The Heart‑Sinking Weakness Example That Makes You Sound Entitled

Hello and welcome to the Ace Your Consultant Interview podcast. I'm Tessa Davis.

And I'm Becky Platt.

And if you're a final year trainee or a locum consultant and you want to prep, not panic, then you're in the right place. Hi, and welcome back to our Ace Your Consultant Interview podcast. I'm here with Becky Platt to consider some of the burning questions you might be asking when you're preparing for your consultant interview. Hello, Becky. Hello.

Let's get into it again.

So we're going to start with our student question of the week. This is a question that one of our Academy students has posed to us. So what question do we have this week?

So the question is, is it not advisable to use the same example twice? For example, if I'm asked values of the trust and it includes working well in a team, and then I'm asked another example where I worked in an MDT, then it's kind of the same example. Should I prepare 2 different kind of examples for it. What do you think?

Well, if the question is, can you use the same USP more than once, I think is probably the root of the question, and yes is the answer. So, your USPs are your best bits, and we advise our students to prep 5 USPs. And it's not that once you've said them, they're done. The idea of your USPs are that It's a project that you could probably give a 40-minute presentation about to your colleagues, say, a QIP that you've done, or an audit that you've done, or some sort of service change. So you have a ton to say about it. You should be mentioning it in your first question, and you tell me about yourself, for a short period of time, 30, 45 seconds. But hopefully, you'll get a chance to talk about other elements. Now, whether that is the angle of working well in a team, Whether it's an angle of, I don't know, whatever else is one of the trust values, which might be accountability or delivering effective evidence-based care. So there's loads of different angles. Now, you can't say literally the exact same thing in 2 answers. But realistically, the questions don't usually line up that you would be able to anyway. So you can definitely bring in the same USP again and talk about it from a different angle. And you should be, because otherwise you're just going to another example, which you're going to choose a project. or something that you've done that just is off the top of your head in the interview, it's probably not going to be— well, it's not going to be as good as your USP because that's your best bit. So it's much better, I think, to use something that you've prepared and just you're saying a different part of it. You're talking about it from a different angle. What do you think?

Yeah, agreed. I think that the whole point of preparing USPs and examples, because we also get our students to prepare 5 golden examples, is that under pressure, you don't choose a random example that shows you in a bad light, for one thing.

Yeah.

You do, because, you know, before you know it, you've told them about the worst thing that's ever happened to you. You've accidentally thrown yourself under the bus, and now you can't claw it back. Um, or you start talking about something, you can't really remember the detail, it doesn't land properly. Um, so actually, the point of having your USPs is that you— these, these are projects that you know in great detail. So that, you know, you'll be able to pick out, you know, the team working aspect here and the risk management aspect there and the quality improvement aspect there. So you will be able to answer multiple different questions using the same USP, but not using the same bits. So it won't be the same sentences that you're using. It will just be different parts of the same project. So absolutely, it's fine to use the examples more than once. We would expect you to, and that's a good way to prepare.

So we're going to go on and look at a golden example of the week. So this is an example that a student has prepped. This is an example of what is your biggest weakness, which is something we get our students to prep in their 5th milestone, 5th Academy milestone. So I'm going to tell you what they've suggested for their weakness, and we can see what we think. So the weakness is, when I started in my locum consultant role, I noticed I was still undertaking some registrar-level tasks during the day, such as routine letters and admin work that could be delegated. I realised that this was impacting my consultant responsibilities and sometimes meant staying late to complete higher-level work. What do you reckon about this?

Okay. So this weakness example is a key example to have prepared ahead of the interview so that you don't accidentally have to come up with something off the top of your head, and then you talk to the panel about something that's of a deal breaker. Now, I'm going to be honest, I don't love this. I think that it sounds like the person's kind of complaining a little bit about having to do some stuff that feels a bit kind of like—

Menial tasks.

Yes, menial tasks. Now, I appreciate, I'm sure that is absolutely not the way they were trying to come across, and what they're trying to say is, I want to be a consultant and step up and do the senior level things now. But the risk around this and the way it's framed is, look, I don't want to do that kind of crappy stuff anymore because I'm above that, and I should be delegating that to somebody else. I think that the other part of the issue is, for me, they're saying actually impacted on their ability to manage time, and now they're having to stay late. And I personally think that saying that you're not great at managing time is a high-risk weakness. Um, so I think I'd probably try and choose something else because I think this is not showing you in your best light, and if you don't tell it well, it's gonna land quite poorly and make you come across as probably sounding the— not the way you hoped to.

