The Heart‑Stopping “One Negative Word” Interview Question – And How to Answer It

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. Welcome back to the Ace Your Consultant Interview podcast. I am here with Becky Platt. Hi, Becky, how are you?

Hiya, I'm good, thank you. Ready to go.

Let's do it. So, we're going to start with a student question of the week. This is a question that one of our Academy students have asked. What is our question this week?

So, the question is, do I really need separate examples for teaching, or can I just talk about my day-to-day teaching on the ward?

Yeah, okay. So, teaching quite commonly gets asked about, and you're probably going to include teaching as one of your USPs, or certainly something you're going to talk about in Tell me about yourself. I think there's a few pet hates I have around how people talk about teaching. One is definitely saying that you've got a passion for teaching. Everyone says this and it just doesn't mean anything. I've got passion for teaching. But the other is using the vaguest terms, which essentially goes, I have experience, lots of experience doing local, regional, and national teaching. And when you say that, it means literally nothing. It's like, sometimes I teach Bedside teaching, sometimes I've presented somewhere, but we know nothing. It is like the most nondescript thing. And in my view, it's a waste of a sentence. So I would encourage you, anyone listening, if you've said it before, you're in good company because lots of people say it, but it actually doesn't tell the panel anything. What you want to do is the same as what you're doing with all of your projects, is find a really specific thing to tell them to showcase your teaching experience. So, I don't think day-to-day teaching on the ward is really notable. You would be expected to do this as part of your job. So, what you're trying to do in your interview is show things that are different about you and things that you're proud of and happy to showcase. So, there'll be loads of teaching things that you'll have done, and it's about picking the best examples of some way that you can showcase your skills. skills in teaching and education. What sort of stuff have you heard, Becky, for teaching USPs or teaching examples that you think goes well for people?

I really like it when people talk about something specific that they've done. So, you know, for example, we've got somebody in the Academy at the moment who's done tons of simulation stuff, and he's devised some really innovative simulations that address particular problems in their local area, and they simulated these particular different difficult scenarios. They've trained hundreds of people, and they've had excellent feedback, and it actually helps people to do their jobs better on the shop floor. They can demonstrate that. And actually, as a result of these simulations, they've demonstrated that people are handling difficult conversations around a particular topic better. and they've got some feedback from parents who've been on the receiving end of that. I mean, that is a great example of teaching.

Yeah.

So, you know, be as specific as you can. Equally, you know, you might talk about, I regularly deliver a session on, you know, whatever my specialist topic is to a group of medical students. I've delivered this topic 3 times a year for the last 3 years. I teach it to a group of 40 medical students at a time. I map it to their curriculum. I use mixed methods teaching approach with this, this, and this, and this is the evaluation I've got.

Yeah.

Actually, that tells the panel something about what you are like as an educator, and that's what they need to hear.

Yeah.

So just, I think, be specific. Use some solid examples.

Yeah, I think the curriculum planning stuff is really a good way of doing it, is thinking— is the difference between you giving one teaching session that's great and actually planning a curriculum and thinking about how that— the methods of delivery, thinking about how to assess whether it goes well, and the different types of audience that you might have. All of that shows much more higher senior-level educator thinking versus, I've done a great teaching session and my feedback was 10 out of 10 or whatever, which—

Yeah.

Doesn't really say much, is very reg level. Because that's essentially what you want to do all the way through your training is deliver good teaching sessions. But we want you to think beyond that and showcase beyond that in your consultant interview.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think if you want to include day-to-day teaching on the ward round, don't just say, people love going on my ward rounds because they always learn a lot. Tell them what is it that you personally do differently on a ward round that ensures learning, and how can you demonstrate that? What is the specific output of that, and how do people demonstrate it? What does it mean in their portfolios? What feedback have you had? You know, whatever it might be. Um, but, but be specific and show that you do something a bit innovative if you possibly can.

And you can say, for example, last week I did a session on X. I got a survey beforehand to see what people's baseline knowledge was. We did this, this, and this. So you can actually draw— it's a good way to draw in a specific topic to talk about a particular teaching session. So the answer is that you do need an example for teaching. You don't have to have a USP that is teaching, but you should know a project that is your strongest teaching thing that goes beyond saying, I've done local, regional, and national teaching, because then you can think of me eye-rolling on your shoulder when you do that. So stop yourself doing that and try and pick something much more specific and bring out the themes we've talked about. I think that's better. Okay, we are going to go on to talk about our golden example of the week. This is an example that one of our students has suggested. This example is about a conflict with a colleague, and I'm going to tell you the example and you can let me know what you think. So the example is that I was taking referrals for my neonatal unit, and a consultant wanted to transfer a baby from another unit, but I felt the baby was too unstable to transfer, and the consultant was annoyed with me on the phone that I wouldn't take the baby. So this is a conflict with a colleague. What do you think about this?

