Curriculum Session Replay #1: Your USP And TMAY

Hello, hi Millie, Rima, hi, good to see you all. Get yourself settled in, cup of tea, water maybe, depending on where you are based currently. Okay, so as you come in, get yourself settled in, please turn your cameras on. I'd like to see your lovely faces so we get to know each other. So each session we'll ask you to put your cameras on. Thank you. So I put a question for you To get you started, which is a lot of you've started posting and started definitely recording yourself and maybe sharing answers as well on the recorded answer review channel. So what have you learned so far about your own interview answers? Just post in the chat. Okay, let's see what we've got. We've got, you talk for too long, Esther. So that is a great thing to find out. So imagine how bad it would be to find that out in your interview. This is exactly why you want to go through the process. So that's okay. In a way, that's an easier problem than talking for too short. That's probably just structuring your answers and keeping an eye on Time as well. So while you're practicing, while all of you are practicing answers, use a stopwatch. When I'm practicing for an interview, I use a stopwatch as well. And this is just to get you a feeling for what you want to learn, what it's like to talk for 3 to 4 minutes for an interview answer, or 5 to 6 for your tell me about yourself. And this is something that we will say regularly to you when you record your answers. Don't let yourself record and share an 8-minute answer or a 9-minute answer or longer. We've had It's not going to help you to practice answers that length. What we want is for you to get the feel of practicing answers that are of the likely length that you're going to be doing in your interview. So push yourself to stop. You have to stop at 4 minutes and that's it. That's your answer. If you take a pause and think of a structure, your answers are much better. Great. So I'm a massive fan of the pause. And I know some of you find the pause awkward. But if, and maybe your panel will find it awkward, I don't know. But even if they do, if it helps you produce a better scoring answer, Any awkwardness of the pause far outweighs any benefit that it brings you. If you don't find the pause helps you and you're using it to panic, then don't use the pause. But most of you will find, as you practice with the pause, the time that you need to use the pause for will get shorter and shorter because you'll get more used to the types of questions. It just allows you to get your thoughts together. Almost every person on a panel is going to be happier that you produce a better answer and that you think about it rather than just have— some verbal diarrhoea. Being focused in your answers and not trying to get too much in. Yeah, so it's actually much better— just feeding back on someone's answer just before this session— there's a lot of benefit to sitting with a few points and expanding them versus listing 20 points. It's not likely you're going to be scored on like a point for everything you can think of to answer this question. It's more likely about your understanding. It's a senior-level role. So there's an advantage to focusing down and then going a deeper dive into these points. So just bear that in mind. Aiming to be structured and concise. That comes with practice. So the more you do it, it's like any skill you have learned, Georgina, you get better by doing it lots. Do that with practicing answers. The more you say them, the better it will get. Developing structure. Rambling, Millie. So yeah, if rambling is a problem, I would exaggerate the structure that you're using and just don't Be afraid to embrace the weirdness of a structure. And so every time, 3 points. I appreciate you might use different structures for different answers, but the majority is 3 points. You have to have 3 points. You have to say them at the beginning. You have to signpost them as you go through it, and you have to say them at the end. And if you can overemphasize that, you'll start to feel the structure fall into place. And then you can tone— if you start feeling more comfortable with it, you can tone it down. Alexia, you tend to lose track of what you're saying. So summarising at the start helps with your structure. Yeah, and that's where a pen and a piece of paper comes in handy. It's not a test of memory, and you are nervous, and it's totally fine to take in a pen and a piece of paper and to say, I'm just going to jot a few thoughts down before I answer, because— or I'm just going to write the question down because I'm nervous, because this is important to me, because I'm worried I'm going to forget. It's fine to say that. You're human and it's true. And it takes a lot of pressure off if you can just write down the question. And jot down a few points. Hard to answer, Shweta, in 3 to 4 minutes. So it should be fairly— you should get the hang of it, which is 3 points, 45 seconds roughly each, 45 to 60 seconds for each point with a bit of intro and a bit of a close. And so if you, if you're struggling time-wise, you can actually just break that down. So pick your 3 points and then just record yourself talking about that one point for 60 seconds, and you'll get a feel for what what you need to say in 60 seconds and when you need to move on. Rima is not slick. No one is born a natural interviewee. I would not expect that to be the case. You will practice, you'll keep practicing, and it will get better. And the more you do it, the slicker it will be. And you're not necessarily aiming for slick. You're aiming to be yourself and you're aiming to feel good about your answers. So don't aim for perfection. That's not the goal. John, increasingly conscious of the ums and errs and things that you feel make you sound less fluent or professional. So I— we, we do. In fact, Tracy is going to be one of the guest speakers in this session, so she talks a lot about how to come across as yourself. But coming across as yourself doesn't mean you can't use filler words. So if you're an expert interviewer— interviewee, and then you want to work on your filler words, then you can be conscious about it and make an effort to do it. I don't think it's the best thing to focus on because if you have good content, it doesn't matter how many ums, ahs, blinking, hand gestures, whatever else it is, because you're going to score points on your content. And if you get sidetracked, it's easy to get sidetracked. I mustn't move my hands. I mustn't do this. I mustn't blink too much. And that is not going to score you points. It might, it might help with connection. It might help with a bit of polish. But the core is your content. The core is what you're saying to answer the question and knowing what you bring, which is what we'll be talking about today. So I wouldn't get sidetracked with ums and ahs, and they're probably more noticeable to you. So I'm pleased that you're starting to recognise these things. And the reason why we want you to practise is so that you recognise things about yourself, about the way that you answer questions, because that's how you will improve. You know, you won't all have the same problem. Some of you will have answers that are too short, or you can't think of 3 points, Or they're too long or whatever it is, you don't know how to end. You won't know that until you start practising. So part of this is the process. We don't expect you to have perfect answers ever, but especially not at the beginning. So just embrace it, keep going, and push yourself a bit out of your comfort zone to do that. So as you know, we've got a leaderboard that you get to win badges and climb. This is for completing parts of the onboarding week so far, commenting on the kickoff call, and also you will get it for each milestone as we go through. And this is our first curriculum session. There'll be, there'll be a badge for each milestone. So this is the leaderboard as it stands currently, which is that there are 7 of you legends on 6 points. There are a lot of you on 5, but these are the ones that are on 6 points, so well done. All of you, as you may remember, there are 3 free bonus coaching calls for 3 people who complete all their milestones by the end. But getting to the top of the leaderboard gives you— first, you get priority access for the spotlight coaching, and importantly, it actually just shows that you're working through the content. So it's to help motivate you to get work through the content, which we know helps you with your prep. So please do keep going and get the badges. There's a post that is called Milestones and Badges that explains where to get them if you're missing any, and you should get the hang of it. So you should all be in the right spaces now. If anyone's got any problems, you can submit a support ticket to Coralee. You should keep going collecting your badges. You can collect them all the way through. So even though the onboarding week has finished from a chronological point of view, you can go back and work through it. If you haven't read the onboarding week, I would, because it will help you. less overwhelmed with Circle and know where things are. Support each other. I have very much enjoyed seeing your comments in other people's posts, and it is nice to— good learning for you, but also good for other people to see that. And remember to tell us when you get an interview date. There's a form that you're being sent out. You will be able to submit that form, and then once you get that date, we have some bonus material for you. And work through your milestones. That's what we're going to do. very excited to kick off with the first curriculum session tonight. I'll be running your curriculum sessions each week during the cohort. So in the— this is where you'll get your next badge. So if you go to the curriculum space, this is where all the recordings are going to be posted from now on. There's little tabs across the top that say Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, or you can see them all together. But if you go to Week 1, you will see that there is the deep dive, there's a blog post, there's a And there's a bit of an overview of what I'm going to cover today, but also the replay will be posted there. And that's where you will collect your badge for your milestone for finding your USPs. And I'll share, I'll explain that more at the beginning, but each time you want to be signed off on a milestone, you will post your milestone on the replay of the relevant session. So in this space, in the Week 1 space, tomorrow Tomorrow, Megan will upload the replay of this session, and when you want your USP badge, you will post your USPs under that replay. It will give you instructions and you'll get the hang of it because we do that each week. So in each of these curriculum sessions, I am going to be sharing a lot of information, and I know it feels like a lot, and I'm not expecting you to remember every single thing. You should know that the recordings will be there. They'll be up the next day, and they are there for as long as you need. So you don't feel obliged. You don't have to rush. You don't have to watch every single thing. You can pick and choose the parts that you want to, that you find helpful. But what I would suggest is for in each curriculum session that I do, you find one specific piece of gold, one takeaway that you are going to take away and implement from the session. And then at least that's one thing. You're not expected to remember or take in every single thing, but I want you to try and pull one thing out of each one. The old way of prepping, which some of you may have done before and I certainly have done in the past, is where you read hundreds and hundreds of NHS reports which are all boring and hideous, but you feel like you have to read them, and then you have to read another one, and then you have to read another one. You might spend days trawling on the intranet or the internet of the trust, if depending on whether you're there or not, which is very slow and painful, and nothing good ever comes of trawling the intranet of a trust. You might have gone on a 1-day course, you might have used camp. As you'll see, camp is dead in the academy. We don't use camp. And then you might panic on the day because you wish you'd have done something else to prep. And the way that we want you to prep is different, and that's what we're taking you through in this curriculum, which is to streamline it, to recognize that you are busy people with busy lives, but this is important. This is your dream job. This is your permanent job. You don't want to be in a position where you're having to have another go, do it again, think about moving, think about whatever. So we want to make the most of the time you have. And that is focusing on the 5 milestones. And you'll notice that sometimes when there's questions in the specific interview support channel where I feel like people are going off on a bit of a tangent with their prep, I'm going to try and pull you back to the milestones. So before you start worrying about all the peripheral things that might happen, or what happens if they ask this, what happens if they ask that? Do your milestones, practice out loud each day. That's the key thing we're going to emphasize, because the majority of the questions will be able to be answered by coming back to your milestone. We want you to practice daily for a few minutes each day. So we, you, we want— I want you to at least do one answer out loud. You don't have to record it. You can just say it while you're walking to the bus, while you're in between patients, while you're on the toilet, wherever it is. Just get into the habit of saying it out loud. There is nothing that is going to replicate better how it feels to say an answer than just saying it out loud. So when you are posting things in the specific interview support channel that look like answers written out, I'm discouraging you from doing that. We are not feeding back on written answers in full because that is not going to help you. You will not be getting a job because you can write down a really good answer. You're going to get a job because you're saying it out loud. And I definitely don't want you to be writing things down and memorising them because that could go horribly wrong in your interview when you forget your place or they ask you the question in a different way, then you start to really stress. So don't get into the habit of writing answers down. We— what we're trying to do is get you to do them as live, and you just do your worst at the beginning. That's fine. And the more you do it, the better you get. And we want you to put the P at the start, which I'm going to talk about today. So instead of CAMP, we use PERM. And importantly, we want you to go in confidently. Our goal is the night before your interview for you to be feeling good, to be feeling ready, and to be feeling like, yeah, you're going to go in and give it your best shot and not to be filled with panic or regret. And that's why we've put together these milestones for you. We don't want you to waste your time on prep that is not going to help you. So the goal of your time in the Academy is to work through the milestones. That's, that is it, and practice out loud each day. And these are the milestones which you'll get very familiar with. So there's your 5 USPs, which we're going to go through today. There's your 5 golden examples. There is senior-level thinking, job-specific knowledge, and bringing in new. And you should work through them in order, so don't skip them. I know some of you've been posting your examples because in a way it's like the easier thing to start doing. You need to get your USPs first. There's no point having examples if you don't know what you bring to the job. And this session is going to go through how to find your USPs, and that in itself will help build your confidence. And of course, all of these 5 milestones go hand in hand with practice. I will be emphasising this all the time until you get fed up of hearing it. You might be fed up already. You need to say answers out loud. It's not going to miraculously get better without you doing that. No matter how much writing or reading you do, you also need to practise it. out loud. We're going to go through today 3 frameworks to help you develop your unique selling points, and we're going to talk about that first question, which is likely to be a version of tell me about yourself. We're going to talk about how to choose your USPs, how to make them more specific, and how, how and why to use PERM and not CAMP. That's what we will be going through. So why is identifying your USPs Important. It is important because it's how you know what makes you special. And I know a lot of you have angst about, you know, I don't have anything special, someone else is better than me, whatever, you know, I don't— I've just done the same as everyone else. And it's really hard to then convey to the panel. When you