Session 31
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In this episode, Ryan focuses on the medical school interview process, an important topic to discuss considering that it’s interview season and Ryan has a book coming up on Kindle. Find out more about it on www.medschoolinterviewbook.com and sign up to get notified when it releases. This book will also hit physical bookstores by the first part of next year.
Ryan pulls a statement from the forums over at OldPreMeds.org and he discusses how critical preparing for an interview is.
OldPreMeds Question of the Week:
Poster got an interview feedback from one of the schools they applied to last year. The school quoted the committee stating that they felt the interviewee was extremely nervous, talking very rapidly, so rapidly that they often could not understand what was said. The committee felt as though the interviewee came across as closed-minded and lacking of self-awareness due to a combination of the choice of words and phrases used during the interview as well as the inability to fully answer some questions. Some comments were not received favorably by the committee and viewed as very disrespectful. Poster is at a loss as to how to correct this.
Here are the insights from Ryan:
This is what happens if you don’t prepare properly for your interviews.
Mock interviews are very, very important to understand how the words floating around your head come out of your mouth and land on the interviewer. It’s your job to make sure the words you’re saying land favorably on the interviewer.
You can’t control everybody listening to you to agree with you but if you’re saying stuff that are very off-putting then you’re obviously doing something wrong.
As you prepare for your interviews, record yourself with a video camera or an audio recorder.
Have somebody go through the interview process with you.
If you need a list of questions, check out www.medschoolinterviewbook.com to sign up and get notified when the book is released. It contains almost 600 possible questions as well as questions you can throw at your interviewers. The book also has over 50 real answer from mock interviews Ryan has done with students including the feedback he gave to students.
Links and Other Resources:
www.medschoolinterviewbook.com
Transcript
Introduction
Dr. Ryan Gray: The Old Premeds Podcast, session number 31.
You’re a nontraditional student entering the medical field on your terms. You may have had some hiccups along the way, or you’re changing careers, you’re now ready to change course and go back and serve others as a physician. This podcast is here to help answer your questions and help educate you on your journey to becoming a physician.
Now welcome to the Old Premeds Podcast. We are a podcast dedicated to the nontraditional premed students, and we take our questions directly from the www.OldPremeds.org forums at www.OldPremeds.org. If you’re not a member over there, go sign up, it’s free and the community there is amazing. Again, www.OldPremeds.org.
The question today is focused on the interview, and it’s not necessarily a question but a statement kind of like last week’s, again about the interview process. And I’ll let you know why I’m talking about the interview process a lot in the next week; last week, this week, and the week after, next week actually. Yes the week after this week is next week. The interview process obviously is very important. As I’m recording this it’s July of 2016, we’re getting ready to enter interview season, and so it’s always an important topic to discuss, but I also have a book coming out on Kindle and you can find out more about the book at www.MedSchoolInterviewBook.com, and if it’s not out yet you’ll be taken to a page where you can sign up to be notified when it comes out, and when it comes out initially it’ll be on a super duper sale on Kindle, and so it’ll behoove you to go over there and sign up, you can save a lot of money. And again, Kindle only to start, and that’s because the book- I just signed a contract with a national publisher to publish this book and get it into real bookstores, hopefully at the first part of next year. I wasn’t planning on having the book published, I was planning on just releasing it on Amazon through their publishing platform which gives you a paperback version, and obviously Kindle, but I had the opportunity to talk with a publisher that fits everything that I wanted, and I gave them the manuscript for the book, and they accepted it, and here I am; a soon to be hopefully published author, which is awesome. But let’s get back to you and helping you on the interview process.
Negative Interview Feedback
So this student posted a topic that says, ‘Bombed an Interview.’ They said, ‘I just got interview feedback from one of the schools I applied to last year. It pretty much eviscerates me and I only barely have an idea where they’re coming from.’ And then they quote what the committee- the information they gave to this student. ‘The committee felt as though you were extremely nervous and that you talked very rapidly. So rapidly that they often could not understand what you were saying. The committee felt as though you came across as close-minded and that you lack self-awareness. This was apparently due to a combination of the choice of words and phrases that you used during your interview, and your inability to fully answer some questions. Some comments you made during your interview were not received favorably by the committee, were very off-putting to the committee, and were viewed as very disrespectful.’
They go on to say that, ‘I’m likely going to be interviewing there again in two to three months and I’m mostly at a loss as to how to correct all of that.’
Alright so again, not a specific question but a great story of what happens when you don’t prepare properly for your interviews. And I don’t know how this student prepared for their interviews, but I would almost guarantee that this student didn’t do any mock interviews to actually understand how the words that were floating around in his or her head, how those words came out of their mouth, and landed on the interviewer. And that’s where this section here that says, ‘Some comments you made during your interview were not received favorably by the committee.’
It’s your job to make sure that the words you are saying land favorably on the interviewer. That’s your job, it’s not their job, it’s your job to make sure that those words land favorably. You obviously can’t control everybody that’s listening to you, interviewing you, to agree with you or whatever it may be, but if you’re saying stuff that- again, quoting the committee here, ‘is very off-putting,’ then you’re obviously doing something wrong. And it’s in your best interest as you prepare for your interviews to record yourself with a video camera; the best way is obviously with a video camera so you can see yourself, the next step would be just an audio recording. And have somebody go through that interview process with you, ask those questions, and if you need a list of questions the book- again, www.MedSchoolInterviewBook.com, the book has almost 600 questions that can be asked as well as questions that you can ask the interviewers, and it has over fifty real answers from mock interviews that I’ve done with students, and the feedback that I gave those students. And a lot of times I gave similar feedback. I said, “The way that you said this was very negative. I know you weren’t meaning to be negative, but it was something negative that you said, and here’s how you can say it differently.” So you really need to go through a mock interview, answer the hardest questions, and do the best that you can to understand how those words are landing on someone else.
So it’s great, yes this person went and got that feedback, and I’m glad that the school gave them such directed feedback. It may sound harsh but it’s necessary feedback so that you can improve, and I hope that this student improved and got in the next time they applied.
Final Thoughts
So again, www.MedSchoolInterviewBook.com, sign up to be notified- if it’s not out yet, sign up to be notified when it releases so that you can get it at a big discount when it first comes out. If it’s out already then www.MedSchoolInterviewBook.com will show you the best places to get that book.
I hope that if you have any questions that you want answered here, you’ll go over to www.OldPremeds.org, sign up for an account if you don’t already have one, ask a question and I will get to it here on the podcast, or our amazing community there at Old Premeds will answer the question in the best way that they can as well.
Alright I hope you got a ton of great information today, and I hope you join us next week here at the Medical School Headquarters and the Old Premeds Podcast.
Again, that’s www.MedSchoolInterviewBook.com.
