Ep 34: Mastering Consultant Interviews: Answering Tough Questions and Owning Your Role

Welcome back to our Ace Your Consultant Interview podcast. I am here with Becky. Hi, Becky, how are you?

Hiya, I'm great, very happy to be here.

So first up, we're going to look at a student question of the week. This is a question that one of our Academy students have asked us, and the question this week is, if they ask why this trust, which is quite a common question, and I'm applying to more than one job, more than one trust, How honest should I be?

I mean, what I really want to say is not honest. What I mean by that is, look, you're in an interview—

For that trust.

For that trust, yeah. They don't necessarily know that you've applied to another trust, so that does not need to be mentioned in the interview and it should not be part of it at all. If you get offered the job later and there's a delay period, that's a separate issue, but inside the interview, the ethos that we're going for is, this is the job. This is the job of my dreams, at the trust of my dreams, with the team of my dreams. So I think you've got to really think about what it is about this trust that works for you. So, you know, and think specific. I would think about it in a few different ways. You know, think about what it is about this team and this department that rocks your world. And, you know, potentially think about some other things that are kind of wider trust-related if the question comes up in that way. But you've got to make them believe that this is the job.

Yeah. And we talk about this a lot because we know in reality that not everyone is applying for their dream job because there's loads of reasons you would apply. Maybe it's the only job that's going to be available. Maybe it's geographically near. But it doesn't really matter because in that moment, you have to know and believe that you want to work there and that this is the place you want to work. And you have to be able to convey that to the panel. And so if you go in with the, well, I mean, I really want the other job, or, I don't really like this place, or, I'm not sure, the panel are going to know. And so you have to just get yourself into a headspace where you know why you want the job and you go in wanting it. Otherwise, you're just putting yourself on the back foot before you've even started.

Yeah. I think you can't have that narrative in your mind. You've just got to go all in with this prep. And that's the focus of that day. And there can't be this other story in your head because they will know it.

Yeah. And if you think about the point of view of the panel, and they're sitting listening to different candidates, if one candidate absolutely loves the place and is telling you how much they love it, they know it, they've done their research, or they've worked there before, they've done all their due diligence in getting to know the trust, They clearly want the job versus someone who's just giving generic answers about a job and doesn't seem to know why they want to work there. There's no contest because you want someone on the team who's enthusiastic, who wants to be part of your team, and is happy to be there. So you just need to do some digging deep beforehand. If you're applying for a job, you need to know why you want it. Let's go on to our golden example. We have a duty of candour example this week. So, a time you did duty of candour. Do you want to run us through what we've got this week?

Yeah. So, the patient needed a platelet level within 4 hours of having an epidural. The blood samples got lost. The patient had to be re-bled, and the epidural was delayed when she was in active labour and in pain. The student spoke with her and apologised, re-bled her, and explained why we needed a platelet level and did her epidural later. So this is an example of a duty of candour golden example.

So just, yeah, I suppose there's— I don't know if there's too much detail in it or it needs— because it does need you to think about what's happening. But essentially, this woman was in labour and couldn't get an epidural because We lost the bloods that were needed to allow her to be able to have one. And so it did. So with the duty of candour example, the key thing that we advise our students is that it shouldn't be your mistake. So in this scenario, you need not to be the person who lost the bloods or dropped the bloods or whatever it is that has happened. I would guess it may be a lab issue, but you just need to be clear that this wasn't your mistake. And the reason is that it will just be really distracting if you made the mistake. Because actually, this patient kind of— there was harm to this patient because they were in active labor. And in the end, I suppose they got the epidural, but there was a delay and it did cause the patient distress.

Mm-hmm.

And when you made the mistake, you're going to spend a lot of time or some time explaining why you made the mistake, explaining why it happened. Like we always say, remember the point of why they're asking you this question. They're asking the question— the question is really asking, do you have experience of doing duty of candour, and do you know the steps of duty of candour? And anything else that distracts you from that is taking away from likely a good score in the answer. And so if you spend a lot of time explaining the mistake, then it takes away from that. And so we usually advise students, or always I would say advise students, to separate themselves from the mistake in the duty of candor example. So if in this example, they were just on, and this patient was— they were the person in charge, and this patient had to have their epidural delayed because the bloods were lost, and their job was to do duty of candor, that's probably a clearer way to explain it and say it. And then I think it would be good, I think. Mm-hmm.

