med84 Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 I was wondering if the interviewers want the candidate to talk allot (3-5 mins/ answer) or be rather more consice when responding to the different questions? I got several opinions from people saying its good to talk allot, but some say they dont want you to blabber too much. Obviously in between seems realistic. I'm intersted to see what people have to say. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jochi1543 Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 "Talking a lot" is an unclear statement....they want you to "talk a lot" as in be able to explain your decisions and also to provide opposing viewpoints for balance. Providing examples to support your POV is also good. However, blabbing on and on without much focus is NOT good. Don't get carried away and lose your train of thought. People mostly remember only the first and last things you say anyway.....so excess content gets filtered out, and it's important to make a good introduction and a conclusion which summarizes everything you stated earlier and provides closure to your answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuantum Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 It really depends on the question and the person. If you can get out your thoughtful and thorough answer in 2mins as opposed to someone who needs 3mins, then that's you. Keep in mind, you probably want to answer "why you want do be a doctor" in more than just a couple sentences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smurfette Posted February 13, 2007 Report Share Posted February 13, 2007 If by talking a lot, you mean going round and round in circles, repeating yourself, then of course it's not very good. But if you have lots of interesting things to say, then increasing the length of your answer is not a bad thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
med84 Posted February 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2007 Sorry I didn't word my question properly; blabbering useless material is not good in any setting. When I say talking a lot, I meant saying useful applicable information about your self. My question is, when does it start to become like a long answer and what time frame should I aim to have my answers around? Obviously I'm not going to sit and time myself and cut off when I reach a certain time, but it would be good practice to either give responses that are 2 mins vs 4 mins. And thanks for everyones input!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffp Posted February 13, 2007 Report Share Posted February 13, 2007 I have been an interviewer for med school, CaRMS, and fellowships. As everyone here has said, talk as much as you need to to answer the question. Be concise, yet thorough. Everything you say should be relevant to the question you are trying to answer, and you needn't repeat yourself. There are two things that annoy interviewers (especially after a LONG day of interviewing) 1. Candidates who provide 2 or 3 word answers and need everything to be dragged out of them like pulling teeth. 2. Candidates who are asked a question and ramble tangentially for several minutes without addressing the question at all despite the interviewers trying to redirect them. I can think of a few real-life examples of this if anyone is interested. If you avoid doing either of the above, you'll be okay. If you can't think of an answer off the top of your head for one of the questions, it's okay to ask the interviewers if you can have a few moments to think, or if you can skip that question and come back to it at the end. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jochi1543 Posted February 14, 2007 Report Share Posted February 14, 2007 I can think of a few real-life examples of this if anyone is interested. I think this would help, since the entire idea is fairly subjective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffp Posted February 14, 2007 Report Share Posted February 14, 2007 OK,you asked for it Here are some real-life examples from when I did CaRMS interviews for IM (as nearly as I can remember). 1. Scenario where talking to candidate was like pulling teeth Q. Sometimes the hours and workload in residency can be very demanding. Can you tell us about a time when you had to juggle your work responsibilities with your life outside of medicine? How did you handle this situation? What did you learn from it? A. Well, my surgery rotation had very long hours. Q. How did this pose a problem to your life outside of medicine. A. Well, I was physically in the hospital fom 6am until 6pm most nights. Sometimes later. Except when I was post-call. Q. How did this impact your life outside of medicine? A. Well, I didn't have as much time for my usual activities. I teach karate. Or for reading. Q. How did you handle this situation? A. There was no way to reduce the actual number of hours I was expected to be in the hospital. It was just a busy rotation and everyone has to go through it. Q. How did you handle the conflict between working long hours and your life outside of medicine? A. Well, I had to cut back on my karate teaching. Everyone there knew that I was a med student and might need some time off. So someone else was able to fill in for me for a few weeks and I made it up to him later on. When I got home, I had to read in order to prepare for the next day's surgeries. I didn't have so much time for watching TV. Q. What did you learn from this? A. Well, I learned that if I put my mind to it, I can get through these rotations with long hours and manage my time effectively. I also learned that every clerk feels the same way going through these rotations. I'm not the only one. This applicant eventually came up with a decent (albeit not stellar) answer for the scenario. It was just painful that it had to be DRAGGED out of him, and he ended up scoring lower than he would have had he just answered the question all in one go or with a little bit of prompting. If you have the last interview of the day (when your interviewers have been at it for 10-12 hours sometimes), this is VERY annoying. Example of situation where candidate rambled tangentially without addressing the question: Q. Can you tell us about a time in your clerkship where another member of the team did not do their fair share of the work? How did you handle the situation? What did you learn from it? A. Well, on my peds rotation (we have 2 teams for the peds rotation). The clerks make up their own call schedule. So everyone will have to do 6 calls, but we are allowed to make up the schedule ourselves. We sit down at the beginning of the rotation and make up the schedule. When we were making the schedule, I needed a time off to go to a wedding. It was very important to me to go. There was another girl who also needed the same weekend off. I think she had a good reason too. There was nobody else who could work that weekend. It had to be one of us. Q. How did you handle this? A. We discussed it. We sat there and talked it over. I think we were both upset, but we were able to talk it over. I