I think it's a little bit risky, potentially. It might work. I'll kind of tell you why. I think one of the things that we absolutely want to avoid in this conflict example with a colleague or with the patient is looking like you're somebody who's obstructive and immovable.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, blocking somebody's referral, um, looks like you're somebody who potentially doesn't work nicely with other colleagues. Yeah. And that's not what— not what you want to show.

You don't want that in your interview. Because also, it's thinking like about the person on the other side. Like, if you were the person in, I assume, in the DGH with a sick baby, and wanting help from another unit, and they're basically saying no. You're asking for their input and you're saying, no, they can't come to us. I don't think it shows much collegiate support. But it does happen, and your role is obviously to decide what's suitable for transfer or not. So, I guess that's why it potentially could work, but I think you need to be careful about that part in particular.

I think it needs careful handling.

Mm-hmm.

It might work. It needs to be framed as very, you know, very clearly as in within the de-escalation. Maybe, you know, I tried to unpick a bit about what was happening. I recognised that the conflict had arisen because, you know, the person in the other— in the referring hospital was actually having a terrible time They were managing a baby that outstripped their ability to cope in terms of capacity and, you know, levelling up care or whatever it is. And actually, they are worried, and that's what's feeding into this conflict. And, you know, so I de-escalated it by listening to their concerns, and then we worked together to find a strategy that would work for them in terms of supporting the needs of that baby. in that area without transfer, maybe, you know. But I think just so you've just got to frame it really carefully so that it doesn't risk you coming across as somebody who's, you know, just like, no, not for us.

Yeah, because the senior team probably doesn't want that to be their vibe that they're giving out for accepting transfers. So Yeah, it would definitely— it could put the panel off you if you don't present yourself in the right way there.

Yeah. I mean, I guess it's an opportunity, if you handle it carefully, it's an opportunity to show actually that you're an excellent communicator and that you can support a colleague from afar, even when the transfer is not appropriate for your unit.

Yes.

But you've just got to be... You know, tread carefully with all of these examples.

Yeah, that's true, because you could turn it around to a positive. They were annoyed, but you realised they were just stressed and frustrated and perhaps slightly scared, and actually you were able to then talk, you know, offer them support and help them with X, Y, and Z, and you were all friends again and everything was fine. It could actually be good.

I think with these examples, particularly these that kind of feel like you're sort of navigating slightly tricky territory, it's really helpful to just record it and then watch it back. Ugly though that always feels. And just, just see how it sounds.

Yeah.

Are you coming across as the person that you want to be and the person that you think that team needs you to be? Um, and if you're not, then just come up with a different example.

Yeah. And this is such a good reminder why you need to prep all of these examples before your interview and think through them. And even though it seems a pain, you're like, oh, that's not suitable, I need to think of another And can I? So much better to do that and just get examples that you're happy with so that you know when you go into your interview, you're using safe examples. You can worry about the delivery and the wording of the question and all of that, but actually your core examples are solid. Because if you're pulling this stuff out in the moment, you're going to pick something not ideal. So yeah, really important to prep it. We're going to look now at an interview question that someone's been asked. You're a big fan of this question. I don't know how I feel. I think I'd feel I'd feel slightly stressed if I was asked it. So, uh, the question this week is, tell me 3 words that your colleagues would use to describe you positively. And then the second part of this question is, and one negative word that they would use to describe you when you weren't listening. Uh, so why do you like this question so much?

It's just sort of deliciously awkward, isn't it?

So awkward.

Um, when I first, when I first heard it, because this This came up literally yesterday from one of our students who got the job, by the way, so she clearly must have answered it perfectly. Or maybe not perfectly, but well enough, because we don't need perfect.

Yeah.

And initially I was like, oh dear. But actually, the more I thought about it, the more I actually really like it. I think that— I mean, look, the first part is you know, everything that you've prepped for, isn't it? You're going to talk about your strengths.

Yeah.

