next cohort for free. As you know, you can come back as many times as you like, and we will let you know when the next cohort comes. Sangi, it does not apply to you on VIP, and anyone who's on VIP or Private Plus, your tiers continue. And they are not dependent on cohorts. So you have your private chats with us all year round. We are here. You can book your calls, send your videos in between. This is for the cohort activity. We'll close at the end of the week, but still come along to the weekly group coaching sessions and reach out when you've got your interview coming up. And we've got our Deep Dive 5 course, which gives you some bonus topics that are coming up in interviews. And you will collect your next badge. Sorry, that is a good question. Do you have access to the materials? You have access to the materials. They're there, they stay there, they don't go away. So all of the videos, all of the replays, they don't go away. As far as your own videos, like if you've posted videos in the community channel, because of storage, enormous storage issues, we do archive them. I can't remember the exact thing. You'll get a warning if we archive them. So we usually keep up the last few cohorts and then you'll get a message saying, Take your own videos if you want them. Otherwise, we're going to take them down because otherwise it's like a lot of videos, as you can probably see. So yeah, but all the recordings are there, all the material's there. It's just that we're not there doing your daily video reviews and your daily questions. That's happening during the cohort, and the live curriculum that we're going through happens during the cohort. But there will still be some day group coaching sessions. Deepa, you can submit videos. So you can submit videos. This week is still week 4 of the cohort, but Deepa, you're on a tier. So you can submit videos to us in the way you normally do in your tier, and it does not mean anything. It doesn't— that's not affected by the cohort. Um, Google Pixel 8, I think I've answered. I think I've answered the question about that, which is that the videos are there. Yeah, I think that's your question. The videos are there to watch. The only thing that will get removed eventually is your personal video answers, because we can't keep them up forever through all the cohorts because, um, I'm sure it's bad for the planet, but it's also bad for storage capacity. We have a Circle limit. Can you still contact others via Circle outside the cohort? You can. We're not changing the functionality of the community. It's just the active part of the cohort part will not be running. So it's the specific interview support space and the recorded answer review space that closes, but the other stuff is still open. So hopefully that's clear. Then what else have we got? When's the next cohort, Ali? We're firming up the dates. We will let you know. We will message you and email you to let you know, and you will get to join the next cohort for free. That's a good question. Kat unfortunately broke her arm and therefore could not do the session, and I know Anoop did a group session with you. I actually don't know the answer to that. I know they were trying to see if they could get it rescheduled. If we don't get it rescheduled, we're going to share with you the— her session that she's run— that she ran in the previous cohort. But that's a good, good point. So thank you for reminding me. Can you still upload private videos when the cohort is finished if you're Private Plus? Yes. So anyone on a private tier, it does not matter whether cohort's running or cohort's not running. You have your private access with us. You can use that anytime. We're there for you anytime. So hopefully that's clear. And then someone asked about joining the VIP cohort. Victoria, I can't remember what the availability is now. I'll find out if you message me or Arub. I'll try and remember after this call. But if not, just message me and we can have a look. Okay, so hopefully that's all the admin. Oh, there's more. Jess, yeah, it's fine. I'm happy to answer as many questions as you like. I just want to get it Clear for you. Jess, is there any chance we could have access to the previous recording of the governance chat? Yes. So, um, I'm not sure when your interview is, Jess. So what we're trying to do is get Kat to run her session. Um, Thursday. Yeah, just message, um, Corley. It's fine. Just put submit a support ticket and Corley will share it with you. It's no problem. Um, so we will. Yeah, I guess if you've not heard that it's been rescheduled, that, um, we weren't able to reschedule it because Kat is in bit of pain. So we'll give you access to the previous cohort anyway. But Jess, just send a message so you can get that sorted quickly. Specific interview support is closing at the end of the cohort. So SIS and the recorded answer review spaces are the spaces that close. These are things that happen during the 4 weeks of the cohort and running through the curriculum. Okay, so are we clear? Is everyone happy with the admin side of what's happening now. Any other questions, you know, you can still ask. You can submit a support ticket. Coralie is, as I'm sure you've seen, very helpful and responsive. So please contact her if there's anything that you're not sure about. We're not disappearing off the face of the planet. We're just not running— we're on Circle all the time with private tier people. We're just not running the active cohort stuff. Runs during the 4 weeks of the cohort. Okay, so hopefully that is clear. And then You will be able to collect your next milestone badge the same as you've done in the other ones, which is we will post the replay in the curriculum space, the replay of this call, and you will post your milestone, which is bringing in you, which we'll go through today, and then you'll get awarded your badge. And like with all the other things, if you want feedback on the milestone, post it on the specific interview support channel and we'll do it there. And these are the— this is what you can see in the Week 4 space currently. And as a final reminder, we have a bonus prize of free one-to-one coaching call for three people who complete all their milestones by the end of the cohort. That's the end of Sunday. If you have all your milestones, you will be in the draw to get a free coaching call. So please do. This is just to encourage you to get keep going through your milestones and work through the curriculum. Before we go into the milestone today, I just want to talk a bit about timing of answers. This comes. Up a lot when we're chatting to students in our calls, in the one-to-one calls. So we recommend, as you probably get the idea now, that you should practice— your main answers should be 3 to 4 minutes long. This is based on maths and some averages. Of course, we don't know exactly what your panel wants you to do, and it's based on it being 40 to 45 minutes for each substantive interview, which is pretty— that is pretty standard. There may be the occasional There's no outlier, but essentially that is standard. And you're likely to have 5 to 7 people on the panel. Now, the panel will ask you 1 to 2 questions. Of course, we don't know exactly how many questions, so there's lots of unknown elements of this, but it's worked out on average because the reality is you won't know how many questions. There will be very few of you that get told in advance how many questions, potentially none of you. I'm trying to think if there's a circumstance, unless you— there's a reason that you get the questions before you, I don't think you're likely to know. Likely to know how many questions. But what you do know is that they are going to ask you every question that they have prepped in a substantive interview, because that is their goal. Every candidate gets the same questions. And so that affects the timing. So you can't control the number of questions. You don't know whether they're happy to let you run on or whether they're running short or whatever it is, but you know they're going to ask you every question that they have planned. So you, you may get cut short in your answers, and that could be for lots of specific reasons. It doesn't mean that you're giving a terrible answer if you get cut short. And if you've been in the academy and you know what you're doing, and you'll know if you're feeling good that you know what you're doing, then you're unlikely to be doing a terrible answer that they just want you to stop and move on. They might cut you short because They know the timing, or they know that there's actually another 10 questions to go and you're only on question 3 and they have to move on. They might cut you short because you're talking about something now that they know they're going to ask you a question about in a moment. So they may well be helping you to cut you off. So don't take it as like some sort of personal criticism or attack, or— it doesn't mean anything related to you. Now, they might be cutting you off because you're unstructured or you're going too long or whatever it is. And even if they are, and even if it's because you're giving a bad answer, you need to move on to the next question and draw a line under it. So, um, just don't dwell on whatever happens if they cut you off. But what you don't want to happen is that you have a 45-minute interview slot and you rattle through your answers so quickly that you're done in 20 minutes. So you can be pretty sure then, not that you won't get the job. I'm sure it is possible to get the job and do a 40-minute interview in 20 minutes, but you're going to be making it a lot harder for yourself. Because if you're up against someone who takes the full 40 minutes, it's going to be a lot easier for them to score more points than you. So the reason we say 3 to 4 minutes rather than 1 to 2 minutes is because what you're trying to do is give a good spread. You're trying to develop your points. Beyond just a 90-second bam, bam, bam, here's a bullet point list. It's giving you the opportunity to showcase your skills and your experience. And the reality is that you can only score for what you say. It's not stuff that's implied or stuff that you think they know about you, or they might have read in your CV. None of that matters