Originally Posted by
Enthalpic
Probably due to the fact that you are competing against the best, unlike the rest of your life. I know the feeling of being placed into a group of your intellectual peers after years of being amongst the average - it's humbling. Not that I am much above average.
On the other side, today -while yet again sitting at an airport- I watched a young immigrant lady interview for a food service position that neither of us would ever take. After she was told she could start after new years she hugged the interviewer and started crying. That made me thankful for my job, which I often think is crap.
I'm not competing against the best. That's the point. I'm interviewing at schools I know I belong at. My standardized test scores are in the top 10% of test takers and at or above the median at most schools I've applied to. I've published a paper, submitted a bunch of other ones, given a talk at a specialists conference, etc etc etc.
It's just that I don't care about these things. I hate talking about myself. I've done it in all the applications. I just want to have a real conversation with someone about what I'm interested in instead of all these sorcery-esque interview techniques and all sorts of random crap.
Most of all, I just need to be a little bit more confident but I am so stressed out by this process that I'm already exhausted by something that has just started.
The second part of your post is amazing. Perspective is incredibly important. I've never been that poor immigrant, but I've been that kid that ate oatmeal for lunch everyday for months because I wasn't sure if I could make rent since I didn't know if I was going to get a job and I wasn't sure if I was going to have health insurance to have surgery again and I could barely walk. How do you segue into something like that from talking about bullcrap like "tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a peer". I don't remember having a conflict with your peer because when you have no safety net, you just shut up and put up because if you say something and get fired you're done. That's it. Game over kid, you're going home. Home sucks.
(Work is luckily like that, but not having options means you learn to keep your mouth shut)
Originally Posted by
furiousferret
Are any of these Loma Linda?
Good luck. I've found the best way to prep is have peers interview you, then provide feedback.
Loma linda is terrifying. Read their honor code.
Thanks for the luck
Originally Posted by
rkwaki
I think this is a great post. Too often we look at what we don't have versus what we do and I have been very guilty of this. I have a great job, a company car and travel all over, many times when and where I want to go versus where I have to go.
Totally agree.
Originally Posted by
shovelhd
For me it's not about being suave or deceptive or even strategic. An interview is the representation of an opportunity for two parties. My questions and concerns are just as important as theirs. I try and dig to find the issues and give examples on how I would solve them. This usually spurs more dialog. They get to know how I think, and I get to see what I'm walking into.
Note that my perspective has nothing to do with RTC's as he is interviewing for acceptance into advanced education, where mine is from interviewing for leadership positions in business. The core principles are similar though.
Yes. I've actually been trying to work on this stuff. Job interviews and med school interviews are very different, but as always presenting yourself is very important.
I think I was very immature when I graduated college. I said that when I interviewed for the first time. Over thanksgiving break, I told my cousin and he damn near hit me. We spent an hour and a half talking about interviews and how to respond. Talk about growth. Spin everything postively. If you don't want to talk about yourself doing something, then talk about what you've learned and what you're thankful for. The same thing can be done in 50 different ways to get a totally different message across.
I have 6 Interviews. I know people that got into school with just one. I have a great chance at some amazing schools.
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to start writing out a list of answers for a list of questions I got from someone online and think and write how they relate to things I've done. I'm not going to memorize this list, but just try to learn how I can relate things from my application around.
I'm meeting with one of my bosses over the next few weeks to do a mock interview. Going to do another one on skype with an assistant at my undergrad and maybe another attending I used to work with. Really hoping it gets dialed in :/