Episode 20 - Keys to Residency Interview Day Success

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Hello and welcome back to another episode of Emotional Millennial. My name is Annie and I am very grateful that you are here hanging out with me today. This will be the third and final part of my residency interview season. Tips, tricks, all that good stuff. This time I'm going to be talking about the day of your interviews.

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How I kept things organized, how I documented things that I wouldn't forget them, that kind of stuff. It's been challenging for me to separate all these different topics around interviews just because there is so much that goes into each interview day and that experience. And I have just so many thoughts. So here we go. Last episode.

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I am the type of person where once I'm on, like, during an interview, I'm on camera and I know there's people watching me. I have so much social anxiety that it's really challenging for me to think in the actual moment. Like, okay, think of a good question to ask them on your feet or remembering different details about each program. I don't trust myself to remember or do anything like that. Like, I tried my best to completely avoid any thinking on my feet during my interview day about anything that was not like, who I am or like, you know, my goal, stuff about me.

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So information about the program, questions that I wanted to ask to each different individual interviewer, all that stuff I had written down before I sat down and clicked the link for that interview day. So I'm going to tell you what I did, what I recommend. However, there are, I'm sure, many other ways to do this. So this isn't the only way, this isn't the best way. I mean, this is just the way I did it and I had success with it.

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And so these are my recommendations. This was my second year doing virtual interviews. Year one, I had four virtual interviews. My second year applying, I ended up doing, I believe, 22 virtual interviews, but I had up to 30 invites. And so I had to create some type of procedure or like, ritual that would get me through the interview day and like, keep it consistent so that I was able to compare the programs to each other.

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I prefer having paper in front of my face and my handwriting in front of my face. It just helps solidify my brain. Now more. I don't know if it's just like being a millennial, but it's like, hard for me to look at things digitally and like, remember it. I don't know.

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So what I did, as I talked about in previous episodes, was I created a binder. And in this binder, I had different sections of paper that were like, together. So basically everything from each program, each individual program was together. So program A, alright, I'm obviously not going to name any names of programs, but for program A, I would print out the date of the interview, basically all of my email correspondence with the program, I printed it out. Okay.

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And I would do this probably two to three days before the interview, if I'm being honest. Yes, because you get tired when you're doing interviews. And like, I'm sure my first one, I was like, yeah, a week before, I'm going to start preparing. Cool. But you get tired.

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And so two days before the interview, I guess this is kind of what I was doing. Remember, this podcast is all about me being honest and authentic. And maybe that's not like, the best thing to just be looking up things about the program right before you about to interview. But this is just the unfortunate reality that we live in with getting into residency programs. So here we go.

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I would grab a stack of note cards, the four x six ones, and on the first note card, I would just have the name of the program. So program a I would have its location. Program Director let's see what else I put on here. Number of residents per year, the number of hospitals, and like, any details about the hospitals that I would want to remember because I'm creating this note card for the day of my interview. So, like, this note card with all of these quick facts about this program so that I can keep referencing it throughout the interview and not like, ask a question about some program they have and they're like, we don't have that program and look like an idiot.

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So, name of the program, residents per year, hospitals, anything about them, any unique facts about the program. And this is going to change based on which specialty you're doing. I was applying to Family Medicine this time around. So on this program, I have written down Diverse Patient Population Integrated Behavioral Health Care underserved Community Focus, they have international electives and five months of elective time. Okay, great.

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And then on the back side of this card, I would put any questions that I have that I didn't feel like were answered from my perusing of the website or whatever resources that they have given out to us. So my questions on the back of this card for this program is do they have their own inpatient unit, like their own service that they run? Are they on call? What type of practice, management, preparation do they give you? And so those are questions that I had, like, going into the interview that I would be able to ask and that I was genuinely curious about.

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So, note card number one, general quick stuff about the program, anything that stands out about it, any general questions I have about the structure of the program. Now, after this, I would look at the schedule that they sent to me. They should send you a schedule like a week ahead of time. If they send it to you, like, night before, it's kind of a red flag for maybe a program coordinator or, like, just some messy energy in the program. They should be sending it to you about a week in advance.

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So on this schedule, you should have, like, a link to click morning of. You should have the names of everybody that's interviewing you. And so I would create one note card for each individual that would interview me. So at the top of the note card, I have this person's name, their degree, their position in the program, what they do, what they're interested in, all that good stuff. I mean, you know how it goes.