in the interview. And if you give a 1-minute answer or a 90-second answer, it's very hard to score as many points as someone who's doing a longer answer. So, it's worked out on averages, but you have to be able to adapt and not take it to heart as a confidence knock in the moment if they move you on, and just assume they're trying to help you because you're doing a good job and they really want you to get the job. Now, you will hear— you may hear lots of different people's advice on timing. And much like I said at the beginning, the advice that we give you is our opinion based on our experience, but you also make your own decisions when you get comments and feedback from people. And you need to take all of that on board and decide what feels right for you. So use your own judgment. And this is the same with anything, with any advice people are giving you. Use your own judgment. If, for example, you go to your pre-interview meetings and the chief exec who's on your panel tells you that you need to answer every question in 2 minutes, it would be a bit silly to ignore that because Tessa's told you to do it in 3 to 4 minutes. Okay, so the person on your panel clearly carries weight because they're going to be interviewing you and they're telling you something that will help you. If it's someone who once did an interview or once was on a panel, then maybe, and it's not in the same place as you, then you need to take that with a pinch of salt. So just not all people's advice is equal, and decide what resonates with you and what counts for you. And just remember that there's no right or wrong, and some things are not within your control, and you don't know exactly how it's gonna go. What you're trying to do is work out the law of averages and practice what is likely to be effective and help you the most. Deepa, you've asked, is there a way of finding out if there's other candidates? So you can just ask. I would guess they probably won't tell you if you ask outright, but you never know. Usually people hear on the grapevine or someone drops it to them in an informal way due to medicine being a small world and everyone knowing everyone else. But in reality, you may feel it's better not to know if it's going to stress you out. Deepa, for example, it's not helpful. So again, whether there's other candidates or not comes into the things that you can't control bucket. So what I want you to do, as with most of life, is don't worry about the things that you can't control, focus on the bits that you can control. And many candidates find it more helpful not to know who they're up against. So don't feel that you have to know, but if you want to, you can ask. And I'm sure you can find someone who knows someone who might give you— the informal lowdown. And the same element of, um, being flexible and adaptable comes to this first question, which is the tell me about yourself that we're getting you to practice. And I want you to practice this a lot, and we get you to practice this to 5 to 6 minutes, because in the majority of cases you will not get cut off in that tell me about yourself answer because they know it's your chance to tell them everything and, um, go— yeah, your chance to kind of go through an overview of your curated best bits. So they want you to get a good start on the interview and they're more likely to let you go for it. Now, if they— there's variations though on this. So they might say, tell me about yourself in 2 minutes. Or they might say, tell me about yourself, but focus on your clinical experience only. Or they might stop you in the middle of your answer, or they might phrase it in a different way. And we've talked about that a bit. Why do you want to work there? Why do you want to work here? Why are you the right person for the job? So you need to adapt. You need to be ready to adapt and remember that that's okay. The reason you practice it so much is so that you can pull bits out and adapt because you know your USPs well. And remember, it all comes down to your milestones. It's not about one answer, it's about your milestones. You know your USPs well. If they want just for you to focus on the leadership side, you can do that. That's fine. You pick out what you were going to say on the leadership side and your leadership USPs and focus on that. And if they stop you midway, it's fine. It might be because they know you're about to talk about Quips and they've got a question about Quips coming up. So don't assume they're against you or they don't want you to get it. Just assume they're helping you, because when you start to sort of sabotage yourself early on, or you think they think something, you can end up kind of making your interview go down a direction that it doesn't it doesn't need to go, and you can't control these elements of what they feel. My interview is the 1st of September. Just found out there are 8 panel members. I am expected— or am I expected— is it helpful to see every panel member, or should I just try to meet the main people? Chris, I would try and meet all of the panel members. I know that might not be the answer you wanted. You should try and meet them all. If it's not possible, it's not possible, obviously. It's holiday periods, they may be away, you may be away, but your goal is to— if they've told you 8 people on the panel, your goal is to meet them all because they all potentially will give you different bits of intel and gold that can really make a significant difference to your interview. So, for me, that is one of the most important parts of the interview is actually what you do beforehand. So, I would work really hard to see as many of them as possible and understand that you're human and life happens and you can only do what you can do. But yes, the answer is I would try and meet them all. So when it comes to different versions of tell me about yourself, remember that the most important thing that I would want you to take is when they if they ask you a different wording of it for your first question before you decide they are not asking you tell me about yourself, they're asking you something else. Just think really carefully. Is this a chance for me to get out my USPs in a version of perm? That's, that's what I want you to think about. And the reason is that if you miss it because you decide, no, they're just asking me why I love the Trust or something instead, you could miss the chance to tell them all of your USPs. And you might get them in later on at different points, but you're gonna have to work a lot harder to do that. And what you're trying to do with that first answer is getting an overview of your best bits so you've mentioned it, but also clearly be answering their question. So you can't just do your tell me about yourself. You have to be clear you're answering the question they ask. If it's why do you want to work in this team, you say from an education point of view, I know the team's doing X, Y, and Z. You've got a great education program, whatever it is you know about it. I've got experience doing A, B, and C. So you're connecting your the perm structure and getting your USPs in with the question they're they're asking. But just be adaptable. It doesn't mean it's a bad start or whatever. You're trying to just go with the flow with what you've prepped and trust that. You know why you're there, you know what you bring, you're ready for the questions because you know the types of things they're going to ask, and the other parts you will be able to flex and adapt on the day. So just don't panic as the interview starts. I wanted just to talk a little bit about structure. I'm happy that loads of you mentioned it when I asked what you'd got out of the course, so we maybe won't dwell on this part because it seems like a lot of you have handled it. But what you're trying to do is use structure so that when you get an unexpected question, and that is very unlikely to be a question that isn't covered by the milestones, but it could be a question that's worded in a different way. And so maybe throws you off that you, you don't feel like you're starting from scratch. You don't start to ramble or blurt things out. You still fall back on these structures. And so the goal is to use solid structures. To give you a framework, to give a solid answer, even if you're nervous, even if it's not going as expected. But once you're comfortable with using structure, which some of you might be if you're practicing it a lot, that's when you start to bring in more of you, more of yourself. And that's where this milestone comes in. And the reason for using structures is to keep you broadly right. And remember, it's a framework. It's not set in stone. And I've had lots of conversations with people. If you can't think of a 3rd point, go for 2 points if you want. That's fine. If you really want to do 4 points, go for 4 points. You just need to bear in mind that you'll need to spend longer on the 2 points and develop them more, but that could still be a great thing. If you've got 4 points, you're not going to get a chance to develop them as much. So you need to weigh up, is that worth it? Or just get— are you just going to be giving like a bullet point list? So Just try and fall back on the structures. Deepa, you've asked what— you said you were asked what makes a good care plan and you rambled. So hopefully that you're in a position now where you can feel that you can actually pause, 'cause you know what makes a good care plan. And it doesn't need to be the perfect answer. You don't need to be the care plan leader or whatever, but you know what makes a good care plan. So you're gonna take a pause and think of 3 things that make a good care plan. I don't know, it's clear, everyone's on board, it's easily accessed, for example. So I don't have heavy involvement with care plans, but just 3 things that come to mind. And so they can be any 3 sensible things. And then using the 3-point structure, you would then talk for 60 seconds on each of these points. And 60 seconds is not a long time to talk about why having care plans accessible is helpful. and makes a good care plan. You would give an example either where there's been a problem with accessing it or a way that you've accessed it well in the past. That's all you're doing with each