i have my interview next week and just wondering what should i do to prepare? is there any link on sdn that has interview questions and answers that people have been asked at their interview? trying to get a sense of how to respond to questions. thanks
I compiled a huge list of questions from this site as well as a few others that I used and they pretty much prepared me for everything I was asked...I'll see if I can find it for you later...
Ah I found it...warning it's rather long and much of it is redundant, but it may help. (Also some of them were specific UB questions since that's where I interviewed, but it matters none.) Good luck!
Why Pharmacy?
Why UB?
We know that pharmacy is one of your major life-goals at this time. Please tell us about your biggest non-pharmacy related goal.
We were given a written essay: "List two qualities you possess that would make you a good pharmacist."
Tell me about your experience working in a pharmacy.
What other programs are associated with the PharmD program at UB?
Difference between a profession in Pharmacy and other health care professions?
Can you give me an example of current issues in the field of medicine/pharmacy ?
Can you give me an example of a situation where you witnessed an ethical violation? and what did you do about it ?
What's so good about working at a pharmacy?
Can you give me an example of a time when you changed someones opinion about a matter?
Name a situation in which someone was exhibiting questionable ethics and what you did about it.
Describe one of your activities that involves the community.
Who do you admire and why?
Define ethics and give an example of an ethical issue.
Why do you want to be a pharmacist and not doctor or nurse or other health career?
What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
What would you do for the next year if you didn't get in to any pharmacy schools?
Challenge for the health care in short and long term.
How do you see yourself in 6 and 10 years?
Tell me about your volunteer activities.
Examples:
- Tell me about yourself.
- What do you see yourself doing 5 years from now? In 10 years?
- What do you consider your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
- In what ways do you think you'll contribute to our company?
- What led you to choose your field or major study?
- How do you work under pressure?
- In what kind of work environment are you most comfortable?
- What do you know about our company?
- What have you disliked in your past jobs?
- What two or three things are most important to you in your jobs?
- What are the most important rewards you expect in your career?
- What motivates you to put forth your greatest effort?
- Why should I hire you?
- Describe the relationship that should exist between the supervisor and those reporting to her or him.
- What two or three accomplishments have given you the most satisfaction? Why?
- How long a commitment do you plan to give?
- Why did you select your college or university?
- In the past year, what have you been dissatisfied with in your performance?
- Why did you decide to seek a position with this company?
- What kinds of people frustrate you?
Potential Questions:
1. Tell me about yourself.
--How would you describe your personality?
--What 3 characteristics best describes you??
--What are your strengths and Weaknesses?
--How do you routinely communicate with others?
--What are your hobbies/what do you do in your free time?
2. Describe a time when you successfully resolved a conflict between yourself and someone else.
--Do you prefer to confront conflict or tactfully avoid it?
--Has there ever been a time when you had to deal with a lot of stress? What did you do to deal with the stress, elaborate.
--Tell me about a recurring problem that you were able to resolve.
--What is your usual approach to solving problems?
--Where do you turn when your usual problem-solving approaches are not successful?
3. What extracurricular activities and community service organizations are you involved with?
--Tell me about a time when you put someone else's interests before your own
--Tell us of one instance where you went out of your way/stepped out of your box to help someone in both the everyday and the pharmacy environment
--Do you see tutoring children as a clinical activity?
4. Is your GPA an accurate reflection of your academic ability?
5. Why do you want to become a Pharmacist?
--Where do you see yourself in 5 years in 10 years? What is your vision as pharmacist?
--What do you have to contribute to the field of pharmacy? What traits do you believe will contribute to you being a good pharmacist?
--Who had the greatest influence on your choice of pharmacy as a career path?
6. Why do you choose school?
--We have hundreds of applicants, why should school choose you?
--If there were only 1 spot left, why should we pick u over the other 9 applicants?
7. What challenges do you see for the field of pharmacy??
8. What do you feel the role of a Pharmacist in the community is?
--What do you see as the role of the pharmacist today?
--What do you think is a pharmacist's role in the community?
9. What would you do if you didn't get accepted into any pharmacy schools this year?
10. What qualities do you see are needed for an exceptional pharmacist?
11. What is Pharmaceutical care??
12. What is the leading factor of ailments in today's society?
13. What would you do in an ethical issue?
14. What would you do if you suspected your best friend, who is also a first-year student, was cheating in class?
--What would you do if you knew another student was cheating?
--What would you do if you caught a student cheating?