identify your USPs, you will know what makes you special, and also you'll have thought about how to convey them well, because we want you to have thought about them before and be ready to To share them with the panel. It also gives you a priority list for your interview. So these 5 USPs, you're going to know, I should not be leaving the interview room without having mentioned them. That's your goal, because they're your best bits, and you will be kicking yourself if you leave without having mentioned them. And it means that the panel is seeing the best of you. That's what we want, is we want you to have thought about what you're going to say and to be sharing your best bits. And there you have to think about choice. It's your— anything that you share in your interview, and this is going to come up a few times, is your choice. You don't have to tell them anything unless you have some GMC-mandated thing that you have to share. The rest is up to you. You can choose what parts to share, but you want to choose things that are relevant to them, particularly for your USPs. You want to tailor it to what you know will be a good addition to them. And so you're trying to find that balance of something that you want to share and something that they want to hear. And one thing I want to make clear here that is really important for you to know, that your USPs, your unique selling points, are not the same thing as your tell me about yourself answer. So tell me about yourself is just one question that they're going to ask you probably in your interview, probably the first question. Your USPs, your unique selling points, are the core of your prep. They're your first milestone. They are the cornerstone of your whole interview. They are always— they're your best bits that you're going to have prepped. And when they ask you a question, you're going to think first, can I use one of my USPs to illustrate this? It's so much better to use something that you've chosen, you've thought about, you know your role in, you've thought through the challenges. Much better to use that than suddenly pluck a random project that you'd not thought about before. So your USPs are not an interview answer. They are your projects that you're developing, your skills that you're developing, how you might discuss it, how you will talk about it, and how you'll present it to the panel. So they aren't the same thing. And often you have this internal voice that feels a bit stressed about sharing your USPs, which is you might be embarrassed. So you might be feeling like, I don't want to brag, you know, I don't want them to think I'm arrogant or I'm cocky. And you might have trouble saying I. Some of you might have trouble saying I when you're talking about a project instead of we, because you may feel like, well, I did this as part of the team, so how can I say it's mine or I did this? And you might be not sure if it's a good thing to share, so you might not, not be sure if it's good enough. And that's normal, and a lot of you might have these worries, but I want you also to think about the panel's point of view. They are ready to score you. They're ready to hear what you've got, but you have to tell them. They're not mind readers. They're not going to trawl through your CV and give you the benefit of the doubt. You have to tell them what your strengths are in order for them to know what your strengths are and score you for it. They're also curious about you. They don't really care what your team did. They want to know what your role was within that team because they're not employing your team to come and work with them. They're employing you. So identifying your role is really important. The panel are also made up of human beings, so you might not have much sympathy for them at your interview point, but it's stressful being on a panel where the interviewee is stressed. And part of what you're doing is a performance for 40 minutes to project confidence to them. And actually, when you project confidence, it gives them more confidence in your answers, And they may judge them more favorably for whether that's right or wrong. It's the reality. So, you need to project confidence, and part of that is knowing exactly what you bring. So, my question to you is, when you've started to think about your unique selling points, and you might be running through them in your head now, or you might've thought about them already, what is it that you find hardest when you're thinking about them? Just post in the chat. Okay, what have we got? Maria, what sets you apart? Yes, you want something that sets you apart from the average person. How do you make them specific? We'll go through some examples of that. How good are they? Yeah, so you want to be— you want to feel good about them when you share them and not be thinking, actually, are these not great? Being succinct with them. So once you really get into them, you'll have a lot— you realize you have a lot to say about your USPs. So it's kind of then working out, all right, how do I convey this succinctly? The challenge is taking a USP you know well and flexing it into an answer. So we're going to think of clear bullet points of how to present your USP in different ways, and then you'll pull elements of that for questions. Making it specific. Yeah, Sunil, don't overdo it. I don't know what you mean. You should be sharing the truth, definitely. So you're not claiming you've done something that you've not, but you want to be specific about what you've done so they actually know and you're painting a picture for them. Making them stand out, making them specific. Are they really that unique? Yes, so this is the question, what does unique mean and how can you ensure that yours are actually unique? Which bits to draw out? Laura, you started off strong and then struggled with what to choose. That's okay. So even actually when you get one and you work through it, you'll start to realize how much stronger you can make a project or something just by bringing in specifics. You've got a couple of great projects that are obvious choices, but the rest feel a bit samey. Yeah, so that you will roughly have a spread of US What you don't want is to include 2 USPs that are conveying the same thing. So, each USP should be conveying something different. Otherwise, there's not much point in having them both. And that's kind of where you get to when you're choosing between which to choose. That's what you want, a rough spread. Being specific, trying to ensure breadth. Yep, we will talk about that. Making them relevant to the job. Okay, so your USPs, you should know why you're choosing them. So, they should be relevant to a senior role. And that should be clear, and part of what you're doing is showing them that you know which parts you're sharing and why you're sharing them. Identifying what they are, Georgina, we'll be going through that today. Most of them being achieved in another country, I don't think it matters. I don't know specifically what experience it is, but you can run it past us either here or on the interview support channel. It doesn't need to have been in this country, it needs to be transferable skills. gym, having them cover enough ground, dropping one good one because it's too similar to another one. Look, if you think your best ones are definitely, you know, they would have an overlap, but you really want to include it for a reason, then that's fine. But if they're just showing the same thing, there's probably not. And if you've only got so much time to tell them about you, so it's probably a bigger advantage to choose different things that showcase different elements. Uh, Raki keeping to 5 only. Um, you will— others have things I know I've done but didn't emphasize. So you remember, you can still mention other things. So your USPs aren't the only thing you're gonna mention, but your USPs are the thing you're doing a deeper dive into. Um, so you— if you've got more, that's a good thing, but I, I wouldn't use more than 5 for USPs, um, because you wouldn't remember them and you won't have time to prioritise them or say them all. Do we need to tell in detail about the project if equip is chosen as a USP? So whatever your USP project is, you need to talk about it in detail, and that's something that we will cover today. I've got a massive project that spans all areas of change management, research, and team working, but I'm worried about banging on about the same project again and again. So this is a common thing that people worry about because I say, well, you've got 5 USPs and you should always come back to them. And you think, but I'm just going to be talking about the same things again and again. But the reality is, because the spread of questions, that is not the way it falls. And so what you've got is a USP that is maybe a project that you should be able to stand up and give me a presentation for 40 minutes about, that in your first answer you'll have talked for 30 seconds about. So you have way more to say, lots of different angles. We'll talk about that in a bit as well, but it is not the reality that you're going to be using the same USP 5 times. It's just not the way the questions fall. But you should want to talk about your USP again because you've got so much more to say and you've got different ways of talking about it— teamwork, leadership, governance challenges, whatever it is. You've got loads of different things to say. A lot of mine come from one point in my training, my fellowship. I don't want it to sound like that was the only time I did anything. Yeah, so it doesn't really matter what role you were doing it in. It's about the project or the skill. So I don't know that they would need to know the year or the time or anything like that. So it's totally valid to use lots of USPs from the one role. I think that's absolutely fine. And we're going to— we'll go through some of these anyway. So how do we find our USPs? Now, your USPs are things that set you apart from the average person applying. This means if you've got, for example, clinical experience— like, I don't know, I work in paediatric emergency, so say I've done, led recess calls or whatever, and I've led the same number as the average trainee, final year trainee— then there's not much point in using that as a USP because it doesn't set you apart. If it's part of the essential criteria for the job, it's not a USP because everyone's got it who's in the room. So what you're trying to think— it's not literally unique, it isn't literally you are the only human in the world who's done it. It's things that are different from the average person applying. And you won't know exactly who's applying, probably, but you know what the average final year trainee has done, and you know what you've done that's a bit different. They might be projects that you've completed, they might be changes that you've made. They might be teams that you've led, they might be clinical skills that you've gained. Um, Tim, your question is, can teaching be a USP and then describe a variety of teaching, or should we focus on a specific teaching experience? So you should focus on a specific teaching experience, and we're going to talk through that. What USPs are not is great MSF feedback. Now, I know you've all got great MSF feedback, and we all know that's because you only ask people who like you to complete your MSF. That's the reality. So the fact that you've got great MSF feedback is not different from anyone else, pretty much. This is just subjective. It's hard to quantify it. You could say, well, I scored 4.5 out of 5, but it doesn't mean anything, and it's very generic. This is not a USP. That's not to say it's not good. It's still good, but it's not a USP. A USP is not that you worked for somewhere for 6 months. The USP isn't about time, it's about what you did. So you might have worked somewhere for 6 months, but the question is, what did you do in that time? So I could have worked somewhere for 6 months where I saw 1 patient a month, or I could have worked somewhere for 6 months where I saw 1,000 patients a day and I did X, Y, and Z procedure. is very different. And so the time itself doesn't mean anything. I want you to really think about what you did in that role. And just the example that we heard where you did a fellow role— I think it was Laura did a fellow role with lots of different projects in it— they could all be USPs. The role isn't the USP. These are lots of things that you did within that role that you're trying to pull out. Having a passion for teaching, which I know you guys love saying, having a passion for teaching is not a USP. Having a passion for anything isn't a USP, and if you've said this or you've used this, it's okay. Like it's very common. But what I want you to understand is why we're saying to not use these things and to use specific things because a passion for teaching is subjective. Most of you have it, and most of you would say yes, you have a passion for teaching. But it again doesn't say anything in itself. What we want instead is for you to use your strongest teaching project or experience and explain to me what it is, and I will know that you have a passion for teaching because of it. Being an ALS instructor or an APLS instructor or NLS, whatever, is not a USP. Again, it's a good thing. A USP, aside from a clinical USP that we'll talk about, a USP is something that you could give me a 30-minute presentation on. There's not that much to say about being an ALS or an APLS instructor. Unless you're a course convener and you can talk through the challenges of that, going and running courses, all you can say is you've done it however many times. So there's not— it's not a USP. Again, not saying it's a bad thing, you can still mention it, but it's not going to be one of your USPs. Getting a degree, a prize, an award is not a USP. Again, also a good thing. So it's good that you've got a PhD, but your PhD isn't your USP. Your USP is the project that you did. as part of that PhD. So it'll be describing the research project. If you got a prize for whatever, or did a— got a prize at a conference for whatever, the USP is what you did to get that prize. The poster that you presented isn't the USP, it's the project that you were presenting on the poster that's a USP. And I know this sounds like semantics, but the framing is really important. So you, you would explain the project with specifics, and then you say, and I did this as part of my master's, or, and I presented this as a poster at whatever conference. So that's the end. But what you're trying to show is not the outcome, it's not the award, it's not the achievement, it's the process and your understanding of your role, of how you manage the team, how you manage the challenges in it. So your USPs need to be specific. They're not personality traits, they're not characteristics, they're not time in a job, and they're not an end result. They are the process of doing the things. And that change in your thinking, once you get it, you'll realize why it makes a big difference. And what you're trying to do is lead with specifics. So here are some questions around— you might ask yourself to choose your USPs, and this is not an exhaustive list. What did you do in your training that was maybe off the path or a bit different from the average person running through their training? Have you worked outside the NHS? So many of you might think that that gives you a disadvantage if you train somewhere else, but it's a massive advantage. Have you delivered any service change? Have you completed any QIPs or audits? Have you led any committees? Have you been involved in safety or governance in any way? Have you written a business case? Have you interacted with exec? Have you collaborated with patients? So I want you to start thinking through these, and you will add your own questions as you go because these aren't the only questions, and I don't want you to settle on the first things that come to mind. The first things that come to mind may be your USPs, but I want you to keep thinking and think through them. So Sarah, you've asked, what if the example was from a long time ago, pre-specialty training? Will they think you haven't done a better project since then? So you don't— you won't be telling them when you did the project, you're just going to be describing the project. So you, you won't be saying, I did this in 20 15 or whatever. You'll just be saying, I did this, led this project where I did X, Y, and Z. That's what you're doing. And so what you want to do is think of specifics. So your clinical USP is going to be a bit different. You won't all necessarily have a clinical USP, and that's fine. You, if you have some clinical experience that's different from the average person applying, that will be, that can be a USP. And your clinical USPs are usually best demonstrated with numbers. So it's not time in a job, it's numbers of procedures. I've led 30 trauma calls. I have done 50 neonatal intubations. I've put in 25 central lines.

