Outlining to Prepare for My Interview? Thoughts

[Dai]

Hey y'all! So I just received an interview from a DPT school! I went ahead and outlined some things so I could be prepared for my questions. Any thoughts, and are there any other questions I should be prepared for?

• Describe me about yourself.
  • Drove all the way here from Houston! I am so grateful to be given the opportunity to talk to you guys today.
  • University of Houston and graduating this May with bachelor’s degree in kinesiology.
  • Born in VN, immigrated when I was 5 years old
  • Parents taught me importance of education
  • Growing up, I’ve always had to learn to grow and adapt to my new environment.
  • I was involved with my church for many years. I grew to love the feeling of being with a huge community, did skits for youth jam nights, taught sunday school classes, kept me strong in my faith.
  • Became involved in martial arts - taekwondo, judo, and aikido
    • Not only kept me physically active
    • Taught me the importance of being strong mentally and spiritually as well
  • Like in martial arts, always looking for new challenges

• Describe yourself in three words
  • Learner - I know that even when I achieve a goal, there is always room for improvement.
  • Adaptor - I am not afraid to seek new challenges
  • Overcomer - I am willing to fail. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t always try to be the best physical therapist and learn from my mistakes.

• What are your biggest strong points?
  • Ability to adapt
  • Organized

• What are your biggest weaknesses?
  • Taking on too much responsibility
  • Reluctance to delegate tasks

• What have you done that you believe will benefit our program?
  • Done a measure of things
    • Sunday school teacher
    • Building Supervisor
    • PT Tech
    • Teacher
  • And what I've seemed to notice about all of these opportunities I've pursued is the fact that all of them require me to educate a person on something. As a Sunday school teacher, I taught my kids to grow and understand their faith. As a building supervisor, I have educated my staff members on the policies to ensure that they provide a quality customer service and care. As a PT tech, I'm educating my patients on the correct ways to do an exercise procedure. And through my experience in educating others, I believe I can be a great asset to your program. My parents taught me to value education greatly so that I can serve others correctly and efficiently and that is what you will see from me. Someone who is determined to use the knowledge they have gained from being in the program and ultimately using it for a much greater purpose.

• How do you handle stress?
  • Put events in planners ahead of time, to save the trouble of worrying about the deadline.
• What other questions do you have for us?
  • To the students: What are your experiences studying physical therapy at Hardin-Simmons and how is campus life like?
  • To the faculty: What made you go through the route of specialties in physical therapy
  • In general: I know this is a weird, unnecessarily specific question….
    • But does the university teach students in active wound care?

Any advice helps! Thank you!

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[Azimuthal]

Yeah, I'm not going to read all that. Just be authentic and honest. Know that it's okay to stop and think before responding. Don't sound like you're regurgitating memorized lines.

 

[jblil]

I echo Azi, I stopped reading when I saw your wall of text.

 

[beyoutiful_sunshine]

I read the whole thing and I loved your answers! They seem genuine but also like you put some thought into it and they are well constructed!
I'm a fellow applicant so I don't have experience interviewing... YET (First interview on Friday of next week). So maybe somebody that has successfully been through the process could give you a better feedback. But I loved your answers!!

Also, nice to see another Texas applicants on here! I created a thread for Texas applicants if you want to post there too (2016-2017 Texas applicants, something like that) Congratulations on getting an interview with HSU and good luck!!

 

[liftthingsupanddown]

Its good that you outlined all of this, as it gets you thinking about yourself. My interview last week was only 20 min and he maybe asked me four questions -one of which was a hypothetical therapy scenario. My guess is you'll only get to a few of these questions, but it's good self-reflection.

 

[Dai]

Yeah, I'm not going to read all that. Just be authentic and honest. Know that it's okay to stop and think before responding. Don't sound like you're regurgitating memorized lines.

of course -- thanks Azimuthal! Yeah I just mainly outlined so I could get a good idea of what I could say in case the question comes up.

 

[Dai]

I read the whole thing and I loved your answers! They seem genuine but also like you put some thought into it and they are well constructed!
I'm a fellow applicant so I don't have experience interviewing... YET (First interview on Friday of next week). So maybe somebody that has successfully been through the process could give you a better feedback. But I loved your answers!!

