interviewers who don't ask many questions?

[Pandaeac]

hi all,

a couple of my interviewers hardly asked any questions or said much at all and now I'm feeling kinda worried. has anyone had any experience with this in the past? is it a bad sign?

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[yehhhboiii]

hard to gauge
there are plenty of people that come out of an interview feeling awesome and they get rejected
some people think they totally bombed it and get an invitation in the mail
just try to relax

 

[LizzyM]

Some interviewers would rather talk about themselves. If you let them, they think you are great and you get a good review. We do try to weed out those narcissists from among our interviewers but that's one possible scenario and it is ok for you as an applicant.

Another possibility is that you and the interviewer hit it off and just have a nice conversation. The interviewer isn't asking question after question & getting short answers and doesn't feel like they had to do all the work (pulling teeth, we call it). You get a good review.

The only really bad explanation is that you gave really long answers and didn't pick up cues that the interviewer wanted to move on to other questions and so didn't get to many of the usual questions.

 

[calgirl1234]

Some interviewers would rather talk about themselves. If you let them, they think you are great and you get a good review. We do try to weed out those narcissists from among our interviewers but that's one possible scenario and it is ok for you as an applicant.

Another possibility is that you and the interviewer hit it off and just have a nice conversation. The interviewer isn't asking question after question & getting short answers and doesn't feel like they had to do all the work (pulling teeth, we call it). You get a good review.

The only really bad explanation is that you gave really long answers and didn't pick up cues that the interviewer wanted to move on to other questions and so didn't get to many of the usual questions.

I had that first scenario happen to me at my last interview. I was afraid that he wouldn't be able to write me a good review, since he didn't know much about me except that I am a great listener haha

 

[CarlosDanger]

The only really bad explanation is that you gave really long answers and didn't pick up cues that the interviewer wanted to move on to other questions and so didn't get to many of the usual questions.

Crap. There were many times when I would talk for a few minutes straight because I was trying to give thoughtful answers...but sometimes I would notice the interviewer glance at the clock. What would you guys consider to be too long? I try to engage the interviewer while I talk, but maybe sometimes I should just shut up. I just don't want to give the one sentence generic answers.

 

[tantacles]

Some interviewers would rather talk about themselves. If you let them, they think you are great and you get a good review. We do try to weed out those narcissists from among our interviewers but that's one possible scenario and it is ok for you as an applicant.

Another possibility is that you and the interviewer hit it off and just have a nice conversation. The interviewer isn't asking question after question & getting short answers and doesn't feel like they had to do all the work (pulling teeth, we call it). You get a good review.

The only really bad explanation is that you gave really long answers and didn't pick up cues that the interviewer wanted to move on to other questions and so didn't get to many of the usual questions.

To be fair, I think this kind of interviewer can be extremely valuable provided they're not the only person interviewing the applicant. Part of your job as an interviewee is to read people and find out who they are very quickly, and if you manage to find out that someone loves to talk (and you're willing to listen), you've managed a particular part of your job very well.

If there's a second interviewer, that person can deal with the hard questions, and obviously, having more than one person ask these questions can yield some very good information, but reading social cues well is as important as having good answers.

 

[Ismet]

Crap. There were many times when I would talk for a few minutes straight because I was trying to give thoughtful answers...but sometimes I would notice the interviewer glance at the clock. What would you guys consider to be too long? I try to engage the interviewer while I talk, but maybe sometimes I should just shut up. I just don't want to give the one sentence generic answers.

How long is "a few minutes"? I'm certainly not timing an interviewee's responses, but if a response drags on for >5 minutes, it's usually too long. In one of my recent interviews, the applicant's response to "tell me about yourself" was almost 15 minutes! He basically ran through his entire resume, talking about research, volunteering, shadowing, other ECs, hobbies, without me saying a word. For me, I take that as the person is trying to dominate the conversation and "telling me what I want I want to hear" rather than having a conversation or allowing me to ask the questions I want to get to. Or it could mean that the person is nervous and is just rambling, which is understandable...but yeah this guy was definitely not nervous. 🙄

Realize that this is all just the opinion of one interviewer, though. Other interviewers might not notice how long you're taking to answer or might even be relieved that they don't have to ask as many questions. Don't be overly neurotic about cues, but if the interviewer keeps looking at the clock, that might be a cue to shorten your responses a bit. Your responses definitely shouldn't be one sentence, but maybe limit certain responses to the "pertinent positives." You don't have to talk about every little facet of your research (unless your interviewer is in the same field of research, the nitty gritty details of your work will probably go over the interviewer's head and start to get boring). You don't need to walk the interviewer through your whole life story. Succinct (but not overly brief) and coherent responses are good.

 

[CarlosDanger]

wow, thanks for the advice. I may have had a couple responses that lasted about 5 minutes - mostly the tell me about yourself open ended type questions like you said. I'll try to keep it a little more succinct in general. If I see the interviewer clock-checking, I try to wrap it up pretty quick. Hopefully its not too late by that point. No one wants to know about my research! haha, I thought they all would but no one cares. Oh well, I'd rather talk about life experiences and the school anyways.

 

[thisisansley]

Most conventional interview wisdom says to speak no longer than 1-2 minutes without the other person interacting in some way. Keep it short and sweet and if they want to know more, they will ask. 5 minutes is actually a reaaaaally long time for one person to be dominating the conversation.