Quick.

It's quick to say, but it demonstrates your experience way more than using vague terms. So things like, I've done multiple, or I'm confident, or I'm competent, or I've done them independently, doesn't give the panel enough information. So you want to be as specific, as objective with your USPs as you can. So check yourself while you're thinking them through. And every time you've got something that's a bit subjective, think of me saying, can you be more specific? And with your clinical USPs, it's usually numbers, and that can be clinic numbers as well. And you don't need to leave them to do the maths. So something like, I saw 6 patients a week in clinic for a 6-month period or whatever, is Too complicated. You just want to tell them the number. You can extrapolate that out when you're practicing. So if you saw 6 patients a week for 6 months, then that's— you're saying you saw 125 patients or whatever. And that's what you will say. Over a 6-month period, I saw 125 patients in clinic, in the whatever clinic. That very clearly tells them what the extent of your experience is. And of course, you're only sharing the numbers if they're good, because you don't need to tell them the numbers if they're not good. So you're sharing things that are good is a very quick way to get your clinical USPs out. What do you— when do you bring the USPs up in the interview if you can't talk about them in tell me about yourself? So you can talk about them in tell me about yourself, which we'll come to. You want to mention them all in tell me about yourself, and you should be bringing them up all the time. So one thing I want you to do first is to identify the specifics from your USPs and then do a deeper dive. So the specifics with the clinical are numbers, and you don't need a deeper dive with a clinical USP. With your other USPs, it's also specifics. So if you've done a QIP, don't just say, I've done a QIP in X. Tell me what the process of that— how did you identify the problem? Maybe it was allocated to you, maybe you identified it. How many people were on your team? How often did you meet? How long did it run for? When you collected data, first off, how much data did you collect and what did it show? Then what did you implement? Then did you re-audit, and how much patient data did you look at? What did it show, and what was the percentage difference? So I don't need you to literally go back trawling through old audits and QIPs. It's a ballpark of what you remember, and no one's going to be checking or auditing them, but it's painting a really clear picture for the panel. Just bear in mind that they have never worked in whatever place, they've never sat on whatever committee, They've never seen what your QIP was or been in that department. And that applies even if you have done QIPs in the department where you're being interviewed for, or projects, because there's people on the panel who are not in your team and not in your service. The lay chair is not going to know what you're talking about if you use vague terms. The college rep doesn't work there, is not going to know what you're talking about. So you're trying to be as specific as possible so you are not leaving it to their imagination. Because they'll just be imagining whatever they think the something committee looks like, but it will likely bear no resemblance to what you've done. So you're always trying to be specific. Numbers doesn't show quality though, perhaps. In my specialty, we do not see as many patients, and sometimes it is about the quality. So I'm not sure what your specialty is, but that's fine. So this is not— it may be that you don't have a clinical USP if you're just seeing certain patients that you would all be seeing. If you're seeing something different, then you should be able to say that. It doesn't matter if you've not got numbers, but your numbers will still be relevant even if they're small, if they're different from the average person. So if you're talking about clinical experience, if you think you've got a USP, clinical USP, that's because you've done something different clinically than other people. And if that is something that needs to be qualitative, Then you can— we can discuss it, but that's fine. So you can include it, but only if you think it's something different, and you need to be able to describe it. So you need to be able to describe it in specific terms. Numbers is the most common way to do that with a clinical USP, but you don't have to. You can find another way to describe it specifically, but the goal is not to leave it to their imagination. And usually numbers is the easiest way. Names is another way. So if you present— if you publish a paper, Say what the impact factor is, say what the journal is. So just where you can add specifics to describe it— frequency of meetings, length of time, number of people surveyed in your projects, percentage results— all of that will give them a much clearer picture in a short space of time. Livia, do I need to add on my CV a special place for USPs? So this is not to do with your CV, this is to do with your interview. So in your CV, you will have some USPs that you will pick out, but in your CV when you're applying for a job, this is separate from this. When you're applying for a job, your goal is to be shortlisted, and to be shortlisted, you need to meet— you need to show clearly that you meet the person spec, the essential and desirable criteria. That's your goal. Be as clear as possible, make it easy as possible for the shortlisters to meet the person spec. This is a different thing. Now you do meet the person spec, you're trying to show your understanding of being a senior member of the team, and you're trying to show them what you'll be like. When you pick these projects, you're showing them these are the parts that are important, and these are the parts I am showcasing to you. It's usually to demonstrate the extent of your skills, the sizes of teams, and then how to measure impact. Then you want to do a deeper dive in each of these. The numbers or specifics are a short way to share. so that the panel understands what your USPs are. But then you want to do a deeper dive. And that deeper dive is then spending time before your interview thinking through that project in more depth. What were the challenges when you did this quip and you tried to implement change? What were the challenges of making that change? What conflicts arose within the team? I assume not everyone was happy about the change you were implementing, or you couldn't get the funding, or you couldn't get the logistics, whatever it is. What mistakes did you make? What would you do differently if you were doing the project again this time? That's, that's what you want to think through in your deeper dive. These are gold that you can use throughout your interview, and this is why you use your USPs throughout your interview. Because when they ask you for the challenges of making change, you use 3 challenges of making change that will be the same for pretty much every change project. Might be getting the team on board. It might be keeping things to time. It might be keeping it sustainable when you move on to another role. So you can share these 3 challenges of making change, but showcase how you manage them in your USP. And that's how you answer their question, but you're showcasing your USP. And you know your USP is one of your best bits. So that's what you're trying to do. Can I use a small research project as one of my USPs, even though it's not a QIP? So quip and research are different things. Um, quip would come more into sort of thinking about management. Research is research. Um, so your research project could be a USP. It's thinking, can you say the stuff that I've talked about? Could you say, can you share some specifics? Can you think of the challenges? Can you talk about the conflicts that arose, the mistakes? If yes, yes, it's a USP. So a USP is anything that you could genuinely do a deeper dive into, except for the clinical one, which will be shorter. In the interview, should or could we use the phrases like my USP, as one of my USPs? No, you don't need to do that. This is you in your prep. You will be telling them, I led this QIP, and there were 20 people, and there are 5 people on the team. We met monthly for 6 months. I audited 100 patients at the start and found that 20% of them were not having X. We then decided to implement A, B, and C. I re-audited 100 patients and found that now 99% of them were having X. I tried to make this sustainable by handing over to someone when I left, but unfortunately, I don't believe the project continued. What did you learn? You learn it's hard to keep sustaining projects in the NHS, or you need to make a better plan for how to pass it on and embed it, embed the change. These are all learning. It doesn't need to be success. learning is about your experience of making change within the healthcare system and understanding how teams work. That's what you're trying to do. You're not telling them this is one of my USPs. I mean, they might ask you occasionally. They do ask, what's your unique selling point? But this is for you, for your milestone, to prep so that you know what you're offering them. Could a specific course that I've attended be a USP? Demonstrate senior decision-making under pressure, leadership. So in my view, a course isn't a USP. Again, doesn't mean it's not a good thing, doesn't mean you can't mention it. So your USPs aren't the only things you're going to talk about, and we will go through tell me about yourself shortly. But in tell me about yourself, you'll be mentioning other stuff as well, so you can still mention it. But I don't think— if you think about this deeper dive with specifics, I don't think there's much you can say except this is what I learned. It's an achievement rather than the process. Now, if there's an important element of the course that you think you could talk about in more depth, then potentially it could be. But I'm not sure that you would find that. But remember that these are guidelines, so if you think, actually, I can talk about that from different angles and I do have more to say, then it's fair game. It's up to you to identify which you think are strongest and which you can talk about most. Establishing a rapport with a very complex patient over weeks and months, uh, is— that is not a USP. Um, that's, that's like an attribute, essentially. Um, so what I want you to do is move away from showcasing personality traits, attributes, showing that you're a nice person. Um, because what you're trying to do is instead of subjective things where you're persuading them of something, you're leading with