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Consultant Interviews: Guidance for Public Health Trainees
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Hammersmith Interview Skills Course ISC Medical Miad UK
Feedback on the Hammersmith Interview Skills Course held at Charing Cross Hospital, West London
From a SW Specialist Registrar in Public Health:
“The Hammersmith Interview Skills Course is rather clinically oriented - a downside.
The 'Hot Topics' section was mainly issues we would have come across within our own training (e.g. NHS Plan, Connecting for Health, policy docs like OHOCOS, Creating a patient-led NHS, S4BH, role of the Healthcare Commission) - bread and butter stuff for us, but probably not for the medics. Other topics were clinical governance, clinical audit, risk management, patient safety, training (including MMC) versus service work.
What I found useful were the role play sessions (interviews) where everyone had an opportunity to have a go at being interviewed, and being given feedback.
According to the organisers (and I tend to agree) - the interview process is not really about testing your knowledge base in your field, as it would be assumed that you would be adequate in that having completed a training scheme. What will be tested is your management capabilities and your softer skills e.g. dealing with people (including difficult colleagues), managing people (including appraisals etc.), your attributes (professionalism, ability to plan/ organise/ prioritise/ multi-task etc.), leadership skills and so on.
They also provided some tips on what to do prior to the interview.
It was a whole day's intensive training with short breaks. We were provided with a folder at the end which also contained a suggested template for CV and portfolio.”
From a SW Specialist Trainee in Public Health:
" am not sure how strongly to recommend the course to others. It was open to anyone of any speciality preparing for a consultant interview. I didn’t recognise or hear that there were other public health people there, and I am not sure how relevant to public health interviews the questions they focused on will be.
I thought it was very well organised, and although there were over a hundred participants, they managed to keep my attention throughout the day. Random participants are asked to answer mock interview questions in-front of everyone else. Not everyone gets an opportunity to have a go at a mock question in the plenary sessions, but there is a smaller group session in the afternoon where everyone has to answer a question in front of the group and you get feedback on your performance.
You learn a lot from seeing how people answer the questions. Inevitably some are very good and others less so.
They said at the beginning. “You won’t get asked anything technical about your area of work. They assume that by the time you get to this stage of your career you know how to cut someone open or give them the correct drugs. They are looking for wider knowledge of the NHS and how it works and about how you will operate in the team / department”. So the questions they said we might be asked were on NHS funding / commissioning provider split / How PCTs function / how to redesign and get funding for a service / etc. Whether they also ask such questions at consultant interviews I don’t know.
So on balance I think I would recommend it in the absence of something more public health focused as it certainly got me thinking about the importance of preparing!"
From a SW Specialist Trainee in Public Health:
“I thought the course was good although it was very specifically orientated towards hospital consultants I still got a significant amount out of the day.
There was one on one interviewing and the questions had been tailored to each of those attending specialities.
The day was long and intensive but I for one thought it was worthwhile. When I was researching which course to do none of them could tailor a course specifically to PH unless all the attendees were PH people. There was one other PH person on the course (who I knew) and although he is a medic and has worked hospital side he told me that he had also learnt a lot from the day.
There was quite a bit of a session on preparation for the interview which was fascinating and too long to put in here - but it boils down to the fact that you must make a pre interview visit as soon as you have put in an application even before you have heard whether you have got an interview - which I found quite an interesting approach.”