Also, nice to see another Texas applicants on here! I created a thread for Texas applicants if you want to post there too (2016-2017 Texas applicants, something like that) Congratulations on getting an interview with HSU and good luck!!

Thanks so much beyoutiful_sunshine! Looks like we're going to be very close -- i remember you from other threads!

 

[Dai]

Its good that you outlined all of this, as it gets you thinking about yourself. My interview last week was only 20 min and he maybe asked me four questions -one of which was a hypothetical therapy scenario. My guess is you'll only get to a few of these questions, but it's good self-reflection.

That's a good question. I will take it into consideration. Thanks so much for that!

 

[imagodei20]

Well you are very organized so that is good. Even just writing this stuff out helps. You will crush the interview I am sure. Maybe watch Amy Cuddys TED Talk on "Power Posing" can help calm nerves (I'm too lazy to post a link lol). It doesn't work for everyone, but going in with confidence and being relaxed is always a plus.

 

[nd_dpt]

It's always good to look into how you would answer interview questions. You've done a great job with this outline! One major tip I can give you is not to memorize everything you included in it. During interviews, schools are mainly looking at your ability to communicate. You want the interview to feel like a conversation. Get with a few different people to perform mock interviews, have them ask these questions in a random order, and practice how you would respond to them while still being personable. Good luck!

 

[PathforwardtoDPT]

My interview is tomorrow. I'm also outlining some main points I want to hit on to organize my thoughts. Just don't come off as having everything pre-prepared like a robot! Good luck on yours!

 

[PrePT811]

I also agree with the above posts. I outlined as well for the purpose self-reflection. The drawbacks with memorizing is answers is this: 1. You may sound like you're regurgitating memorized lines. 2. You can get thrown off by questions that you did not prepare for. If you've memorized really good answers to questions you've prepared for, thats great. But stumbling and failing at questions you have not prepared for may be a let-down from your interviewers perspective. The point of the interview is to get to know you and see how well you can communicate. You know yourself best. Take some time to practice with friends and ask them to give you questions you have not prepared for. From my past interviews, I can also say that it lasted from 20-40 min (4-5 questions). If one of your questions was "What are your biggest strong points?", I don't recommend giving them a 2-3 word answer that you have listed. Make it a conversation or bring up examples. Good luck!

 

[PTinspired]

Along with what everyone said, do not make it sound like you're regurgitating the answers. I went through the UTMB interview and I felt like that was my biggest problem. I had all the answers written down and it didn't seem natural for me at all. Then when there were questions that I wasn't prepared for, I froze for a little bit and then answered and didn't feel confident in my answer. Although these are all good answers, I say write out key factors that you want to express and say the rest during the interview.

 

[beyoutiful_sunshine]

Along with what everyone said, do not make it sound like you're regurgitating the answers. I went through the UTMB interview and I felt like that was my biggest problem. I had all the answers written down and it didn't seem natural for me at all. Then when there were questions that I wasn't prepared for, I froze for a little bit and then answered and didn't feel confident in my answer. Although these are all good answers, I say write out key factors that you want to express and say the rest during the interview.

Have you heard from other schools and/or did you interview elsewhere?

 

[DPT_19]

Obviously stated before, I wouldn't look at your outline again. You wrote it out and should have a good sense for what you want to say, but the major thing some schools look for are IF you rehearsed before the interview... and that's exactly what they don't want. The point of the interview is to get a sense of you, right there in front of them. You gave them an essay which was worked on probably for weeks, but now they want the raw version. A lot of schools now will ask a few of the typical questions, but then they will ask if you were a cereal what would you be and why, if you were a car what one and why, they may pick up an object and say sell this to me, others I've gotten, pick out a fruit, number, etc. you would be and why, if you had to be rock paper or sciccors which and why? They can pull crazy stuff out, and if they notice your reaction time of answering clearly rehearsed questions and questions that clearly throw you off, it's not always great for you. So I'd have that idea and now just expect for anything to be asked, and how you go about that on the spot will show who you really are (and it's okay to stutter or mess up, they enjoy seeing a little bit of personality when you see a mistake and how you handle that)