interview freakout!

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buzzworm

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So I'm getting ready for my first interview and recently got word about the schedule for the day. In short, it looks like I'm going to be interviewed by approximately 18109507 people -- or, slightly more realistically, around 10. Does anybody have any experience with interviews involving this many people? Is it really possible that they will each be interviewing me separately? How do I come up with enough questions to ask all of them? I'm terrified that collectively, they'll manage to ask me every tough interview question in the book.

I'm a little overwhelmed, so I guess I'm just venting more than anything. I'll figure out some way to prepare. I hope. If you're in the same boat, feel free to join in my freakout!
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Yes it is possible for that many people to interview you.

You can ask the same question to different people. In fact, it's worthwhile, you may get different answers or more insight if you just asked one person a particular question.
 
CatoftheCanals said:
You can ask the same question to different people. In fact, it's worthwhile, you may get different answers or more insight if you just asked one person a particular question.
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I asked each person the best and worst thing about working at their site (or their rotation), and I got some pretty interesting responses. Many times sites that do this want to give each supervisor a chance to interact with the applicants and provide feedback. Obviously not all sites can do this, but I found it really helpful.

*edit*

Just replace "site" with "program".
 
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In one of my interviews last year, we were put into groups and we went together to interview with each core faculty member for 30 min (3 or so hours total). I was probably asked about 40 questions all in all, but the worst part was hearing what other people had to say either before/after me. There were many times where I wanted to say "yeah, me too! what he said..."

The best advice I can give.... is to not just worry about making a good impression, but understand what your personal motivations are. I remember being asking "what psychology meant to me", "what would happen if funding dropped" and "what is a research question that I am specifically looking to address, and how do I plan to go about it".

I answered each question from the heart-- and this is the school I am at now.

Let me just say that there was another person in the interview who constantly expressed how much she knew about the professors' individual research, brought in copies of published articles that she co-wrote, and constantly talked about how qualified she was (her years of research experience!). She was not offered a position.

I hope some of this helps!
 
buzzworm said:
So I'm getting ready for my first interview and recently got word about the schedule for the day. In short, it looks like I'm going to be interviewed by approximately 18109507 people -- or, slightly more realistically, around 10.
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10? Sounds like sorority recruitment all over again.

in all seriousness, be yourself. If you have notes about the program, go over them before you get there. Go over what makes the program appeal to you and how it may relate to experience you already have or research interests. Take a deep breath. They want to get to know you to see if you're a good fit for the program ... I highly doubt that every person you talk to is going to be like a mini episode of Jeopardy (although that might be fun if there wasn't so much on the line. I like Jeopardy, what can I say.)

The best piece of advice I can give you, which I actually did learn from sorority recruitment, is for you to try to say something unique about yourself to each person. In other words, don't say the exact same thing to every person. Why? Because they're going to sit down afterwards and talk about you (or review you, rate you, whatever) and if you tell them all the same stuff their conversation about you will be short. If you spread out unique bits then it will force them to talk about you more which, ideally, should be a good thing. This can be exhausting and it will take energy/creativity on your part ... but if it's executed properly it can work in your favor.
 
TenaciousGirl said:
I highly doubt that every person you talk to is going to be like a mini episode of Jeopardy (although that might be fun if there wasn't so much on the line. I like Jeopardy, what can I say.)
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I had one part of one interview be a mini episode of Jeopardy, where they had us pick questions from topic areas off of a board, it was quite entertaining.
 
Therapist4Chnge said:
I had one part of one interview be a mini episode of Jeopardy, where they had us pick questions from topic areas off of a board, it was quite entertaining.
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That's simultaneously awesome and terrifying.
 
One of my interviews was done as first an individual interview, then a group "interview" where I, and 3 other interviewees, were put into 2 groups of 2, then told that we were to debate about this subject: "1 group will argue that talk therapy does not work, and the other group will argue in favor of talk therapy." Guess which group I had the pleasure of being in... It was pretty scary, but it went pretty well.

After that, we had to undergo a writing test where we had 30 minutes to conceptualize a made up case, write a treatment plan, etc. Fun day. ;)
 
phillydave said:
One of my interviews was done as first an individual interview, then a group "interview" where I, and 3 other interviewees, were put into 2 groups of 2, then told that we were to debate about this subject: "1 group will argue that talk therapy does not work, and the other group will argue in favor of talk therapy." Guess which group I had the pleasure of being in... It was pretty scary, but it went pretty well.

After that, we had to undergo a writing test where we had 30 minutes to conceptualize a made up case, write a treatment plan, etc. Fun day. ;)
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I went on a bunch of interviews and never had to do anything like that -- I'm sorry!
 
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phillydave said:
After that, we had to undergo a writing test where we had 30 minutes to conceptualize a made up case, write a treatment plan, etc. Fun day. ;)
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This reminds me of an interview I had. The site was not very forthcoming with the itinerary for the day. When we turned a corner and I was told I had 15 minutes to write as much as a could on X topic I had a freakout moment.
 