And you can probably, you know, align that, you know, to your USPs. You can align it to the trust values if that's what you want to do. There's multiple different ways that you can answer that question, that part of the question, and you can drop in some examples. So, you know, 3 words that, you know, You know, you just pick any 3 words that you'd like to be described as, and then drop in a few lovely examples related to patients or your USPs or your projects. The negative bit though, what would they say about you behind your back? I think if you've got a weakness example prepared, you may be able to flex that and use that as the thing. So if, for example, the weakness that you've prepared is You know, I always say yes to too many projects.

Um, and that is definitely more than one word.

Yeah, exactly. So, so, no, actually, so, okay, so could we flex this to, um, if you'll allow me the hyphen, I'll take— I'll say they might say I'm overcommitted.

No hyphens allowed.

Not in this interview. Um, so I think, but, but the other, that, and that's the other reason I like this. It's, it's, it's a kind of, um, how are you going to do with a wild card question question? Um, and then I think that sometimes they just need to know what you're going to do when you get an unexpected question.

Yeah.

Um, and the answer is don't throw yourself under the bus.

Um, always remember it's your job interview, so you need to, what you want look good where you can.

Yeah, so I think you could, yeah, you could put, you know, you could say committed, you could say tired, you know, I'm somebody that works too hard. I don't know, um, actually I'm not sure about that.

Things not to say: late.

Late, lazy. Lazy, yeah.

Dishonest.

Um, Yeah, so what is the answer?

I think what's so stressful about the question is that it's so visual. So you automatically think about your colleagues all sitting in a room talking about you, and that in itself is stressful. So it's got quite a visual accompaniment to it. But at its core, ask it is the same as, what negative feedback have you got? What's your weakness? What would your colleagues say is most challenging about you? It's the same, but then they've told you you can only have one word, which adds to the pressure. So it's probably a combination of the weakness question and it being a wild card and just seeing what you do under pressure.

I once had the— I don't know if this is TMI. Anyway, I'm going for it now. We can edit it if we need to.

Let's go for it.

I used to do night shifts with a colleague of mine. I'm gonna shout out to Mumtaz. And we used to regularly do night shifts together. We were a great combo. We had great fun on nights, and we were always super efficient, and we got stuff done. I remember one morning, one of our other colleagues came in, and she was, you know, it was early, she was a bit, you know, not quite ready for the day, hadn't had her coffee. And she said, oh my God, do they let you two do nights together?

Mm-hmm.

All of that relentless optimism must be exhausting for people.

Wow.

Um, so I suppose, you know, optimistic.

Um, overoptimistic, but that's hyphenated as well.

So, um, but yeah, I think, yeah, just, just think about your weaknesses potentially.

Yeah.

Um, using one of those. Um, I, I think also just when they are—

if they ask you something like this, it's just Pausing and reminding yourself, this is an odd question. So, it is a question designed to stress you out, and anyone would be stressed out. And even just the act of reminding yourself of that, I think, takes a bit of pressure off. You do your best with this question. They want to see what you're going to do. It's obviously a bit of a daft question.

Yeah. I also think it's fine to acknowledge that with the panel.

Yeah.

Oh, that's an unexpected question. I'm just going to take a moment.

Yeah.

And they'll go, yeah, I know. And, you know, and it's fine. And then maybe there'll be a bit of kind of diffusing laughter. Nervous laughter.

Awkward. An awkward chuckle. Yeah.

Yeah. But I like it in its ability to, you know, throw you off a little bit, probably in quite a nice way. But you will have already framed it with the 3 nice things that your colleagues would say. So actually, it's probably that last part is probably fairly low risk.

Great.

Okay.

And then we're going to go on to our tip and trick of the week. So this week, we're going to talk about what happens when you've got gaps in your career and how to address that with the panel. And I think there's quite a lot of variation as to what the gaps might be. And so, I think it's probably tricky to come up with like a one piece of advice for all of this.

Mm-hmm.

But 'cause your gap could be a health problem, or you had a career break, or you had kids and took time out, or you were unemployed, maybe you weren't able to get a job. So, there could be a lot of different reasons, or some people have had a GMC issue, and maybe they were suspended for a period. So, there's like a whole range of things that can cause a gap in your CV, and people are very worried. Obviously, with some of these, you would be right to be worried because people will be thinking about it and talking about it. And some of them is more that you're conscious of it, but the panel might not be. And so, I think the key thing is, if it's something you're worried about, you need to have a plan. It's not that there's a one plan fits all, but you need to have a plan and not just wait and see how it falls on the day and what happens, because that is stressful thinking about, are they going to ask? are they going to ask? How are they going to ask? And then, you know, whatever you say, you'll be regretting afterwards. So I think it's important to plan beforehand how you're going to deal with something like this.

