The Interview Panel Already Knows You — Does That Help or Hurt You?

The biggest mistake interview candidates make is thinking that they can only use each USP once in your interview. Actually, you can use it lots of times from different angles because you have so much to say about it. Hi, I'm Tessa.

And I'm Becky. And this is the Ace Your Consultant Interview podcast, where we help you stand out and succeed in your consultant interview.

Before we get into today's episode, if you're prepping for your interview, make sure you're signed up to our free 5-day email crash course. It breaks down exactly what you need to do to stand out, and you can sign up via the link in the description. So this week we've got our free live training. It's coming up on Wednesday, the 17th of June. So, uh, 2 days after this episode goes live, I'm going to be doing free training on 7 Simple Steps to Ace Your Consultant Interview. Loads of great stuff planned. I'm very excited. So come along. The link to register is in the show notes below, and look forward to seeing you there. Let's get stuck in. So first off, we're going to look at a student question of the week. What is the question that we have from one of our Academy students this week? Okay.

2 of the 6 panel members for this job have previously interviewed me for a locum post. I'm worried about repeating examples. Does it matter? Yeah. Does it?

No. Short answer, we're done. End of episode.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. Different place, different time, different interview, doesn't matter at all. Because the consequence of following that through would be you can't repeat anything you said before, or you assume they remember everything you've said, and you assume they're going to score you for everything you said in a previous interview. The chances are, They won't remember anyway, but even if they did, this is still an interview and you will only get scored for what you say. So you just, yeah, fresh start. I would definitely not worry about what you've said before at all.

Yeah, I mean, in the nicest possible way, they probably haven't spent much time thinking about it since the interview.

What?

also, you know, you're right, you're not gonna, you're not gonna get scored for anything that you don't say clearly. And this also applies between questions as well, because I think sometimes people think, well, I kind of mentioned that a little bit before, but you have to, you have to answer each question fully and you're going to get scored on that. So absolutely, if you've got projects and experiences and achievements that you're particularly proud of, those are the things that you should be showcasing in your interview. And it doesn't matter that you talked about them before.

Yeah.

So absolutely continue to use them. I think it's really important that you have, you know, we talk about 5 USPs that people are particularly proud of, and those are the things that you're going to be pulling on more than once during your interview. to land answers really well because you've got that solid example.

Yeah, and if anything, think about it from their point of view. They would think it was odd if you told them about this amazing project in the locum interview, and then it came to the substantive interview and they ask you a question about a project and you're like, don't mention it. They'd be like, why didn't you mention the amazing thing that you've done? Uh, so yeah, it's, um, it's fine. And you know, you're not— it's not an ongoing conversation, it's separate interviews for separate roles. Um, so just do your best work on the day, and that is what you need to do.

And, and I think on a similar note, if you know this panel, you know, either just from your previous interview or from, you know, working life, um, don't assume that they're going to take into account anything that they previously knew about you. They can't do that. They can only take into account what you say in the room Today. So yeah, just, just, just go for it and don't be afraid of using those examples more than once.

Yeah, it probably leads into a worry that people often have around, like, when you know people who are on the panel, which I know this isn't the direct, direct question they're asking, but, you know, if you're, if you're being interviewed in a place you work or you know the people already, like, how do you, how do you handle that? And it's the same kind of advice, which is this is an interview. You can't assume that they know, oh yeah, Becky's really good, and she's really— I know she's done this. It's what you say on the day, and you will not know everyone on the panel anyway, because there'll be other people that you won't know, the lay chair, the chief exec. So, just assume it's a fresh start. That's not to pretend that you've never met them before. That's not what you're trying to do. But you're not coming in as their friend. You're coming in as an interview candidate, and you want them to score you well and give you the job.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Next up, we have a golden example. This is an example that one of our students has posted for us. So this is an example where an amputated fingertip was lost. This is not good.

This is not good.

And the example's being used for 2 things, or it's suggested being used for 2 things, which is one is duty of candor. So I guess telling the patient that very bad news, that's what I would not like to be receiving as a patient, that my finger has been lost, or my fingertip has been lost. But also using it for the MDT example, because they then went on to develop SOP for storage of amputated digits or whatever. So what do you think about this?

I mean, this is obviously a significant error.

Yes.

And, you know, significant harm has been caused to this patient. We've literally lost part of their body.

Yeah.

