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)
My
guest today is Dr. David Bade, an orthopedic surgeon in Brisbane, who was the director of orthopedic surgery at the Queensland Children's Hospital for nine years. David became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 2012 and went on to a pediatric orthopaedic fellowship at British Columbia Children's Hospital in Vancouver.
He also has done something that a lot of surgeons have not, which is talk openly about his own burnout and then do something about it for the benefit of everybody else. He has chaired the Australian Orthopedic Association's Surgeon Wellbeing Group, served as the AOA's Queensland State Chair, has written publicly about the cost of burnout in medicine, and was invited to the Stanford Chief Wellness Officer course, which he completed in 2025.
It is this expertise that we are here to talk about and learn from today, in the setting of the grueling journey to training program selection, especially in orthopedics and surgery. So, Dr. David Bade, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here.
David Bade (02:00)
Hi Brooke, how are you? very, very happy
Brooke Bullock (02:01)
Good.
David Bade (02:02)
to be here. Thank you as always for the invite.
Brooke Bullock (02:04)
So good to talk to you again and have a catch-up both before, during, and after this episode. So I'm gonna jump straight into it. You have been really open about your own experience of burnout, Can you take us back to what was going on for you at that time and and what is your burnout story?
David Bade (02:20)
Yeah, I think I could give you a long or short ish answer and I'll try and keep it as brief as possible. But I suppose I kind of hit that wall of realization about six or seven years into my consultancy period, which is not unusual. and I was a director for a busy department and I was forced to have
a really long think about what was happening in my life when I unfortunately had one of my colleagues die from suicide, which just created a real self-r reflective episode. and through exposure to Doctor's Health Queensland at the time, I listened to a few people and then did Stanford's first.
sort of online course on wellbeing, which really educated me in burnout. And I did one of their small questionnaires which sort of statistically put me in the area of burnout at the time. And so when I was able to look at that and look at my own sort of mental and physical exhaustion in work at that period of time and the trade offs that I'd made for work over my family and own enjoyment and my lack of feeling valued in the workplace at that time.
it all kind of led to a sort of not a not really an aha moment, but hey, this is bad. I thought I had my shit together for want of a a better term, but I actually don't. but from the outward look, anyone looking at me at the time, I was kind of, you know, killing it from an orthopedic point of view. Like I was doing really well, as you would expect someone in my career trajectory and pathway to be going. So and then I started
Started talking to a few of my mentors, and some of them expressed that they'd gone through the same period. And I realized that this is maybe part of one of those things that happens more commonly that people just don't like or aren't feeling like they should share these things. And I kind of didn't want anyone to obviously take their own life, but sort of I'd also got people who blow up their family life and blow up their
careers because they don't realise they're in a position that they should be controlling better from a from a burnout point of view and and also just take the stigma away from it that the fact a it's not a personal fault if this is the case. it's an an employment problem and whether that's you employ yourself or you work for someone else, it's something that there should be a greater acknowledgement of from that space. and
And so yeah, and so I've tried to educate myself and then speak openly about it to many people including including yourself, which I'm I'm very happy to do on and a few people have found that helpful, which is the point of doing.
Brooke Bullock (04:56)
Yeah, and I would say from where I sit, which is I have the opportunity to talk to a lot of people applying for orthopedic training and people who are on orthopedic training, but also more broadly many surgical training programs and non-surgical training programs and your name comes up often and the amount of people that you've affected in that space that I have a high touch point with is huge. I know
you mentor and support a lot of people to be aware of these triggers, to look after themselves, to value that kind of work-life integration. And from where I said it certainly made a huge difference being the brave person who's, put their neck out in a room full of people who aren't prepared yet to talk about it. And changing that culture within the surgical space is something that you should be so proud of and everyone is so lucky that you've done that.
we have Australian data showing that more than half of orthopaedic trainees are burnt out. You're probably part of putting that data together and seeking that data.
And I always reflect on that when I read that stat because these are the people who got onto training. Whereas there's their colleagues who didn't get onto training, who are still, trying to push something up a hill and get onto training I'm wondering how they're coping. And so what has been your, experience? Have you seen people experience burnout or triggers for burnout in that SHO space and trying to get onto the training program?
