How long are your answers?

[Dr Lyss]

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Most interviews are around 30 minutes, so when asked a question how long is the typical response? a few sentences? 5 minutes? (just curious)

Sometimes I feel like my answers might be too long because I never get to say what I want before the interviewer cuts me off and asks me a different question. I only can get about 2 or 3 sentences out. Anyone else experience this? And how did you handle this kind of rapid fire interview?

 

[MrAgreeable]

Most interviews are around 30 minutes, so when asked a question how long is the typical response? a few sentences? 5 minutes? (just curious)

Sometimes I feel like my answers might be too long because I never get to say what I want before the interviewer cuts me off and asks me a different question. I only can get about 2 or 3 sentences out. Anyone else experience this? And how did you handle this kind of rapid fire interview?

Yeah, yeah I hear you. I was explaining to the guy at WVU aboot how I grew up and did all my shadowing, volunteering, et cetera in the Rust Belt. Usually when they do this they were just curious and your opening sentence was good enough for them. If this type of questioning is commonplace throughout the interview, then I do believe you got got an interviewer whose style is rapid fire. Just how he/she likes to get their info.👍

 

[MilkmanAl]

Did your professors ever give you a paper assignment without a page limit and the instructions to "write enough to answer the question?" Yeah, that's what you're doing here. "Tell me about yourself" might take a minute or something, while other questions might only warrant one-word answers. I don't recall any questions in my interview that took more than 5-6 sentences to answer fully. Then again, I tend to be pretty direct, and that might have chopped my responses down a bit.

 

[Bacchus]

You can't have a "schedule" for answers. Answer the question fully and to the point. Your reasons for going into medicine and "tell me about yourself" will take longer than a lot of questions. The point is, there is no way to tell you what is enough... answer as much as you feel necessary.

 

[deleted74029]

Did your professors ever give you a paper assignment without a page limit and the instructions to "write enough to answer the question?" Yeah, that's what you're doing here. "Tell me about yourself" might take a minute or something, while other questions might only warrant one-word answers. I don't recall any questions in my interview that took more than 5-6 sentences to answer fully. Then again, I tend to be pretty direct, and that might have chopped my responses down a bit.

I would absolutely hate it when people would always ask "how long does it have to be." Just answer the damn question. Theyre almost as bad as the "is this going to be on the test" people.

 

[aintlifegrand]

Well at my first interview (closed file), i got asked the usual tell me about yourself question. And after the usual run through of major, hometown, other stuff.. The interviewer said "I wanna know more, your whole life story from birth to now, and tell me all about your college career." haha I went on and talked for like 5 minutes about as many random facts about my life I could think of.