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You Google their name, you see what kind of research they've done, anything that you can possibly connect on. I'll give you an example. Okay, so for this one, I have the person's name. They're a do, and I have labeled that they are a faculty member. They do stuff with practice management skills, like in helping the residents with that.

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This person goes to both clinic sites, and they also participate in different advocacy days. So those are all different bits and pieces of information that I just collected from the website and just from Googling. So that's at the top of this note card, and then at the bottom of the note card, I write down a minimum of three questions that I could ask this individual. You got to do this in advance. I'm telling you, every single time you are interviewed, you're going to be hit with, now, what questions do you have for me?

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You have to ask good questions. You have to ask well thought out questions. You have to seem like you care. Okay? And if you're doing these questions in advance and you're able to tailor them to this specific individual or just ask, like, a more thoughtful question, you're definitely going to stand out to the person that is interviewing you, and them seem like you care and you're interested, and that's going to make them want you more.

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So that is such a great okay, sorry for my cats in the background making noise. They're in a Ford with boxes right now. But this is just such an easy way to make a really, really good impression, and it doesn't take much time to do this ahead of time. So I will give you some of the questions that I would ask. So I actually created this very large okay, not a large sheet of paper, just a regular sheet of paper, but I printed it from an Excel spreadsheet, and it has three columns.

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First column is questions for residents. Second column questions for faculty. And third column is questions for Program Director. Associate Program Director I have a minimum of ten questions for each of these columns. And this is actually a piece of paper that I would also keep out right under, like, my right hand.

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I have a very specific set for my interviews right under my right hand, right near where my mouse was, I would have all of these questions, like, just that piece of paper sitting right there. So if there was a moment where I was like and like, I blacked out because I got anxious or something and I'm like, okay, who am I talking to as a resident? I can look and I can just ask them any question that's listed there. Since there were so many questions that I had listed and printed out, I actually went through and highlighted my favorite ones. So I would be drawn to ask one of those before I asked one of the non highlighted maybe weirder questions or just not ones that I liked as much.

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This is going to be a little time consuming, but I think it would be really helpful. I'm going to read out each section of questions, and so you can, like, pause, write them down if they're a good idea for you. But I just think it was really nice to have this, like, whole list of questions out there. So column one questions for residents asking about working together or operating together. Do they work with fellows and how is it to work with fellows?

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Do they take away from your experience? Are they adding to it? Do they feel supported by their institution or their faculty? Are there opportunities to grow as an educator during your training? What teaching opportunities for residents are there?

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What interaction with medical students are there, and is there time to teach medical students? What type of med ed do you receive? Like didactics journal club, Grand Rounds, etc. What changes has your program implemented as a direct result of resident feedback? What sort of board prep materials are offered on behalf of your program?

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What type of EMR is used? Are there enough computers for each resident to work on? Types of food options at the hospital and meal plans, that kind of stuff? What brought you to this program? What sold you on this program?

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What does Call look like? What is a typical work day like for you? What can I expect when I'm an intern here? Do you guys hang out outside of work? Is your clinic a resident run clinic versus a not resident run clinic?

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What is the parking situation like? Paying birth free? And what's the distance, patient demographics, patient population? Do you feel like you're able to reach underserved populations? What has been your biggest challenge in residency?

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Are you happy here? What do you wish you could change about your program? How would you describe your co? Residents love that question. I think it's a good one.

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What types of wellness initiatives does the program have? How did the program support you during COVID? Is the program responsive to suggestions for change? What are you involved in outside of the program? How accessible are the faculty?

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Where do most residents live? How would you describe the residency leadership? How is the quality of didactics? Is there bedside teaching? Is most of the teaching done by attendings or your fellow residents?

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Are conferences well organized? Do you have outside speakers? Do you feel there is a progressive increase in responsibility over the course of your residency? What are the strengths of the various clinical sites, and do you feel you are seeing a good variety of cases? Wow.

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So those are all the questions I had available to ask residents, and some of those questions will overlap and be able to be asked like faculty or program director. That stuff too. So, next column, questions for faculty. What brought you here, recruited you to this program? What do you enjoy about working here?