one. It's 60 seconds. You'll be able to give one example and that's it. And 3-point structure is one. So Natalie, you've said PIRM, tell me about yourself, tell me about yourself, PIRM 4, tell me about yourself, STAR, 3-point structure, we use IMZO. It doesn't matter. So, and then one of the things that I don't want you to do is get obsessed about which is the right structure to use. Any structure is fine. This— the idea of the structure is, um, to give you a framework. It doesn't mean it's a right structure or a wrong structure. You may find some lend itself better, um, to particular answers. But yeah, I mean, the goal is just to have a structure. And as you know, um, so Ahmed, you've said For each 3 signpost points. Yeah, so this is the 3-point structure. So you do a brief intro where you give some context. So you say, well, it's obviously important to have a good care plan in place, because it can make a massive difference to the patient and family's experience, and also to the medical team. And then you say, and these are 3 things that I think make a good care plan, which are, they're clear, everyone's on board, they're accessible. And then you say, so firstly, it's important— my first point is it's important to have a clear plan. And then you'll talk for 60 seconds about that, and you go through each one really obviously signposting it. Even though it seems like it feels weird, you obviously signpost it, and then you give an example, talk about it for 60 seconds, and at the end just do a summary of the 3 points. And that doesn't mean like a 90-second summary. You can literally just name the 3 points again, or you just say the question back at them. So that's what makes a good care plan. That's it. And you can apply the same structure. The 3-point structure is very good because you can apply it to pretty much any question they ask, and you're going to give a better answer than not using a structure. And that's kind of your rough timing of what it would look like doing that. So it's really not a long time. If you're struggling to talk about a point for 45 to 60 seconds, you can just practice one point at a time with a stopwatch and just pick any topic, any point that you've thought of. Time yourself, talk for 60 seconds on it, and you'll realize you can do that for anything, like literally any topic. It's not that long. The more you practice it, the more you'll get a feel for what you need to do there. And the important part is the pause. I know we emphasize this a lot here. And remember, the pause is to help you think of what you're about to say so that you don't start talking and then you're trying to be in your head thinking as well as talking and having that rambling experience. The pause is to get your thoughts together. If the pause sends you into a blind panic and you end up rambling anyway, then the pause is not helping you, and that's, that's fine. You don't need to use the pause. But for most of you, the pause will help you actually get your thoughts together, and then you will give a stronger answer that will score higher than the answer that you would have given without the pause. And because of that, It doesn't matter if the panel thinks it's weird or they say it's weird. It doesn't matter. If it helps you score better, then you accept the weirdness of having the pause or the weirdness of taking a pen and a bit of paper in. You're— that risk of weirdness is of benefit to you because the benefit outweighs the risk. If they don't help you, the pause doesn't help you, writing down points doesn't help you, don't do them. It's fine. Um, so you, but get into the habit of trying the pause and trying each of these things and seeing if it helps you. For me, I would always, I always use the pause when I'm in interviews. I always take in a bit of pen and paper and I, I don't mind if they're going to think it's weird because it, to me, it makes a massive difference. So that's why I do it. There's some other structures and I know people are asking. So these are, we use these throughout the course, PERM, EMZO, SPICE. We don't really focus on in the academy, but You can use it. You can use any framework. I'm not like— the only framework I really don't want you to use is CAMP for the reasons that I think I've clearly mentioned, which is I hate the P being at the end. But the others are all just frameworks to help you have a spread of answers. So you've had lots of experience now of going through the academy and thinking about 3-point structure. So my question to you is, what do you find the most difficult when you're trying to use a 3-point structure? What is it you find— most difficult? Just post in the chat. All right, let's see what we've got. Ali, finding the best ones and the best examples. So hopefully, Ali, by now these are in quotation marks because there is no best. Okay, there's only what is Sensible and answers the question and is something that you feel comfortable talking about, and ideally something that you know is important to them. And this is where if you, if you do these pre-interview visits and listen to them well, you'll actually know how to pick points that are in line with what they're thinking. And if you know yourself and your skills, you'll be picking things that are in line with what you have experience of and feel comfortable talking about. So your best ones and best examples wouldn't be the same as my best ones and my, my best ones and my best examples. Which is why it's not about a model answer. It's about you understanding what you're bringing and understanding what they need and merging that together in the questions that they ask. Vani, thinking of something on the spot to talk about. So this is where your milestones come in in your practice. So there's not— I can't think of a question that I've seen. And as you know, we get everyone's— we collect everyone's questions as they have them. So we've seen thousands and thousands of consultant interview questions. I've seen more than I think anyone else in the UK. And there's not There's not surprises. There's occasional questions that make you pause, the kind of abstract ones. I don't even think they come up that frequently, which, you know, tell me about your most difficult day type thing, which would be a bit something that you probably haven't prepped and have to think of on the spot. But even that is going to be related to something you've prepped in your milestones. And once you can use the pause to remember you've done your prep and your milestones, They will be asking you something related to that or something that you can flex based on what you've prepped. It's going to be a much stronger answer than suddenly picking some hideous thing that's happened on your worst day or whatever it is, much like all the things that we put in the how the hell did that happen bin. So keep— Chris, you've said thinking up and developing enough to say, and that should come with practice. So yeah, I would just— the more you practice, the better that is going to be. So get into the habit of just doing even just one point at a time for 60 seconds. And when you do that, you'll get into feeling what it's like to talk for 60 seconds and how to develop your point. Keeping your answers to time. This is— yeah, you will need to practice with a stopwatch. And stop yourself. So if anyone is still doing really long answers, you're not doing yourself any favors. This is my tough love. You are not doing yourself any favors by letting yourself go to six minutes or whatever in a regular answer. You have you should have a stopwatch and an alarm, and it needs to go off at four minutes, and that is the end of your answer because you have to assume that's what's going to happen in your interview. They won't let you run on past that. So that's where your answer ends, and if that feels stressful because you're being cut off, that's what's going to happen in the interview. So you're like crazy. a false environment if you allow yourself to practice. So push yourself, be rigid, like this is it, 4 minutes is what you've got, you have to do your best answer in that time. Your 3 points aren't equally good. That's fine, they don't need to be. Who's to say what's good and not good? But probably you're gonna have a couple that you feel happier talking about and others less so. That's, that's all right. Remembering the 3 points and not counting on your fingers. I don't think you can count on your fingers, that's okay. So yeah, remembering them, I would say take in a bit of paper and write them down. You're going to be stressed. You don't need more things to be stressed about. Trying to remember the wording of the question and your 3 points, I don't think comes in the list of things you need to worry about. That's why I say take in a pen and a bit of paper. So I would definitely be doing that. On the spot, picking ones that then lead you to USPs nicely. Esther, so this is just practice trusting yourself. You're picking sensible points. You'll have your USPs at the front of your mind, so you can choose. There's, there's, there'll be a million options of points you can pick. So the ones that come to you should be ones that you feel comfortable talking about. And again, that's just practice. Panic about how you get your USPs into the answer. So you're not trying to wedge your USPs in. If you can think of points that relate to your USPs, they're good points to pick, but you're not trying to just shoehorn USPs into everything. You're trying to make sure Firstly, you answer the question. Secondly, you answer it with points that you can actually talk about. And thirdly, with points that are actually relevant for them. And Dua, it doesn't matter if you've got 2 points that are great and the third one's not so strong. I would probably still include the third one because you do want a spread. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket and just go down one route. But if you want to do 2 points, do 2 points. It's okay. It's not set in stone. Yeah, Melissa, you've said you get bogged down thinking for the perfect points, but what you want is good enough, and that is what I want you to do. It's not perfect. Actually, good enough is going to be better than your competitors. Good enough being a solid spread of points, bringing in your USPs, knowing your milestones, and understanding what the panel is looking for and have met them before. You're going to be ahead of the other candidates anyway before you get anywhere beyond that. So it's not perfection. It's not the perfect to the best. It's just giving good sensible answers solidly throughout your interview. Your flow of your storytelling is difficult to control. So some of you will find that once you— and what that usually means is when you're nervous, you get on a topic that you feel more comfortable about, and therefore you talk for longer about it. And with a story of something that happened, that's your own experience. No one can tell you it's right or wrong. And so there's a tendency— I don't know if this is what's happened to you, Olivia. But there's a tendency to then be like, I know what I'm doing now because it's a story that happened to me. And that's why you have— people have that tendency to talk for longer about the incident part of the example. And it's just keeping a focus on what are they looking for, why are they answering, why are they asking you the question they are asking you. Ahmed, questions like, tell me about a book you read recently, do we also use the 3-point structured answers? So I actually don't think I've heard that coming up in a substantive interview or not. I don't think it's one of the ones we've seen. But yeah, so if it's a book you've read recently, I mean, again, this is like, you know how to answer this, Ahmed, because I don't know what you've read. This is an abstract question that's, I think, a bit of a silly one for them to ask in a substantive interview, but maybe they want to ask you a personal thing. I really don't think— I don't know, Ahmed, if you've been asked this before. You know someone's been asked this before a substantive interview. I think it's a waste of a question. But say they did, either pick 3 books to talk about or pick 1 book and 3 things that you learned about it. So remember that the 3-point structure doesn't always mean you need 3 different things. It could mean 1 thing and 3 points to back it up. And again, this is a part of what— if they asked you something like this, Ahmed, it's just to recognize this is a daft question and it's fine. So once you've looked through and gone through the milestones in the Academy cohort, you know what's expected. You know the type of questions that come up. And if you get a weird one, you know it's either weird and they're trying to see what you'll do, or they're trying to push your buttons. Like if they ask you about the worst case or the worst day or the worst whatever, or they're asking you something really hard and you can just acknowledge that this is a really hard question, or, oh, I wasn't expecting that. That's a bit of a wild card question. It's fine just to say that. They know asking you about a book you've read is like a question you were not expecting. So part of it is just being human and saying, In the moment, this is this is hard. This is a hard question, but I'm going to do my best. Ahmed, you've been asked before in a locum. So a locum, yeah, in a locum interview, I questions they can do whatever they like. I still think it's a silly question to ask, but they may have decided, and I know people do this in fellow interviews. One question to get to know people, like tell me about a TV whatever series that you've done, that you've watched. It's the same kind of thing. Yeah, just pick. I don't think you can get it wrong. It's fine as long as you don't say anything wildly inappropriate. It should be fine. Livia, thank you for the nice comment. Appreciate that. So yeah, the structure is something that you can work on and practice. Definitely advise you using a stopwatch when you're practicing. And I always say to people when I'm on one-to-one calls with people, I time people when they're doing questions for me, but you should be timing it as well. And I know in the interview, unless you're doing an online interview, you won't be timing it. But the more you can practice to time, the more your muscle memory or your mind, your body will get used to what it feels like to talk for 3 to 4 minutes. Otherwise, you're teaching yourself what it feels like to talk for 7 minutes and how much you can say in 7 minutes, and that is not the skill you need to learn. So definitely use, use a stopwatch. And I think you kind of get the idea of how to develop points, but if you're struggling, These are ways that you can develop them, which is adding specifics, reflecting on how you felt, adding numbers, dropping some names, sharing what you learned. It's just 45 seconds to 60 seconds of a bit of reflection, so it's going to be fine. So that's just to give you a bit of background to the timing and structure and why we're doing it the way we're doing it. And when you're going forward thinking about how you choose structures, don't overthink it. Just pick one and that's the one you're doing and that's fine. So we're going to focus though on bringing in you, which is this final 5th milestone of the Academy. And this— the reason to bring in you is because you want to connect with the panel and you're in an interview situation, which is stressful. And you know, you're wearing your best clothes or whatever and giving off your best impression, but you want to show them the real you. And you want them to be giving you the job because they want you. And when you can relax, and they will see the real you more than a rigid interview candidate. And when you bring in yourself and you relax and you show them the real you and you connect with the panel, they will want to have you on the team more. And I know it's hard, which is why it's the 5th milestone. It's definitely not more important than the other 4. It's the last one. But if you can do this, that's where you build that edge of connection. And some of that comes with time and experience and your confidence. Some of it comes with specific things, strategies that you can use to show them you, which is what we're going to go through. And just to remind you, but pretty sure you're familiar with these now, these are the milestones that we want you to work through. If you haven't done your USPs, there's no point jumping to other things because you, you need to know your unique selling points as a baseline to be able to do your interview. And then your 5 examples, your senior-level thinking, job-specific knowledge, and then the 5th milestone, which we're doing now, which is bringing in you. And all of that goes hand in hand with practice, which hopefully you're all doing. So bringing in you does not mean just go along and be yourself. I'm sure you're all wonderful, but going along and being yourself is— and we've talked a lot about you don't need to overshare, it's not a therapy session. You are being yourself, but you're being your best self for an interview that you want someone to give you a job for. So it doesn't mean just be you. Anyone who says just go along, just be yourself, I don't think is a good strategy for a competitive, substantive interview for your dream job. And bringing in you doesn't mean That if you prepare too much, you will be like a robot and you won't bring in yourself. So I don't believe that you can over-prepare for an interview, for a performance, which is what this is. This is your dream job. This is your permanent job. Just prep, put the work in, and the last stage is bringing in yourself. It's not in place. Practice does not negate bringing in yourself. And bringing in you does not mean give all your answers from the heart. This is not about just bearing all and sharing your true self. It's about giving a curated version of your best self and being thoughtful about how you connect with the panel and how you share things with them. So do you need to bring in you? And the answer is that you don't need to. This is why it's the 5th milestone. If you just do the 4th milestone, And you're going to be very rigid because you're going to go in like an interview bot and you're going to be really clear on your structure and you're going to say and everything. I've got three points. My first point's this. My second point's that. And they're going to be in the feedback. Oh, you gave you used three point structure all the time. Doesn't matter because they'll score you for what you say. It's a solid way to score well. Plenty of people go in very stressed, nervous, use the frameworks, use the structure, give very solid, steady answers, can't relax, and they score really well. And get the job. So you don't need to bring in you if it's too stressful and too hard. And if you stop at milestone 4 and you can't bring yourself— bring in you, that's fine. You're going to do great. And actually having structure and implementing that structure is going to be way better than just letting it all out and rambling. Um, and I don't mind— I, when I do my own interviews and for you, if people notice that you're using a structure or notice that you've been in a course or notice that you're using a pause These are all just things that show that you care about the job and you've prepped. So when I— if I'm bringing in a pen and a piece of paper, I'll say, I'm just gonna write the question down because I'm really nervous. I'm worried I'm gonna forget. I really care about getting the job and giving you good answers. And whatever it is you wanna say, it's because you care. It's not because you're a bad human or whatever it is that you might— weight you might attach to it. It's just because you care and you prep because you care, because you wanna do a good job for them. But once you're confident, once you know how to use the structures and you're feeling good about it, then you can push yourself to the next level and relax a bit and bring in you. And you might even— some of you might even be able to drop a joke here and there in your interview when you're feeling very confident. And it's much better to be in a position where you're confident and then dropping a joke than a nervous rambling mess and trying to be funny. So it's a different way of bringing in you. It comes at the end. Once you're good with the other stuff. Now, this milestone. So how do you do it? We've got these 3 elements