Therapist4Chnge said:
I had one part of one interview be a mini episode of Jeopardy, where they had us pick questions from topic areas off of a board, it was quite entertaining.
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Man, that must have been an interesting interview.
 
TenaciousGirl said:
This reminds me of an interview I had. The site was not very forthcoming with the itinerary for the day. When we turned a corner and I was told I had 15 minutes to write as much as a could on X topic I had a freakout moment.
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Yikes! Yeah, this school only told us that we'd be doing an individual interview and a "group" interview... No mention of a debate, let alone a debate on the integrity of our field! Panic mode!!
 
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phillydave said:
One of my interviews was done as first an individual interview, then a group "interview" where I, and 3 other interviewees, were put into 2 groups of 2, then told that we were to debate about this subject: "1 group will argue that talk therapy does not work, and the other group will argue in favor of talk therapy." Guess which group I had the pleasure of being in... It was pretty scary, but it went pretty well.

After that, we had to undergo a writing test where we had 30 minutes to conceptualize a made up case, write a treatment plan, etc. Fun day. ;)
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at what program did this occur? you can PM me if you'd feel more comfortable!!
 
PsychPhDStudent said:
I really enjoyed the marathon interviews, actually. It gave me a good feel for the program.
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That's a good way to look at it. I'm trying to keep things in perspective and remember that these interviews are meant to help both the school and the prospective student figure out if it's a good match -- most of them aren't just trying to trip us up. Though some of those group interviews still sound pretty intimidating.
 
phillydave said:
After that, we had to undergo a writing test where we had 30 minutes to conceptualize a made up case, write a treatment plan, etc. Fun day. ;)
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Someone from my program went to an interview where they casually passed her an Exnter summary sheet and grilled her about it. I'm not a big projectives guy so hearing that freaked me out. we had to learn the Extner system, but I take issue with some of the research, so it was always hard to learn when I was at odds with it.
 
buzzworm said:
That's a good way to look at it. I'm trying to keep things in perspective and remember that these interviews are meant to help both the school and the prospective student figure out if it's a good match -- most of them aren't just trying to trip us up. Though some of those group interviews still sound pretty intimidating.
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You can definitely learn a ton at those rapid fire interviews. I was NOT a fan of the group format.
 
Therapist4Chnge said:
I had one part of one interview be a mini episode of Jeopardy, where they had us pick questions from topic areas off of a board, it was quite entertaining.
Click to expand...

As a childhood Jeopardy fan who came this close to appearing on Teen Jeopardy I woulda loved that. Did you get to "buzz" in?
I think the worst part of group interviews would be figuring out when to speak without appearing pushy/ rude or being perceived as too passive. As a woman, I feel this is an especially trying area.
 
I love Jeopardy and dream of being on it someday. Problem is I'd probably have said something nerdy like "I'll make it a true Daily Double, Alex." :D
 
phillydave said:
One of my interviews was done as first an individual interview, then a group "interview" where I, and 3 other interviewees, were put into 2 groups of 2, then told that we were to debate about this subject: "1 group will argue that talk therapy does not work, and the other group will argue in favor of talk therapy." Guess which group I had the pleasure of being in... It was pretty scary, but it went pretty well.

After that, we had to undergo a writing test where we had 30 minutes to conceptualize a made up case, write a treatment plan, etc. Fun day. ;)
Click to expand...

Was this a more clinically focused program?
 
ElectricMind said:
Let me just say that there was another person in the interview who constantly expressed how much she knew about the professors' individual research, brought in copies of published articles that she co-wrote, and constantly talked about how qualified she was (her years of research experience!). She was not offered a position.

I hope some of this helps!
Click to expand...

Well, I would have liked that girl. Sounds like she has the tenacity to make it through grad school. But I think I understand your point.
 
manko7 said:
Well, I would have liked that girl. Sounds like she has the tenacity to make it through grad school. But I think I understand your point.
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Can't blame her for trying to make a good impression, but yeah, I see how that could turn off some professors.
 
phillydave said:
Yessir, Clinical Psy.D.
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I'm getting the impression that most of the programs that run you through this type of stressful group interview, and look at how you react to the situation and interact with the other people in the group, are more clinically focused.
 
hamsterpants said:
As a childhood Jeopardy fan who came this close to appearing on Teen Jeopardy I woulda loved that. Did you get to "buzz" in?

I think the worst part of group interviews would be figuring out when to speak without appearing pushy/ rude or being perceived as too passive. As a woman, I feel this is an especially trying area.
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Alas, we didn't have buzzers, though that would have been fun.

As for the speaking/pushy issue....I had a simliar experience. I was put with two people who didn't speak. They literally had to be prompted to answer the questions, so we had a few, "uncomfortable silences" during our interviews.
 
i know last year (counseling ph.d. program) we had a group interview format that involved watching a hypothetical case and coming up with diagnosis and treatment plan, as well as a portion involving coming up with a research experiment as well as how to analyze it...all in front of a review committee
there was also a question and answer section in a group format

needless to say, this was the most stressful interview I went on. The rest were all face-to-face questions. I would prefer never experiencing this again.
 
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