Someone walked into a locum consultant interview unprepared, then used three techniques from an Academy program: pausing before answering, structuring responses, and picking strong examples. The panel gave immediate positive feedback and said they didn't need follow-up questions.
Um, so yeah, so I was in a locum consultant post and the, uh, clinical lead who was my contact for getting that post had told me that I didn't— I wouldn't have to interview, it was fine, I wouldn't have to interview. Um, and then, uh, I was invited along to come along to a meeting and she was adamant it wasn't an interview. And then when I turned up, uh, lo and behold, it was an interview. Oh no. So I'd done absolutely no preparation whatsoever. I sat in a room and manifested some questions. I was like, let's hope they just ask me about an audit. Let's hope they just ask me about my past experience. But yeah, I absolutely just rambled. It all just came out. So I've been sent a link to it by Rachel, you know, your case study who returned from maternity leave. So Rachel is one of my closest friends. Very good. I know that the job that Rachel went for was extremely competitive. I didn't know she was doing the Academy. I was one of the people that she would send her recorded messages to, and I kind of saw her progression in terms of kind of like the messages she was sending through to me for advice on. And then when she sent out the link, I think after she got the job, and then when I saw she was the case study, I was like, that's how she got the job? That's how she got the job. That's how she did it. So yeah, it was a real kind of— I was like, oh my goodness, I'm going to have to do this. Because yeah, I, I know that the competition for the job that she went for was really high stakes, um, and she absolutely blew them out of the water. She smashed it. She smashed it. So it's absolutely pause and the structure. Absolutely the pause and the structure. And even, I think I was asked something and I couldn't think of 3 points. But I paused and I gave 2 points and I had good examples to back up both of those 2 points that actually I probably didn't really need to have 3 because part of the feedback that I got was I showed evidence that I was incredibly reflective and reflective on day-to-day practice, like the real life of the job. So it was that, the choosing the really good examples and having them there. Yeah, the pause, the structure, and having the examples. When I got the call, there was some really lovely feedback. I'd made their job really easy. There was no question about who was going to get the job. Also, they said that they noticed that I'd done a little pause and that they could see that I was clearly thinking about each question before I answered it. And they actually had more questions, so they had the follow-on questions, but they couldn't ask me the follow-on questions because I'd answered it first time. Yay! That's so good. Amazing feedback. So I'd say absolutely do it. Your team is so supportive. It's not just kind of going through the steps of the Academy. You've actually been like really tailored. You've taken the time to reach out to me. The feedback that you give on the videos and that you give back on the questions is really individualized. But the fact that I was trying to do it all in 2 weeks, you really did go out of your way to make sure that you really empowered me. It really did feel individualized. It didn't just feel like I was part of a cohort. And sort of going through the steps, it did feel that I was like properly part of a team. That's really nice. I'm very happy to hear you say that because we do work hard to make, to make that the case. I'm really glad you felt that.