of this 5th milestone, which is your 2-sentence P that we talked about at the beginning. And then we, we'll talk about a bit now. We've got your reflection on your mistake, which is the 2nd thing for this milestone, and your weakness, knowing what your weakness is. So I want you to think about each of these things. Now, using the way to connect with the panel and to bring in you is this P with PERM, as I talked about. I don't love camp. I don't love the whole, this is everything about me, dot, dot, dot, and I like horse riding at the weekend. I don't— that which is what camp is. I don't see that that builds any connection. It's a weird thing to put in. It's just telling them a fact. fact about you, and that's not the goal of what we're trying to do. You're trying to connect with a panel. You're trying to show them that you really want this job, you really care about this job, and you really want it. And so, the goal of the P in PERM is thinking about what ties you to this job. Why have you applied? And just if I said, not in an interview format, but I just genuinely ask you, why is it you are applying for this job? Whatever comes up then, is the root of what you want to say. Now, of course, there's some limits around— you want to say something that does build connection. You don't want to say something for the sake of it. But some things that might prompt you is why you love working there if you're there already. What's your connection to the hospital? If you genuinely can't say anything about the team and it's something about your specialty, then you can take a step back and do that. I don't think that's as strong. Like, why you love the specialty is not as strong something that you love about the place. And if you haven't worked there, it could be what you've heard from other people, and it could be what you felt when you came around on your pre-interview visits. It's not that the trust values really resonate with you, because I am going to call BS on that, because the trust values don't really resonate with anyone. It's not because the person spec or the job description was great. It's nothing corporate. It's nothing formal. It's an informal thing. It's what you feel when you're there. It's something from the heart that's not an overshare, but something genuine. So Sunday, you've said something about pause. You attended a mock AAC, and this consultant experienced with consultant interviews frowned at your pause and writing down points and asked you not to do it at the interview. Should you ignore that advice? This is your call. I don't know who they were or why they said it. You can make your own judgment. That's fine. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. I personally do it myself. I recommend people do it. If you're feeling really stressed about it, you can ask the panel in advance. I had someone the other day who told the HR person, I'm going to bring in a pen and paper because I think it will help me focus more on the questions and stay connected to them. That's fine. If you want to say it in advance, do. Can't see a reason why anyone would count that against you. But yeah, if they're on your panel— I don't know if they're on your panel. Obviously, if they're on your panel and they've told you not to, then don't. Chris, I've got a 10-minute presentation that I'm guessing will be first. If it then goes on to TMAY, how do I show passion? It seems a bit clunky to say I'm very excited to join the team 10 minutes in. I don't think so, but remember that with all of the P stuff, it's optional. If you don't feel connected, you don't feel like you want to say it, you don't have to. I don't see why it would be weird to, because the 10-minute presentation is a pre-prepared thing. So, unless that's got an element of why you want to join the team, like you're in an interview for a job and you want to tell them why you want to be there, so I wouldn't Feel it was weird, but again, like you don't have remember this and and the P the thing about the P and and actually bringing in you at all. It's not something that you score points for. It's it's an unmeasurable connection, and to me to start your first interview question and and tell them just want to say that I really am excited to be here. I love this place. I love this team. This is the job I want. Some version of that. You can't measure the impact that that has on the people on the panel, the ones you know, the ones you don't know. It's just a really nice thing to be able to do, but it does need to feel like you're being you. It doesn't— if it's feeling forced or you're going to be stressing about saying it, then it's going to have a negative impact. So yeah, I wouldn't overthink it. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. Audrey, is the presentation ever in place of tell me about yourself? So, occasionally the presentation is tell me about yourself, in which case it would be silly to then ask you tell me about yourself. So, Esther said your mate did an interview and the presentation was what we bring to the department and team. So, clearly, if that's the presentation, there's no reason for them to then go, well, tell me about yourself, because it would be like they weren't listening to what you've just said for 10 minutes. Mostly your presentations are about future vision for the department or opportunities or challenges for the service. I would say in probably 80% of presentations, maybe more. Occasionally it's about you. Very occasionally it's about something off the wall, like something personal about you or something. But mostly it's just future. What does the ideal service or future vision for the service look like? So yeah, it could be in place of tell me about yourself, but you would know that because you'll be doing the presentation. I would still— you still want to make sure that you have your USPs at the front of your minds and use them throughout your interview. Ali, what did I mean by name drop? I mean be specific with names. So if you're saying, I go to conferences to stay up to date, as one of your points, then you'll say, for example, last week I went to the Don't Forget the Bubbles conference in Glasgow, and I watched a talk that someone said about whatever, and I learned X, Y, and Z, and I brought it back and changed my practice. practice. That's it. Sometimes the presentation is about governance. I don't know, I guess you've got a topic about governance. I don't think it commonly is about governance, but it could be. But you will get the presentation topic in advance anyway, so I wouldn't start prepping for a topic that you don't know you're getting anyway. But yeah, I guess they can ask whatever they like. I don't think governance is a common topic. It might be about the ideal service, which might come— governance might come into Natalie, would you use the name of people that you have done projects with in that trust? Don't know. It's being sensitive to what you know. You don't want to say you've done a project with someone and someone on the panel hates them, or there's some politics that you don't know about. So I'd just be careful about person name-dropping, probably, and more like place name-dropping. names of journals, names of conferences, you know, rather than person, but it depends what you know about the service. Fatima, that was your presentation topic? Yep, so they can ask you any question. I don't think it's likely you'll get a governance topic in a future interview, but they would ask you in advance. Occasionally people get a presentation topic that they will be told 30 minutes before and they get 30 minutes to prep, Again, you should know, you'll know all of this. So I wouldn't panic about or worry about presentation stuff that may or may not happen because you'll be armed with information in advance. So these are some things to think about, about why you're connected to your specialty and particularly to the job. And if you can start with a short 2-sentence, and remember what I said about it not scoring Actual points. It's not likely to score points, so don't spend 90 seconds of your tell me about yourself telling them why you love them because you're you're it's at the expense of time scoring points. What you want is just a short sentence at the beginning to tell them why it's important to you to work in that team, what it is that's attracted you. I I think it's if you can do this, it's the difference between someone sitting down and just telling them all about me, why I'm great, and then clearly something that you could. give in any interview and is just like, great candidate, but do they actually care about working here? Versus someone who starts by saying, I absolutely love this team, I trained here for 3 years, so excited that this opportunity has come up. It's a massive difference. I don't think it's a subtle thing. I think it's a big difference in a small way. So, I would really push yourself to think about if you can find a P, and if you can't, don't do it. That's okay. Arhol, is it worth mentioning in what hospital you did audit teaching? I don't think particularly. If there's a reason, I just think about why you would be including it. If it's a particular topic in a particular place that's important, then you can. I don't think it matters that much. Remember the USPs, it's about the skills from audit, from developing teaching that The challenge is it where you did it is I don't think so relevant, and when you did it not so relevant. Um, Livia, that's quite— I'm not gonna go through an answer because I don't want you to— yeah, well, you know this, Livia. I don't want you to be writing answers out like that. Um, so things that in general your question is things that you'll bring to the team. If that's the first question, it would be I would use perm to do it. If you've already done tell me about yourself, I'd pick 3 things. that you haven't had a chance to talk about yet and that allows you to showcase what you know about the team. For presentations that are about service, specialty, department of the future, how much do you bring in your USPs or stick answering the question with points? So it's interesting that there's so many questions about presentations. I'm not sure, I'd love to hear what's making people worried about