Pharmacy interview 10 minute introduction

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

in0220

New Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 17, 2013
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Hi everyone,

I have recently received an interview invitation, and it says that I will be given 5 to 10 minutes to freely talk about anything to provide the panel with insights about me as an individual. It is suggested that I do not recite the details of my resume or my academic life. I am not sure how I should prepare for this.

What would you talk about in this section? If you have done such introductory portion of the interview before, what did you talk about?

Please let me know how I should approach this section.

Thank you so much!
 
Ah, this is the freeform replacement for the traditional "tell me about yourself" question. Rule #1 in any interview: no one cares about your past - they care about your future. Only if the past is relevant to your future does the past matter. Spending time talking about the inspiration resulting from an episode when your favorite aunt was helped by a pharmacist in a hospital, is wholly irrelevant. So is your academic or professional experience.

So answer this for yourself: if the admissions committee was split on its decision, what knowledge about you as an individual would tilt that decision in your favor?

THAT is what you want to leave with the committee.
 
Ah, this is the freeform replacement for the traditional "tell me about yourself" question. Rule #1 in any interview: no one cares about your past - they care about your future. Only if the past is relevant to your future does the past matter. Spending time talking about the inspiration resulting from an episode when your favorite aunt was helped by a pharmacist in a hospital, is wholly irrelevant. So is your academic or professional experience.

So answer this for yourself: if the admissions committee was split on its decision, what knowledge about you as an individual would tilt that decision in your favor?

THAT is what you want to leave with the committee.

Thanks for your response!
I don't have a dramatic life experience that I can talk about to make the committee remember me.
Also, I don't want to say something that will overlap with the answer to "why do you want to become a pharmacist?" because I am sure they will ask me this question.
For me, it was the volunteer experiences that had led me to become interested in becoming a pharmacist. So if I talk about my volunteer experiences in this section, I will be repeating myself for later questions. This is why I can't easily come up with what I want to say 🙁
Any suggestions???
 
Your interview as a whole should be memorable, not a specific answer. That being said, sometimes interviewers ask questions which are specifically designed to illicit a truly unique response entirely to job the memory when decisions are made at a later place and time.

You have two basic strategies: you can answer the question by answering other standard questions and in the process give the interviewers more time to blast through the required questions and jump into questions they actually want to ask (not a bad strategy at all) OR you can answer the question by encouraging the interviewers to skip the formality of asking standard questions at all and turn the interview into a conversation right from the start (far more advisable). The best interview will always be one which is more of a conversation and less of a question-answer format.

So ultimately, you missed what I was trying to say when I said:

So answer this for yourself: if the admissions committee was split on its decision, what knowledge about you as an individual would tilt that decision in your favor?

THAT is what you want to leave with the committee.

As I said previously, it is not about your past (unless your past is something that makes you a superior candidate), nor is it about academics or other activities. It is about what makes YOU a superior candidate. Talk about who YOU are as a person.
 
Top