So it, you know, it's not okay. I think, side note, if you were going to use this as your mistake example, that is an absolute no. Definitely don't.

Definitely do not.

Do not reference, you know, I accidentally lost somebody's fingertip.

No.

But good news though, because I've now set up an SOP around managing Not your part. No, of course. So if it's your mistake, don't ever talk about it again. If it's somebody else's mistake and you were the person who delivered the duty of candour, then yeah, that absolutely works. And clearly you will have some very nice reflection on what it means to tell a patient about that and how that went for you. And then you can talk about, you know, the investigation that ensued, the learning that followed, and your new SOP as a result. And I think you, you know, you can also, you know, if you've got asked an example about multidisciplinary team working, as long as there have been several members of the MDT involved in working up this new SOP, and you can demonstrate how that works. Then this works well. But again, just really clearly reference this arose as a result of an incident where a body part had been lost. And I think it needs to be very clear anytime this is mentioned that you were not the person who lost the finger. Yeah.

And when you're doing the duty of candour one, I think the wording of how you present it is important. So, it will be like, I was in charge, I was the person in charge of the shift, and I was made aware that unfortunately an amputated fingertip had been lost, and it was my job to do duty of candor. That is the clearest way that it was not you, and the focus is on the duty of candor. And like you said, this is a great example of experience of duty of candor, 'cause you're having to tell very challenging news to a family that are not going to be happy about receiving it. And this is why when you use a duty of candor example, the more significant it is, the better your skills are that you're able to demonstrate of duty of candor. There's a difference between saying, oh, we accidentally mislabeled your blood tests, and I've lost your finger. So, you know, it's like a whole different barrel of communication. So this would be really good. Just, yeah, just keep it tight at the beginning when you're— and get to the duty of candor point early, because otherwise you'll just spend ages explaining about how it was lost, why it was lost, before you actually get to the duty of candor part. What do you think about the chances of both of these questions coming up and you only having one example for it?

I don't know. I mean, it's a difficult call, isn't it? I suppose if you only had— I think it's unlikely that both questions would come up, but it could happen because they are kind of separate events, but they're both a bit sort of— well, I was going to say they're both a bit governancy, that it might come up separately. I think if you did just have one example, what you've got to be really careful about is that you're pulling out different different aspects of it. So clearly, with the duty of candour question, what they need to understand is that you're somebody who can have those hard conversations, that you understand the requirements around that, that there's an apology is necessary, you can talk about the, the learning and so on. Whereas for the multidisciplinary team example, it's fine, you can use, can use the same thing, and you might even say, well, actually You know, I referenced, you know, the duty of candour example around the, you know, the lost finger. At a time that I worked well in a multidisciplinary team was when we worked up a new SOP for that. And then that answer must focus on how you involve the MD team. We talked about this in the last episode. You know, who were they? Why did it add value that they were, you know, different disciplines? How did you use their knowledge and experience? to create a pathway that now works. Um, so I think it's okay, um, but you just need to be really clear about how you're going to draw out the different aspects.

Yep, cool. Okay, let's go on to the interview question of the week. So this is an actual question that someone's been asked recently in their interview, um, and this is, tell me about a trust value that resonates most with you and a time you could not meet that trust value? What do you think?

It's a bit kind of ouchy, this question, because I often— this one, not often, but sometimes this question comes up as, you know, which trust value do you find hardest to meet? And then I think you can talk— clearly don't choose caring in that one. But the thing is here, it's really hard because you want to talk about the one that does resonate with you most, and you've probably worked up some really nice examples for it. But then you've got to talk about a time when it didn't work for you. So, it's actually quite hard.

Well, I think it is. No, it's fine. I think it's just a hard question. So, what would you do? A time you couldn't meet a value would be, I would pick, like, in our environment, it would be a time when you couldn't deliver the care that you wanted to deliver due to the system, I think.

I suppose just kind of thinking about, you know, our values. I mean, I think broadly all trust values are the same. I mean, it's— there's something about being caring and compassionate, something about communication, something about accountability, probably something about EDI, and maybe something about collaboration that, you know, that those, those are broadly—

That is a fair summary.

Every trust in the country. I think probably you can't say that there wasn't a time when you were compassionate. It's because even if things aren't going according to plan, hopefully you still are that. Um, I wonder whether it's something about, you know, the one of the other ones like collaboration or something like that. You were trying to do a project and you would, you know, working with a team and it didn't go quite smoothly or something. Like that, I guess. Um, I'd just, just be careful about shooting yourself in the foot.