Yeah, I think, I think so. And I also think it's important to recognize that you can choose what you tell them. Um, if there's something that's really personal, you don't have to tell them.

Yeah.

You know, it's okay to keep private things private. They, they, there's a certain amount of stuff that they need to know, you know, because they need to make sure that you weren't, you know, robbing cars for 6 months. And so I took time out of my medical career. Um, I can't believe I just said that. I'm so sorry.

Where did that example come from?

Robbing cars?

You take a gap period to to do a bit of burglary. You know how it is. But now you're back. Back to medicine. Okay. Or other things. We'll take that out. Okay. What other things though might you have taken a gap for that wasn't doing crime? There could be other things.

Things that aren't crime. Yep.

It's just crime coming to mind now.

No, all I can think about is crime. Um, okay, so non-criminal examples.

Well, I suppose there's— yeah, there's some things you would have to tell them. So I guess if you've got a GMC restriction, you're— why are you still laughing at stealing cars?

Sorry, I can't. I think the key point is about this, you can choose what you tell the panel, so you don't need to tell them private stuff. So for example, you know, we, we had a student who asked us about this. I'm not going to disclose what happened clearly, but, but they had taken a period of time out because there had been some significant events in their family. And they wanted to know whether they should reference that in their interview. Um, and we had a conversation about it, and, and we felt actually, on balance, in a state of already heightened emotion in the interview, the risk of them becoming overly emotional and maybe crying in the interview just because of all of this stuff coming back—

Ah, yeah.

At a time when they already felt stressed was probably too big a risk to take. So we advise them just to stay away from it.

Mm-hmm.

And I think actually, you know, if there are gaps that are big enough for the panel to work— to worry about, then, you know, they will have hopefully addressed that. You know, they'll ask you about it, and then, as you say, you can decide what you're going to say about it, but have a clear narrative on it. That's not a lie, clearly, but that frames it in an appropriate way for the panel without getting into tons of detail and certainly without telling them stuff that is private to you.

Yeah. And yeah, it's definitely, you have, like you say, you have to be honest, but there's ways of presenting things in a prepared way versus a sort of, it's just spilling out of you and you can't stop talking verbal diary away. And if it's something that's really sensitive, which it may be, then you're much better to have just prepped whatever the sentence is you're gonna say about it. You practice it loads of times so that you are disconnected emotionally from it, and then you— that is the sentence that you say, and you don't need to do a go with the flow on the day and see what happens kind of thing.

Yeah.

So it's definitely better to spend time thinking about it beforehand. And yeah, you're right, some of these things we would just say you don't need to mention it. It's not their business on the panel. They don't need to know everything about you. They only need to know what they need to know, and you're there to answer the questions and get the job. That's it.

Yeah.

So, you don't have to share everything. Some people do feel like, well, obviously I have to say this because— in the end, they don't need to. Even you've had a period of maternity leave or whatever it is, it does not need to be discussed in your interview. It is not relevant. It's not their business, and you can choose to talk about it with them another time, but you don't need to bring it up in the interview.

Yeah, I suppose the, the other— the thing about this is if you feel that there's something that you absolutely have to get on the table that they must know about you, I can't even really think of an example, but I personally would think about, you know, if you, if you feel like you can't get through the interview without discussing it, then maybe just have a quiet word with somebody about it before Yeah. At a pre-interview meeting. But if it is in any way going to negatively affect their decision about whether to employ you, do not mention it.

Yeah. Yeah, because one thing is about them and the impact of what you're saying on their opinion of you, if that's not something that's necessary to share. And the other is about the impact on you of worrying about having that conversation in the interview. You can't concentrate on the actual interview of performing well because you've got this at the back of your mind and you're worried about when it's going to come up, how you're going to say it. That can be really distracting and you can just get overly focused on that. We want you to be focusing on getting the job, answering the questions well. And so, yeah, it's good to chat about these things beforehand and just know how you're going to address it if you need to address it in the moment.

Yeah. Have a plan is the summary of that.

Have a plan. Okay, we shall wrap up there. Thank you very much, Becky. Another fabulous episode, and look forward to seeing you next week.

See you next week.

Cool.

Where there will be no talk of criminal activity.

Probably.