David Bade (06:13)
Yeah,
absolutely. I think the important thing to note that I'm also I was unaware of at the time, if you look at all the statistics about percentages of burnout, it's really interesting that the well being literature will accept sort of a response rate to surveys of around ten percent as being a successful response rate. And so sometimes
you're getting a rate of fifty percent burnout of those that have answered a survey. And those are ones that are answering the survey are certainly the ones that are probably going to be the ones thinking about it more acutely. And I worry that the ones that aren't answering the survey may be the ones that are actually in a space of burnout or worry and they don't wish to either answer surveys, they don't have the time to answer surveys. They don't feel that their opinions are going to be valued anyway because they have that feeling.
as well. So I think I think the statistics around these wellbeing surveys are really interesting when you break them all down. But for me, for the people that are trying to get on to programs, most certainly I feel like they are the group that almost has greater feelings of despair than anyone else. And that comes from really a lack of control over the end result.
being accepted onto a training program. for a lot of specialty programs that are very competitive. there's only so much that these sort of non trainees, but very hard working and sort of essential members of our workforce, there's only so much they can control in that aspect. So that does create a real problem with their well being and those that
can sort of understand it and work through that, you know, obviously have a better resolve and response to it. But I've certainly seen some be really affected by it and actually affected many, many years down the track by it as well. Just feel really disillusioned and angry with the whole process.
Brooke Bullock (07:59)
Yeah, I've seen it also and I often see it at certain time points as well, like at the start of somebody who's preparing for an interview or an application process because it's such a vulnerable process, but then during and that kind of four week out period is when I get online with somebody before a serious interview and I say, How are you? and then they start crying, because it's just it's so hard and these people are flogging themselves, and all wonderful people. So how hard is it
To get onto a surgical training programme?
David Bade (08:26)
Well,
it's certainly harder than it used to be. and we can dissect that a little bit more when I say used to be, certainly when I got onto training in the early sort of mid two thousands, around two thousand and seven I got on. it was a fairly it felt like a fairly straightforward process. and it also felt like there wasn't the numbers of competitive
applicants at that time and there was a standard amount of people to get on. And so I suppose when I was getting on, I would imagine that there was probably only about twenty appropriate applicants still for anywhere between five to eight jobs. I'm just talking about orthopedics in my state of Queensland at the moment,
Brooke Bullock (09:06)
Yeah.
David Bade (09:06)
but we have
Up until a couple of years ago where we doubled the numbers of trainees getting onto the program, you had up to a hundred and thirty people in those positions, now still only getting seven or eight jobs a year. and so we were getting applications, I think around the fifty mark and trying to get most of those people interviewed, but still only seven or eight positions. So the last couple of years those those numbers have increased.
for workforce reasons, but there's still many people who are doing, up to seven or eight years of unaccredited training before they're either successful or change career tack. and that's terrible for a for a few different reasons. one of them being that
These people have no direction and it affects their their lives, whether they're single or have a family, it's it's there's different stresses on on both of those groups. and it's also the the learning and training capabilities, particularly of younger surgeons, we know, are earlier in your lifespan than currently people are getting onto training. So I'm not sure whether we're doing a disservice to our own,
groups of surgeons and the flow on effects for that for treating our public as well. So that's something that's not really talked about moving forward, but there's certain other countries where they start their surgical training much earlier and therefore go for a lot longer and their skill sets are developed at different times. So I think that's interesting. But from a well being piece it's it's more about that control, lack of control. and as you get older, there's other things that happen in your life that require your attention.
and that's difficult to manage around these uncertainties.
Brooke Bullock (10:41)
And I know, missing out is certainly not the exception in surgical selection. It's statistically the normal outcome. But trying to prepare and have somebody in a really vulnerable environment put their best foot forward through a process where they know that statistically they're unlikely to get selected is just such a tricky position for these people to be in. On top of a full clinical load, research, exams, and a life. a lot of people who are applying for training programs are also in their, childbearing years and,
Marriage years and thinking about all those things, but what do you think it actually costs them and what do you see it doing to them?
