In this YouTube coaching video, Tessa Davis outlines the three most common mistakes candidates make when preparing for NHS consultant interviews and provides concrete strategies to avoid them. The first mistake is failing to identify one’s unique selling points (USPs); she explains what USPs are, gives numerous examples (international experience, audit projects, leadership, teaching, research, charity work, extracurricular activities) and stresses the need to articulate them clearly to the interview panel. The second mistake is not practicing interview answers, especially under simulated pressure; she recommends short timed drills, solo or group practice, and treating the interview like any other skill that improves with repetition. The third mistake is negative self‑talk that undermines confidence; she advises replacing self‑defeating thoughts with positive affirmations and visualising oneself as the best candidate. Throughout, she promotes a free downloadable list of the 15 most common NHS consultant interview questions and teases a follow‑up video on optimal answer length. The overall message is that understanding your differentiators, rehearsing thoroughly, and maintaining a positive mindset are essential to succeed in a substantive consultant interview.
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Don't fall into the same trap as everyone else does in their NHS consultant interview. In this video, I'm going to share the 3 most common mistakes that interview candidates make, and more importantly, how you can avoid them. The first mistake that interview candidates make is not knowing their USPs. Your USPs are your unique selling points. What does that mean? It means things that set you apart from the average person applying for the role. So the average person applying for a consultant job is a trainee who's gone straight through their and got to the end and applied for this job. And you might be in that situation as well, but what you need to ask yourself is, what have you done that's a bit different, that stands out? Now, you don't need to have won a Nobel Prize. You don't need to have a PhD. It's just thinking about what's different about you from the average. It might be that you've worked in another country. You did some placements or rotations that were slightly unusual or gave you an extra bit of experience. Particularly good audit that you got a good outcome for, that you were able to demonstrate impact, led a project, or done something innovative. You might also have done something that's outside of medicine that you think is completely irrelevant to the job, but actually what you'll realise is that it is a USP. It sets you apart, and more importantly, it demonstrates what you can bring to the team. So committees, charity work that you're involved with, other Projects outside of medicine could be one of your USPs as well. Meetings that you've led, curriculums you've designed, large teaching programmes you've delivered teaching on, research you've been involved with. There's many, many things that you've done that are a bit different, and although at first glance you'll think there's nothing different about me, there's nothing special about me, actually if you spend time thinking about it, you will realise what it is that you've got to offer. The truth is, if you don't know your USP, If you don't know what it is that you bring to the table that's different from the average, then for sure the panel is not going to know what makes you different either. So it's really important that you get a grip on what your USPs are before you go anywhere near that interview room. And before I go on to the next biggest mistake that people make, 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 In NHS consultant interviews this year. You can download these for free at the link in this video, and it's also in the description underneath the video. So what's the second most common mistake that people make when they are prepping for their interview? It's simple. It's not practicing. So often I see people who are preparing, they feel they're working very hard, but actually they haven't practiced questions for their interview. It's stressful in an interview. It's nerve-wracking. You will be nervous no matter how well prepared you are. The only way that you're going to be able to deliver good solid answers in your interview is by having practiced delivering them before, and importantly, practicing delivering them under a bit of pressure. Nobody walks into an interview room without practice and for the first time answers a question and it's an amazing answer that scores highly. That's just not how it works. And you'll know the same for anything you do in your professional life, any procedure you practice, any sort of skill that you have. The first time, you're not going to be great at it, but over time, the more often you do it, the better you get, the more nuanced you are, and the more you understand the complexities of it. So not practicing is one of the biggest mistakes that people make. So please don't put it off. You don't need to be ready to practice. You don't need to have everything read and everything written. You don't need to have a full day. You just need 2 minutes now to look at a question. Start your stopwatch and answer. There is nothing that is going to improve your interview performance better than actually practicing. You can practice yourself, but you can also practice with colleagues. You can practice with a group of people. And one of the benefits of practicing with a group of people is it puts you under a bit of pressure and you want to, you want to get used to feeling that stress because you're going to feel that pressure for sure in your interview. The 3rd biggest mistake that I see interview candidates make That prevents them from doing well in their interview is getting in their own head, and it's psyching themselves out of the job. So often we tell ourselves negative things about the interview. There's someone else who's the favourite. They're more experienced than me. I'm just a trainee, or I'm just a locum and they've got more experience, or they've worked here before, they know the person, or I'm not really great at interviews. Or we start telling ourselves You know what, it doesn't matter anyway, I'll just give it a go, and if I don't get it, it's fine. Or, I don't really want this job. All of these things psych us out of a good performance because we're telling ourselves these negative things, and it affects our performance on the day. If we don't believe we're the best person for the job, the panel will not believe we are the best person for the job, and we won't give answers that show that we're the best person for the job. So although it seems like it might be fluffy or it might be silly, I promise you that the things that you tell yourself about how you're going to perform in the interview make a massive difference to your performance. So it doesn't matter who you think is the favorite, and it doesn't matter whether you think you've done badly in an interview before. What matters is how you're going to perform on the day, and you will get yourself ready and prepared and tell yourself that you are the best candidate for the job. When you know your unique selling points and you've practiced, These things will help you start to realize why you are actually the best person for the job. And then you can start talking to yourself positively. So now you know the common mistakes that people make when they're preparing for their substantive consultant interviews in the NHS. You know the mistakes that you need to avoid, and you're ready to start practicing answers for your interview. But how long is the perfect answer length? This is a big question that people often ask me. And I'm going to share that in our next video, which you can check out here.