Yeah, I, I don't mind so much about the staying late thing because it's quite— they're saying it's a specific thing.

Mm-hmm.

So, I do think that part could potentially work, but yeah, I don't love the, I was doing reg— this is a reg-level task. Doing admin work is reg-level, and I should be concerning myself with more important things. I don't think it's the right kind of vibe that you want to be giving, because you want to be collegiate. In a locum role, you're doing service delivery more than senior team governance type things, so that's just the way it's going to be. So yeah, I just, yeah, I'm not sure this is the way that you choose to come across. I don't, it's not, I know it's true and it's reasonable and all of these things, but I feel they could choose something better.

Yeah, I think all of the time, particularly with these weakness ones, you've got to say it out loud, hear just how it lands. And I think if it, you know, if it's potentially showing you in a bad light, Just find something else. Yeah, you're only going to get this— be asked this question once. You only need one, and it just needs to be a good one.

Yeah, but it's so important to prepare because this was a great one where if you haven't thought of this, you're going to just overshare or say something terrible in the moment. So yeah, you have to, you have to prep this. Um, so it's good to be thinking about it, but part of it is just keeping going through the ideas in your prep. You have an idea, it's not the best one, that's fine. You keep going. Because the alternative is your first idea is the one you say in the interview. It's much better to have thought it through and gone through the filtering process before. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

And we've got an interview question that we're going to discuss, and it's kind of linked to this question. So, the interview question we've got is, what support will you need, and what will you hope to achieve in your first 12 months in the job? So, I think there's kind of 2 parts to this question. The what support will you need is, I think, quite a common question. And the reason I'm saying it's linked is because I think it's a version of the weakness question in that whatever you have prepped for your weakness, you can potentially use it for this, as long as you're happy with it and it's a good one. Because this is what support you'll need, what would the challenges be, what is your weakness, they're all asking— or a piece of negative feedback you've received. They're all asking you for one negative thing about yourself. I think the way you can go wrong here is just laying out a load of support that you'll need, or 3, because obviously we tell people all the time, but think of 3 points. So then you think of 3 things you'll need support with, this and this and this. But actually, when they're asking you for a negative, just give them one negative. If you want to use the 3s, one negative, 3 ways that you are going to help address it. And so as long as you make sure it's just one thing you'll need support for, Then I think that's the way to approach it. We've got this, what do you hope to achieve in your first 12 months in the job? What do you think would be reasonable to achieve?

I think you need to reference the fact that there's a period of settling in, and some of that is just, I'm going to settle myself in. I'm gonna make sure I know my team. I'm gonna, you know, build relationships. You know, if it's a new place entirely, I'm going to build relationships, making sure that I know the key people that I'm going to interface with and that I've got solid professional working relationships with those people. Equally, if it's somewhere that you've worked before as a registrar, I'm going to establish myself as a consultant, and I'm, you know, I'm gonna work out how to work in the you know, the senior team and be in this new role. So I think that kind of acknowledging that transition is probably a useful thing. And then I think that, you know, there may be a project that you want to achieve, or, you know, you may talk about something that you want to have achieved by your appraisal, or some particular, you know, what you want people to be saying about you inside the first 12 months. That would also be quite a nice one. I don't think you need to be changing the world in 12 months, but I think it's nice to have a couple of targets that you would like to get under your belt in those early days.

Yeah, and you're showing that this is the place you're aiming to stay, and, you know, that involves a settling-in period. But you're right, you want to have made progress. Using PERM, a PERM structure could be a good way of kind of covering all the bases of what you hope to achieve.

Mm-hmm.

And so, yeah, you don't have to use all of PERM, but you could actually say, well, for me, I want to still be happy in the job. From an experienced clinical point of view, then I'm going to be confident as a senior clinician, or whatever it is, and then just go through these. But I think, yeah, you're not going to have achieved any major milestones, but you're going to feel integrated into the team. You're going to feel more settled, more confident. and excited about the future in the team. I think that's generally what you want to get across.

