Brooke Bullock (00:05)
Hello and welcome to the Interview Insider, the podcast that offers space to dig a little deeper into healthcare recruitment and helps you to perform when the pressure is on. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians on the land on which this podcast is recorded, and pay my respect to elders past, present, and emerging. I'm your host, Brooke Bullock, an interview coach, communication nerd, and lover of a recruitment analogy.
And for the last decade, I've been so fortunate to work with doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals to help them succeed in high-stakes interviews. Each episode, I'll speak with experts to unpack the real factors behind interview success. So if you're preparing for your next big opportunity and want to perform at your best, you are in the right place.
Brooke Bullock (00:55)
Today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Shima Haimer, a senior medical leader and educator at Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, where she serves as the director of medical services.
With more than 15 years of experience, including extensive surgical training in general trauma and cardiothoracic surgery, Shama has developed a deep understanding of both frontline clinical work and the systems that support developing doctors. Shama has extensive experience in clinical practice, medical training, and loads and loads of recruitment experience, supporting doctors at all stages of their careers to succeed in high pressure environments.
In this conversation, we'll be exploring her insights into what really stands out in interviews, especially those for competitive medical and senior clinical roles, and sharing practical advice for doctors preparing to take the next steps in their careers. So welcome, Sheena, to the Interview Insider. Great. Thanks, Brooke, for having me. You're welcome. So one of the things I love to do is to start
by asking you if you can think of a particular example of something that you've seen in an interview that was either good or bad, but really stood out to
You just see a lot and you see a spectrum, right? Of very good to very bad. I think thinking about this question, two examples probably stand out to me. And so should you share both or should you just share one? Well, in the interview, if you get asked for one example, you should tell them one example and a properly thought out, instructed example. But I think I'll share two stories with you. Yeah, I'd love that. Yeah. And we've joked about that actually, because when she,
said to me she had two examples we both giggled because that's often something that somebody does in an interview where you say can you give us one example and actually what we often have both seen in interviews is that somebody either gives two
or give zero and actually we just wanted one. So probably a bit of a quick side learning there is just give the panel what they asked for. So actually, can you please share two examples? That's much better, isn't it? I'll actually answer the question. the two that stand out for me, are both specialist roles and one they had done.
different roles prior to applying to our health service for a specialist role, but did a really good job of telling us both their in-hospital and community experience, but also demonstrated that clearly through very specific examples that were outlined in an easy to understand fashion. The other one was someone going for a fellow role. And when you're at a fellow level, for the most part, we know that you've got all the
clinical skills that's required for a specialist fellowship role. they don't necessarily ask you about those clinical skills in an interview setting because we should have worked all of that out in training. But what this candidate demonstrated was what things they would do above and beyond their just a clinical role. So it was about this specialty or subskill that they would bring to the department and how they would contribute to it. β And this candidate had a very specific area.
that they've worked on, but some of the areas that candidates like to demonstrate is their leadership experience or research β or some clinical governance matters are often the common things that I like to hear when I'm on a panel.
emergency, doctor often talks about a resus, but it sounds like what you're saying is actually you'd like to hear about a team, maybe from a non-clinical domain or something that's over and above what you'd expect. Yeah. And you can still share those clinical examples, but I think if you then share some reflection around why this was a particularly good example, because of those extra skills that you demonstrated. So showing leadership by clear communication that is accountable and
holding yourself accountable, but also others accountable are often things that you want to see because it tells you that someone has a lot of insight that you want in your team and in your unit. And so that just sets you apart. And so if you're going to use a clinical example, like a PPH, maybe also talking the hot and cold debriefs that you did afterwards to support the team and the patient through be? That would be one of the things.
but also demonstrating clearly that you have multidisciplinary team involvement, that you're not just about about the doctors and how you communicate to the doctors, but how did you involve the nurses? How did you collaborate? How did you demonstrate that you are a true team player because you managed to draw everybody in? Because let's face it, in most situations, if you're the doctor in the room, you're the that's a great thing we were talking about just before we clicked record today is how often you're on
how often is that? I'd say one to two times a month at every peak Pink recruitment periods you're highly sought after. And often I understand your role as being the external panel member. So being medical administration and medical services, you're often outside of the department, but that external panel member who plays such an important role to make sure
reduce bias in the interviews because often the people internally will know the candidates. So it's really nice to know that that's your Now with that said, what that is that you don't often know all of the candidates. Some may be vaguely known to you, but you would know them least perhaps on the panel.
