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Hi everyone,
Some of you might remember the mock interview thread from last year: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=935661
I think that program was a great success, and I wanted to do it again for this year's applicants. Unfortunately, though, I'm absolutely going to need help; there were way too many people requesting mock interviews for me to do on my own. I asked for help last year and had a couple of people commit, but they didn't end up actually doing any interviews, leaving me with the sad task of doing ~20-30 interviews.
So, if you benefited from one of the interviews and would like to pay it forward OR if interviewing applicants sounds like a fun time, check the info out below. Please note that this thread is NOT for requesting the interviews; I will either make a separate thread for that later or will post the info to sign up in this thread once we get started.
Who can do interviews?
Anyone who is either 1) a current medical student or 2) has been accepted to medical school can volunteer. Please note that you'll need to prove this somehow; a picture of your school ID if you're a student or your acceptance letter if you're an applicant is fine. If you feel uncomfortable sharing that info with me, I'm sure we can get a mod to verify this info. Either way your info will be anonymous.
How are the interviews done?
You can use whatever platform you'd like, but I used Skype and found that pretty easy to do. This is something you can work out with each interviewee on an individual basis according to what works best for both of you.
What do I do?
Applicants will send you all or part of their AMCAS PDF for you to read over and get some inspiration for your questions. This will take, at most, 10-15 minutes and is just meant to give you some material to ask questions about. As far as the actual interviews, I aimed to do a 20-30 minute interviews and ask each person 3-5 questions. After the interview was done, I'd spend 10-15 minutes giving feedback and answering any questions the applicant might have. All and all, it takes about an hour of total time to interview one applicant.
What if I've never interviewed anyone before?
Not a problem! I'm going to write-up a very quick primer on interviewing - what to do, what you might want to talk about and what you probably shouldn't, some example questions, etc.. Really, though, you should just use your own experience as your guide. Think about the good interviews you had and what made them good interviews - "good" meaning particularly challenging or insightful - and try and replicate that for the mock interviews you do. Remember, you're not actually accepting or rejecting anyone here - you're just trying to give them an idea of what a real interview is like and get them thinking about some of the questions they are likely to run into during their app cycle.
What do I get?
Well... nothing really, I suppose. Some good karma and the satisfaction of helping others with your advice and experience. Since that likely isn't enough for some people, though, anyone that volunteers and completes at least 5 interviews will receive, at their choice, one of the following: 1) a $10 Amazon gift card, 2) a $10 Starbucks gift card, or 3) a bronze level SDN membership. Please note that this is coming out of my own pocket, not some sweet endorsement deal from either SDN, Amazon, or Starbucks, so I apologize for the modesty of the gifts. But hey, it's free stuff! And hopefully that will offer some incentives to help out and give back to the community.
How many volunteers are you looking for?
Anywhere from 5-10. I don't expect to get more than 10 volunteers, but if there's more interest than that then the first 10 people that volunteer will be asked to help out.
How do I sign up?
Send me a PM letting me know that you're interested. If you're fine sending it to me, also send me a picture of one the pieces of "proof" mentioned above - either a school ID or your acceptance letter. I guarantee that your anonymity will be preserved - once I see the picture and see that it's legitimate, it'll be gone, never to be seen again. If you would prefer not to do that, though, then, as mentioned before, we can see if a mod would be gracious enough to verify the info themselves and then let me know.
Have any questions? Post them here or shoot me a message. Thanks in advance for anyone who helps out!
Some of you might remember the mock interview thread from last year: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=935661
I think that program was a great success, and I wanted to do it again for this year's applicants. Unfortunately, though, I'm absolutely going to need help; there were way too many people requesting mock interviews for me to do on my own. I asked for help last year and had a couple of people commit, but they didn't end up actually doing any interviews, leaving me with the sad task of doing ~20-30 interviews.
So, if you benefited from one of the interviews and would like to pay it forward OR if interviewing applicants sounds like a fun time, check the info out below. Please note that this thread is NOT for requesting the interviews; I will either make a separate thread for that later or will post the info to sign up in this thread once we get started.
Who can do interviews?
Anyone who is either 1) a current medical student or 2) has been accepted to medical school can volunteer. Please note that you'll need to prove this somehow; a picture of your school ID if you're a student or your acceptance letter if you're an applicant is fine. If you feel uncomfortable sharing that info with me, I'm sure we can get a mod to verify this info. Either way your info will be anonymous.
How are the interviews done?
You can use whatever platform you'd like, but I used Skype and found that pretty easy to do. This is something you can work out with each interviewee on an individual basis according to what works best for both of you.
What do I do?
Applicants will send you all or part of their AMCAS PDF for you to read over and get some inspiration for your questions. This will take, at most, 10-15 minutes and is just meant to give you some material to ask questions about. As far as the actual interviews, I aimed to do a 20-30 minute interviews and ask each person 3-5 questions. After the interview was done, I'd spend 10-15 minutes giving feedback and answering any questions the applicant might have. All and all, it takes about an hour of total time to interview one applicant.
What if I've never interviewed anyone before?
Not a problem! I'm going to write-up a very quick primer on interviewing - what to do, what you might want to talk about and what you probably shouldn't, some example questions, etc.. Really, though, you should just use your own experience as your guide. Think about the good interviews you had and what made them good interviews - "good" meaning particularly challenging or insightful - and try and replicate that for the mock interviews you do. Remember, you're not actually accepting or rejecting anyone here - you're just trying to give them an idea of what a real interview is like and get them thinking about some of the questions they are likely to run into during their app cycle.
What do I get?
Well... nothing really, I suppose. Some good karma and the satisfaction of helping others with your advice and experience. Since that likely isn't enough for some people, though, anyone that volunteers and completes at least 5 interviews will receive, at their choice, one of the following: 1) a $10 Amazon gift card, 2) a $10 Starbucks gift card, or 3) a bronze level SDN membership. Please note that this is coming out of my own pocket, not some sweet endorsement deal from either SDN, Amazon, or Starbucks, so I apologize for the modesty of the gifts. But hey, it's free stuff! And hopefully that will offer some incentives to help out and give back to the community.
How many volunteers are you looking for?
Anywhere from 5-10. I don't expect to get more than 10 volunteers, but if there's more interest than that then the first 10 people that volunteer will be asked to help out.
How do I sign up?
Send me a PM letting me know that you're interested. If you're fine sending it to me, also send me a picture of one the pieces of "proof" mentioned above - either a school ID or your acceptance letter. I guarantee that your anonymity will be preserved - once I see the picture and see that it's legitimate, it'll be gone, never to be seen again. If you would prefer not to do that, though, then, as mentioned before, we can see if a mod would be gracious enough to verify the info themselves and then let me know.
Have any questions? Post them here or shoot me a message. Thanks in advance for anyone who helps out!
