Interviewing—for graduate schools, for jobs and even for apartment leases—is, itself, a skill. So how do you get comfortable talking about yourself, your values and your goals in your residency program interviews? The foundation of a good interview—according to the physicians who are well-positioned to know, because they do the interviewing—is knowing your audience.
A webinar organized by the AMA Medical Student Section featured advice directly from several residency program directors—across a variety of specialties—about what medical students most definitely should and should not do when interviewing at residency programs.
“The world gets smaller and smaller the further you move on this journey,” said Sanjay Desai, MD, chief academic officer at the AMA. He offered an overall word of warning: However well you think you performed in one interview, remember that everything you say in each interview lives on in the medical education community.
“So be very careful and cautious with things that you think you are sending to one place that will not be seen by somebody else,” he said. “Because it probably will be—and people know each other.”
Do: Be honest
Rule No. 1 of interviewing, according to several of the webinar’s presenters: Be genuine.
“First of all, congratulations, you got the interview, which is statistically one of the hardest steps in making it into a program,” said Aimee K. Zaas, MD, MHS, the internal medicine residency program director at an academic medical center in North Carolina. “By getting the interview, that means that … our team has seen things in your application that make us think that, based on what we can read, you have the qualities and the qualifications to potentially thrive in our program.
“We've read your CVs. We’ve read your personal statements. We’ve read your letters. So we know those things about you,” Dr. Zaas noted. “But in the interview, we're looking for who you are as a person and how you're able to interact with us. And so, I think we start with thinking about: How are you portraying enthusiasm through your persona, as much as you can do that on screen.”
Ultimately, Dr. Zaas added, residency program interviewers are searching for:
- Your thoughtfulness and ability to convey what is important to you.
- How concisely and clearly you can state an answer.
- What you're passionate about.
- How you can demonstrate that all the items on your CV are “actually meaningful to you and have relevance in who you are and what you'll contribute as a citizen of our program.”
Consult the AMA Road to Residency Guide to successfully plan your path to residency, from excelling at interviews to navigating Match Day and more.
Don’t: Take anything for granted
You are being interviewed from the second you turn on your camera, said Rini Ratan, MD, the director of an ob-gyn residency program in New York City.
“If you are distracted—whether it's at the pregathering social or whether it’s during the presentations that are being given—if you are looking bored, if you're checking your phone … those are actually being noticed,” Dr. Ratan said.
More to the point, the residency program manager has veto power over each candidate, she said.
“If there is a student and that person is disrespectful or rude or dismissive and my program manager mentions it to me—that's it,” she said. “So I would say just remember to be kind, courteous … with everybody that you interact with on the interview day.”
Do: Know who you’re talking to
“If you're meeting with a program director or a department chair or a more senior faculty member, ask bigger questions than things about the schedule” or day-to-day issues, which are best to ask of the current residents you encounter, Dr. Zaas said.
“I interview all of our applicants, so I get about 12 minutes with each of them,” she noted. “When their question for me is a detail about the schedule, I'm like: You have 12 minutes with the program director. Please ask me something bigger.”
Don’t: Sound scripted
“Be genuine during the interview,” added Adena Rosenblatt, MD, PhD, the director of a dermatology residency program in Chicago. “Sometimes I think applicants think about what the program wants to hear, instead of what they're looking for in a program.”
This requires doing your homework on each program, she said.
“Look at the website and look past the first page. Look at their social media sites,” said Dawn Laporte, MD, the orthopaedic residency program director at an academic medical center in Maryland. She added: “Try to engage before the interview. I would strongly recommend connecting with a resident there.”
Ultimately, residency program directors want to know that you are genuinely interested in their particular program—and not just because you need to find a match.
The residency interview “links up with the information that we already have about you as well, and that's really helpful,” Dr. Laporte said, adding that a residency applicant’s having a good understanding of the program’s faculty helps too.
“At our place, you don't necessarily know who you're interviewing with until the day of—but if you do know that, make the effort to know about them,” she said. Doing so “shows that genuine interest. If there's any way to engage before the interview, I think that goes a long way also.”
Don’t: Send a thank-you note
You might be tempted to express your gratitude for your interviews, but residency program directors generally seem to think that’s not a good idea.
“Our recommendation is actually no pre- or postinterview communication is needed,” Dr. Rosenblatt said. “At least in our specialty, it really doesn't have an impact as far as the final ranking decisions. So we have it very clearly stated that you do not need to provide any thank you. We assume that you are thankful for the interview, just as we're thankful that you interviewed with us, and that no communication on either side doesn't mean a lack of interest.”
Once you have wrapped up the residency interview, here is what you should do next. The webinar’s participants also discussed letters of intent and how in-person interviewing differs from virtual interviewing.
Learn more about the AMA Medical Student Section, which strives to be medical students' voice within the AMA for improving medical education and advocating for the future of medicine.