David Bade (11:15)
yeah, it costs a lot financially. if if you're thinking about many years of training before entering the specialty workforce, there there you know that that number is not insignificant. but there's certainly I think a really emotional cost not only for the clinicians themselves but for their partners and families who have to, ride
what is the worst roller coaster. not the worst roller roller coaster you can imagine, but it's a really bad time, particularly around the anxiety and expectations around where you find out. And then if there have been repetitive occasions of missing out, then that that really, you know, has a has a traumatic effect on families. and, there there is the cost of not being able to
move in a direction of your life that you wish to go. there's a real barrier to progression there and that can affect your enjoyment in other areas of your life as well. So, with all costs, there's trade offs really and it's something that needs to be thought about significantly and about how much cost you are kind of willing to not accept but really take. and that needs to be
discussed with everyone involved in that process,
Brooke Bullock (12:25)
yeah.
David Bade (12:25)
your partners, friends, families, and the people you work with as well.
Brooke Bullock (12:31)
Yeah. And having open conversations like that. I know there's several people who both of us know who've have not been successful with surgical training program selection and then decided to actually move away from surgical training to, a different specialty altogether, which I know can be such a difficult decision, feels like literally the biggest decision of their lives. But I think it's also at times for specific people a really brave decision and perhaps one down the track that they
won't regret and be proud that they made. Is that something that you've seen as well?
David Bade (13:01)
Yeah,
absolutely. And to tell you the honest truth, I I haven't really met anyone who has been disappointed with changing that tack. They've certainly been disappointed with the years of effort they've spent trying to achieve progression without achieving it. but once they've changed and made a really strong decision,
by and large, most of them have been very happy to do that and embrace a new clinical career. you know, orthopedics, I I love doing it and many people love doing it 'cause it's a great job. You know, there's no doubt about that. And it's fun and we get instantaneous little dopamine hits. It almost sounds very social media orientated. But, we get to make immediate improvement to people's lives and that's why
It's excellent, it's dynamic. So I get why people really, really want to do it. but it's certainly not the be on end all and you can get just as much enjoyment and purpose in other areas of medicine and life in general, for sure.
Brooke Bullock (13:55)
Yeah, and it's interesting that dopamine hit. I do think if I think about the surgical specialties, it's probably the highest, most frequent dopamine hit that you will get in orthopedics from what people tell me. And people working in orthopedics love it, cannot imagine themselves anywhere else, similarly to other surgical specialties, people who love ENT, love plastics, etc. So leaving it is a really big decision. But I think the other thing I would say is the few people who I've seen who've decided to go along another path.
Have been very successful in another specialty, and even from a recruitment perspective,
making sure that the individual is really clear on what those transferable skills and experiences are and making sure that you can communicate that, for example, to a panel.
Who's looking at your resume going, hang on a second, you spent X years in this surgical specialty, why are you moving to radiology or why are you moving to dermatology? And making sure that that story is really clear because it can sometimes feel like the white elephant in the room. But those people often I have seen then hugely thrive in that new specialty, even post-training, because they were excellent to start with. And that second specialty has been really lucky to get them.
I wonder as somebody who I have seen, watch and look out for people who are going through these gruelling processes, what do you think are the early signs that someone's has tipped over into something that maybe is unhealthy? What would you I guess want a supervisor or a friend to look out for?
David Bade (15:23)
a really great question. and we're very good at hiding our deepest, darkest emotions even in the workplace. and these sort of behaviors are the same ones that I see with people who I can see are you know, maybe on the cusp of burnout or or feeling
as though their work is undervalued and or really you know trying as hard as they can to just impress the best. I think I I look at leave as a problem I I see a a lot of junior people not taking enough, thinking they can just work through it and the more they work, the more they're going to show how good they are. I think people start to show signs of burnout or fatigue when they're
Communication becomes really abrupt, particularly between colleagues or more so with other teams, in the surgical field, whether that's your emergency department, whether that's your nursing staff on the ward, and people start to go, so and so's having a bad day. They were they were pretty rude right then. And, if there's a lot of good faith already been placed.
in that person's rapport, then one offs are okay. But if if it happens repeatedly or if you hear it from multiple areas, then that's certainly a concern that needs to be nipped in the bud pretty quickly because once you get into the stage where people are feeling fatigue, emotionally exhausted, customer burnout, then clinical errors will occur. and that's what we don't want at the end of the day. So I think it's really important for people to have
the insight and have the ability to take some feedback to say, hey, you need a break. It's fine. We will cope. This whole system will cope if you just take a break, get yourself refreshed, however long that may take. That may only be a day, it may be three days, it may be a week. whatever you need, if you're in that space, I think it's really important to do it, to be able to decompress in a healthy way.
and have a recovery ritual in a healthy way that you can get yourself back on track and get back back in the game of providing great care 'cause at the end of the day, even though you're trying to get onto a program, you still have a job to do day to day. And that's a big part of a team to provide great care for the community and whatever sort of medical specialty that is.
