EP 58: Print Your Slides, Tech Fails More Than You Think

Tech failure when you go to do your presentation is more common than you'd think. Be prepared.

This week we're talking to anyone who feels like they've started prepping too late. We break down an example of a conflict with a colleague, and we tackle a question on the NHS and sustainability. Quick note before today's episode, enrolment for the Academy closes today. If you've been on the fence, this is the moment to decide. Links in the description. Welcome back to the podcast. Nice to see you, Becky. How are you?

I'm very well, thank you. It's great to see you.

You too. Let's get started. So, first up, we've got a student question. This is a question from one of our Academy students. What is the student question we have this week?

Oh, I'm worried about not being able to get ready in time. My interview is in about 3 weeks and I'm panicking. About talking too fast and rambling?

Yep, so quite a common feeling to have. Um, I do feel that sometimes when you prep, you kind of can start thinking, okay, this is fine, and then there's like a tipping point where you're like, oh my goodness, it's happening, I can't do this, I'm going to mess it up. And I think it's important just to recognize and stop yourself at that point so you don't just spiral from there on. Because actually, 3 weeks, it's a good amount of time. Um, you know, it's not like it's tomorrow. And so, but you don't want to spend the 3 weeks just spiraling with these same thoughts. So it's okay, you've got 3 weeks or however long you've got, and you've got whatever on in your life. How can you make the most of the time that you have available? And it kind of goes back to what we were talking about last week, which is The best way to make use of the time is definitely not worrying about how to make best use of the time, or all the things that will go wrong when you don't make best use of the time, because the days just go by. And then before you know it, the interview's here, and you've spent the last 3 weeks panicking. So, it's fine to have that feeling, but you need to be able to take a breath and just think, okay, what is the— what can I control?

Mm-hmm.

And you can actually control how you make the most of the time available, and just To think about one step at a time, and that will get you back on track rather than going down this route. And we spend a lot of time talking to students about this, and kind of maybe this is the tough love moment where it's like, come on, you need to get it together. And yeah, you can turn it around very quickly when you just recognise what you're doing in your brain and able to stop yourself.

So, I think, you know, The strategy is, and you know, this student's got 3 weeks, that's, that's actually okay. Look, what I would have said obviously is, you know, if you knew months in advance that you were coming towards, you know, CCT.

Why have you waited till 3 weeks?

Appreciate that's not helpful at this point. So, but with 3 weeks to go, you can absolutely do this. So, you know, focus. So the things we need to do are think about, you know, what your unique selling points are. What makes you the right person for this job? What are your— what's your kind of portfolio of projects and things that you've done that show a good amount of transferable skills that you can bring to this job? Think about, you know, some golden examples that you're going to be able to weave into your interview about things like conflict with a colleague, conflict with a patient. So that you're not going to inadvertently throw yourself under the bus with a bad example.

Yeah.

And then start practising out loud using some proper structure so that you can actually hear yourself get into the zone of what it sounds like to have to formulate an answer to any question. And, you know, just get it out there, start talking, and find a few sensible points to say. Um, you know, we were talking last week about practicing out loud and the importance of that. So that is the cornerstone. Don't spend 2 and a half weeks of this 3 weeks writing out the answers to what you think are the most common 150 questions of your interview and reading multiple CQC reports and stuff. Spend that time working out what you bring to this job and practicing out loud.

Yep. And we were talking before we recorded this episode that this student did actually— she just got her job. Seriously, it was actually fine. Um, she was able to turn it around and she was able to smash it. So even if you're in that position of panic, um, you, you can get on top of it and get yourself back on track.

Yeah, it was super exciting because she put in a great performance and she got the job. That just goes to show Real life example that it is actually possible.