objective, specific things. And that means you don't need to say, this shows that I'm a good team player because This shows that I'm— or persuade them why it's a good thing. This is a good thing because I know that we make change here, or this is a good thing because I know that we need to work as a team, or this shows I'm a great leader. You don't need to do the this shows part because you're leading with specifics and it's implied. So if you can show me your amazing audit and how you measured impact and how you made sure you got change, and you engaged the team and dealt with the challenges of change. I know that you're someone who can see a project through and can work well with people. And you don't need to persuade me. You don't need to be like, I'm— because often it sounds like, I'm just a really nice person. Everyone loves me. Everyone's happy when they come on a shift and they see me. Everyone says I'm really nice. And it's just you're persuading them of something. And it's much weaker than saying, actually, I led this project and did X, Y, and Z. I was on the committee. and we did this, and this was a challenge. So instead, so I think your patient example, Deepa, might be good for a particular example that they ask. I'm not sure, but it's not, it's not a USP. So being good with patients, being good with colleagues, being generally all-round nice is not a USP. And that's not to say you are not these things, and that's not to say it's not good that you are these things, but a USP is a specific thing. Um, my tray Can a course training in a specific unique procedure, which is rarely done by trainees consultants, be a USP? So this is a clinical USP. So it would come under the initial category, which is, it's going to be short. You don't need to do a deep dive. It's going to be numbers. So yes, it could be, particularly if this is something desirable. And ideally, I don't know what the procedure is, but ideally you'll say you've done X number of that procedure. And then they'll know, wow, this person can do this procedure and we don't have anyone. So that would be a quick— your clinical USP is a quick thing. And that definitely could be. Manage, we're gonna come on to tell me about yourself shortly, so we can talk about that then. Can I say I'm an expert speaker within the area of communication during neonatal resuscitation in theater because I've been an invited guest on a podcast on the topic and presented at national and international conferences on the area, or do I just sound like an inflated idiot? We need to do a bit more self-love, Esther, and not talk yourself down. I think this— so this is a bit borderline, I would say, because you're persuading them that you're great at a particular attribute. Essentially, you're saying, I'm a great communicator because of X, Y, and Z. However, some of within this, there is USPs, which is about your expertise and demonstrating your expertise in that. So what I would try to do, and you'll feel less like you have that sense of, am I just bragging when you bring out specifics. So that is, can you draw out specifics of this, which might be presentations? I would say it's not common that presentations are a USP, but I appreciate you're kind of developing a portfolio of expertise. So you could make this. It wouldn't be my top choice, I would say, but it will depend what else you have. And remember, again, doesn't mean you can't mention it. This is just about, is it always going to be the thing you come back to if you get a chance? Probably not on balance, but I don't know, depends what else you have. So I'd see as you mull through your others how it works out. Teaching experience as a USP, honorary clinical lecturer. So remember what I said, the role isn't your USP. So being an honorary clinical lecturer is not your USP, but your USP is what you did in that clinical lecturer role. So if you say, I teach on a master's, so I'm going to use a master's as an example, but I lead a module in a master's. The module runs for 8 weeks. We have 20 students each year, and during these weeks I deliver 6 tutorials. I've done that every year for the last 4 years. That is a USP. And you say, and that is part of my role as honorary clinical lecturer. Then you've got a USP. Then I could talk about the challenges of getting students to turn up to tutorials, getting them to engage, keeping the rest of the faculty motivated. Now you're talking about senior-level stuff. So hopefully you can see a massive difference between saying, I'm an honorary clinical lecturer, and the panel thinking, okay, great, but what does that mean? Versus explaining what you did. Because then the honorary clinical lecturer is like a bullet point that you would put on your CV. It's not— what you're doing is trying to go more into depth. So that's how I would make it sound more detailed. And I don't know if you're doing an undergraduate role, whatever it is, you just describe what you do. and assume they know nothing about it. Assume they have no clue what an honorary clinical lecturer does or what they might do, and you have to tell them specifically. M&M lead for the department, could that be a USP? It definitely could, but you need to tell me what you did. So I will just think of whoever is the M&M lead in my department, and we actually don't run our own M&M, so we just go to someone else's M&M. So that's not the most exciting role. You might be leading an M&M for a team of 40 people where you look at 20 cases a month and you navigate chairing the session and allocating people, delivering feedback to people or helping them shape their presentation, dealing with the challenges of the people who present at M&Ms and then feel stressed about it. So then you're getting into the depth of what that role involves. And that's what I want you to do. Think about the depth of the role, not just the bullet point surface. So M&M lead is a bullet point that you put in your CV. But within that, if you can describe what you do, then yes, it's going to be a USP because you will have more experience than other people. And then you will pick out a specific example of an issue that came up or a mistake that you made or some learning that you've had. That's what you're bringing to the team. You're not bringing the job title, the role title of M&M Lead. You're bringing the skills that you developed while doing that role. Um, Olivia, this is a specific question I don't think is related to USPs, so I would get you to post that in the specific interview support channel and we can answer it. What are the interview— where— what interview questions can you use USPs? Basically, most— like, your first thing should be, how can I use a USP to demonstrate this point? And you'll see when you see some of people's answers, they do it really well. If you talk about how you know you're a safe doctor, for example, you might talk about keeping up to date, and then you might use an example of a journal article you published, which is one of your USPs. So you're always trying to— these are your strongest things, and they've got so many different elements of it that you can actually bring these in to answer almost every question. So you'll start to see how that translates as you answer the questions, but the first step is getting the USPs right. Would having an MSc in evidence base and being used to critique publications at journal clubs be a USP? So hopefully most of you will be getting the hang of this. And Kareem, you'll see having an MSc isn't the USP. The USP is what you did to get that MSc. Now, if it's just a written project MSc, it's— you're probably going to be hard pushed for it to be a USP because you went, you did assignments or whatever and got the degree. So there may not be that much to talk about. If you did a research project, then the research project could be a USP if you can describe it with specifics. And you did that research project as part of your MSc, but it's not the MSc itself that's the USP. It's the project within it. Being rota coordinator, yep, could be a USP. Again, you want to tell me what it involves because I might work on a rota with 3 people that's done by some AI software, or you might be running a rota for 60 people that's done manually with people working across 3 different teams or 2 different sites. And so what you're trying to do is describe it really specifically so that the panel can really understand the extent of your experience. Maria, how do you present a quip that you started but was finished by your competition? Well, you don't know because this relies on them actually knowing how to present the quip. So if you think that they are going to use this quip and they are going to make it sound better because they took it off you and finished it, then it would be a bit of an own goal, I think, to say it if they're then going to go on and smash it home. Um, but you don't know, like, just because they, they did it, it's all about— as you can see from the way we're presenting, uh, USPs— is actually in the telling. It's not— you could have done something amazing, but you aren't telling the panel what you did, so they actually don't know. Um, so mostly I would say if it was finished by someone else. It does not matter. That is part of you understanding why it is a challenge making change when you are going through training because you move on, you have to hand things over and then things fizzle out. So that is a good thing to understand that the fact that it was finished by someone who you are going up against for the job definitely makes it a bit trickier. You will need to make a judgment call on that. Can the dissertation, like a systematic review, be a USP? which led to doing a successful QIP bringing about change. Yeah, so there might be 2 things in there. So your systematic review could be a USP. Again, you are saying, what is the extent of it? You could have reviewed 300 papers. What did you find? How did you analyse the data? The process is the USP, and then the QIP in itself could be a USP, as we talked about. Yes, Laura, you are saying the QIP could be a good thing if it was carried on. It could. So there is no— that is the whole point. If you do not— if you drop, you move on, but you make it sustainable. That's part of change. I do think it is a bit trickier if the person who's taking it on is competition, because if you're both saying the same thing but they're able to say more, it's not a— it's the opposite of a USP because you literally know the other person is saying the same thing. So that, I think that makes it a bit more challenging. For a Level 1 evidence publication in a journal with a high impact factor and a good number of citations, What else to add?