Brooke Bullock (17:35)
think you've just outlined a really nice list for people just to keep thinking through for themselves. have I had a break? I probably was a bit rude yesterday to that person. Am I doing that a bit more often? I think, for people to do a bit of a temperature check on themselves but also
to look at those people around them who might be going through this process as to what might be those early warning signs for burnout in their selection training program preparation. What do you think good preparation looks like? they're preparing really well, they're keeping themselves together, keeping pretty healthy as far as their work life. I am careful not to say balance, but integration.
what does that look like to you?
David Bade (18:09)
I think remaining positive when it looks like there's not much to be positive about is really important in this space because it feels like, this is the rate limiting step and I just need to get over it. And sort of the world is shiny over there and it's really dark over here and I just need to get to that next level. But it's kind of not that case. And so I think the people that are relaxed.
sort of are controlling what they can control, which would be kind of something that I would say over and over again to people to ensure that they are looking after themselves. they're particularly getting enough sleep around this. And they're not, you know, you can over prepare in some ways with these conditions. And you can try and listen to too many people and take too many people's advice on board. And I think the people that
do very well in this space are the ones that can take feedback, can internalize what people are saying, but also pick and choose what which direction they want to go and sort of stay true to themselves and the type of person they want to promote in an interview. And you know, that's what I always try and tell people,
To feel and be, but I think, the basics and essentials of looking after yourself are, eating, still maintaining connections outside
of your workplace, with different friendship groups. And it's amazing for the people that go through this process when they speak to colleagues outside of the medical profession who also do competitive interview processes, go, what the hell is
going on. you guys just get, railroaded so much. And why don't you know this and why don't you know that? So it's really interesting to get those different perspectives as well. But I think an element an ability to relax, an ability to sort of process different feedbacks and be aware that not everyone's going to like you. but you've got to like yourself and you've got to be happy with who
Brooke Bullock (20:00)
That's right.
David Bade (20:01)
you're who you're promoting. You can't try and be anyone else in this process. You can only be yourself.
Brooke Bullock (20:06)
Yeah, I totally agree. That's such great advice. And I think a couple of things that continue to come up for me with making sure that people are looking after themselves. I mean, particularly for the interview, which is that rate limiting step often, starting early, but then it is a marathon, not a sprint. so starting early so that you don't have to try and completely burn yourself out for two to four weeks before the interview, which usually doesn't work.
And so starting early, then controlling it. And my rule is like you should never be sitting down and doing more than probably three to three and a half hours in a row of interview prep in any way, shape, or form. this idea of having a day off and doing eight hours of interview prep I never would I recommend that, even if your interview is tomorrow, because it's that's not how we get games. and I really like your point about being careful about who you practice with as far as too many people, because
The audience and the your friends, your colleagues, your bosses who you're practicing with, just like a panel, are all very subjective. So you might have a boss one day tell you that they don't like how you did something and then you change it and you overhaul it, and then the next day another boss says you should have done it the initial way. And that can be extremely triggering and hard on somebody's headspace as they're trying to maintain a confidence and put their best foot forward through a recruitment process. So, trying to kind of pick your people who are giving you high-quality feedback that resonates with you.
Also taking feedback with a grain of salt. I'll say it till the cows come home. But it is 2026 now, AI is rampant, so even more than ever in 2026, the best thing that you can do is know your own brand, know your own.
skill set and be yourself on interview day because anyone can sound like a robot now. It's a lot easier in twenty twenty six to sound like a robot.
David Bade (21:44)
Yeah, absolutely.
some of us are really bad at promoting ourselves because of the type of work that we do. And there's other people that are excellent at promoting themselves. and it's really interesting to see those two different groups still be successful in this process. I think also on that on that last point, the more someone is adamant that you must do something or must not do something in this space.
the more likely you should disregard their advice.