Yep. Okay, let's go on to our golden example. This is an example that one of our students have given us. We've got a conflict with a colleague example today. The example is, as a locum consultant, I triaged a referral from a gastroenterology colleague who had a patient with IBD on biologics that developed psoriasis. The pictures showed very mild involvement of the skin disease, So I advised on treatment, declined the referral, and requested to re-refer if the condition worsened. The consultant was very upset as she felt there was an understanding between specialties that I should have accepted the referral even if the patient was mild. I explained the rationale for declining the referral at this point and reassured that I'd be very happy to see the patient if this was needed, but things should improve with the treatment suggested. What do you think?

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not keen on it. There's a couple of reasons why.

Okay.

I just don't think this example shows you as being the collegiate, teamworking, building interspecialty relationship type of person that you would like to be. And I appreciate this may not have met your referral criteria, this might be entirely reasonable, but I think if you say in the interview that you declined a referral and somebody else was upset about it, it's just not going to land well. And, and I think it's going to potentially come across as you going, and look, I actually have reviewed the referral track here and I was definitely right. Um, and I, I, I'm sure that's not at all what you did, but the problem is when we, when we give these examples and when we tell the story in an interview, we're under a lot of pressure. It might not come out of our mouth in quite the way that we intended it to. And so, if it's a slightly unsafe example like this, you could end up coming across as somebody that you don't want to sound like.

Yeah, I think also there's the element of being right about the clinical stuff, because they're like, not just right about the referral criteria, but the reason that there's so much detail in here about whatever the biologics and the psoriasis is, because they're trying to show why they were clinically right. And so it does take away the focus for the reason that you're doing a conflict example, which is about how to resolve the conflict with your colleague and how you view conflicts with colleagues and in the context of building a good relationship with them. And here, you're not going to get a chance to do that because you're mostly trying to explain why the psoriasis was mild enough that it didn't need to be seen by you or whatever. And so it's a distraction. And when people kind of share too much clinical information, it just gets bogged down in the clinical ins and outs, and that is not at all what it's about. It's a non-clinical question about conflict resolution. That's what you need to focus on, and that's why a simpler example gets you there quicker and allows it to be clearer, more clearly about the conflict.

Yeah, I mean, look, remember, in your interview, you want to be seen as the person that everyone wants on their team.

Yeah.

Um, and the way to do that is to show that you're, you know, you're a great team player, you love working with colleagues, you're here to build the relationship, you know, all of that kind of stuff. Um, and while this might be an entirely appropriate, um, reason to decline the referral, um, I think it is not showing you in the light that you want to be shown.

Yeah, agree. Okay, let's go on to the interview question of the week. So what in this is an actual interview question that someone's been asked? What what question have we got this week?

What role do you think that clinicians should play in making the NHS more environmentally sustainable?

Dum dum dum. Yeah, it's quite. I think it's an actually it's a really good question.

Yeah, I do too, but it's initially a bit like, ow. I know.

What do I have to do with the environment? Yeah, but 'cause it's so relevant and it's definitely something, and it also will vary on your specialty as to how much impact this can have. But whatever specialty you're in, the amount of waste in the NHS and our role in, like, our potential role in being part of improving this is significant. And so, I think it's a really good question. But yeah, will be stressful if you have not thought about it. And so it's just thinking, okay, what elements of environmental sustainability could you have? I think particularly in anaesthetics, there's a lot around gas usage. And we, and you know, in paediatrics around inhaler usage as well. So that's definitely relevant. What other things do you think, I guess, around paper wastage?

Paper. People have done some really great projects on things like in theatre, not opening the whole kit of stuff when they're just doing a small procedure. People have done stuff around PPE and, you know, the right amount of PPE to use and, you know, when we should use what. Projects, you know, even things that are aligned to college work, like the Royal College of Emergency Medicine's got a Green AED project.

Yes.

You could talk about something that you've done within that sort of wider context.

