Has anyone NOT been asked standard questions at an interview?

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Ok so this is kinda weird. I’ve had three interviews so far, and not once was I asked “Tell me about yourself” and only once was I asked “How did you decide on medicine” and that was only because I changed my major halfway through college from something not science related. And I wasn’t asked any other standard question (such as “Why not Nursing/Social work?”, “What did you gain from volunteering)”, etc. All three interviews were very conversational. In fact, two of them were completely about my hobbies and family background.

I’ve been noticing from previous school specific threads that more and more people are reporting “conversational” style interviews.

So is this becoming a trend of going away from the standard med school interview format and transitioning to just holding a casual conversation?
 
With MMIs becoming more popular, there's probably less of a general need for a highly structured traditional interview.

At one of my interviews, many of us were surprised about how little the faculty members asked about medicine and just chatted about life instead. Perhaps they were trying to see how friendly or relaxed we could be.
 
Most of my 1 on 1 interviews had very little to do with "standard interview questions" and were extremely conversational.

I interviewed with the head of the admissions committee for one school and for probably 50% of the interview we talked about wrestling and jiu-jitsu. To wrap it up we talked about construction work and at the end when they told him we went over time he said "oh whoops" and rattled off 3 questions rapid fire from the piece of paper in front of him that were all "standard questions" that he seemed to not care nearly as much about.

EDIT for clarification: olypmic/freestyle wrestling
 
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In both of my interviews thus far, it was very clear that my interviewer had a set list of questions they had to ask and generally they stuck to that script. My first interviewer chatted about his life for about 80% of the interview, but he made sure to get in those questions before chatting again. My second interviewer stuck very close to the questions without much chatting. I really hope my next one allows for a bit more about my hobbies!
 
I did not get asked the standard questions at most of my interviews. I did get the “tell me a little about yourself,” and at a couple of the interviews I had one or two standard questions, but most of them were just very conversational. I think interviewers are moving away from the standard questions because everyone prepares for them and you can’t get a truly honest answer since the answers are all canned (whether they sound that way or not).
 
Gilakend said:
Most of my 1 on 1 interviews had very little to do with "standard interview questions" and were extremely conversational.

I interviewed with the head of the admissions committee for one school and for probably 50% of the interview we talked about wrestling and jiu-jitsu. To wrap it up we talked about construction work and at the end when they told him we went over time he said "oh whoops" and rattled off 3 questions rapid fire from the piece of paper in front of him that were all "standard questions" that he seemed to not care nearly as much about.
Click to expand...

Like WWE questions?
 
chemdoctor said:
Like WWE questions?
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giphy.gif
 
Same! Lots of conversational questions about family, hobbies, religion/cultural aspects of medicine. Some reflective questions about working with different racial/ethnic minorities. I wrote a lot about cultural competency and immigrant health in the essays - that is a likely reason.
 
I feel like another thing about interviews that have changed is that admitting weaknesses and opening up to vulnerability isn't as much of a death sentence as it used to be. I recently remember a post by @freedoctor17 who talked about personal issues in their life and their interviewer was impressed by it.
 
If we are trying to judge your demeanor, language skills, maturity, work/life balance, intellectual curiosity, and interest in medicine what are we going to ask about... for the most part I can get the answers I'm seeking by asking about just about anything.
 
ClamShell said:
I feel like another thing about interviews that have changed is that admitting weaknesses and opening up to vulnerability isn't as much of a death sentence as it used to be. I recently remember a post by @freedoctor17 who talked about personal issues in their life and their interviewer was impressed by it.
Click to expand...

You do need to be careful how you talk about it though. They were impressed with the way i owned up to the problem and how i talked about learning from the mistakes i made in handling it even though at the time it had seemed like the best way. I've had this come up at a few interviews and i only had one interviewer react a little negatively. I was very flustered at that interview though from other things already and probably explained it rather poorly. It didn't help that the interviewer was very stony and didn't seem happy with anything i said haha. You'll need to read the room and make sure they're the open/friendly type first.
 
I had a one on one that asked 30 mins of questions that range from:
- what do you like to eat if it's the last meal you can have before entering a long coma?
- how will you solve the situation that your patient believes your hairstyle is causing his or her emotional distress?

to

- Do you feel like emergency physicians working in high-criminal rate neighborhood should carry teaser and or pepper spray while attending shifts?
- If someone points a gun to your head and tells you to stop doing CPR on your current dying patient, how will you respond

I got waitlisted.
 