It's—

so the impact factor and citations and the level are about outcomes. I want you to think about the process. So even when you've told me that, I have no clue what you did or what your research skills are. And that's what you want to tell me. What was the process? What did you do? What skills did you get? These are the outcomes, and you can still say them, but they're not the key thing. The key thing is the process. So hopefully that's starting to give you a bit of thought. As to how you can make your USPs more specific. I want to talk a bit about the difference between tell me about yourself and your USPs. So as you're hopefully getting the hang of, USPs are the core of your whole interview. You're going to use them throughout from different angles, different elements. Tell me about yourself is just one question. That's all it is. It's likely to be the first question in your interview. And your goal is to include all of your USPs in tell me about yourself. And just to say, we recommend 5 USPs. This is not an exact science. If you want to have 6, you can have 6. I probably wouldn't have less because it probably isn't showing a good enough spread. The reason I don't think you should have 7 or 8 is that you will not remember them all, and it will stress you out trying to remember them. And you will not be able to get them all in to tell me about yourself without just skimming over them. So I think 5 is the optimal number, but you can choose to do your own thing. That's fine. I want you to just— with all our guidance, I want you to just consider it, think about how it applies to you. And obviously, if someone on your panel is telling you in advance to do something different, it makes sense to listen to that. But choose the parts that resonate with you. So I find that 5 is Best. If you want to have 6, you could. If you have 7, I think you're making a challenge that's too hard for yourself. Um, so tell me about yourself is one question. It's usually the first question. As you know, we collect all of the questions from all of the Academy students who have their interviews, and some of you have access to that on the VIP tier where you can see all the questions. Um, And we analyze them and we basically can see the sorts of questions that come up. And in the vast majority, I can't remember the last percentage counts, probably over 90% of interviews, a version of this will be the first question that you get asked. And it's the obvious first question, not just in consultant interviews, in any interview, because they want to hear about you. It's a chance to tell them. And what you want to do is get all of your USPs mentioned in tell me about yourself. And the reason is that you don't know what else is coming up. You don't know if they're going to ask you about a quip or about research, about teaching. You do not know. And what you don't want to happen is that you leave the interview room and you've not mentioned some of your USPs. That will be a shame and you'll be kicking yourself. So this part is reasonably within your control, and I want you to try to get all of your USPs in. I'm going to pause to answer a couple of questions there. Natalie, could sporting achievements be used as a USP demonstrating drive? Could be. It will be down to can you develop it enough? So it might just be something that you want to tell them, which you can still do. But if you've got things to talk about, challenges, teamwork, leadership, and you can develop it as a deeper dive, then yeah, it could be a USP. And I'm excited hear what your international-level sporting achievement is, so please let us know. Mo, how long are we expected to talk for the tell me about yourself question? So we think that you have longer to talk for the tell me about yourself question. And you have, we say, to practice to 5 to 6 minutes. They will give you more leeway. They're less likely to cut you off. They know what you're doing, which is talking them through your best bits. So 5 to 6 minutes is the goal to practice. On the day, you need to be flexible. They might stop you, they might tell you to do it in 2 minutes, they might tell you to only do part of it or whatever. You need to be flexible on the day, but the best bet is to practice to 5 to 6 minutes going through mentioning all of your USPs and using the PERM structure that we'll talk you through. And then once you've got that, you can then adapt. Now, your USPs are Likely to be the first question. They're a chance for you to showcase all your USPs. They're mostly within your control in that you know it's a question that's likely to come up. If you have a presentation, which about half of you will have, that is pretty fully within your control because you've got 10 minutes or whatever that are just yours that you can prep. So this is the next best thing to that, which is that you can pretty much guarantee it or a version of it is going to come up. And if you do this well, It sets the tone for the whole interview because you've told them right at the start, these are all my best bits. You've conveyed yourself well, you've connected with the panel, and they're going to warm to you. You're going to relax and you're going to have shown them your best bits. Let's go through a few of these questions. Um, Ahmed, TMAI equals 5 USPs plus hints of other stuff in your CV as per a perm. That is absolutely correct. That's what you're doing, and I'll talk you through a perm.

Shortly.

Um, manage, uh, TMAI, should be— should that be presented chronologically? It should not. Um, what you don't want to do is literally take them through your CV, which is, I did med school here, and then I went here, and then I went here, and then I did this job, and then I did a fellowship, and then I did this. That is not what you want to do, because then you end up going, well, when I did this fellowship, I did a QIP. When I did this, I did some teaching, and it's completely out of order. Your tell me about yourself is a curated version of your best bits. It's not literally— even if the question is take me through your CV, they don't mean chronologically. So you will present it using the PERM structure, which we'll go through. Esther, apparently your panel are likely to open with tell me about your training from the college rep, which feels a little harder to get the USPs into. So I would guess if they— actually, do you know, I probably would try. I probably would try. So then you get into what happens if they Ask you the question slightly differently. Tell me, take me through your CV. Why are you the best person for this job? Why this trust? For me, these are all versions of tell me about yourself, but it depends on their positioning in the interview. So the goal of you doing this answer is to have told them all your USPs because you might not get a chance later. If you assume they're not asking you a version of tell me about yourself and you just literally answer, so say they they start with, why this trust? And you say 3 reasons why you love the trust and you don't get your USPs in, that could be your chance and you've missed it. And you might not get a chance to talk about all the amazing things you've done. So if it's the first question, I would encourage you to think really carefully before you decide it's not a version of tell me about yourself and before you decide not to use PERM. And if you— yeah, you just, you just need to be careful that you don't miss the opportunity. If they ask you, tell me about yourself, and then they ask you in the second question why this trust, you're obviously not going to repeat the same thing because that would be silly. So then you're going to choose 3 reasons why you like the trust. So it's got— you've got to adapt based on what you get asked. And remember, you can't control the questions. They're going to come in whatever way they come.

You—

what you're trying to do is prepare and then be ready to adapt. So yeah, I think, um, Esther, they've told you that this is going to happen, so it's going to come up. What you may find is that you'll start talking about some elements of your clinical work, you might move on to education, and they might say, actually, we're going to ask you about that later. And so sometimes if they interrupt you, it's because they know they're going to ask it later. For me, I think unless they said clinical training, part of your training is doing all the other things, so I would include it and be guided by them. But if they tell you something different in your pre-interview, then go with what they tell you. Of course, they're the people that are scoring Aline, tell us what you're bringing to our trust question. Yeah, so if that came as the first question, I would be using it as a version of tell me about yourself. And remember, the key is you still have to answer the question. So if they say, what are you bringing to the trust? You need to connect each section of your answer with that question. So you're bringing your education skills, you're bringing your research skills, and just literally name-check the question all the way through. Otherwise they'll say, You didn't answer the question. You answered, tell me about yourself. Sabrina, should we talk about both achievements and USPs in tell me about yourself or just USPs? We'll go through that, but essentially you want to talk about each of your USPs in more depth and then mention the other stuff. I'll answer that shortly as we go through, which is about how much detail to go into. And Audrey, if there's a presentation, should you be trying to bring your USPs in or focus on the topic? with a presentation which is slightly off the topic of this milestone, I would say, but you've connected it to USPs, so I will answer it. Your presentation is likely to be on future vision, ideal service, something about a merger if there's a merger, or something about you. And occasionally they do just ask about you and what you bring to the trust. Obviously, if they ask that, that lends itself well to USPs. Whatever topic you get, you have to remember that it's your interview, you're trying to get a job, and what you want for whatever the topic is, is not about you telling them your knowledge on the topic for 10 minutes. It's about you explaining your understanding of the topic, showing what you know about the team is number 2, and showing what your experience is that you're bringing to help them achieve that is 3. So the easiest way to think about it is that it should not be a presentation. that I could take off you and give in another interview for that specialty in another hospital. It should be a presentation that only you can give, only to that team. And if you can do that, it's a much stronger presentation than just your knowledge about a topic. So yes, ideally you'll choose points that showcase your strengths and your USPs. This looks like quite a long one. I'm going to give it a go. Can we use USPs outside medicine? I've co-funded a health and wellbeing platform. And hold the role of medical director, designing governance and safety mechanisms from scratch and applying these, developing robust clinical protocols. Now at the stage of MVP and user testing, then say what this has helped me to develop. Okay, so this is excellent. This is a great USP. I would love to hear more about it, so feel free to message me. I'd love to check it out. The second half is where you're persuading people why it's a good thing. And if anyone here has heard the first half, I don't think you need persuaded why it's a good thing. You don't need Millie to tell you what the transferable skills are. It's very clear. And that's why the more specifics you can bring in— and I don't think you've brought in a lot of specifics here, but you've given me enough to know that you are showing you're bringing lots of transferable skills. If you can drop in some numbers to give me an idea of what the size of the team is, How long you've been doing it, how many people use the platform. When you're talking about clinical protocols, how many you developed, it'll give me a clear idea. Just assume I have no clue what it would look like to co-found a health and wellbeing platform. So just paint the picture for them. When you do that, you don't need to say that it's helped you to work with people in tech and bring tech. I mean, it's very obvious. And I don't think you need to link it to the 10-year plan. I mean, you can if you were doing a presentation about it, but generally when you're thinking about the USP, you're trying to skip the bit where you have to persuade them why it's important. You're just telling them the specifics. I'm going to answer your question now, which is, is P in PERM better to discuss passion for the specific role or weave it through? the PERM, if it's more trauma-focused, or weave it through the PERM topic. So let's talk about what the P is. So we use PERM, we do not use CAMP. And I know many of you have used CAMP before, but CAMP is not, from my point of view, not helpful in your interview to put the P, because what CAMP does, it puts the P at the end, and the P is personal. And the goal, you need to think what we put the P at the front, and the P is passion. You need to think about what the point of the P is. The point of the P is to connect with the panel so they can see a bit of you. It helps you relax. It helps them know why you want this job. So doing camp, telling your whole CV, and then adding on the end, and I like cycling at the weekend, or, and I play the guitar, it doesn't do that. It's not— there's no connection. There's nothing about your, your why you want the job. It's just a fact about you. It doesn't serve the purpose that you're trying to achieve. If you can put the P at the start, as we do it in PERM, and the P is passion, the P is your connection to the job, and you can convey that in a sentence at the start of your interview, it's going to make a massive difference to how the panel sees you. It'll help you relax. You're going to feel good. They're going to love you. You're going to show why you love them. And we will come back to talk about the P in more detail in milestone 5, but lots of you will be able to think of it quite easily, which is why you want the job. What is it that connects you to the role? And it's easier if you know the place, and it's easier if you work in the place, because then you can just say, I work here, I've worked here, I trained here for 3 years, I absolutely love this team, and I'm just really excited at the opportunity to become a substantive member of the team. That is a really nice thing to say at the start. Because remember, they won't all know you, even if you work there. You're not going to know the chief exec. You hopefully don't know the medical director. You're not going to know the lay chair. You won't know the college rep. So, you're telling them, actually, I really want this job. And people, they want to be wanted. They want you to want the job. I've been talking to people this week who are going for jobs that they don't really know if they want. And the important thing is, in that moment, when you go into that interview, you need to be clear that you want the job, because it needs to come across to the panel that you really care and you really want it. Otherwise, they'll be like, this person's just desperate for a job, they don't care about the team. So, the P helps you convey why you want to work there, and you do need to know why you want to work there. If you don't currently work there, then this is what your due diligence does in the pre-interview. Where you talk to people, you get a feel for the place, and you say, look, I haven't worked here, but I've been speaking to loads of people in the run-up to the interview, including people who work here on the junior team just now and all the panel that I met, and everyone is so enthusiastic to work in such a caring, supportive team. It just makes me really excited to have the opportunity to be part of it. So it needs to be something that is genuine, that comes from the heart, that sounds like you. And that you feel is authentic and connects you with the panel. You do not have to do a P if you don't want to. If you think, oh, it's too awful or too cringey and you don't want to do it, that's fine. But if you can do it, it will make a massive difference. And then what you want to do is to go through the rest of the PIRM. So the P is passion, and then you're going to go through your clinical experience. That's just— it could be short. It's just a curated version of your clinical experience to date, not chronology, but it's picking out your strongest bits. It could also— then you go on to research and education, and most of you will be stronger in one or the other. You won't have both, but you can. This is where you probably have a USP on research or a USP on education, and you will talk about that and talk about any other education or research. experience that you have. So in each of these, you will— your USPs, you're not trying to have a USP in each area. That's not what you're aiming to do. Your USPs likely will fall in that you may have one clinical, then you'll have one education or research. The other 3 are probably more in the management side, and that's the way it should be because it's a senior role and most of it should be management. And so you're not trying for a USP in each one, um, but when you go through these sections, you will talk about your USP for 30 to 45 seconds. That's it. So it's not a long time. You'll get the specifics out and that's it. But you will have so much more that you could say, which is why you want to talk about them again. And that, if you do that for 5 USPs, that will take 2 and a half, 3 minutes. You've still got another 2 to 3 minutes, and that's where you add the other things. So you'll talk about education, you talk about your strongest education projects. I led and designed a curriculum for my regional teaching. Um, this was a teaching day that ran once a month for 6 months. We had 20 ST6s come along. I developed the curriculum in line with the college curriculum, and I invited 2 guest speakers to each session. This is a USP that is a senior-level education thing. You'll talk for 30 to 45 seconds about that and tell me about yourself, and then you'll say, I've also delivered teaching in X, Y, and Z, whatever else you want to say. So, you can still say your other things. So, all the other things that I said, I'm not sure they're a USP, but they're still good. This is where you can mention them, but I want you to do a deeper dive for the USP. And this is where your time gets tight because you've got 5 USPs, 30 to 45 seconds, and then you're putting in the other stuff. And you'll go through each of these areas. Where Diane, teaching is under education. Often things can flick between areas, so delivering teaching could be education, designing a curriculum if you really wanted could be management. So you can really flex where they are, but Roughly, that's kind of the areas that you want to go through. And Emily, it is a lot to cover in a short period of time. That is a good problem to have when you start to be at the point where you're like, okay, I've got my USPs, how am I going to say this in 6 minutes? And this is where it comes back to what I said at the beginning, which is don't start recording tell me about yourself answers that are 8 minutes or 9 minutes. You're not doing yourself any favors. The challenge is not being able to tell me about yourself in 10 minutes. The challenge is being able to do it in 5 to 6 minutes. That's the challenge. And the more you practice doing it longer, the less you're helping yourself get it right for the interview. And so you have to be strict with timing. You're going to have to have 30 to 45 seconds on each USP, no more, and then mention a few other things. And that is the skill that you're trying to develop. So with tell me about yourself— sorry, Sarah, this is what I'm getting confused. Are we only picking one USP per section? Your USPs are not tell me about yourself. Your USPs are your USPs. What topics they're in depends on you. So, you will have a rough spread where they're likely to be mostly management, one education, maybe a research one, maybe a clinical one.