ended up taking the call, because you have to work as part of the team. I think everyone in my class has good relationships with each other. We try to help each other out. Q. So, was this person not doing her fair share of work? A. No, we all ended up doing the same number of calls. She just worked a different weekend. She said that she would owe me one, and do the same for me sometime in the future. It's important to make compromises. Q. Well, this does not really describe a situation where someone did not do their fair share of the work. Can you think of another example from your clerkship? A. well, also on the peds rotation. Our preceptor wanted to take the team out for lunch. So, we had to have someone cover the hospital while left. We didn't go far away, we just left our pagers on. The other team said that they would cover any emergencies. There was a kid who started bleeding on the ward. She was post-op from a splenectomy. My senior was paged, and he had to go back to the hospital before our lunch was finished. He didn't reallly mind. The patients should come first. Q. This still does not really describe a situation where someone does not do their fair share of the work. A. (long pause to think). You know, I really don't think I've had a situation like that in med school. We are always very supportive of each other. Ugh! This literally WAS my last interview of the day. You can see that the candidate rambled on in a very disorganized way, and NEVER really addressed the question he was being asked (or even showed that he understood the question). This applicant scored almost zero for that particular question (and other questions were similarly handled). Hope this helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jochi1543 Posted February 14, 2007 Report Share Posted February 14, 2007 Haha, thanks. I gotta be honest though, I HAVE been asked questions at job interviews that just didn't apply to me.....so it put me into a very awkward position. Like, for a while I also hadn't experienced the "someone didn't do their share of work" situation, and I'd just be like "um....to be honest....never..?" (it has happened since, though) More recently, I was asked whether I or a close coworker had been a victim of gossip in the workplace and how I dealt with it. I just sat there for a while and said "You know, it's never happened, to my knowledge." Which was true!!! I know there ARE people at work who could potentially gossip about me, but even if they did, the gossip never reached me in particular. I mean, people talk about others, but they do not LIE, and in my opinion, true gossip involves lying. Do you get marked down for those things, too? Not everybody encounters those things on a daily basis, so when you don't have an actual example, it sucks if it means you just blew the question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eise Posted February 14, 2007 Report Share Posted February 14, 2007 Jochi, I agree that not everyone experiences all situations that could be asked in an interview. I think it's ok to say that you've never experienced something. Or, you can try to at least show that you understand the question and attempt to answer it. For example, i was recently asked in an interview of a conflict that occurred while i was a receptionist in a dr's office almost 10 years ago! first off, even if there was a conflict, it was so long ago that i definitely don't remember one. and secondly, i worked weekend mornings at a walk-in clinic that was usually dead so there was little oppurtunity for a conflict to arise. but i didnt want to say that there was none. so instead, i said that it was a long time ago, and came up with an example that might have happened but was really small and not so significant (a difficult patient). i felt it better to give a weak example than no example at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jochi1543 Posted February 14, 2007 Report Share Posted February 14, 2007 Ah, I guess it's time for me to start inventing a tumultous past... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffp Posted February 14, 2007 Report Share Posted February 14, 2007 LOL... No, you definitely won't get marked down if you haven't experienced a certain situation. Just make sure you tell the interviewers that instead of rambling on about something irrelevant. It also looks kind of bad if you are asked about 6 different scenarios and haven't experienced ANY of them (including the positive ones -ie. tell us about a time you made a real difference to a patient's outcome). As for the tumultuous past... well... interviewers always like interesting stories! JK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bioboy2007 Posted February 15, 2007 Report Share Posted February 15, 2007 LOL... No, you definitely won't get marked down if you haven't experienced a certain situation. Just make sure you tell the interviewers that instead of rambling on about something irrelevant. It also looks kind of bad if you are asked about 6 different scenarios and haven't experienced ANY of them (including the positive ones -ie. tell us about a time you made a real difference to a patient's outcome).As for the tumultuous past... well... interviewers always like interesting stories! JK LOL...'I can't recall ever making a real difference to a patient's outcome'...priceless... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffp Posted February 15, 2007 Report Share Posted February 15, 2007 LOL... this might be off-topic, but I have seen some FUNNY responses to these scenarios There is one particular scenario that I am tempted to write about (although I probably shouldn't, because the story is unique enough that someone might recognize the person if they were to read it). I was doing CaRMS interviews for IM last year, and we asked the applicant, "Tell us about a time when you felt like you were in over your head. How did you handle it? What did you learn from this situation?" Well... most people respond to this scenario with a story about an unstable, crashing patient where they had to call their senior or attending. Some tell stories about socially difficult patients or family members. This particular applicant had a different kind of story... suffice it to say... if one of your psych patients invites you on a social outing, you probably should politely decline No wonder the applicant felt "in over his head". After 3 long days of interviewing and thinking we had heard it all, my co-interviewer and I were glued to the edges of our seats for that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Law Posted February 15, 2007 Report Share Posted February 15, 2007 This particular applicant had a different kind of story... suffice it to say... if one of your psych patients invites you on a social outing, you probably should politely decline No wonder the applicant felt "in over his head". After 3 long days of interviewing and thinking we had heard it all, my co-interviewer and I were glued to the edges of our seats for that one. ahaha that's priceless. the things you get to hear eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smurfette