--If you knew a friend was cheating what would you do?
--Many of the assignments in pharmacy school require group work. What would you do if you found out that someone in your group plagiarized their part of the paper?
15. What would you do if a pharmacist you work with was caught drinking?
--If you noticed that a fellow pharmacist had alcohol on his/her breath, how would you handle the situation?
--What would you do if you came to work and a pharmacist you worked with took a valium every day without a prescription?
16. How would you handle a group member who was not pulling their weight in the group?
--If you were in a group and you noticed someone was slacking on purpose, how would you handle the situation?
--What would you do if were working in a group and you noticed that one of the group members was purposefully not pulling their weight?
17. Should or should not alcohol and tobacco products be sold at a retail/community pharmacy?
18. If a patient wanted a drug that you were morally against, what would you do?
19. You are counseling a patient on the proper use of his medication when your technician informs you that Dr. Jones is on the phone and wants to talk to you now. How would you handle this situation?
20. While explaining to an elderly patient how to take her medication, a hurried shopper demands to have his refill dispensed immediately. What do you do?
Come up with questions to ask them....
Faculty:
--How heavy is the coursework? Would I have free time to work and/or volunteer?
--What would you recommend a student to be involved in their first year?
-- Things specific to the school (aka how they grade, classes, etc)
--Why did you decide to be a faculty member here at the University? Do you do any sort of research?
Students:
--Is it difficult to find housing?
--How they enjoyed their experience at school.
--What is something you wish you knew when you were interviewing and/or applying to schools?
Mock interview questions for pre-pharm students
Why do you want to be a pharmacist?
How are you going to pay for pharmacy school?
Why do you have an F/W's on your transcripts?
Tell me about your family.
How do you manage your time?
What was your most difficult class?
Why aren't you applying to medical school?
What do you like about pharmacy school?
Tell me about yourself.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Where do you plan to work when you graduate?
Who influenced you into pharmacy?
What is something negative about pharmacy school that you have noticed?
What are 3 things that you have done that you are most proud of?
What do you see yourself doing in 10 years?
What are your hobbies?
What is your advantage/disadvantage?
What do you know about pharmacy?
Why should we choose you?
Talk about the recent news regarding the pharmacy industry and what do you think about it?
Pretend you are a pharmacy tech and the pharmacist wants to dispense a very expensive medication that is expired to a patient, what do you do?
What would your friends say about you?
Explain a recent group activity and how you went about dealing with difficult individuals.
Explain a difficult situation you may encounter as a pharmacist and how you would go about resolving it.
What do you see as the biggest personal challenge to becoming a pharmacist?
If working in a group setting, what role would you play?
What was your greatest accomplishment outside of anything that has to do with school or work?
Have you ever had a conflict/moral dilemma with your teacher or boss? How did you reslove this conflict?
If I could cure a disease, which one would you cure and why?
What qualities do you admire most about your best friend?
What will do you if you are not admitted?
Which three historic figures would you take to dinner?
Who is your hero?
What important issues in healthcare do you think will shape the future of pharmacy?
Describe some leadership positions you have had and what you learned from them.
What is the most positive aspect you feel is in the practice of pharmacy?
How do you feel about the current state of retal pharmacy? What suggestions can you make about any changes?
What is the most important druge that came out in the past 10 years?
If you got in, what pharmacy pathway would you choose?
How do you see the role of pharmacy changing?
Would you rather be a leader or a follower?
Describe a time you had to learn something very quickly and how you handled it.
Are there any characteristics about you that are not included in your application?
If you think a doctor is abusing and prescribing himself medication, what would you do?
If a 16 yr old daughter of a friend comes in to get birth control, what would you do?
what are good traits of a pharmacist?
Tell me about a mistake you have made recently.
What is a recent decision you made that you would go back and change?
What would happen if you caught your friend cheating?
How have you demonstrated leadership?
How do you balance extracurricular and school?
How do you deal with stress?
Describe yourself in 3 words.
What would you be most concerned with during your first year of pharmacy school?
Define professionalism
Tell two problems that you had in life and how did you solve them?
What is the kindest thing you have ever done?
What question did you expect to be asked that we didnt ask? Then answer that question.
Why Community college instead of the main University?
You went to down in hours this last semester is there a reason why?
What is the role of the pharmacist?
Do you have any regrets?
Tell us about your parents.
How will you pay for school?
If you caught someone cheating what would you do?
How do you study? (ie: group setting, alone)