Yeah, actually, your example is probably safer than talking about not being delivered— not being able to deliver effective care. Although I do think you could say something like, you know, you were on a shift where— I don't know, is it bad? You were on a shift where there was like a really long wait time and you couldn't see. Maybe your, your, your one's probably safer where you talk— if you talked about a time where you were working to do a project. And the team wasn't able to work as well as whatever. That would be a good one.

I guess you could fudge it a bit round the other way and say, you know, it was absolutely jammed. We were delivering care in the corridor to multiple different patients, and I felt that they weren't getting the care that they needed despite all of our best intentions.

Yeah.

I wasn't meeting that value in the way that I wanted to. Yeah, um, maybe that's okay. You're sort of— you're fudging it a bit, um, but I think that would probably work. Yeah, um, I think it is good. I don't massively like it.

It's— but this kind of negative take on the trust values question is coming up, I would say, as a trend. I don't know, it's like people have got bored just asking which trust value resonates with you the most. And they're like, how can we, how can we make them sweat? Uh, so I do think going in having an idea of what you'll say as a negative or a time you haven't met, or when you've, if you had to drop a trust value, what would it be? Um, I think, yeah, these are, or obviously our recent favorite around what emojis, what emojis would you use? It's hard. It's gonna be hard to beat that.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I think it's good to have it ready. It's good to have one ready, but, um, it's hard, I think. But they're asking you— they know it's a hard question, so they're, they're asking to see what you'll do.

Yeah. On that note, actually, I asked, I asked that in a practice interview.

I've been asking it as well.

I love it so much. Um, and, um, one of, one of the emojis she used was the globe emoji to signify inclusivity. Very nice. And it was such a good answer. I really, really enjoyed it.

It's a great question to just ask people and see what happens. All the things going through your mind is like, I think the first thing are what are like actual emojis and what aren't? But of course, like anything's an emoji basically. I'm sure you could say anything.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Okay, so next we're going to go on to our tip and trick of the week. This week we're going to talk about using your USPs across different questions because often we get asked back our students, we've got 5 USPs, but won't it feel like I'm just repeating the same thing endlessly in the interview? So, what would you say to that?

Well, I think it comes back to the same point we were making earlier about describing, you know, a golden example across a couple of different types of questions. It's about pulling out the different aspects of your USP to fit the question. So, you know, for example, if you've set up a new guideline, for example, you could use that to answer a question about clinical governance. You know, you could say, well, actually, you know, I was improving safety by, you know, initiating this new guideline, reviewed the evidence, audited before and after, looked at the amount of patient safety incidents around this. you know, that kind of thing. Equally, if you get asked a question about change management, you can still use that same USP, but now you're going to talk about, well, I, you know, um, we were, we were putting in place a new guideline, um, it was a bit unpopular for these reasons, and this is how I got everyone on board. You know, you can talk about PDSA cycles, early adopters, you know, whatever you want to talk about in terms of the change process.

Yeah.

Um, so it's really worth with the USPs just knowing what all of the different aspects are. Because I think sometimes people don't appreciate the immense amount of work that they've done in these projects and all of the different things that they could bring as a result.

Yeah, totally agree. And so, yeah, there's the element of using different angles for the USPs. And also, I think when people are practicing questions in the run-up to their interview, it feels like you're using the same examples all the time. But in reality, the way the questions spread on the day, it doesn't really happen that way. You might mention one USP in 2 questions, maybe 3, but I think realistically they ask you questions in different areas, and so you will automatically bring in different USPs in there. So, probably in practice, it won't happen as much as you think in the interview as it does in practice. But yeah, the aim of your first question, your tell me about yourself, is just to have mentioned all your USPs so that they have been put out there in case you don't get the chance to talk about them again, but you definitely want to. And exactly what you said, there's like a million different aspects that you could talk about for each USP. And so, once you know them, it's actually very easy to talk about it from a different angle. Although it's the same rough topic, the elements you're drawing out are very different. And so, it's fine. It's totally fine to do that.

Yeah. I think so. Don't be afraid to say it more than once.

Don't be afraid. I think we will wrap up there, and we'll be back next week with more interview prep stuff. We're going to be talking about AI next week, um, and questions that might come up about that, which has definitely been a current trend. And, uh, look forward to seeing you there.

See you there.