How Long Should My Answers Be In My NHS Consultant Interview?

If you ask around, you're going to hear hundreds of different opinions about how long your interview answers should be in your NHS substantive consultant interviews. 2 minutes? 5 minutes? Longer? In this video, I'm going to share exactly how you can work out what length of answer you're aiming for so that you get it right in your interview. Well, for the vast majority of your questions, you should be aiming for 3 to 4 minutes per answer. And here's why. You are likely going to have 40 to 45 minutes allocated for your interview. You're going to have around 7 people on the panel. Each person is going to ask you between 1 and 2 questions. That's somewhere between 7 and 14 questions. You are not going to know how many questions there are going to be in your interview. There's no way to know exactly, but one thing is for sure, they're going to ask you every single question that they have planned to ask you because the substantive interview has to be the same for all candidates. So whatever their list of questions are is coming your way. So either they cut your answers short or they let you finish. So before we go on to look at what happens if you get cut short, I've actually prepared something to help you get started with your prep. If you'd like to get a sneak peek at some interview questions, I've put together a list of the 15 most common questions being asked this year. You can download them for free at the link in the video, and it's also in the description underneath the video. Okay, so let's say you get cut short. This means someone stops you in the middle of your answer. I've coached hundreds of candidates through their interviews, and it's actually really uncommon that you get cut short in your answers. The only time that this will happen is if you're rambling, if you're going on for a really long time, like longer than 6 or 7 minutes, if you're not clear on where you're headed or where it will end or if it will ever end, or you're giving a completely irrelevant answer. But actually, if you give a clear, structured answer where you signpost your points and that answer is in 3 to 4 minutes, they're not going to cut you off. What you don't want to happen is that you've got a 40-minute interview slot and you finish up your interview in 20 minutes. Because if that happens, you know you haven't made the most of your time available. It doesn't mean you won't get the job if you finish your interview in 20 minutes. To get the job, you just need to be appointable and you need to score higher than your competitors. But you're certainly reducing your chances because it means that someone else, one of the other candidates, could be using that time to their advantage and scoring more points. So what's the advantage of speaking for 3 to 4 minutes versus 1 to 2 minutes? Well, the clear benefit is that you can develop your points more and showcase your skills and experience. So it means you've got more chance to score higher. They can only score your points for what you say, and it would be really hard to score full marks with a 1-minute answer. It's as simple as that. So you really want to make the most of your time. But there is an exception to this 3 to 4 minute rule, and that's the first question, which is going to be a version of tell me about yourself, because you can get away with a longer answer for that first tell me about yourself question. The panel wants to hear about you, and it's the opening question, so they're much less likely to cut you off at the start. I've really not heard of anyone that I've coached who've been cut off in that first question unless it's just going so well that they feel that they've got great amounts of information from you already and they don't need to hear more from you. Make the most of your opportunity to have a bit longer to talk to them about yourself and to share your skills and your unique selling points. So in this tell me about yourself question, you can get away with 5 to 6 minutes. If you're getting towards 7 minutes, it's probably too long, but 5 to 6 minutes for this and 3 to 4 minutes for your average answer. So now you know how long to aim for with your interview answers. But knowing the length only helps if you don't sound like you're rambling on for 3 to 4 minutes. In the next video, I'm going to show you how to structure your answers so you don't ramble, and you can watch that video here.