presentations. I'm happy to create more support on that. So just let me know. So about half of you will get a presentation, but you will know what it is in advance. But your goal for the presentation is that it should be— the best presentation should be a presentation that only you can give only to that team. And if you can do that, you're going to be better than the other candidates because the majority of people just showcase their knowledge on the topic. And that's where bringing in your USPs come in and bringing in what you know from the pre-interview visits. Because it shouldn't be a presentation, Audrey, that you've written that I could go in and give to that team. And that's where bringing in your USPs comes in. It's not about shoehorning USPs, it's about showing it's your interview. It's not, I'm creating a great talk for you, it's, I'm creating a great talk so that you will give me a job, so that you will know that I'm the person to help you bring about that specialty team of the future. And it shouldn't be a presentation that you could take and go and give to another team at your next interview, because then you've not tailored it enough to them. So, that's the key of what I really want you to do, a presentation that only you can give, only to that team, and that obviously answers the question they ask. So, yeah, the future service should be whatever. Obviously, this is milestone 3, senior level thinking about what the ideal service looks like, But it should be an ideal service that you are able to help them achieve and an ideal service that works for them. So hopefully that helps. Chris, no, you don't need to apologize, Audrey, for the questions. You can ask as many as you want. I'm here for you. Just noticing that there's people clearly worried about presentations. So yes, Chris, there are some presentation resources. There's some videos about it and there's a Canva course. essentially, I think what the essence is what I've told you, which is 3 points, 10 minutes or 5 minutes or 8 minutes or whatever. Don't pick— same as when you're answering a question, don't pick a million points because you won't be able to develop them. You want to develop your points and you want to develop them in a way that shows, uh, that you know them and shows that you know what you bring. Um, I think I missed your question. I was— I'm applying for a job that opens in October where the clinical lead was someone I connected with through setting up a national network, and we've worked together on a few projects. Is it sycophantic to mention these? Um, no, I don't think so. I mean, uh, yes, it's about how you, how you say it. You have to obviously be careful that you're not, um, overstating what you did because they're gonna know. Um, I think it's nice to say, you know, I worked with you on— I did this project and I worked with you on it. Um, I think that's nice. It'll be— I don't think it's like, no, you must not mention it or pretend that you don't know So that's, uh, yeah, I think that's fine. So the second element of this milestone is, um, when you do your tell me about a time you made a mistake, is to tell them how you felt. And people find it very hard to do this, and it's so easy to miss because you say, um, I forgot to do the bloods, or I whatever, dropped the sample. Um, and then I told them, and then I sorted it, and then we did this, and then I shared the learning, and then we never did it again, and we've changed our system. And it's like, well, wait, what about what happened in that moment? And a bit of that personal connection of, actually, when I dropped the sample, I realized I'd made a mistake and I felt terrible. My heart was racing. I felt embarrassed. Whatever it is. Um, just a simple line to say I realized I'd made a mistake because we know we've we've been telling you to say the story in two sentences or less, and then say I realized I'd made a mistake, and then say and I felt whatever, and something genuine again. Just one line to say how you felt just builds that connection, and you can do that at different points. You can you can also do it at the end where you think about um. Where— how would you handle it differently next time, or how did you handle it that time? So the whole answer is, is facts, because you're going to say, this is the story and this is what I did and this is how I addressed it. But in that moment, this is how I felt. And remember, this isn't an overshare. So same thing about the how the hell did that happen bin, or think about anything that would bring you to tears in the interview. It's not a good thing to talk about in the interview. Um, so nothing that's too emotionally raw. But it should be, you can say how you felt when you realised you hadn't done whatever, you realised you'd done something wrong. It allows them to see a little bit of you, and that's important. Okay, a few questions. How can we answer a question about the challenges that the trust are facing and what is the vision to tackle them? So this you would know from your pre-interview visits. That's why you go to them. So, that's one of the key things you're getting out in your pre-interview visits is what's on their mind, what are the biggest challenges, what are they trying to address them. And this is where if you don't do your pre-interview visits, you miss out on this because you wouldn't know. You might know if you've worked there, but you probably don't know. Even if you've worked there, you probably wouldn't know. So, you're trying to really get that out in your pre-interview visits. And when it comes to talking about mistakes, Would it be appropriate to talk about how you were told about this by a senior person, especially as this was not in the most sensitive way? And so in turn, that would impact on how you as a leader would support colleagues if you're telling them about a mistake you've made. Yeah, so, and actually this kind of leads on to ways that you can bring in new, and that kind of connects with what you're saying. So the thing I wouldn't do is go too hard on slagging off your colleague who did the terrible job about breaking the news to you, and do it in a more detached way that doesn't look like you're talking down the colleague, even though I appreciate massively insensitive. You want the focus to be on your reflection. So it should be, yeah, it felt terrible the way it was told to me. So I'd use kind of a bit more passive language. The way it was conveyed to me, it was whatever, out of the blue, I was on holiday, it was by email, whatever it is. And it really affected me. And so now I make sure that when I'm in this situation of telling one of my junior team that they've made a mistake, that I do X, Y, and Z. And that's nice, and that's a bit of reflection. That's fine. So yeah, it can be what you would do differently next time, what you would say to someone else in the same situation. But at a baseline, what I want you to do is to practice. You do your story, you say, I realize I made a mistake, and you say, and I felt something. And don't overthink it. Don't spend 90 seconds talking about it. Just a quick line. Would it be weird to say that what you bring is that you've often been asked to take on families that have been hard to engage with? Yeah, I think that's good. So it's not a USP. Remember, a USP isn't a personality trait. That's an attribute. So I wouldn't use it as one of your USPs. I know you've got plenty of USPs, but it's not a USP, but still it's a really nice thing. But remember, when you're choosing something like this, the reason it's not a USP is because it's really hard to then back that up without just being like, I'm great, people love me, I've got a thank you card, someone gave me nice feedback, everyone's happy to work with me. It's much weaker because it's more persuasive. So it's much better to use specific— that's why we ask you to use specific objective things. That's not to say it's a bad thing, it's just obviously a good thing, so you can definitely mention it, but it's not or wouldn't be one of your USPs. Is the interview talk highlighted? Long waitlist. I think this is about your presentation, so maybe you can post on the specific interview support channel and we can feedback a bit more specifically about that. Um, oh, the pre-interview talk, right? Yeah, so these are the challenges that have come up in your pre-interview talk. Yeah, so these— this will be what you reflect back at them. So what you, what you want to know is what did they do to address the long waiting list, and what have you seen done to address the long waiting list? And that's what you're trying, trying to do. So, um, yeah, it's just taking what they've told you, understanding them, being curious about them, and thinking about how that connects to your experience, to what you can bring. So that's the second thing is thinking about the reflection, the mistake and how you felt. And then the third thing is about the weakness. So you should prep for what your biggest weakness is. And the main thing is that you want to own it. And much like we said with the mistake, it's not a fudge. It's not what the SHO gave me the equipment. I should have checked it though, and so now I will never trust an SHO. I'll never trust them. I should never trust the nurses. That's not real. That's not real. So you're not really owning it. And the same with the weakness. You need to own it. This is a weakness. You're not pretending to be vulnerable. I don't want a fake weakness, and I don't want to— I just care so much about my patients that I spend a really long time with them. is not the weakness. The weakness is that you don't know how to manage your clinic time, and your clinic runs late, and the admin team have to stay late. So you have to own the weakness. It might come from a good place, but what you're trying to do is show a bit of who you are and a bit of vulnerability. And so you don't want to fudge the weakness by making out like it's a really good thing. And also shows a bit of a lack of insight in what the impact of your behavior is. And what you're trying to show is that you understand that. So you don't want to explain it away, you want to own it like the mistake. You just need to sit with it in that moment and say, this was a problem. But an