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Great, classic, easy question. What is it like to work here? What changes do you predict will occur at this institution over the next few years? How do you like living in the area? What is the biggest advantage of training here?

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Also love that one. What are areas that you would like to see improvement in this program? What are the most important qualities for a resident to be successful here? What are you most proud of at your institution? How is the camaraderie between faculty and residents?

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The word funny camaraderie? Strengths, weaknesses of the program? How would you describe a typical resident? Is there guidance for job fellowship searches? How are residents evaluated?

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And how often do you have a formal advising or membership program? Do faculty actively participate in resident education? What percentage of lecture teaching is done by residents? Are residents involved in national committees and are they encouraged to attend national meetings? Okay.

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Last column. Questions for Program Director APD. Where do residents end up after graduating from the program? How does your program formalize feedback feedback is really good to ask about. How was your program different than it was two years ago?

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Changes made based on feedback. How did you support the residents during COVID? What are you most proud of at your institution? Strengths, weaknesses of the program? How would you describe a typical resident guidance for job fellowship searches?

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How are residents evaluated? How often do you have a formal advising or mentorship program? Do faculty actively participate in resident education? What percentage of lecture teaching is done by residents and then residents and national committees and residents encouraged to attend national meetings? And those are all of the questions that I had available at all times.

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So hopefully some of those were helpful for you. I think having a solid list of good questions you can always ask is just going to be very helpful for you on the interview trail. So now that that's over, I would typically pick a few questions from those columns, depending on who I was speaking with, and I would actually write them on the note card and put, like, a star, star question. And this was color coded, too, because I'm a psycho. And then I would leave, like, a space under that.

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So whatever response they put if it was like, I don't know, significant or something that I thought I could bring up in my thank you email. This is a good hint, like a good idea. I guess I would put whatever answer they had there and then I could reference whatever notes I took during my interview time with them and like, refer back to that conversation in my thank you email. And that just shows you're paying attention, you care, you had a meaningful conversation with this person, you felt like you connected with them, all that good stuff. And that just leaves them with an even better impression of you and who you are.

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And on that note, actually, you are going to be saying goodbye virtually to many different interviewers. And I think it's important that you always have the last word on that call and that you end that interview time with something meaningful and that leaves them with a good impression of you. So I would always say the same thing or like a couple of different things, like, thank you so much for taking the time to interview me today, I really enjoyed our conversation and I would be honored to train here or I would be so excited to train here. So this is not you stepping out of bounds being like, this is where I want to go, or whatever, you're being honest, I would be excited to train here. But you being so straightforward, like, forthcoming with that and just blurting it out I think is powerful and I think it like, shows that you have interest.

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And a lot of the times actually, when I would say that, I could see on the interviewer's face, like, oh, like, she means business, because they have so many people that they interview and I don't think a lot of people said what I said at the end. So being that straightforward and just saying it and putting it out there, I think they, like, really respect that and appreciate it. I definitely have vague memories of seeing someone write down a note, like after I said something like that and I'm like, gotcha, you know, so I've gone over my card. Lots of preparation that I did, looking up the program questions next to me. During your interviews, you're going to be asked a lot of different questions.

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Some questions are going to take you by surprise. You know, that's inevitable. A lot of them, you'll be able to like, you know, squeeze out some answer even if it doesn't, like, directly correlate with what they ask. And, you know, you can make it sound good, but I remember being asked a couple of questions and being like, what in the hell? Like, I was not prepared for that.

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And instead of like, freaking out, which internally, of course, I was, but externally I didn't want to appear that I was. I think it's always okay to say to take a pause and say you know, that's a really good question. Let me think about that for a second. If you take 10 seconds to do that, that is okay. Like, I think it's better to say, like, oh, wow, I don't know right now, but, like, give me a second to self reflect and think about it and then come up with an answer.

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And during that time, I know in my last episode I talked about how I had, like, some sticky notes in front of me. And on those sticky notes, I would have, like, random stories that I had prepared. And so during that time, I could look at those stories and be like, okay, I could, like, twist that a little bit to fit this narrative or something like that. But I just think it's really okay. It's more than OK to take a second and think, so don't be afraid to do that.

