6 Things I Learned On The Interview Trail

Happy Monday, and welcome to Medical Mondays! I figured I’d share 6 things I learned on the interview trail (hooray for  take-away points)!

I only applied to and interviewed for Family Medicine programs, so I can’t speak for the other specialties, but in my experience, my interviews were all very laidback, and they genuinely seemed interested in just getting to know about me as a person. Although this is specific for residency programs, I think most of these points would apply to any job interview. :]

Be yourself.

I was told this at multiple interviews (“Just relax and be yourself!”). Thankfully, this one was easy, since, for better or worse, I am honest to a fault, and there’s really no other person I’m good at being other than myself!

Know every piece of your application inside out, as that’s where they will most likely be pulling questions from. Anything that you mention on it is fair game. I’ll be sharing some of the things I talked about/was asked in subsequent posts!

Treat each place as though it’s your first choice.

Never treat a program as if they’re beneath you. They’re taking time out of their day to get to know you, and even if you’ve realized that it’s not a place where you want to be, there’s still a lot you can take away from each interview (e.g. interview experience, factors that you realize you want/don’t want in a program).

Go to the resident dinners.

These were a lot of fun, and really give you a chance to get to know the people you’ll be spending the most time with over the next couple years (depending on what program you’re going for). Take this time to ask questions and get to know the residents, and see if they’re people that you would fit in with, and/or enjoy spending time with!

Take notes.

Whether you do it during or after, make sure you do this, because everything can start to run together after a while. You want to go with your gut on Match Day, but if you’re stuck between a couple different programs, having these to look back on will be immensely helpful.

Spend some extra time in the area.

Depending on your [rotation] schedule, this might not be possible, but if you get a chance to, I’d definitely recommend it, especially if you didn’t get to do an audition rotation there. It gives you a chance to explore and get to know the place, go on food adventures, etc.

I also used this time to visit nearby places (e.g. Asheville, Sedona) and/or friends I hadn’t seen in months to years (e.g. Trish, Rachel & Jaclyn), so even though all the traveling was exhausting and really draining, it was also a really fun adventure.

Try to group same-geographic-location interviews around each other.

I realize that this definitely isn’t always possible, but since I applied to programs on the east and west coasts, I wanted to minimize the number of times I’d have to fly across the country. Thankfully, I managed to stuff all the east coast ones in before I preemptively fled for the winter!

…This did mean that I had a 3-day period where I went to 4 interviews in 3 different states. It was mildly terrifying, because they were all programs that I really, really liked, and one cancelled flight would basically ruin it for me. Thankfully, it all worked out!

• What would your interviewing tips be?
• Any crazy interview stories?