Assignment Two - Interview

I completed this portion of the Personal Career Development assignment with a fellow medical school classmate.

Having been interviewed for jobs and medical school admissions a couple of times, being interviewed was not a completely new experience for me. However, interviewing somebody else for a job was. I found this to be surprisingly difficult. As awkward as I have felt being the interviewee in the past, I felt much more awkward being the interviewer this time around. A large part of this feeling had to do with inexperience as I mentioned earlier. As the interviewer, I was entirely responsible for setting the tone and direction of the conversation, at least early on. The interviewee looked to me to dictate whether the dialogue would be formal or casual as well as to decide what information I wanted to obtain from her. Even with notes on which questions I wanted to ask, I still felt very unnatural in my demeanor and with the sequence of questions. I would have hoped to do more than simply rattle off questions from a prepared list. Rather, I would have liked to tailor my questions to the responses given by the interviewee, so that I could explore certain areas closer and gloss over things that turned out to be of little interest. I imagine this to be a skill that interviewers develop over time.

As medical students, we are asked to interview patients almost daily, and even though the objectives are different, we still have the same goal of learning more about the person through the interview. If there were simply a preset list of questions that we asked every patient, there would be no skill in being a physician, and I wouldn’t have to go to school forever. What I learned very quickly at the beginning of medical school, as I seemingly relearned with this assignment, is that there is definitely an art to interviewing. You only gain this appreciation when you watch an experienced person, whether it be an attending physician or a seasoned job recruiter, do the interviewing and then attempt to replicate the feat yourself. I quickly learned that experience and practice are the best teachers no matter how much you have prepared beforehand.

With respect to being interviewed, the only awkwardness arose from the fact that this was a role-playing assignment. Having rarely practiced interviews before, I found it difficult to get into the mindset of subtly trying to sell myself, or at least not sabotage myself, since this was not a “real” interview situation. Even so, I learned that much as I approach real life interview situations, I was very passive as the interviewee. I am not sure if this is for better or worse. I indicated earlier the pressure I felt to lead the conversation as the interviewer, and this pressure was much less apparent as the interviewee. I think that I take a passive role by default when I am the interviewee, but having been on both sides of the interview with this assignment, I realize that this may not be the best approach in all situations. Clearly, there are some interviewers that I will encounter who are much like myself and would appreciate some cooperation in facilitating the conversation. This would make the interview a much more tolerable if not enjoyable experience for both sides. I suppose that knowing when to be more active and when to let the interviewer lead will come from experience, much like everything else I learned from this assignment.