Nice.

But you're not trying to shoehorn your USPs into sections. Your USPs are your best bits. So, before you think about tell me about yourself and how to implement the USPs in an answer, get your USPs right. Then you'll see how they spread. When you go through tell me about yourself, you're going to use a PERM structure to answer the question. And when you get to your USPs within that structure, you will spend 30 to 45 seconds talking about the specifics of that USP. That's it. You do need to mention all 5 USPs in tell me about yourself. So you want to mention all USPs, all 5 USPs, 30 to 45 seconds in each. They will fit into these categories, PERM, but they won't be one in each category. Wherever they fit is where you expand on them. So if you've got 3 management USPs, that's fine. You will spend 3 times 30 to 45 seconds in the management section talking about these USPs. And so your goal is to mention all of them in tell me about yourself. You're going to see a million examples of PERM. People are posting them already in the recorded answer review space. So have a look, have a look at the feedback, and you'll start to see what's sounding good. But the goal— a good tell me about yourself answer is someone who already knows their USPs and is clear on them, and who knows why they want the job, who starts with the P, who then goes through the PERM experience and does a deeper dive of 30 to 45 seconds on each USP, wherever they fall in the PERM structure, and then ends succinctly with, so that's a bit about me. That's it. That's what you're trying to do. Where people struggle with tell me about yourself is they don't know their USPs first. They go through a chronology of their CV, um, and they run well over time. That's probably the most common places where people go wrong. Um, What happens if your USP is in a question and then another question is fit for the same USP? You should hope that happens. That's what you want. You want to come back to your USPs. Remember we said you could stand up and give me a 30-minute presentation about your quip? In tell me about yourself, you have talked for 30 seconds about it. That's it. You haven't told me about the challenges. You haven't told me about how you worked well in an MDT. You haven't told me about the conflicts that arose, the mistakes, how you made it sustainable. You wouldn't have done any of that. You really want the chance to be able to talk about it again. So you should be wanting to come back to your USPs. What you're doing is mentioning them at the start just in case you don't get the chance to talk about them again. Ahmed, after mentioning my USPs as per perm in 4 minutes, you'll mention your other stuff in 2 minutes. Yeah, I mean, it's not going to be split exactly like that because They will all be integrated. So if you have an education USP, when you get to the E in PERM— sorry, the R in PERM for research and education— you'll talk about your education USP for 30 to 45 seconds, then you'll do a bit about your other education stuff, then you'll go on to your management and you'll talk about your USP for 30 to 45 seconds and then other stuff around it. Does it matter what order we talk about experience, research, education, and management? If you're stronger in management, should you talk about that first and then the other things? I would stick to the order they're expecting. They are frankly expecting you to go through it in that order. Um, I think it's just going to confuse them or throw them off. Um, I wouldn't— I'd just go through it. And if you're stronger in the management, just have longer in your answer talking about the management. That's what you want. The fact that you're stronger in the management is a good thing because it's a senior level role, so you can skim over the other sections and spend more time in the management. But I don't— I wouldn't start switching the order around. And again, not an exact science. If you really want to, you can, but I feel like you just want to give the panel what they're expecting and what they're hoping for. Um, and they're expecting you to use it in this order. Uh, Save the deep dives for the individual questions. Yes, you won't have time to do all the deeper dive, otherwise your tell me about yourself will be running way over. Um, this is just the specifics so they know the bullet points, they get an idea of the extent of your experience. the deep dives you, you will get the chance to go into. In the 30 to 45 seconds, you should still include numbers and data. Yeah, so in 30 seconds, that is pretty much all you'll be able to say. I led a QIP, which was a team of 5 people looking at X problem. We ran this QIP over 6 months. I audited 100 patients and saw 20% of whatever, and then I implemented whatever. I did 3 PDSA cycles. In the final audit, it It was 100 patients and the rate was 95%. That's going to take your 30 to 45 seconds. So definitely include numbers in there as well. Okay, so hopefully that has given you an overview. Like I said, in each session I want you to take away one golden nugget. You don't need to remember everything. I know there's a lot. So my question for you to post in the chat is, what is one golden nugget that you will take away from this session? Okay, let's see what we've got. Difference between USPs and tell me about yourself. Excellent. That is okay and not cringy to say you really want to work there. And it's not cringy. You do want—

you want them to know that you want to work there.

It shouldn't be a secret. You know them, you love them, you want the job, just tell them. You just sing it once, that's it, and then they get the idea. Be specific on your USP. What is not a USP? It's not a role, it's not a length of time. Start with the P, don't go through a chronology of your career. Good thing to have lots of management USPs. Yes, this is a senior job, so you're not going for an education or research role, unless you are, then it's the management stuff is what you want to talk about. Deep dive into USPs so they're adaptable. Tell me about yourself should include all of your USPs. Structure. Lindsay, your first video attempt was awful. Don't worry, that is exactly why you're going through the process. This is a good thing. You need to put in the reps. As you'll see, no one cares if your answers are awful. We've seen all sorts. We give you feedback to try and improve. We want you to get started, so don't feel— there's absolutely no judgment. I don't know if it was awful, but it's probably worse than you— not as bad as you think it is. Um, but even if it is terrible, it's fine. Um, including data on your examples. Practice. Yep. Get the USPs in to tell me about yourself. You have a better understanding of how to choose your USPs. Great. USP is the details of the project. Um, 5 USPs, 30 to 45 seconds, and integrate into the PIRM framework. Max 5 to 6 minutes for tell me about yourself.

Yep.

Um, your clinical experience and tell me about yourself is a curated version of your CV. It's not everything. Um, learn to take it easy. Uh, demonstrate what's the prob—

what—

think about what the problem you addressed was. Yes, it is interesting to hear about why people started projects because that helps understand something about you. Like, just what we were saying, you don't need to say, this shows that when I see a problem, I take initiative. You say, I noticed a problem in the unit and I decided to do, uh, an audit on it. Then it's, it's implied. They know that. Um, you were worried that your clinical experience section of perm was a bit USP light compared with RNM, so it's not unusual. Yeah, so the majority of people have gone through just standard training. That's why it's standard training. So it's only if you have something different that you need to showcase it. We know you've done standard, standard training or caesared or CCT'd. That's why you're in the chair. So you don't need to, um, like go over the stuff that everyone in the room is gonna have. You're trying to show something different. If you've just done run-through training and you've got— you've CCT'd, that's fine. You just say one sentence, you move on. It's, it's fine. You're clinically qualified. They know you are. You're not trying to prove your clinical qualification. Um, okay, so what we're going to do is do some of the spotlight coaching. Um, now, uh, let me just stop the screen share. Um, Now some of you put yourself forward for spotlight coaching. I will, I will run over if people need to leave, that's fine, but I will get through as many people as I can. I'm going to prioritize the people who have interviews soon and who have badges on the leaderboard. So, and we'll see who's here. Ahmed El Zafarani, are you here and would you like to unmute yourself and We can chat. I'm gonna— I won't spotlight you until you unmute yourself, just in case you're doing something else. Uh, okay, I might go into the next person because I'm not sure if you're able to unmute yourself. Um, okay, then Peter.