Posted February 15, 2007 Report Share Posted February 15, 2007 Haha, I think that in the stress of an interview, sometimes we tell personal things about ourselves to answer the question that we would never tell random strangers in any other setting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffp Posted February 15, 2007 Report Share Posted February 15, 2007 LOL... Yeah, I have heard some straaaange things It's tempting to write about them, but again... most are such unique stories they would violate confidentiality if anyone recognized the person involved. For the most part, it's okay to talk about stupid things that you've done, especially if it seems like an honest mistake and if you genuinely learned something from the experience. The interviewers understand that you are nervous, and some of these scenarios can catch you off guard. Some people get really disinhibited, though, and obviously don't think before answering. For example... we asked one applicant about his approach to handling stress (and to give a specific example). He just blurted out that he got very stressed on his GI rotation so took off on a tropical vacation without notifying anyone that he'd be gone. Hmmm.... not someone I want on my CTU team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaymcee Posted February 15, 2007 Report Share Posted February 15, 2007 I gotta be honest though, I HAVE been asked questions at job interviews that just didn't apply to me I am under the impression that the purpose of these questions lies not so much in being able to recall a time, but your resolution to said problem? I've had job interviews that gave hypothetical scenarios and asked what you would do for each. Couldn't we answer these questions in the same fashion, especially if we are unable to come up with an example (or haven't had the experience the interview panel is after)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jochi1543 Posted February 15, 2007 Report Share Posted February 15, 2007 I am under the impression that the purpose of these questions lies not so much in being able to recall a time, but your resolution to said problem? I've had job interviews that gave hypothetical scenarios and asked what you would do for each. Couldn't we answer these questions in the same fashion, especially if we are unable to come up with an example (or haven't had the experience the interview panel is after)? Of course, but it's a whole lot easier to hypothesize than deal with it in a real situation. Like, with the scenario about the person who didn't chip in with the group project you could be like "well, I'd talk to that person and explain to them nicely that s/he's not doing enough work and it's not fair, and that if s/he's busy with other things, we can work something out, blah-blah-blah," and theoretically, this can be expected to work. In reality, the person can be like "Well, you're wrong, I work more than you do" or "I don't give a sh!t and I'm gonna go talk to the supervisor and say that you've been lying about me." Not that I'm speaking from experience... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffp Posted February 16, 2007 Report Share Posted February 16, 2007 Yeah, there's really no way of knowing who is making up their answers and who is talking about real scenarios. We had a woman (forget where she was from) come and talk to all of the interviewers prior to CaRMS. She talked about standardized interviewing using the BDI format (behavior description interviewing,or scenarios). She was saying that responses on BDI are highly predictive of how interviewees will behave in real life if confronted with similar situations in the future. Therefore, we were told to instruct applicants to think of REAL scenarios, not just respond as though the questions were hypothetical. If someone said they couldn't think of an example for a particular scenario, we would just move on and choose another one. It usually wasn't a big deal, since we got through ~6 scenarios/interview and there were actually 12 scenarios on the interview form. That said, anyone could just MAKE UP answers and pretend they were real situations. We would have no way of knowing. Some of the applicants were VERY well rehearsed for the interviews. They must have found out the scenarios beforehand and rehearsed specific answers. We couldn't fault them on having 'technically' perfect answers, but to be honest, the applicants who seemed to answer genuinely and take some time to think about their answers actually made a better impression on us as interviewers. I don't know about other schools, but with our BDI there is a small "fudge factor" for the interviewers' subjective impressions of the candidate. good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorbetty Posted March 10, 2007 Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 ffp, Just curious.... what is this "small fudge factor?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffp Posted March 11, 2007 Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 Well, for example, the candidates are scored by a percentage scale for each scenario... but since everyone's answers are so varied, it is impossible to have a subjective scale saying: 1. 100% for answer A 2. 80% for answer B Therefore, someone could give a 'technically' perfect answer to the question, but if there is something about the appicant that doesn't ring true, or hits a bad vibe with the interviewers, they might be scored a bit lower. Similarly, both the file review and the program director interview have scores for "overall impression of the candidate"... so there is a lot of room for subjectivity. This is the reason that 2 people do each interview and 3 people score each file... trying to cancel out biases and subjectivity, I guess. Sorry if post is incoherent... entering hour 30 of 63 on call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorbetty Posted March 11, 2007 Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 I was told that each individual scenario isn't scored. Rather, the interviewee is scored more holistically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffp Posted March 11, 2007 Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 I can only speak from my own experience (interviewer for U of S CaRMS IM and cardiology fellowships). I know EXACTLY how our files and interviews were scored. Other schools and programs might have different scoring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illusion Posted March 11, 2007 Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 i have a problem going off on tangents and also a lot of 'uhs' in between sentences. I've been told to try to list them in 3's. So "firstly...", "second" and "finally" and that does seem to help. I don't seem to have this problem when the interview is 'discussion-like' but when I'm asked a question directly for some reason I seem to get really nervous ... possibly because I can 'hear' myself talk. any advice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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