sometimes there's going to be many external applicants that nobody knows, but you're the person is least likely to know the candidates. can you talk about what do you think as somebody who is external, what is it that makes somebody stand out to you in an interview? as an external panel member, It's good governance and you're the non-biased
if you're concerned that they may be going on and from time to time it tends to happen without meaning to because people work with you and they see you on the clinical floor all the time and so they may start to lean towards that person's better than this person but when it comes to the interview as the external person I have to make sure that everyone measured with the same criteria and not for those things not to influence the ultimate decision.
making. So some of the things that stand out, we already spoke about the leadership also showing some governance, β safety and quality measures if you've done some work around that. Because that means the department can immediately rely on you to be the person that holds some of the safety and quality standards in and the national standards that we all should be practicing So if you're in an acute facility a
you want to know that someone can take some of that responding to clinical deterioration work that every department does need to know and be mindful It's not just about launching into the individual patient every day and just carrying that out. There's a systems level thinking and that's what I look for often as the external panel everybody else is really focused on is this person a good fit for the team? Is there someone we want in this team? Do they have the operational skills and the clinical skills to
meet the requirements of the role, they also know who they already have in the department. So they're trying to fill a gap based on what they already have in the unit as a director of a particular specialty. But my job is to make sure that I'm picking out candidates that can demonstrate much more than just that. And also making sure everybody's on an even playing field. It's a really, really great insight.
I often talk about with people when I'm preparing for interviews is who's on the panel and then we identify there will be an external person as you said it's part of the process. But also I think the great thing about the external person is that you because you don't know them they've got to do a really good job of telling their stories so that you understand. So I wondered if you could comment on that as far as do you find often times there's times you're feeling really included because somebody's explaining things such as explaining like acronyms that you might not know or processes that you've
might not know and is there times where people are telling their stories and some of the context is missed on you because you're not in the department does that come up for you? Every now and then as a candidate you need to be mindful that you're addressing everybody on a panel just because you know the medical director you may have worked for them don't just address things at the medical director there's a full panel and often they're a multidisciplinary panel.
β I might be the external doctor on the panel, but you might have a nurse or an allied health professional. So just make sure that you're addressing everybody But also on that is to tell a story in a way that anybody could understand it. And that is just clear communication, using a framework and communicating clearly because you might sit there and think they already know what work I can do, but don't just assume.
that everybody on the panel knows even the nurses and allied health professionals who may work with you from time to time may not necessarily even the medical director may not know because they may not have been the senior doctor who supervised you through your training or have worked with you that closely in the past and if you're external to the organization then even more reason to make sure that your messaging hits which means at times you will need
capture enough clinical content so they know that you're capable. But of course,
It's based on more than just the interview as well, but you need to make your communication very clear. Yeah. I think that's a really good point. And often actually, I think it's a benefit for somebody sitting in interview to think, tell your story in a way that the person who least knows you and least knows the environment can understand. So like you said, it needs to be standalone. We need to take all assumptions out of interviews. And the other word that I think does not belong in an interview is obviously. Some candidates will say, obviously.
And the external panel member is like, obviously sorry I missed that, I don't know what you mean because I don't work with you or know what you're talking I often use it as an enabler, like talk to the external member, explain it that way. It stops it feeling silly because sometimes you feel silly explaining a story to the medical director who does know your story. So this all sounds great and getting all of this stuff across sounds great, but then we put this into the interview setting and the interviews 20 minutes.
or 30 minutes and maybe you could comment on the length of the interview usually. But secondly, how do they fit it all in? How do they get across these skills and experience in such a tight interview? interviews will be that tight. Some allow for a 45 minute interview which my opinion it's too long. But there's lots of different ways of doing an interview. It depends on whether they give you any prep time beforehand or not and so that will affect
during to how much time they give you. Whatever it is, if they give you a particular amount of time, it is your job to manage that time. If you don't manage that time, if you're running over on every question and then when it comes to the last question, you have one minute left, the panel will shut you down and say, you need to answer this in 60 seconds and we need to move on because they've got a long list of candidates to interview for the day. So what you need to do in your prep time if you've got it is to map out how long you're
to take per question roughly and have a plan and an idea. If you're answering and using a framework to answer your questions that will also help you stick to time. this is all about your self-management skills. If someone comes in there and they waffle and quite often you ask them for an example like we talked about and they're going in circles,
around an example, forever to explain then you're going to lose track of time and if you start to do that, the panel is making inferences from everything that you are saying, but also from things that you're not saying because you can't get there. They've asked you question and you just don't even get there and you've used up all the time. So it's your job to manage yourself.