Um, did you—

Yes, I'm here.

So yeah.

Oh, is that Ahmed?

Yes.

So yeah, okay, we'll do, we'll do you and then we will do Peter next. Okay, let me spotlight you. Okay, so do you want to tell me where you're up to or if there's something you want to discuss with one of your USPs?

No, I already coded some, actually 2 videos and yeah, I think that I got some feedback about it, so I'm ready to go.

Okay.

Okay, fine. That's fine. You don't need to be spotlighted.

Cool.

Okay, Peter.

Okay. No, I'm happy.

No, I'm happy to.

I'm happy to, to— if you want to ask me, it's fine.

I just— No, it's only— this is an opportunity for you to run through your USP or to fine-tune something if you want to discuss it.

Actually, the only one thing that I have some experience back home in Egypt, and could I include it? Especially in teaching, like running postgraduate studies— sorry, postgraduate programs for students who are doing master classes in the university, and organizing the curriculum and demonstrating it to them, and even doing like exam sessions for them. I think, could I include this as one of my USPs?

Yeah.

Although it is not in UK.

Doesn't matter that it's not in the UK. It's definitely a USP, but you need to do the thing that we discussed, which is remember, I have no clue what you were doing. I've not been to Egypt. I don't know anything about it, what your role was. So you want to bring out the specifics. So tell me a bit more about specifically what did you do? If you have to describe it to me and paint a picture for me of what you did, what would you say?

So I, so I formulated the curriculum for these postgraduates. students. Uh, the curriculum was about 2 months curriculum with lecture sessions about once a week with road-based clinical examinations demonstration for them. And, and each session was— each batch was about 50 students. And, uh, and then at the end, I organized the mock exam for them, invite the examiners. consultant examiners for them, and also we received very good feedback about the running of the process.

Excellent, I think it's excellent. So hopefully you can see, and everyone watching can see as well, the difference between the first description, which is where we don't really know what you've done or what it looks like, and now we get an idea. You did a lot. You've set up and run a curriculum over a long period of time with 50 students, is a lot. So you're bringing that experience, and it doesn't matter that it was in Egypt and not in wherever you are now. It doesn't matter because the skill is the same. It's being able to develop and implement a curriculum. You will understand the challenges that has come with doing that. And when you do your deeper dive, you want to think about that. Like, what were the challenges? I don't know if it was getting students to attend or some students that weren't understanding or didn't like your teaching style or were failing the assessment, whatever it is. That's the stuff that you want to talk about when you get asked a question around education or whatever else it is. I think that's a really good one.

Yes, thank you. That's fine. Thank you.

Okay, Peter.

Hi, Tessa. Hi.

Let me spotlight you. Okay. Yeah, go for it.

I've got a list of USPs. I've got a specific question about one of them. Um, essentially it's been developed for a while, and then I've got a locum consultant job at the moment which is doing some bits adjacent and bolting on to the end of it. And I guess my question is, is it okay to have this USP and then bolt some bits on the end, or am I better off hiving off the beginning or the end or splitting into 2?

I think I need more information.

Yeah, yeah.

So I think— do you want to tell me what it is?

So early in my training, I was appointed as an academic clinical fellow, which included formal quantitative and qualitative training. I completed a master's in medical education and my own systematic review in that, and subsequently went on to participate in an international peer-reviewed systematic review looking at paediatric intensive care, chronic critical illness. over 400— 6,000 abstracts, sorry, 70 full-text articles, and that was published in PCCM. And I'm currently supporting a group of students to complete their own systematic review. So that was it up to 6 months ago. And then more recently in my current hospital, I've been the site lead for a TRIC blocker national audit project where I worked with the Caldicott Guardian and the audit department, and then I sit on a PICU liberation group to de-implement PICU. And the link here, I think, is that the bench-to-bedside translational research stuff is something that I want to probably emphasise in my job that I'm going for, but I don't necessarily—

I think they're just separate USPs though. I mean, you don't need to kind of shoehorn them together with a theme. So what one of the things actually that someone mentioned in the comments is that it's not a thing— you're not trying to pick a theme like, I have a passion for research and this shows it. You're picking the one thing, doing a deeper dive. And the problem is if you add all of these things into one USP and then try to tell me in 30 seconds, you won't do justice to all the great stuff that you've done. Because you just, you can't, you'll have to skim over it and then it'll be left to their imagination. Now, most people wouldn't have to research USPs, but are you applying for a role with a research component?

No.

So you just need to think about, yeah, how much you want to, because you don't then want to be like, oh, all this guy cares about is research. And so it's down to you gauging how much value they place on research. You could have to research USPs. It's not the most common thing to do, but obviously you have this amazing experience and you are bringing that to them. If they've got an active research, um, program, they will be interested in you for that. So I would consider doing them as 2 separate ones. And when you do, like when you said you did the systematic review and there was 6,000 papers, is a lot. Uh, I would like to know though what your role was. Because you didn't tell— you described what the team did, but what you want to be able to say is, my role was— I don't know, what was your role on that?

So it was using a novel online platform, so I was data review and then data extraction.

Okay, so how many of— how much of the data did you review?

Oh, like an 18th of it. There were 18 total. Um, I could do the maths and work it out, but What's the maths?

What do we think? No, what are we saying? My maths isn't good enough. I think it's a good number of papers, that's what I think. How much?

333 abstracts.

Okay, that's a lot of abstracts. I think anyone watching would think that's a lot of abstracts. So this is why we want to— you have a massive amount of experience, so anything that the department's trying to publish or work on, you're going to be the guy that's going to help them. And so just by saying there were 6,000 reviewed in total, I personally reviewed 300 of them, or whatever it is, 350, that's strong. Because otherwise you're left wondering, were you sitting at the back of the room scrolling, or were you— what were you actually doing? And you played an important role in this. And so what this is for everyone when they're trying to describe their USP is you need to pick— you need to be clear on what your role was. This is what the team did, but this is what My role was. I think these are great. I would, I would separate them rather than trying to fit them together.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Cool.

Okay, let's remove your spotlight. Okay, then we have Kate. Uh, are you here?

Yeah. Is it me, Kate, or another Kate?

It is Kate Bowman.

Hello, can you hear me?

I can hear you.

Oh, good. Hi. Hi, so that was really helpful to join because thinking about my USPs, I'm going to include my respiratory spin because the job is for respiratory interest and not everybody has done that. And then I've got a kind of research one. I don't know whether now to get rid of one of my teaching ones in order to include more management stuff based on what you've said.

How many teaching ones did you have?

So I just had— well, I had a research and then I also had a teaching one, but actually I don't think my teaching one is maybe as strong, but obviously it's something I could bring up if I'm asked a specific teaching question. But I've—

Yeah, go on.

The management one. So I did this year-long fellowship where I worked for CQC, and so there's various bits on that that— I mean, I feel like the panel may leave being sick of the acronym CQC because I keep bringing it up. But one thing I wanted to ask about was that because CQC's focus at that time was the maternity, and they were wrapping up the maternity review, which I noticed is one of your Big 5 things anyway, and a lot of the biggest project that I did was around what CQC called a maternity improvement resource. Now, how do I kind of like phrase and pitch that to the panel that I'm applying for a paediatric job Do you think I need an explainer there in my teammate, or—

No, because the skills that you're bringing, it doesn't need an explanation as to why this is relevant. And this is why it doesn't— the clinical topic of most of these projects makes zero difference. It could be a project about cups of tea, but it's about how did you implement change, how did you evaluate change, how did you navigate whatever was going on in this project. So I, I don't think it matters at all. Um, this is a great USP because nobody has experience with the CQC, um, and I'm sure they will want someone with it because you're going to really be their gold when they come to having their inspection. So this should definitely be a USP. You could probably get more than one out of it.

Yeah, so I'm wondering about if I talk about the maternity improvement resource, because that was a long project that I did, and I'm just like looking back at the other stuff that I I did to pick from. So the other thing that I've got is, I did a load of work around acutely unwell children. So independently developing relationships with external stakeholders, consultation with Sepsis Trust, leading to roundtable discussions on updated guidelines for recognition and management of sepsis in children, how CQC could support rollout of the PEWS, and then some of this led to So CQC publish an annual state of care report, so I led the data and insight team to gather information on this particular topic to be published in that, and this led to the development of a novel survey identifying whether parents and carers feel listened to by healthcare workers. Shall I, shall I? It's not like, it feels like—

Sounds better than whatever teaching programme you had.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking now. So include, include something like that and then take off the teaching programme. Yeah, okay. Yeah.

So it's all really good stuff, um, and you're, you know, you're in a great position because you've got so much experience. So I would try and include something, one of your USPs around service change within the team as well, because this is obviously outside stuff, bigger picture strategy stuff. But if you have some sort of service change that you made in a team, if it's a quip or whatever it is, I would still try and keep that in.

So I think Although, like, people are saying that sounds amazing, otherwise in training I don't think I've done anything particularly stand out. So I've not been very good at, like, doing a project that then has kept running, um, or like a complete audit cycle. So yeah, I don't know, I think I'd rather focus on— That's fine.

So first off, you don't have to have a project that's completed, um, I still think it's good if you've been involved in any way. You've probably got a guideline or pathway development that you could talk about through this, um, but I suppose you're— what you're trying to do is translate the bigger picture strategy straight into what's going to happen when you're on their team. Can you help lead projects, make change, which you can? So it's just to try and think of something to relate to that. But it's funny that you would have done this and still think that you haven't done anything. It's a bit like—

Well, in the rest of training, yeah.

Okay, but this is part of what you did during your training. I know you took time to do it, but yeah.

Yeah, I guess I'm worried that the panel are going to ask something specific, like tell me specifically about an audit or a clinical change project, and I'd rather get one of these in. I don't want to be penalised for— but I don't know.

So do you not have an audit or a quick—

Yeah, I do, but they're just— they are definitely not that impressive.

Okay, so tell me about one of them. What is it?