 

[13132]

I had an interviewer who made me ask tons of questions of him after just a few minutes of interviewing. He had REALLY thorough responses he talked for about 15 minutes. After I ran out of questions (about 5)....he asked me a few more questions then wrapped it up. I thought I had a terrible interview and wasn't interesting enough for him to ask me many questions, but at the end of the interview he told me I did a good job. I think he just had a unique style...every interview I have had has been VERY different.

Related side note that I wanted to ask some people about
What does it mean if an interviewer "congratulates" you at the end of an interview? Is this common? I had another interviewer tell me at the end that I was going to make "an excellent physician". These two compliments at the end make me really nervous because it gives me TONS of hope and excitement (which is a dangerous thing in this process because it is so mysterious) and I am afraid I am reading too much into them. Are they allowed to indicate how an interview went like that? I guess I keep telling myself that they wouldn't take the time to say those things if they didn't mean them.

 

[CarlosDanger]

I've had the same thing in a few of my interviewers. A few of them have even tried to explain what my chances were of acceptance after the bulk of the interview was over. Usually it was something like, "I think you would make a great doctor, and I hope you get in, but keep in mind that I can't make the entire decision myself so don't take this as an acceptance." Some even said they would try hard to fight for me, but couldn't guarantee anything. One of my interviewers wasn't even on the adcom, and was basically like, "I wish there were more physicians like you, but I have very little say in this process, I just fill out a form and mail it to the committee." I wanted to say, well what are we even here for then!! Also, he said that after he basically insulted all my life decisions, and ranted for about 15 minutes about how much he dislikes physicians. That interview was a very dark timeline.

I think most interviewers are just very friendly and want to be on your side and help you get in if they can. I doubt I'm such a good interviewer that I just blew them away and they were in love with me. As stated above, I apparently talked way too long, so who knows. If I go 0/4 I'll report back and retract all statements.

 

[Cambover]

I had one interviewer talk for 80% of the time allotted 30 minutes about her patients. I listened attentively (and it was interesting), but felt like she wasn't able to know me very well.

Also had another interviewer talk about the meaning of my last name for quite some time, but that's neither here nor there.

I had an interviewer who made me ask tons of questions of him after just a few minutes of interviewing. He had REALLY thorough responses he talked for about 15 minutes. After I ran out of questions (about 5)....he asked me a few more questions then wrapped it up. I thought I had a terrible interview and wasn't interesting enough for him to ask me many questions, but at the end of the interview he told me I did a good job. I think he just had a unique style...every interview I have had has been VERY different.

Related side note that I wanted to ask some people about
What does it mean if an interviewer "congratulates" you at the end of an interview? Is this common? I had another interviewer tell me at the end that I was going to make "an excellent physician". These two compliments at the end make me really nervous because it gives me TONS of hope and excitement (which is a dangerous thing in this process because it is so mysterious) and I am afraid I am reading too much into them. Are they allowed to indicate how an interview went like that? I guess I keep telling myself that they wouldn't take the time to say those things if they didn't mean them.

I wish I knew how. Several said they were impressed by my application/personal statement. Do they say similar things to everyone?

 

[13132]

I had one interviewer talk for 80% of the time allotted 30 minutes about her patients. I listened attentively (and it was interesting), but felt like she wasn't able to know me very well.

Also had another interviewer talk about the meaning of my last name for quite some time, but that's neither here nor there.



I wish I knew how. Several said they were impressed by my application/personal statement. Do they say similar things to everyone?

I am glad to know I am not the only one wondering.

I think most applicants on here are above average in some way or another, so we may discover compliments are common in this group. However, I would doubt they are the norm for the general interviewing population.

 

[CarlosDanger]

I would doubt they are the norm for the general interviewing population.

Hope your right! Maybe LizzyM or gyngyn could comment. My weaknesses also got brought up almost all interviews. I figure that is standard practice

 

[13132]

Hope your right! Maybe LizzyM or gyngyn could comment. My weaknesses also got brought up almost all interviews. I figure that is standard practice

I have been fortunate enough to not be asked that question in all of my interviews so far!

 

[CarlosDanger]

Oh, thats good. I mean my actual weaknesses, like "oh, I see you made a D" - those type of things. I have also been asked a lot what I think my weaknesses are. In that case, I try not to bring attention to what my actual weaknesses really are, but try and put a spin on something not that bad.

 

[LizzyM]

I know interviewers who has "what are your weaknesses?" and they complain that they get canned answers. I have more sneaky ways of getting the same information with questions that are based on the applicant's specific experiences.

 

[Harpsx]

Like someone else said, traditional interview advice says to keep the answer under 2 minutes to give the interviewer a chance to pipe in and make it more like a conversation.

I do think it's possible to be thorough and give a lot of information in a short time frame. Just read your secondary essays out loud and you'll find it only takes about a minute. Aim to talk like your secondaries (not literally) where you're succinct and give a ton of information while sounding natural. That really only comes with lots of practice.

I like to do interview practice with friends that are also on the interview trail because it gives you a chance to see what it's like interviewing premeds. You can quickly tell when your friends are rambling unnecessarily for an answer that they could have probably been answered very well in 30secs (which sounds short but in an interview setting it really isn't! Or at least that's what it seemed like when I was listening to my friends).

 

[osprey099]

I've had an interviewer who talked the entire time about how he doesn't get paid enough as a "insert X specialist." I just concurred with him generally but also pointed it some potential reasons why he shouldn't be paid as much as he wants just in case he was testing me to see if I'll grow up becoming a physician like him. He seemed to really enjoy our conversation and congratulated me in the end.