I do too, yeah. I think, because I think in a nutshell, the kind of the beginning of this answer is, a time when I did duty of candour was when I had to speak to a woman whose epidural had been delayed while she was in active labour because her blood samples got lost. Fine, now we know what we're talking about.

Yeah.

And then you can just go through those steps. And I think what I like to hear in a duty of candour example Or answer is a bit of reflection on what it was like to have that conversation. So, how did the conversation go? You know, was your patient angry and shouting at you because this mistake had been made? Did they accept it and tell you that they valued your honesty? You know, how did it go?

I'd say in that moment, you'd be pretty annoyed.

I mean, I would be pretty annoyed because let's face it, being in active labour is quite painful.

Yeah, you don't need this as well, really. Yeah.

But just as part of your answer, just reflect on that a little bit. That's, you know, think about the steps, the process, you know, what we're going to do about learning, and just reflect on, so what I've learned about that duty of candour conversation is, you know, and then just talk a little bit about that. Yeah.

What do you think if this was a mistake? So let's say the person dropped the bloods or whatever, and, or lost them or mislabelled them. What would you say?

I don't particularly like it because it feels, it feels too big, you know, somebody's had their pain relief delayed at a painful time.

Mm.

I think other examples where blood results got delayed or bloods went in the wrong tube or something like that probably do work, as long as the kind of outcome for the patient is there's a bit of delay or, you know, some inconvenience or something like that. Um, but I think with this particular one, because there's been this delay to pain relief, yeah, um, and it had probably quite an impact on the woman, I think that I would avoid it.

Probably. It's probably a bit specialty dependent in that someone in this specialty can probably make it, you know, if you were in anaesthetics or, you obstetric anaesthesia, you would know whether this is like a big deal or not a big deal. And so, some of it is down to like, would the panel be, that's terrible, or would they be like, it happens? And if it's a, that's terrible, then it's not going to be a good mistake example.

I think, tell 10 of your colleagues this example and see whether they're shocked. Or if they go, yeah, I mean, that's happened to all of us. Or if they go, oh dear.

Eek. Yeah.

Then don't use it. It's a nice duty of candour, I think. It's easy to understand, and that's one of the things that really helps with the duty of candour example.

Okay, so we're going to go into looking at an interview, actual interview question that's been asked. The question this week is this: We are in a financial crisis. What value can you add?

Oh, oh, that— I mean, that On the face of it, this feels like quite an ugly question, right?

Yeah.

Okay, so what can we add? So, I think often the way to think about these kind of money questions is, the model that we use is to kind of get our students to think about input, throughput, and output. And I like to think about money and efficiency as being kind of fairly closely aligned, and actually, If you're a consultant early in your career, you probably haven't got actually that much scope for making money or particularly saving money. I think there's a couple of things that you can say about saving money. One of those is probably just thinking about the rota and proper staffing levels and not using locums and stuff like that. The other way that I would talk about that is, again, to use input, throughput, and output, and to think about efficiency as cost saving. So, I'd probably approach it like that.

Yeah, I think so. And I think you can just directly say that improving flow in this way, getting patients through the service quicker, or getting patients in or out quicker, it will have a cost saving because you're going to be spending less on hospital beds or whatever else it is. Theater time. And so, it does have an impact on cost saving. I don't think you need to get bogged down into numbers of how much value you're going to add, because I think you just tie yourself in knots doing that.

Mm-hmm.

But actually, the flow way of looking at flow is a good way. If you haven't been involved in a business case or a financial cost-saving measure, which most people will not have— some people have done some great cost-saving stuff, and they could obviously— that would be easy. That would be a gift if you've done that. You can then talk about it. But most people have done projects to improve patient flow and quality of care. And all of these actually add value, financial value, to the trust because quality care means more efficient care. It means patients in and out quicker and safer with less interventions and less complications. And so that's what you're contributing to. And I think initially it sounds like a really stressful question. Also because it started with, we're in financial crisis, which is quite a full-on thing to say to someone in an interview. But it has been asked, which is why we've talked about it.

Yeah.