you can communicate what you need to in an allocated amount of time. Most interviews will have five questions because those are in my organization. It's the five pillars the framework of what we're looking for in a candidate. you roughly have between four and six minutes per answer. Always leave yourself a little bit of
at the end and also in between so give yourself between four to six minutes at most per question and just structure yourself Don't ever feel like you need to tell them ten things about anything. You're much better of giving them two or three really Points to highlight the answer rather than trying to fit it all in and I have personally got myself trapped in that before because often you've done a role where You've got all this experience
to tell the panel about and you feel like you need to fit it all into them. One but you can't. So you just need to be very careful in selection.
Example selection is a skill and you have to select the right example for the right Just so tangible the advice that you're it's usually five minutes, it's usually four to six minutes. If it's six minutes you've still got half a minute for them to ask you the question and half a minute for the the end so let's cut it down to five but that's really helpful the disclaimer is also training program interviews are often shorter than that not always but I guess the idea is
is.
know what to expect time-wise before you walk in. So there's some training program interviews where you've got two and a half minutes. And personally, I think that's too short, but it's the game that we've got to play. But for senior medical officer interviews, I completely agree. Fellow and consultant roles, I have seen hundreds of interviews over the last 11 years, and they're usually all 25 to 45 minutes, five to six questions covering a wide range of themes. So it's so helpful. And I think what you've done so beautifully as well for us is start to talk about common
mistakes in interviews. So, recapping, like one, answer the question directly. Secondly, try not to give the panel
I know you might have heard me talk about this, because we talk about interviews a lot, but one of analogies that I often use is this idea of the basket of balls. And so every question that you are asked, you often have a basket of balls. There's all these things that you want to throw at the panel. In my mind, maybe because I've got young children, the balls look like the balls in the ball pit.
think of that too as a young mum but they're all these different colour balls and you can start throwing them at the panel but the panel is very soon going to put their arms up in their face and stop themselves from getting hit by all of the different colour balls. So what we want to do is look in your basket start with yes I've got a lot that I'm going to say but actually I'm just going to show you the green balls and the yellow balls and I'm going to do a really good job of that. Then get out those things that you want to talk about properly because it is not a game show this is not a game show of how many balls can you throw at the panel in six minutes this is
β how can you display a depth of understanding or a specific example to the panel in five minutes. So throw less balls is the summary. Absolutely, because that again speaks to someone who can manage themselves. Because if you feel the need to throw every ball at the panel as you say, then it tells me immediately that I've got someone that will potentially be someone that's very difficult to manage in the future in the clinical environment because they haven't
quite worked out their confident skill set yet themselves. So it does speak to skills so that is something you want to be careful about. So inference that you talked about earlier. So any other common mistakes that you I think the is probably the biggest Just speaking about the
throwing multiple at the panel, I guarantee you panels switch off. As soon as you start to either be really long-winded in an answer, if they can't make out head or tail in terms of where you've started, there's no proper beginning, middle, and end to an answer. And also if you're throwing multiple things at them, panels switch off. So try and stay on task answering the question and giving them key messages with very clear examples.
last thing is don't overcompensate. I often see people, they start to doubt themselves and they start to apologize in middle of an interview and then they overcompensate by going, yes, but then there was a time when I did this. So I'll tell you about that now. And you know, I'm sorry, but that's not quite right. And that's not quite what I wanted to tell you. So I will go back to this and then it just turns into a mess. you're like watching the train crash on the tracks. Yeah. And if somebody does get into that,
that kind of chaos in their head and they're thinking, my goodness, I've just totally stuffed up this how can they reset to come back on have works well? if you can recognize that and stop it, speaks a lot to the panel and it says it's someone who already has insight and has recognized, you just reset it and just check
I'm just going to pause for a minute because I'd like to say that in a different I'm sorry that I've misinterpreted that question. In fact, I did that recently in an where I misinterpreted what they wanted and I just said, I'm sorry. I misinterpreted what you were asking me. Let me fix that now. And then I launched into what I did want to tell them. But again, you then have less time. you've got to be conscious of that. And so you've got to get the key highlights.