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ClamShell said:
I feel like another thing about interviews that have changed is that admitting weaknesses and opening up to vulnerability isn't as much of a death sentence as it used to be. I recently remember a post by @freedoctor17 who talked about personal issues in their life and their interviewer was impressed by it.
Click to expand...

I think it depends on what you’re saying. If you say stuff like “I can’t work in a team” or “I hate being asked questions” it prob won’t help ypu
 
Most of them asked pretty standard questions, but at one the interviewer said "I have to rate you on creativity. So... say something creative!"
 
freelancePsychic said:
Most of them asked pretty standard questions, but at one the interviewer said "I have to rate you on creativity. So... say something creative!"
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
What did you say?
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freelancePsychic said:
I talked about a creative hobby. Not quite what they were looking for but the best I could come up with on the spot.
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Lol what were they looking for? A monologue?
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I would have just said "something creative". But only if I had another acceptance from a school i liked more xD
 
Laix said:
If someone points a gun to your head and tells you to stop doing CPR on your current dying patient, how will you respond
Click to expand...

Wtf what’s the right answer to this? In all honesty I value my life the most but if I say that would that land me an R?
 
ClamShell said:
I would have just said "something creative". But only if I had another acceptance from a school i liked more xD
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That would’ve been creative... taking the question literally like that. It’d be funny if you found out that that’s what they actually wanted to hear and gave you bonus points and an acceptance with a full tuition scholarship...
 
doctorcocter said:
Wtf what’s the right answer to this? In all honesty I value my life the most but if I say that would that land me an R?
Click to expand...

Well what if that’s a riddle and the patient didn’t need CPR and needed something else?
 
The two most non-standard question I have been asked were the following:

"Name your top three shows on Netflix." (A student interviewer asked me this after seeing that I listed watching Netflix as a hobby on my secondary for this school)

"Tell me a story. It can be medical or non-medical. Just tell me a story." The follow-up question was, "What did you learn from this experience?"

Both of these questions kind of threw me off and I really had to think about how I was going to respond to each of these. In the end, both questions led to productive conversations that brought out what I had in common with my interviewers.
 
I was definitely asked, "tell me about yourself" in every 1 on 1 interview. But it was actually used as a conversation starter more than anything
 
Laix said:
WHICH ONE!?
Click to expand...

I remember watching a clip on youtube of a guy pointing a gun at a surgeon during surgery. Pretty sure it was Grey's Anatomy.
 
During my application year, I had one interview that asked none of the standard questions. Most were pretty abstract. My favorite was being asked to describe my best friend. Least favorite was being asked to predict where healthcare is going from an economic and policy standpoint....

In another interview, I did get several of the "standard" questions, but then out of nowhere: "If you were a type of cereal, what cereal would you be and why?"
 
Med Ed said:
Your false assumption is that such trite questioning was ever considered a standard med school interview.
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Thank you for correcting me on that. I guess I assumed so because every "Medical Admissions Expert" (Literally cannot emphasize the quotes enough) website said so.
 
doctorcocter said:
Wtf what’s the right answer to this? In all honesty I value my life the most but if I say that would that land me an R?
Click to expand...
Most interview questions like that have no right answers. But sometimes they do have wrong answers.

You are expected to Think on your feet.
 
I was asked "How many black friends do you have?" and I responded saying a handful (10-ish) since our school has a strong IMG student program from Ethiopia and I made some close friends in the dorms freshman year. The follow up question was "Why don't you have more black friends?" 😵

In all reality, everything is allowed to be asked so just make sure you can think on your feet and provide empathetic viewpoints on the ethical questions.
 
DoctorSnow said:
I was asked "How many black friends do you have?" and I responded saying a handful (10-ish) since our school has a strong IMG student program from Ethiopia and I made some close friends in the dorms freshman year. The follow up question was "Why don't you have more black friends?" 😵

In all reality, everything is allowed to be asked so just make sure you can think on your feet and provide empathetic viewpoints on the ethical questions.
Click to expand...