So they're saying it in a very full-on way. But actually, the question of what value you can add or how you can help with cost saving or cost efficiency is probably a pretty reasonable question. And so I think the goal is don't panic when they ask you a question and use that pause that we talk about to think, What are they actually asking me here?

Yeah, we've had some students who've done some really nice projects. One person recently that I was talking to had done a project where they had created a one-stop shop for— they'd put several specialties in clinic together, patient comes to one appointment, so they can demonstrate that they've reduced the the number of clinic appointments that their patients need by 2/3. And they were able to actually talk about that as a financial cost saving as well. Now, if you can't get the money around that, it stands to reason that if you've improved flow, reduced clinic appointments, you must have demonstrated a cost saving as well with that. And you've also delivered a much nicer patient experience for them as well, which, let's face it, is actually the whole point.

Yeah.

So I think, think about money in terms of efficiency, and that's probably an easier way to approach it than to just kind of think about, oh God, you know, how am I going to make the Trust money or actively save actual cash? Because that's not what you're going to be doing.

No. Yeah, that's good. And we, you know, some people do have really great stuff around cost saving, and if you've got— if you do have it and you've got numbers to show, Then this is going to be a great— you're going to be so happy to get this question. But if you're in the majority group, which is where you haven't done this, you can still come up with a good answer for it. Okay, now we're going to look at our tip and trick of the week. This week, we're talking about the I, not we phenomenon. I think often when we hear students talking about their USPs, they say, we did this, we did that. And then we did this. And sometimes they're saying it 15 times in one USP, we, we, we, we. What do you— I suppose we often advise them to use I. What is the reason that we're trying to encourage people to use I instead of we?

And I know why people find this cringey, because basically everything that we do in the NHS is about teamwork. But what we need you to show in the interview is that you can take the lead, you can take ownership, and that you can step up and think and act like a senior. And sometimes that means you taking individual responsibility for it. It also means on your projects that you're able to describe, you know, impact that you personally made so that the panel can be really, really clear on You know, they led this project and they got this fantastic outcome as a result of their specific actions. If you say we all the time, then it just dilutes it, and now the panel doesn't really know what role you took in that team, whether you were just kind of along for the ride or whether you drove the whole thing forward.

Yeah, and it's the, you know, I We— I was on— so sometimes it will be like, I was on this committee. We met 5 times a year. We made X, Y, and Z change. And the same with a project where you're listening to it and you don't know, were they just sitting at the back of the room scrolling on their phone during the committee meeting? Or were they actually doing something? And actually, when you dig deep with the student, they've done something amazing. They've had an amazing role. But there's no chance you would know that from saying we. We did this. We did that.

Yeah.

And the key thing is remembering that the panel want to give you a job. They actually don't care that much about what the other team members did because they're not employing them to come on their senior team. So what's important is, yes, of course, collaboration and teamwork is a key issue. But what you want to do is say what your role was. I sat on the whatever committee. My role was to be the trainee rep. I represented 80 trainees. Or my role was to be the whatever to make sure that we got the data collected. And so this is what I did.

Yeah.

And so just pulling out what your role— and this is nothing dishonest. You're not claiming credit for things that other people did. What we want you to do is find out what you can truthfully say about your role and say it. So my role was X. I was on a team that did this. My role was to do X, Y, and Z. And I think it's just so much stronger, and it makes it much clearer for the panel.

Yeah. I mean, it goes back to what we were saying last week about being able to sell yourself without feeling arrogant. It, again, is about this honesty. If there was stuff that you did, tell them that. It's okay to be proud of really good stuff that you've done.

Yeah.

Use I. There will be times in your interview where you're being asked to demonstrate teamwork, and therefore, you will be describing a much more collaborative approach and valuing the different team members, and so on. But if you're talking about something where you've done it and you've demonstrated the impact, own it. You're there to sell yourself. We say this time and again, nobody else is going to sell you.

No, it's down to you. It's down to you. If we could come in with you, we would do it, but they frown upon that sort of thing, so you can't bring us in, or a nice friend or family member. So yeah, it is your job to sell yourself and just put yourself out there and just be clear on what you've done. OK, great. Well, I think we will wrap up there. Another lovely episode chatting to you, Becky. Thank you as always, and look forward to seeing you next week.