important thing is one negative. So anytime they ask you for a negative in your interview, a weakness, bad feedback, what support you'll need, what challenges you have, you don't need to lay it on thick. You don't need to give them 3. I know we go on about 3-point structure. You don't need to tell them 3 bad things. Tell me about a time you received negative feedback. Well, someone told me I was slow at my clinic, someone told me my writing was illegible, and someone told me my communication skills were terrible, is the sort of thing that's just dig you a giant hole and totally unnecessary. One negative, 3 ways you address it. Same with the weakness. One weakness, okay? Unless they ask you for 3, which I think is unlikely, then just pick one and own that one. And the structure of what you want to use for your answer is This is the weakness. And remember, we're keeping it short, same as the incident in your examples. You keep it short but clear. This is the weakness. This was the impact of the weakness, which ideally is something to do with the team rather than your family, although it could, it could be family, but I think it's better if it's the team. And these are 3 ways that you dealt with it and are dealing with it. That, that's the structure. And if you stick to that structure, you'll save yourself going off on a big storytelling thing or going down the wrong line. Is it okay to own a weakness from F1 and then have learned a lot so that you don't have it? So, Ali, tell me, tell me what it is and then I'll tell you. I don't think the time is a factor, but it needs to be real. So if it's so distant that you feel disconnected from it, then it's not a current weakness. So it does need to be a thing that you've got strategies to address but still exists. Um, and you definitely want to avoid clichés, so don't, um, be a perfectionist, or yeah, or just really care too much. Or, um, remember it's a chance to be true and to be authentic, so you want something that's, that's genuine. Being abrupt and not seen as a team player, I actually wouldn't use because that's a broad communication thing, and so then they'll be like Is Ali going to be really tricky to work with? And then what you're doing is you're distancing yourself by saying, but that was, you know, 10 years ago and I'm not like that anymore. Then why are you sharing it in the interview? So what you're trying to do is share something that's vulnerable now, but the same as the mistake, it's a hard balance. You want something that's vulnerable but is not like too bad that they're like, oh my goodness, can't have Tessa on the team, she'll be a nightmare. So usually when you are using— when you're choosing a weakness, what you want to do is be specific. So rather than saying, I don't feel confident to speak up, you would say, in a situation where we have a large MDT meeting, I find it hard to, to speak up in that big busy environment. So that's much more specific than, I generally can't speak up. And so when you've got something that they might take as being a big problem, focus it down and make it more specific, and that usually makes it Good. Okay, so we've got some weakness examples coming in. So let's have a look. Chris, can you flip it and say why the weakness is also beneficial? Being quiet, introverted, making you more considered and reflective. So I don't mind you doing that in the end, but you need to own it at the time. So you need to have the impact. So that would be my weakness is I come across as being quiet and introverted. And what that meant is people didn't think I was a confident team leader in a resa situation, or what it meant was Because people thought I— their first impression was that I was disinterested or whatever. It has to be an impact. And then you can say, of course, there's advantages to being thoughtful and reflective. But remember that, keep it to the main structure, which is weakness, impact is the most important part. Don't skip the impact. That's the bit you want to skip, but don't skip it. And ways you address it. And then within that, you can say, actually, of course, you bring benefit to the team for being reflective and thoughtful. Is finding it difficult to delegate tasks a cliché weakness? And examples of how you've been trying to delegate tasks recently? So, I mean, it's a common weakness, but I actually don't think it's a cliché because the reason it's a common weakness is because it's very relatable when you're stepping up from a reg to a consultant, that task of having to then trust other people and know How to trust, who to trust, when to, is part of the skill you develop as you move to being a consultant. It's a common one, but I don't think it's a cliché, but remember you need the impact. You find it difficult to delegate tasks, and what? That meant that your team thought you didn't trust them, or you thought they were rubbish, and you hadn't realized, and so you knew something had to change. That's the kind of framing that you want. Um, Audrey, your weakness is that you can't answer interview questions under pressure. Very good. Uh, Ali, getting stressed, and then 3 strategies to manage that. So again, getting stressed is quite broad, so I would focus it down. I get stressed in a particular, very particular situation. And I am— I'm— I can't remember, fam, what your specialty is, Ali, but if you're in an acute specialty, it needs to be very specific. So if I said, you know, I work in emergency, I get I get stressed at resus calls. Probably not ideal for a consultant. So it would need to be a very specific situation. When I'm leading a code red team of 20 people at the Royal London Hospital with a child that's dying, I find it stressful, would be more reasonable than, I get stressed leading trauma calls, or whatever. So choose something that doesn't make them wonder, question something important about you, and just narrow it Our lead is using weakness of taking a long time with patients in clinics. So again, it's specific. So it's not like I just can't manage my time. So it's the difference between saying I have a problem with time management and actually I had a problem with taking a long time with patients in clinics. And the impact, remember, it's always the impact is my clinics were running late, the admin team were staying late, and I realized that I had to change something. So now I do these 3 things to make sure that my clinics run to time. I still want to have it run late. I still have a tendency to spend more time, but I have these things in place. Nancy, is I take on too many projects because I'm enthusiastic and I don't like to say no a really common answer now? So again, it's common like the delegation, but I don't think it's a cliché. I think it's okay. But the because you're enthusiastic part is where you're not owning the impact of it. So what is the impact of you taking on too many projects? The impact is that you let people down in a particular situation. You didn't meet a deadline, you let people down in a team, whatever it is. So it's much stronger to say that than to say, I take on too many projects because I'm enthusiastic and I really just love taking on loads of stuff, versus I took on too many projects and the impact was I actually let my team down and I felt terrible about it. And that's when I realized something had to change. So now I do X, Y, So yeah, you can definitely make that into a good one, but the impact is important. You find it difficult to stop senior consultants talking over you in an MDT. Not sure about this because it's a bit like, yeah, I think there's a bit of a power imbalance there. It's, can you not speak up? It flags your juniorness, which is not what you're trying to do. So I'm not sure, there may be a way to make this into a good one, but I just just be— you're trying to show that you're a senior in the way that you kind of reflect on yourself. Um, so I'm not sure about that one. Jess, tendency to say yes to too many projects we've had already. So you'll see that's common, but still fine. Tendency to say yes, um, and struggle delegating are the most common ones. Um, and, and they may be— they're probably true for most people, so it's fine, you can say them, but just be clear on the impact. Can I say I've identified an area where I need to work as I get myself involved in the scenario rather than task dedication? Uh, I'm not sure that explains it clearly enough because I'm not clear what you mean. Um, you can maybe post some more, we can chat about it, but you— I would clarify. Can I say my weakness is to continue to brood over how my surgery could have even been— could have been better when I'm at home? So yes, there's definitely something in this. And remember, you want to not make it too broad that they are worried that you have a problem with significant overthinking that's going to be a barrier to you functioning in the team. So it's just, which I don't think it really is in the way you're saying it, but just be careful that when you're saying it's something like you think a lot about cases or you can dwell on a case, that they're not worried it's some significant problem and that you can be very specific about it. Uh, Danesh, you check your emails when you're not on call, um, as you like to stay updated. So remember, you're flexing this into a positive and we want you to own it. So the actual thing could be fine, but the part where you say, I like to stay updated and ensure nothing urgent is missed, isn't a weakness, is it? You're telling them, because I'm great, I'm so enthusiastic and I care so much the job, but that's not the chance to be vulnerable. The vulnerable part is you check emails regularly, and you realize that that puts pressure on your other team members to also check emails out of hours or whatever because something happened. And you realize, maybe I'm on your team, and I don't want to feel like I need to check emails when I'm at home. And so, it's the impact that shows the vulnerability rather than explaining why it's really a good thing. Yes, I think there's something in there. Um, Mandeep, I'm going to keep going with these just now. Mandeep, the clinic one is something for me, but after listening to your podcast, I'm anxious about using it, um, about the clinic overrunning. So I