In this YouTube excerpt, Charannya (Speaker A) explains how the Academy’s interview‑preparation platform helped her secure a consultant interview shortlist within the NHS. She highlights the value of one‑on‑one coaching with Becky, a library of podcasts, videos, and written resources, and the power of repeated exposure during commutes. By structuring her answers and practicing the classic “tell me about yourself” prompt, she built confidence. When faced with a curveball question about feedback, she initially prepared a negative‑feedback example but, during the interview, reframed it into a positive story about patient flow and care, turning a potential weakness into a strength. Speaker B affirms the importance of staying authentic while adding structure. Charannya concludes that the Academy’s training goes beyond interview drills—it also prepares NHS professionals for board meetings, cross‑departmental interactions, and overall professional presentation.
Chapters
I think the platform's extremely helpful. I downloaded a lot of the resources onto my iBook, so it helped while I was at work just looking through things. I think what helped was the one-on-one call that I had with Becky specifically also, 'cause we went through the USPs that I thought were beneficial, but then again, narrowing things down, saying exactly what's needed, and that whole tell me about yourself, that practice really helps. You know, listening to obviously all of your web resources, you had so many online videos, videos, which helped. The podcast helped. Um, driving to work back and forth, just listening to it again and again and again. That, for me, repetition like that helps. I was very nervous, and then I told myself that there was no point. So I looked at all of the examples and all of the example questions that were there on the platform, put all of my answers in. So I realized then that it was not going to be difficult because technically My examples were already part of all of the answers. So I just needed to be me in structured form. Woke up in the morning, again, just listening to the podcast on my journey in helped. And then that's it. So I think I told myself I can only be whoever I mean, I can only give it my best shot and be me. And I've been shortlisted. So I just have to perform.
Yeah, I think that's a great way to think of it. I really like the idea of being you but in structured form. Because that's exactly what you want to do. You're not trying to be me or someone else. But you need to just give yourself a bit of structure so that it's not all over the place, but still be you.
Maybe one interesting thing was the fact that, you know, the question about one piece of advice that stuck with you or one feedback that stuck with you. I changed it around initially. I looked at negative feedback as one of my examples, but actually I changed it on the day. I don't know how that happened. I think it was just I got comfortable, but I talked about a positive feedback and then I spun it around from the CEO that she gave us a positive feedback, but it was all due to patience patient flow and patient care. And then I spun it around to say that these are the ways that we can improve patient care and patient flow within the department and the hospital. So I think, I mean, that was a bit of a curveball, but I managed to turn it around. So it didn't sound like as if I was like, oh, I'm so proud of myself. But all of my examples of feedback were, I thought in my head, and all the prep that I did was for negative. Then I thought, let me just spin it around. Because I think either the podcast or probably the online resources actually mentioned to spin things around in a positive way. So it doesn't look like It's your weakness. It's more of a strength. I would like to thank the Academy. What this Academy provides is basically a full-on preparation, not only for interviews, for consultant interviews. I think it's for any interviews, which us in the NHS are probably not that great because you're never really prepared for these things while training. So I think this is not only interview prep, I think it's prep for dealing with board members, dealing with other departments, dealing with other personalities. and essentially just presenting yourself well, isn't it? So I think it's— there's a lot more to it than just the interview.
