Back in 2011 after I graduated from dental school in Vietnam, I was thinking “man, I have job interviews now and I haven’t done any interview before. What to do?”. In 2013, I got called by University of Connecticut for AEGD program, I thought I was good with interview since I got THREE job interviews before so I went with an innocent belief (of course I did not ace it). In 2015, I got called by University of Colorado for ISP program. I was so stressful for the interview as I knew my skill was nowhere close to the level I needed to be. It was a full month of intense preparation and I did it! Now 2019, I thought I was good now with interview and gee, I still learn a ton after so many job interviews (with many failed ones of course). Lesson learned – interview skill is one of the most important skills you can equip yourself with, no matter which stage of life you are in right now and there is always room to improve.
I got called by UCDenver in early April for the interview in May 2nd. The failed interview in 2013 sent me back to the Earth so I knew I must do everything I could to nail this one. No more fun time. No more joking around. Focus! First thing I did was to collect every question possibly showing up. I googled “job interview”, “medical school interview”, “dental school interview”, etc. This part was easy. The most popular questions are
1) What is your strength?
2) What is your weakness?
3) Why should we hire/accept you? /What differs you from others? / What makes you stand out?
4) What are your short-term/long-term goal?
5) Where do you see yourself at 3/5 years from now?
6) If we don’t hire/accept you, what will you do next?
7) What is your hobby?
8) What do you do to relieve stress?
9) Who are your role model?
10) What will your friends/coworkers describe you?
11) Tell me about yourself
12) What do you know about the school/company? Why did you choose us?
I wrote everything down in a small notebook – one question a page. Then, I tried to write down the answer for each question and changed it as I saw fit. Believe it or not, the first two questions are the most basic but trickiest ones. It’s already 2019, and I think that good interviewers won’t use these basic questions as often anymore as they are tired with “Oh I am too much a perfectionist” for question #2. However, these questions are still truly important not for them – but for you. You cannot nail an interview if you are not confident in yourself. You cannot be confident in yourself if you do not know who you are.
I wrote the answers down then scratched and wrote and scratched again. I read in some articles that we have to “sell ourselves” in front of the interviewers. But how can you sell and still stay true to yourself at the same time? I realized that people always have so many sides - each side they will show to certain groups of people. Should I show my humble/kind/shy self? Or maybe I can show my ambitious/goal-driven/ risk-taking self. Then how’s about my young/carefree/love-to-laugh self? You must decide which side or which combination you want to "sell" and want the interviewers to see. It can be humble/goal-oriented/love-to-laugh as you can pick one characteristic of each side. There is no rule for that.
It will be also helpful if you kinda know your interviewers. Everyone will match with some personalities and won’t with some others. If you are lucky, you can easily click with the interviewers. With the ISP program at UCDenver, there are always 4 interviewers in the room with you with 4 different personalities so it’s impossible to “know” your interviewers. But well, if you somehow know in general what they are looking for – someone who will do everything to achieve their goals or who will get along with people or who has a remarkable background, etc – you will be more likely to nail the interview.
The second tip was that I listed down almost every aspect of my life – family, job experience, dentistry, volunteer experience, remarkable life stories. One thing I learned from my ex was that people love STORIES! He told me “that’s why we have magazine like PEOPLE”. If you search on youtube, you will find videos of people showing you how to be a better story-teller (and you should watch those). With job experience, I prepared some fun stories and some not-so-fun stories that taught me something. The same with volunteer experience – why I did that/ what was my role/ memories, etc. With family or life stories, everyone loves stories about hardship – overcome – defining moments – happy ending kinda thing. I don’t say that you should fake it because it will never ever end well for you. For sure your life has many good stories to tell already as everyone has ups and downs moments. You just need to remember and tell it well.
My old note - I keep it as a reminder how far I've come and that I should be thankful every single day. (These were the questions I would ask the interviewers)
I always give this advice to people – get your stories together! Who are you? What do you want? What are your goals? Which steps did you take toward it? Which steps will you take to achieve? What is your plan? Why you did what you did? etc. One small example to better explain what I mean. True story – I learned crocheting because I was very clumsy, and I hope to train myself to be more dexterous. I indeed have better hand skill now than before and hand skill is so important for a dentist. Therefore, it’s safe to say, “I want to be a better dentist, so I picked some hobbies that can help me train my hand skill like crocheting and knitting”. I did say so during my interview. I don’t know what the interviewers thought, they may think that it was fake (I hope not) but it is true. I wanted to prove that I commit to dentistry and will take even the smallest step to make myself a better dentist. See, somehow, I linked my hobbies to dentistry – hence – have all your stories together and they will combine to show the interviewers the side that you want to sell. They may not believe when you say you are goal-driven, but they will believe when you tell them a story to prove it.
The third tip was body expression. You may have the most interesting story but if you tell it with a monotone, people will sleep before you reach the end. I watched a lot of youtube videos especially those Ted-talk ones about human behavior, human psychology, human expression, etc. I even watched videos like "how to make a good impression when you meet your in-law" because, well, if you can pass your in-law's interview, pheww you can pass any interview. There are so many small tips out there that it’s hard for me to list every single ones. Just wander around and pick the ones that work for you. I recorded myself answering questions, telling stories then watched the records again until I picked what were the most natural for me.
One phrase that sticked with me since then “Fake it till you make it”. I was not born confident. That is hard-earned. On the interview morning after I dressed up and was ready to head out, I looked at myself in the mirror and said “You will nail it! Nobody wants this more than you. Go and prove it! This is the moment you dream for your whole life. You will shine today. You will be the most confident person out there. You will get in the program”. I think that prep talk gave me extra adrenaline enough to get me through a whole brutal day. I was literally “high” that day. I was not confident enough back then, but I faked it so well that I actually believed in it and showed it right on time.
I also read that thank-you note/card/email is extremely important. Throughout the whole day, I was picking which details I could add to that email. I tried to remember the name of the students who showed me and other candidates around the school as well as the students in the student panel (there was a session with them when we could ask these students as many questions as we wanted). Our interview day was done around 4.30pm. Right after I reached my hotel room, I opened my laptop and wrote the thank-you email right away before I picked up my phone to call mom. Please research “how to write a great thank-you note” or click here. It will help you a ton just like it helped me.
This post is much longer than I expected, and I hope I did not bore you to death. Everyone has different way to prepare for an interview. I don’t say mine is the best way to do and I only hope that maybe this will work for some of you. I always say that I have great respect to not only my classmates but also anyone going through this route. I know how committed you are and how much you sacrifice for this dream. If I can help just a bit to make it easier, I am very happy to do so. Best of luck on your journey and let me know if I helped or can help.
P.S To all my past interviewers, when I said my biggest strength was well-prepared and my biggest weakness was over-prepared, I was true to myself :P