can't remember exactly what we said in the podcast, but we wouldn't have said, uh, well, I can't remember exactly, but it, it, a clinic overrunning is fine as long as you own the impact of it and you talk about how you rectify it. So maybe you can share the link, Mandeep, because I suspect there's a bit more context. Because overrunning a clinic, I don't think in itself the idea isn't a deal breaker. So it's probably something about the way that the example was expressed rather than the actual idea of a clinic overrunning, which I don't think is a deal breaker. And I can't imagine Becky would either. It's the trickiest question. Yeah. And it does come up. not infrequently. So this is why we've put it in the milestones. I would definitely prep it. You don't want to be coming up with something in the moment for this. I remain calm in a resus high acuity situation, but you got feedback that you come across as not confident and you thought it was your strength. So I think, yeah, this is a bit confusing because you're saying it's a good thing, or you think it's a good thing. You need to own the weakness. So you've been told in a resus scenario that you've come across as not confident. And you can say that the impact was that your team didn't know what was happening, or your team didn't feel that they had leadership. And that is when you realize something has to change. So actually, you feel confident, but you're not coming across as confident. And so you now do X, Y, and Z to come across as confident, I think would be fine. You take conflict too personally. You find it upsetting, and you don't have a strategy to resolve it. So you would have to consider how you've tackled it, 'cause otherwise it's like anytime you have a conflict, you're gonna be taking it really personally. You don't have any strategies to cope with it, and then it's like, do we need this hassle? But it in itself is fine, which is that you don't like conflict and you can overthink it, which is fine. But again, narrow it down to a specific situation. I can't remember what specialty you're in, if it's a particularly conflict-heavy specialty, then it would be more significant than in a specialty where we wouldn't really have much conflict. So you'd say in a particular situation you find it stressful, but you do need strategies to resolve it. Otherwise, you're not dealing with the main part of the weakness, which is how do you handle the things that aren't great about you or things that you need to improve on. You're just identifying the bad part without giving the positive. Sabrina, being a quiet thinker. Introverted has made people think you're disinterested or engaged. Yeah, I think that's that's fine. And again, it's what's the impact? You realize people think you're not engaged because something happened and someone said whatever, and so you realized it had to change. Even though that's not how you felt, it's how you're coming across. And so now you do whatever. Put a giant smile on when you first meet someone, whatever it is, and you'll tell you'll say your strategies. Arho, I stayed too long in the hospital. To get everything done and be prepared for tomorrow. So look at the language of what you're doing. You're telling me why it's really a good thing, and you need to own it. So you say, "Well, I'm doing it because I want to get everything done and I want to be prepared." And that's that's we that's the explanation of why it's not really a weakness. It's really a good thing. So cut that bit out and just say you stay too long in the hospital, and the consequence is what? I don't know what the impact is. You need to have an impact. So now you do it X, Y, and Z. Strong sense of urgency to achieve the best outcomes for your patient. I'm not sure, um, I don't— the way you've expressed it, there's no weakness there, so I'm not sure what the, what the weakness is. So you need to be clear on the weakness. Um, yeah, so Esther, you're, you're in intensive care medicine, so you— yeah, it's probably not the ideal, I would say, not the ideal one to, to say then. But on the other hand, it's genuine and It's part of, like someone else said, you need all types of people. If you're all massive conflict-y people, then it will be a nightmare. So they need people like you on their team. So you may find a way to be able to narrow this down, because you're going to be your genuine self, to narrow it down and say— and part of that will be in how you have the strategies to make sure, because what the end result needs to be, that you don't avoid conflict because you're not good at it. You know you're going to have to, or you know you're working in it. in acute specialties, you have to have strategies. So, if you can find them, I think it would be a genuine, potentially very good weakness for you. You had a piece of feedback recently that said you were overly assertive and dominating a team. So, the thing I would say is, definitely take out the word recently, because I think it's just like, this is a now problem. But I think it would be okay. Again, I'd make it specific. In a particular case, you were told this, and you need to own the impact. What was the impact? Is that other people didn't feel they could speak up, and you realized that you can't run a team like that, so something has to change, and now you do X, Y, and Z. But again, you need to have the strategy. So, if it was too recent, it might feel a bit raw talking about it, and then you might be a bit defensive, and that's not what you want. Um, contrasting feedback, unapproachable, and yet resident doctors wanted more supervision with me. Again, this isn't, this isn't really a weakness then, is it? Because you're saying, well, it makes no sense, they said I'm bad but they also said I'm good. You need to own it. So whatever it is, Ali, you have to just— it's a chance just to say this was a negative, this was the impact. Um, difficulty giving negative feedback. Yep, so lack of clarity when doing work-based assessments. And use your feedback sandwich, um, or write it down before saying it. I actually think that's quite good and quite relatable because lots of people will struggle with that, um, and it's a specific thing because it does actually matter. If you then aren't giving clear feedback, your trainees will feel confused. Um, so yeah, I think that could be good. Um, Shari, is the need to complete tasks, uh, struggle to pause halfway, um, leading to missing lunch? Missing lunch is like a you thing. I don't know that it's really got an impact. Like, what's the impact? You're hungry. Yeah, it should be a professional impact. So I'm not sure. There's probably something in that, but you could probably— I think you could develop it a bit more. So don't make something up. Don't say it's been conquered. And we had this before about something that was a really long time ago. Don't choose a deal breaker. Um, so this is the milestone 2 sentence P reflection on your mistake and your weakness. Uh, okay, so we've covered loads of stuff. I want you to think of one golden nugget that you will take away from the session. As always, just post it in the chat. What have you— what will you take away? All right, what have we got? Be authentic. Don't make up a weakness. Yep. Give an impact. Make it clear why you want the job. Um, be you. Be human. I like that. Honest, a good honest mistake. Talk about the impact of the weakness and mistake. Be yourself. Prepare well, and you can choose what you want to share in your interview. Yeah, impact of your weakness, own your mistake. Um, yeah, 3 ways of tackling the weakness. So coming back to the 3-point structure, you have your weakness, you have the impact, and then you have 3 ways you address it. Um, weakness and mistake are not the same thing. Yeah, different. So you should definitely have a different example for each. The aim is to present a curated version of your best self. And I think, yeah, that kind of— that's it. It's not a warts-and-all you. It's you being your best you for the interview in a room full of senior people who you want to give a job. One weakness, 3 ways of addressing it. Excellent. Great. So, and remember that, as always, the replay, you will post your 5th milestone under the replay and you'll get awarded your badge. Okay, we're going to do a bit of spotlight. There's a few people who submitted spotlight and you can use this to— well, you can use it for whatever you want to talk about. Sangit, you were one of the people. Do you want to chat? I'm going to just spotlight me. Hi, can you hear me and see me? Good to see you, Hi. Hi, Tessa. Hey, what would you like to talk about? It was really helpful, the session today, because, uh, so I think you covered everything that I wanted to ask today, actually, about bringing it together and the 3-point structure of everything. I struggle when I'm giving 3 points to then put in 3 examples below, but I kind of get the concept now. Yeah, I know, I know you can do this because I've seen you give great answers. So I think you're getting it. I think you're getting the hang of it, and you don't need an example for each one. But yeah, you want to try and give a little bit for each one if you can, and just choose exam, choose points that you feel you can talk about for sixty seconds. Cool. Okay. Yeah, I will take you. Thank you. Cool. Ahmed, did you want to? You had put yourself, Ahmed El Zafarani. Thank you. No, I am okay. Yeah, yeah, you answered all. Okay, great. Cool. Then we've got— who else have we got? We had Joe. Are you here? I'm not sure if you're here. I think you might not be. Okay, that was all the people I think who'd submitted the spotlight coaching. I'm just going to take you off. So hopefully we addressed— I managed to answer all your questions. So post— yeah, you can post your weakness in the chat for feedback. Remember, we don't want you to write out the whole Answer as normal. Just looking for the weakness, looking for the impact, and then you practice saying the answer out loud. So hope that helped. Love doing the curriculum sessions with you. We'll miss doing it, but we will be doing them again in the next cohort, and the recording will go up tomorrow as normal, and we'll see you all on Circle. So thank you very much, everyone. We'll wrap up there.