I think so. I guess if you've, you know, if you've been specifically appointed with a new role in mind, you know, they've appointed you to set up a new surgical service or, you know, a new clinic pathway or something like that, then you could talk about some, you know, key performance indicators around that. You know, what would you expect to have achieved with regard to those specific projects? within that 12-month time frame, um, you know, if, if that's applicable to you. Um, so, you know, it might be specific around a project, it might be more general, but, but just talk about something sensible.

Yep. And you may have got stuff from the pre-interview meetings about this as well, because they might have— that could be something you discuss, like, what are you hoping for this person to do in 12 months? And then you can drop that in. I know from talking to The medical director, whoever it is, that actually this is what you're looking for. So I hope that I will have achieved that. And that's a nice way of just integrating stuff that you know and have learned about the team into it.

Yeah, I think so.

Great. And then we're going to look at our tip and trick of the week, which is how to show that you are passionate about the job you're applying for. So what do you reckon?

Okay. I think it's a really important part of it, and it seems, um, quite sort of nebulous in a way. And to be honest, it's probably not scored. It's probably not going to score you points. But if you demonstrate passion for the job inside those first few seconds of the interview, they're going to love you. It's about them, you know, being a nice warm person, uh, developing a bit of rapport, um, and making the panel think, oh, they really want to work here, that's so great. Um, So I think it's got to be about showing why it's this place, not why this specialty, why this area of the country, why it's this team in this department. And I think sometimes people even talk about why it's this trust and these, you know, they like the trust values and stuff. That's okay. But I personally think it's got to be about why is it this department, this team, this place. That has to be where you work, why this is your dream job, and what aligns you to them.

Yeah. And you need to know this to be able to tell them for it to come across in your interview, because you can tell a mile off if someone's just desperate for any job or any job in this specialty, and they've just applied because it's come up. And that you kind of sort of started talking about it there, but sometimes when we ask people to think about why they want the job, they come up with, the trust values really resonate with me, or the person spec is exactly what I was looking for, the job spec was exactly what I was looking for. And that is a disconnect because what you're trying to do is not show that you meet requirements or a tick box or whatever the corporate trust values are that the management have decided. It's about your connection with the panel, and you cannot connect with the panel based on meeting a person spec or even saying that you respect the trust values. It's not that there's not a place, 'cause they'll probably ask you a question about trust values. So that will happen. But this passion, this why do you want this job, is something that really is in your own words, from your heart, not in an overshare emotional way. But it does need to be something that is you, coming from you. People can find it a bit hard to say that or to find it, I think.

Yeah. I think it feels a bit awkward for people to say it. So you do have to find something that is genuine, and it's got to feel okay coming out of your mouth.

Yeah.

It's got to feel comfortable. You've got to be able to say it with a straight face, feeling warm, hopefully smiling, so that it genuinely sounds true. So you do have to think about what— why is this place— and, you know, even if it's, you know, when I came to visit the department, everyone was so friendly, people really welcomed me, and I could tell that people were, you know, valued me as an individual, not just my skill set. And I, you know, when I spent time with the, you know, the clinical director or, you know, whatever, I really got the impression that this is somewhere that's gonna encourage me to thrive and is going to value me as an individual. You know, being honest with you, you don't care about the trust values, You didn't even know what they were before you started preparing for the interviews. It's not about that. It's about something much more individual than that.

Yep, agree. And it's so important to find this because you can say it right at the beginning of your interview and you could win them over before you even start. This could be the first thing that you do, and they will— people love to be loved. They will love to hear that you really want this job. That's going to make them really happy.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, definitely try, keep practicing until you find something that you can say that feels authentic to you. If you can't find it, then fair enough, like, you can't force something, but I would say you do need to know why you want the job, and it can't be because it's convenient for your children's schools or whatever it is, which may— I'm sure there may be truth in that, but you have to find something to win the panel over with why you want it.

Yeah, I think, you know, let's be honest, if the panel feel warm towards you and they're already feeling, oh, they really want us, then they're just in a better frame of mind when they're scoring your answers. And, you know, the answers are scored by humans.

Yep.

So it is going to make a difference whether we like it or not.

It helps if they like you. Who knows how that will affect your score? So it's not going to hurt, so you should definitely try and do it. Okay. I think we will wrap up there. We're going to be back next week with another episode and lots of great stuff about interview prep, including looking at a question around diversity in the leadership. So, I will see you then.

Thanks.

See you later.