Yeah, I think it's worth looking at your college website to see, because they will have something on sustainability. I don't think this is like a really common question that comes up, but you'll be much happier if you've read about it before when it does. So I think it is worth just having a glance through. I wouldn't spend endless time prepping this as a question, but you should know a few strategies that you can then draw on. And ideally, you— same with all the questions— ideally you'll be bringing in your experience of where it's been implemented or how it's been implemented.

I think, yeah, there's an opportunity to show some nice stuff and to be a bit thoughtful about it. Yeah. Um, if you can quell that initial panic, um, and hopefully just draw on some stuff that you've read as a result of listening to us today. Yes.

Um, and you can write to us and thank us for it when it comes up. Now we've got our tip and trick of the week. This is a very important tip and trick, and this is around your presentation and your slides, and in particular, to actually print off and have a copy of your slides and/or your notes in the event of tech failure, because we see it so often, don't we? Is something goes wrong with the tech in the moment.

Most NHS trusts have got absolutely terrible tech.

Yeah.

Um, you know, think about trying to get on any Teams call, you know, group room or something. It's just a total disaster. Um, but if, if this is happening in your interview, either, you know, you've, you've done it, you're doing it in person, and, you know, you just can't get the, you know, the laptop cable to plug into the screen, or some just nonsense like this in the NHS, or you're on a Teams call and, you know, you're doing an online interview and you can't get the slides to come up, or they were going to do it and they won't come up, or you haven't got the right permissions or some nonsense around that. It can totally derail you. And, and actually, we had a student, um, last week who did an interview. She— this exact thing happened, um, and there was a whole load of farting about, um, related to tech failure. And she said, well, don't worry, I've actually got my slides printed out And she just delivered the presentation and got the job.

Yeah.

Um, and there was no, you know, stress around it. She just did it because she'd already prepared for it, and it just made such a difference.

Yeah, I think you just— I— in an ideal world, it will all work well, but just assume it's not going to and imagine what's going to happen. Because, because this is likely the first thing in your interview, if it goes badly and you get flustered, and, you know, it can really just It gives a very downward trajectory to the rest of your interview. And because we've seen it happen so many times in so many different situations. We had one student, I remember, he got everything set up in the room and it was all ready to go. And he started doing the presentation, but as soon as he clicked to go on to the next slide, the whole thing went black and it stopped working.

Oh no.

So it's like, it's really hard to keep your flow when that happens. And so you should just have a plan B. That is what you need. Let's imagine everything, all tech goes down. Can I still deliver it? It's a reason not to have all of your text on slides like that anyway, to have very light slides. And then, so my ideal would be very light slides in that it's just a few words of the point you're saying. So it actually doesn't matter if it's there or not. And you have any notes you need. You hold them in your hand, any notes you need to remember what you're trying to say. And then it does not matter if the slides are there or not there, and that's it.

Yeah, exactly. If you've written a whole paragraph of text on your slides and you were planning on reading it out, first of all, don't ever do that anyway.

Don't do it.

But, um, but that's just not going to work for you because now you've got nothing.

No. And also, you can— some of these presentations are just 5 minutes. They're so short. It's a long interview answer. That's all it is. You don't, maybe don't even need slides in the first place at all anyway, and then you can avoid all the stress. But in a longer one, 8 minutes, 10 minutes, it's not that common to get ones longer than that. You would have some slides, but yeah, don't be over-reliant on them. Expect the unexpected and have a plan for tech failure. It'll just make your life so much easier. And in fact, with that student you mentioned this week, the panel were specifically fed back about how calm she was when the tech went down, and they were very impressed with that. So it actually ended up In her favor. It worked in her favor that the tech didn't work.

Yeah. And also, now think about it, now she's, she's come across as somebody who can cope with the unexpected, who can work well under pressure, who's adaptable.

Yeah.

Um, and who can, you know, just get, get the job done. And, you know, now they're thinking, you know, she's even better than we thought she was.

Yep, exactly. Um, so yeah, definitely be prepped. Um, okay. I think we will wrap up there. Thank you for another excellent episode. I will see you next time.

See you next time.