Weirdest clinical faculty interview questions?

[MB8]

Curious about the weirdest interview questions people have been asked for clinical faculty positions.


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[aly cat]

I didn't get asked anything weird, but one thing that caught me off guard was people not understanding exactly what a clinical psychologist does/has to do. I interviewed (and ultimately accepted) somewhere that I was the first clinical faculty and some comments during the phone interview totally caught me off guard like "well since you've elected to take a clinical year" (referencing internship...), a lack of awareness that licensure is not simply passing an exam (in that state, anyway), etc. Anyway, just be prepared to provide a little bit of education if necessary.

All the questions I got were pretty much what you would expect. Some interesting ones about classroom management, providing difficult feedback, etc. that I thought had obvious connections to being a clinical psychologist but that I had to draw out more vividly than I'd thought.

 

[PsyDr]

During an internship interview, I was asked something specific about a non-standard sport. We'll say it was figure skating. I said I didn't know anything about figure skating. Person insisted I must know. I insisted I really didn't. Person asked me to take a guess about the specific part of the sport. I gave a generic answer along the lines of "The ice, I guess?". Person then spent several minutes telling me how wrong I was.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Nothing too off the wall. The faculty at different schools I interviewed at were all pretty accommodating and reasonable. The graduate students tended to be the ones who tried to press the hardest.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I got asked why I "wasted my time" pursuing a degree in pharmacology when I could have done more research. I had pretty solid research experience, a handful of posters, multiple presentations, a publication, etc. I was the only PsyD being interviewed at a very traditional Midwest university, so I guess I never would have enough research experience for the guy. :/ The rest of the faculty were nice enough at least.

 

[deleted343839]

During the Q&A of a job talk at an AMC, a physician fellow asked me to share my experience working with a very specific and fairly rare surgical population, and specifically those of a certain ethnicity. A little weird, mostly stupid.

 

[NotTheHoff]

The only time I was surprised by a question, the question itself wasn't as unusual as the timing. The search chair met me at my hotel, introduced himself, and the next thing out of his mouth was, "So what do you hope to learn today?" I just didn't expect it, seeing as there was small talk before any questions at my other interviews.

 

[MCParent]

I got a few of the silly "what object would you be" questions. I think people are mercifully moving away from these kinds of nonsense interview practices.