School Student
What's surgery like?
Interviews
For posts in the training pathway (excluding foundation posts), you are likely to be invited to attend an interview and may be invited to a selection centre.
For other posts, such as those in the career grades, you are more likely to be asked to attend an interview. However, the use of selection centres is becoming increasingly popular.
Whether you are attending a selection centre or interview, there are a number of things you can do to ensure you are as prepared as possible before hand. Make sure you are familiar with the person specification and the competencies that it requests. Think about how you meet these and examples that demonstrate this.
Make sure you are well presented and smart; this will not be a deciding factor but it will help you feel more professional and the selectors to view you in a favourable light. The selection centre is likely to be a large venue within the deanery region to which you have applied. It is unlikely to be in a hospital and may well not be related to medicine at all. For example, some deaneries hold interviews in local hotels and the London deanery has held interviews at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
When you arrive at the centre, you will be met by a member of administrative staff who will tell you where you should go, etc. There are likely to be many candidates at the centre and you may be required to wait until it is your turn to go to the next station.
The nature of these will vary according to where you are applying and what specialty you are applying to; some will have many ‘stations’ where different competencies are tested in different ways, others may have only one. However, as a minimum you should expect to have at least 30 minutes of assessment, including a structured interview. This involves present questions that will be the same for all candidates. These questions will assess your level of competency against those requested in the person specification and will ask you to reflect on your past experience and/or your reaction to a hypothetical situation.
Stations that you may have to complete include:
- a structured interview in which you discuss hypothetical clinical or management situations
- a structured interview in which you discuss your commitment to surgery and your behaviour in past relevant situations (eg ‘When have you made a decision under pressure?’)
- a portfolio review in which you reflect on
your skills, competencies and educational needs with evidence examples
from your portfolio
- a simulated consultation with a patient (who will be played by an actor)
- a written exercise, eg completing a consultation record and management plan
- group discussion
- practical exercise, eg suturing or knot tying, examining a patient, etc
Please note: this list is not exhaustive; you may be asked to complete all or none of these and you may be asked to complete alternative stations.