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I actually think I would encourage that. Okay, so we're getting ready for our interview day when we're picking out our outfit. Wear something professional. I mean, I recommend wearing your entire outfit as professional, even though they're really only going to be seeing, like, your torso up. You just like, you're in the vibe more if you're totally dressed as professional.

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I think it's like more of like a character that you're taking on and like, you're doing it, you're doing the real thing. It's harder to, like, put yourself in that zone if you're in PJ bottoms and like a nice top. It's just my opinion, but I recommend just getting dressed up, the whole thing, to be completely honest with you. I wore the same dress and blazer the entire time. I had a high neckline on it.

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And that's just something, like, as a woman, I just never want my cleavage to even be near exposed. Like, that's just not something I want to risk. And so I always have a high neckline. I liked the blazer and gave a more professional look. And then I was in my blanket.

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I was wearing the dress and stuff, but I had a blanket wrapped around my legs because if I didn't, I, like, jitter and move so much. So the blanket kind of, like, helped me secure and stay in place and remind myself not to move so much. I had all my sticky notes out in front of me. I had my note cards for that specific program directly in front of me in the order that I was being interviewed by these people because you have the schedule ahead of time. On my left, I had all the papers that were from this program with random details about the program.

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On my right, I had all those questions printed out that I read off before. And then on my right upper corner of my desk, I always had a glass of water. And I think that that is about it. I try to keep my desk clear of anything that I wouldn't be using during the interview because I don't need distractions. I will use them and that's not good for me.

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All right, so then your interview day is going by as it goes by doing your best to take notes, whether that's like, on your computer on like a Google Drive thing I'm able to handwrite while maintaining eye contact and looking up. So sometimes my handwriting would look kind of shitty, but I'd be able to make out what I was saying later when I was reflecting on it. But I definitely recommend taking notes, especially if you want to use if you want to write really good thank you cards and use whatever things you connected about, talk about during your interview and bring them back up during that. I loved your conversation about birds or I loved this talking about the underserved populations that you reach or how you are so involved in training residents or something like that. You get the point.

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So taking notes throughout and then right when your interview ends, it's going to go by so fast, so much faster than you think, and you're going to be absolutely exhausted at the end of it. At least I was, because it's exhausting to be on for that long and to be acting all like, sitting up straight and keeping a smile on your face. It's exhausting, especially for people who are introverts such as myself. All you're going to want to do is go to bed or just like not do anything related to the interview. But you need like it is so necessary that whatever feeling you have in those moments immediately following the interview, you need to document it because you need to know your impression right after to be able to compare your impressions after every single interview you think you will remember, each individual interview, you will not.

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These interviews run together like you would not believe because you literally don't leave the same chair that you're sitting in the whole time. It's the same screen that's showing you all these people. Like, you're not like, experiencing these programs, you're just like getting a glimpse into them, which is a really unfortunate thing about virtual interviewing and stuff, but how you're feeling at the end of the interview, who you connected with, if you liked specific things, positives, negatives, just like word vomit, your feelings and your thoughts. I don't care where you do it. Some people will write something, some people will call somebody that they're really close with, that they trust and that can remind them how they were feeling.

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Like no, after this interview, that was the happiest I remember you being all that kind of stuff. You will thank yourself later when you're trying to make your rank list for those impressions because it is so hard to directly compare these programs when it's all virtual. Unfortunately. Something I want to make sure I really emphasize is the importance of the link to wherever you need to go. Zoom link, team link.

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I don't know, have that available immediately on your computer. There were a couple of interviews where I was searching for a link within like 1 minute of the interview day starting and that is a frenzy that I don't want any of you to experience because of course, it's not professional to be late. So have that link out and available ASAP. I don't care how you do it, but you're going to be diving back into your old emails. There are so many different programs that are emailing you.

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Just keep those links nice and handy. I hope that this was helpful for you if you're going to be doing residency interviews in the near future. If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to me. My email is the emotional Millennial@gmail.com. It's th eemotionalanal@gmail.com.

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All transcripts for my episodes are available on my website. Emotionalmillennial.com. And yeah, I think that's about all. I hope you have the loveliest weekend. Weekday?

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I don't freaking know. It's fall. I'm really excited about that. I love the cooling down of the weather. So, yeah, you're amazing.

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You can do this. I believe in you. You're not alone and I will see you next time. Thanks for hanging out with me today. Bye.