Actually there are a number of questions that are illegal.
 
chemdoctor said:
Well what if that’s a riddle and the patient didn’t need CPR and needed something else?
Click to expand...

The trick is your gunman and patient are the same person. You note their uninhibited speech and determine they don't need CPR anyway. Checkmate.
 
mydogmolly said:
The trick is your gunman and patient are the same person. You note their uninhibited speech and determine they don't need CPR anyway. Checkmate.
Click to expand...

Automatic acceptance to you with a full scholarship
 
Laix said:
If someone points a gun to your head and tells you to stop doing CPR on your current dying patient, how will you respond
Click to expand...

What's your end game, gunman?
Do you want me to stop CPR on this person ? Why not just shoot the dying person? If you shoot me, I will be unable to move on to help someone else.
Do you want me to not stop CPR? If I stop and you shoot me dead, then I will have stopped CPR without the possibility of resuming.

What are you trying to accomplish, gunman?
 
Laix said:
I had a one on one that asked 30 mins of questions that range from:
- what do you like to eat if it's the last meal you can have before entering a long coma?
- how will you solve the situation that your patient believes your hairstyle is causing his or her emotional distress?

to

- Do you feel like emergency physicians working in high-criminal rate neighborhood should carry teaser and or pepper spray while attending shifts?
- If someone points a gun to your head and tells you to stop doing CPR on your current dying patient, how will you respond

I got waitlisted.
Click to expand...
How repulsive. Pepper spray?! Awful.

45ACP is much more effective.

In all seriousness... man I've really got to figure out what would be the most PC way to answer these questions. Without sound like a naïve idiot, but also not cold and heartless.
 
LizzyM said:
What's your end game, gunman?
Do you want me to stop CPR on this person ? Why not just shoot the dying person? If you shoot me, I will be unable to move on to help someone else.
Do you want me to not stop CPR? If I stop and you shoot me dead, then I will have stopped CPR without the possibility of resuming.

DoctorSnow said:
I was asked "How many black friends do you have?" and I responded saying a handful (10-ish) since our school has a strong IMG student program from Ethiopia and I made some close friends in the dorms freshman year. The follow up question was "Why don't you have more black friends?" 😵

In all reality, everything is allowed to be asked so just make sure you can think on your feet and provide empathetic viewpoints on the ethical questions.
Click to expand...

What are you trying to accomplish, gunman?
Click to expand...

How many black friends do you have, and why don't you have more? That is such an odd question.
 
LizzyM said:
excuse me? how does that relate to what I wrote? Did you mean to respond to a different post?
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It’s a response to dr snows post which was a response to yours.


But seriously if an adcom asked me why I don’t have more black friends, I would ask why they place so much importance on skin color over character.
 
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Laix said:
I had a one on one that asked 30 mins of questions that range from:
- what do you like to eat if it's the last meal you can have before entering a long coma?
- how will you solve the situation that your patient believes your hairstyle is causing his or her emotional distress?

to

- Do you feel like emergency physicians working in high-criminal rate neighborhood should carry teaser and or pepper spray while attending shifts?
- If someone points a gun to your head and tells you to stop doing CPR on your current dying patient, how will you respond?

I got waitlisted.
Click to expand...


Seriously?! What a dumb question. I guess I would say I would stop CPR so I can save future patients and be there for my family. Lmao
 
ClamShell said:
Ok so this is kinda weird. I’ve had three interviews so far, and not once was I asked “Tell me about yourself” and only once was I asked “How did you decide on medicine” and that was only because I changed my major halfway through college from something not science related. And I wasn’t asked any other standard question (such as “Why not Nursing/Social work?”, “What did you gain from volunteering)”, etc. All three interviews were very conversational. In fact, two of them were completely about my hobbies and family background.

I’ve been noticing from previous school specific threads that more and more people are reporting “conversational” style interviews.

So is this becoming a trend of going away from the standard med school interview format and transitioning to just holding a casual conversation?
Click to expand...
I've had some extremely inappropriate questions asked at interviews, of them, these ones stand out:
1a. Where else have you interviewed?
1b. Where else have you been accepted?

Based on those questions, they asked where the current school interviewing me ranks...
 
Seems kind of lazy. Like they don’t want to examine you so they’ll just trust someone else’s judgement. Hope those adcoms aren’t doctors
 
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