In any kind of job interview, be it for medical school, a specialist training (ST) program or a consultant post, you need to be better prepared than your competition. It is likely, that if you are shortlisted for the position, that you have the necessary skills to perform well in the job. The purpose of the ST interview is to try to ascertain who will do the job the best. The challenge is that the interview process isn’t robust and if you are better prepared then you can be better than your competitors, even if they were the better candidate.
You have to out think your rivals. If you can prepare your knowledge about the post and around your top skills and be prepared to sell your skills better, then you will be the better interviewee.
Being at your NHS consultant interview is, in some ways, the same as attending any other business meeting that you will need to go to. There are some simple principles of communication, that will always help you to get your points across more effectively and you should use those in your interview too.
Announce the structure of your message in advance of delivering the messages, just to warm up the brains of those listening to you. Then, using clear and direct language, tell the interview panel what you want them to realist. Finally, bring together your main points in a final statement to hand over the speaking duties to the interview panel member.
Your ST interview should be just like a normal chat with a consultant with a few, unspoken principles. It should have the natural ebb and flow of a normal conversation, where the subject matter is something on which you are well versed.