So one audit that I did was looking at discharge summaries. So I led the audit of 100 discharge summaries. We found that less— only Less than a third were sent to GPs within 24 hours, and for example, less than half had the reason that medications had been stopped, so it was a patient safety issue. And so this led to me leading a change in the electronic form and working with stakeholders including GPs and updating the induction programme for doctors at the trust.

That's a good USP. The only problem is that it's not as good as the amazing things you did in your CQC thing. That's the only reason you think it's not good. It's a good USP, it's the USP sort of thing that most people would have. So this is fine.

Great.

You've got a good problem. And I'm pretty sure this is going to be better than any teaching thing you'll have. And yes, if they ask you an education question, you can bring it in, but if you have 5 to 6 minutes to tell them, you're much better spending your time telling them about any of the stuff you've told me versus running a teaching day or something.

Yeah.

So yeah, I would, I would switch them.

Yes, thank you.

Great work. I'm excited for you. Okay, then let's see who we've got. We have Deepa. Is Deepa here? Deepa, you are here. If you are around, you want to unmute yourself and we can chat through a USP if you have. If not, we have Melissa. Melissa here.

Hi. Hi.

Did you want to chat through one of your USPs?

Yeah. And actually, this whole talk has been really helpful because I think I might just need to go back and rejig it all, actually. And one of them was, so I'm an ID um, consultant. And it's about how— but like, uh, my— I thought my USP was that I had 2 years extra out of my training, um, dedicated to HIV. And I've got like the dip— like an extra qualification, like the diploma in HIV as well, which is not very usual for like our specialty.

Okay.

Um, but then now I'm like Because that's just like time and—

Yeah, so it's— the diploma isn't a USP. Um, it's something that I would mention in tell me about yourself, but do you have— is it a clinical USP because you've got more HIV experience than the average person applying?

I think I— yeah, I do have more because I guess it's like what one of those years was with Médecins Sans Frontières and one of the— another year was in the NHS. And I guess I need to just flesh it out with like, I've been kind of like chaired an HIV masterclass, so there's some teaching within that. But then I think it gets all a bit muddled and becomes a theme rather than the single USP.

So I reflect, this is, this is true because you need to be able to tell the difference between, uh, clinical USPs and USPs that were Sorry, I'm just going to mute you, Robyn. USPs that were just done in that role, they're not the same thing. It doesn't mean that everything about HIV, everything you did that ever involved HIV comes into a clinical USP. So your clinical USP would be down to numbers of types of HIV patients or whatever it is you would categorize.

Right.

Because if you share some numbers, it's going to be more than the average person. So you say you've seen however many patients in clinic or however many patients admitted, that you'll be able to say quite quickly. Your teaching stuff and whatever other things could be other USPs that you did within that role. Um, and you'll say, and I did this as part of this role. Um, but there may be more than one USP within that, I think.

Yeah. So yeah, I think I need to kind of rejig that and like all the other ones as well that I have. So this is really helpful.

That's all right. Do you want to talk about another one or?

Um, so then yeah, I think I had said It's all a bit so general though, because I was like, oh, I think working like overseas on MSF missions and getting experience with like Ebola and like, I guess, this HIV thing. So like, I guess I think I need to be thinking about like my specific role in those missions and then flesh out that.

Um, Yeah.

And so, yeah, it could— some of that could be clinical experience as well. So this is your experience with Ebola patients or whatever. Um, I guess most people don't have that, I don't know. Um, so yeah, that, that would be a clinical USP, but there's also some leadership and management experience within that. So again, don't fall— yeah, what you're recognizing is right, which is just because it was in one role, it doesn't mean that everything you then did in that role was a USP, because otherwise then just cram loads of things into the one and you don't get to explore them in depth. And you can see the benefit of doing a deeper dive because then we really see, all right, you know loads of stuff about it, you've got loads of experience. And also it means you come across more like who you are and what you'll be on the team. So I would, yeah, try and pick them apart. And then you might decide that they're not all equal. Some won't be as good as others. With a clinical one, you can sort of lump a few things together. So you could say HIV, Ebola, and just put a few things in there as one clinical USP. Because all you're doing is sharing some numbers. And but the others that you'll do a deeper dive on, I'd probably separate.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I think it was just that those 2 I was like finding it difficult, but the other ones are like— the one of my other USPs are like a project, so then it's like a more contained thing. And now I think I might try and go back to those 2 and reflect on like, yeah, like just turning into a— into like, yeah, a more specific thing. Yeah.

And this is good because this is all the stuff that you want to spend time thinking about ahead of your interview. So yeah, this is good, and you can run them past us and we'll help you refine them. But it sounds like you know what you're doing and they're on the right track, so I think that's good. Well done. Okay, and then we have Rima. You put yourself for Spotlight coaching, but I don't know if you want to— is there something you want to discuss around your USPs?

Okay.

Okay.

I wanted to ask how to talk about PhD because it's kind of by its own right, it's not, it's not USP. But if you try to, to give specific, you want to talk about the design. So the groups of patients you, you involved, and it's become bulky and time-consuming. And so how to make it specific, because I would like to mention it, but I just—

Okay, tell me more about it. What's PGD?

So, uh, no, it was, it was a 4-year project. It was a clinical— I was clinician at the time. And, uh, what I noticed is that, uh, young female patients come through that, come through the door with myocardial infarction. So 35-year-old woman, myocardial infarction. So it's not, it's not kind of typical for this group of, uh, patients, but, but it's happened. And I started to dig up what is behind it. So I thought my vasculitis, some autoimmune conditions, I don't know, some viral, some I don't know, something. But it was boring ischemic heart disease in a group of people who didn't look after themselves very, very well. So no, I compared to older people, older women and young men to find the differences. And it was coronary angiograms to have a look what is the origin of that. It was lipid profile. It was risk factors. And it was how they recovered, how they, uh, how they did with the course of the, the events. So it was interesting project and at the end, uh, but just how, how to talk about it. You see, I did publications.

It's a research project, is it?

It was PhD. Yeah, it was.

What's, what's PGD?

PhD.

Oh, PhD. Oh, right.

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, of course. Philosophical doctor something. Yeah, this is definitely a USP for your PhD. So what you want to do is share the specifics. So think about how you can describe it, not in a subjective way, but in an objective way. So I know it's hard condensing your PhD down to 30 seconds. I know. But essentially, you want someone to understand the overview of the skills that you have. So that's likely to be numbers of patients, types of data that you looked at, types of results you demonstrated. It might be any publications. I don't know, did you get publications from your PhD?

Yes, yes, I managed to do 5 out of it.

5?

Yeah, yeah. So you—

that, that is part of what you'll say in the 30 seconds. You did X, Y. This was the reason you developed the PhD topic. This was the number of patients you looked at, the types of data, the types of things that you found. what you did with that, um, that you then got 5 publications in peer-reviewed journals or whatever you want to say out of it. That is the— and then you say, this was, this was my PhD. Um, so that, that's what I would do. But you, you need to get it— you need to be able to do this in 30 to 45 seconds in tell me about yourself. But then if you get a research question, you will— that'll be an absolute gift because you can talk through the challenges of you know, identifying the problem, whatever, ethics approval. Ethics approval is something— any ethics approval or funding should be included in the bullet points that you say at the start as well. So all of that just shows your skills that you're bringing to the team. But I think it's good.

So I have another question. So when I present my USBs, at the end of it, I'm saying what I learned. from it. So no, I've been advised to do it, but I don't know, does it really worth doing or not?

It's not that you're saying what you learned from it, you're saying what the challenges were. So in this, maybe there were challenges with recruiting the patients, with, I don't know, pulling the relevant data, with showing, demonstrating change in a small group of people. Persuading people there was impact from it. I don't know. It's the challenges that you found. I haven't done a PhD, so I don't know. But the challenges that you found when you did this PhD, that is what your learning is. If you were designing this project from scratch now, what would you do differently from how you did it then? That's what you're looking for for your deeper dive.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So it's not worth saying that my teaching program, for example, make me a better communicator in delivering knowledge.

Because then you're persuading them. You're persuading them.

Okay, okay. It's not as—

so instead, you want to just tell them what the teaching program is. You want to say, this is what I did, this is how often I did it, this is how many people I did it for, these were the challenges, this was, you know, the conflicts that arose, these are the mistakes. They know then that it shows that you're a good communicator. You don't have to— you're better spending time telling them the specifics than persuading them why it's a good thing.

Okay, okay.

Thank you. Yeah, that's very helpful. Yeah. Great.

Okay, thanks, Rima. Okay, then we had— I think we've got one more person who submitted theirs, which is Kumar. Is Kumar here? It does not look like Kumar's here. Okay, I'm just having a look in case there's any other questions in the chat. So there's a— yeah, there's a question about something far further in the past for a USP. And like Kate said, her audit is from foundation training. None of us would have had a clue that it was from then, and it doesn't matter. We don't need to know. So the only things that really flag the time frame is when you've done COVID-specific projects, because we all know that that wasn't, you know, 6 years ago or whatever. So I think these are the parts that are hard to disguise, the timing. But generally, no one knows and no one cares, and they're not asking you the time. It's about the skill. So thinking back to Kate's example, you wouldn't know, you think it's a good audit, it is a good audit whether it was done now or whether it was done 10 years ago, it doesn't matter. Does it matter if you organised a good teaching programme rather than doing the teaching? So I would say that organising the teaching programme is a stronger education skill than just delivering teaching because you're having to think about design. Now the difference is logistics is not a senior level skill. So booking a room, sending out email invites, collecting whatever is there, that is not a senior-level skill. So logistics that could be done by an admin staff member is not what you're trying to showcase for your substantive interview. If you designed the programme, think about curriculum development, navigating speakers, navigating feedback, teaching styles. That's, that's a USP. If you're just delivering teaching, it's hard for that to be a USP as a one-off. If you deliver teaching regularly over the course of a programme, Um, that could be a USP. So hopefully that clarifies. Um, okay. I think we will wrap up there. Well done to those of you who stuck it out. Hope you enjoyed it. The recording will go up tomorrow. And when the replay is posted of this session, you can post your USP under it and you'll get your badge. If you want feedback on your USPs, post them in the specific interview support channel. You won't get feedback posting them under this replay. You'll get feedback by posting them in a specific interview support channel. When you're happy, you sign them off yourself by posting them under this replay, um, and I will see you all on Circle. Thank you very much, everyone.