of what you want them to hear out quickly and in a structured way. such great advice and I often They've gone tangential or they've gone off track and they try and talk themselves back and it's a really long journey to talk yourself back. So your advice of just stopping.
communicating that to the panel, take a pause, say I need to take a pause and then actually take one, have a breath, five to 10 seconds is fine. I also recommend my international thinking face is where you just look to the top corner of the room, so either corner in front of you. If you do that to a panel, sorry, I just need to gather my thoughts, use your international thinking face, which is just where you look at the top corner of the room for a minute, and then come back, you will bring yourself back far, far quicker than talking yourself out of where you've already got
Rather than the scrunched up constipated face. Yeah, exactly. you might want to cut that out. That is definitely staying in. That's the title of this podcast episode. Use the thinking face, not the scrunched up constipated face. I love could talk about this for hours and I don't want to keep you all day, nor the people on the podcast.
Probably pulling up into the car Is there any advice about structure or signposting you've noticed that people do that really works for you? Yeah So always beginning and middle and the
And tell a story from start to finish but have a structure
that you move through so that it seems like you are prepared to a certain degree. You can't prepare for everything and you don't want to sound robotic either, but they also want to know that you've made some effort before coming in. You also need to be mindful. We've talked about all these additional things, but sometimes you do have to give them the clinical grounds for why you do something. So be clear in the rationale and answering the question directly. If they ask you for a clinical experience example,
that give them a clinical example.
If you can, I would say get some coaching and figure out what your own strengths are. That's what coaching does. It pulls out what are your strengths and the strengths will help you develop how you want to communicate and answer something. So I'm a big fan of that, of developing some of your self skills because that definitely helps in interviews. Yeah. And I promise I didn't pay her to say that by the way. having an interview coaching business myself, my advice is usually I don't necessarily need to be
right fit for you, but there are people who can help support you to work out what your best skills are and how to get them on the table in the interview. Because that's what success looks like to me. A doctor, a pharmacist, a member of Allied Health, a nurse walking away from the interview feeling like I showed the panel what I've got to offer. I just want to touch on your point about structure. So certainly my coaching focuses around some key structures, modified versions of frameworks And that's the
foundation blocks of what I work with people on and then we build way high from there. But I think doctors don't often get feedback after interviews.
When they do, 50 % of the time it is about structure. Do you agree? I agree. Yeah. And timing structure and the way you communicate a message because you all have the content by the time you're done with training, you should have the contact. Otherwise you shouldn't be applying for, you know, if you're going for a training job, you've done your junior years. If you're applying for a consultant job, you've done your training years. So you should already have
that down pat, but it's about how you communicate well.
So think about coaching from a psychological adjustment perspective so that you can manage yourself and your nerves. so that you then come across your best self because you've done some of that work.
if you know that you're β particularly vulnerable to nerves and we all know how our nerves best present. Some people talk fast, some people stop talking altogether, some people thrive in that environment. Some of this is specialty specific actually. So ED people are usually calmer, I find in interviews and in interview prep than somebody who's not used to that level of chaos. given us 500 pieces of great advice, but if there is any final piece of advice to
a doctor, a healthcare professional, I know you've been on nursing and allied health panels as well, who's applying for a high stakes position, what would it be? Work on yourself. Develop yourself, don't walk in on interview day and that be the first time you actually answer an interview questions, That's excellent. Shama, thank you so much for your advice, I think you are the person that I know who has sat on the most
panels ever. don't know if that's necessarily an award that you wanted to win, but I know you're an extremely valuable external panel member as I've heard many people talk about you in that way, but also so uniquely placed to provide great advice through this podcast episode. I hope so. Just sharing my stories. Thank you.
Brooke Bullock (23:23)
Thank you so much for joining me on the interview insider. If you found this conversation helpful, feel free to share it with a colleague or anyone preparing for the next big interview. And if you'd like more support, resources, or to work with me and my team directly, you can find everything at my website or connect with me on social media. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next, but until next time, good luck with your preparation and remember how you show up matters.