Brooke Bullock (22:12)
yeah, so powerful. I completely agree. And hopefully my approach is to, weed out who people really are and what their brand is. And sometimes even people will say, I would call it for you a Davidism, like you'll say this line that's really funny or a really interesting or a really curious way of saying it, and I'm as I'm listening trying to capture that and say, You should say things like that. That made me understand and get to know you and it's not a scripted line.
because we've got to please that subjective panel at the end of the day.
David Bade (22:36)
Yeah, and being an interviewer, and I've done that for many, many
years, it's such a boring process. So when people actually show maybe a minor flaw that's kind of funny and acceptable or they can, be really human about something and lighten a situation all those things just add up. It's not just so I need to know the policy on this and what I would do step by step in a clinical situation, the rest of it. It is kind of
I feel like it should be a really human interaction. but yeah, there's other complexities to that as well. But it's just good for the for the people that are going through this process to know that the people on the other side, you may be number sixteen of twenty three that they're going to do
today. And that's a that's a long slog.
For the interview, for everyone involved.
Brooke Bullock (23:21)
yeah and
especially if everyone is using AI, for example, sounding exactly the same. So, what is it that keeps them interested? And I think often it is those little isms that we talked about earlier, but also, the evidence or like, but what would you actually do? Like you've got a struggling colleague, you know, the last twenty people have told us that they're gonna take for a coffee, but what are you gonna talk about over the coffee? What does it actually look like?
Like,
or when have you done that before? tell me about the last time you went for a coffee or how that worked previously. And I think those little flicks of information and things that you've actually done before become the most tangible part of the answer. And I call it a deep dive, like this one sentence deep dive where you actually tell them something tangible because they are dying to hear it. They are really bored. and I always say no candidate is boring, the panel is super bored because it's
It's a very, very long day. And you're used to operating and running between clinic and theater. You're an orthopedic surgeon. You're not used to sitting in a room for eight hours listening to 20-minute or eight-minute versions of the same thing over and over again. the interview then happens, and people walk out sometimes feeling okay. I usually also warn people that there's a sunburn that can happen post-interview. So the evening of the interview, a four-hour delayed erythema where all of a sudden you think.
Damn it, I didn't say that thing, and I've totally stuffed it up. And those feelings you can work through. But how do you think people should look after themselves in that window when there is literally nothing left to do but wait? Which for some surgical specialties and other non-surgical specialties can be months before they find out if they're successful.
David Bade (24:49)
Yeah,
that happens in all parts of life. I'm gonna have the same feeling in about four hours after this interview, Brooke, about things I've sort of spoken about. I think it's you've got to be comfortable in just leaving it where it was. You you can't go back, you can't change anything. you have to be aware that there's a process that not one decision's being based on one situation or one answer or lack of one set of information. So
They're pretty solid processes in one regard that they're taking sort of a whole lot of information to make decisions about you. But, if you said if you realize you've said something totally stupid, you can't change it. you have to realise that, it may not be your year to get on. And if that's the case, that is actually all right.
the only situation where that becomes, really heartfelt is if you've made a decision to say this is the last time you're going to go around and you feel like that, you've already been through this process four times and this was the worst of your four times. and I find that situation pretty hard and there's ways this process should be better in that situation. But you can't change what has happened. So you just have to be able to move on and you have to have
A way to decompress that doesn't involve, drinking till four AM, that night and isn't doing anything else that's particularly unhealthy for you for sure, go and enjoy yourself, but you can't be using that as a decompressing method. We know that that's not healthy. So you need for me I think the important thing is is you have your two or three people that you can call on to say, Hey, can I just have a five minute chat with you? 'Cause I think I've really stuck.
Up and they may not have anything to do with medicine or the specialty going to, but you've just got, almost a decompression buddy that you can just go, Hey, can we just chat this out? And you know that person's gonna be the one to go, hey mate, that doesn't sound terrible. Or yeah, we'll see what happens, and they'll be the one who gives you some positive light to go, okay, let's get our our head back on track. So I think everyone needs that couple of people that they can
call or sit down with to to be able to to get through that 'cause it can be a really lonely place if you don't have that person.
Brooke Bullock (26:53)
And I agree with the taking a break. I think taking a break often allows people to spend time with the people or doing the things that, make them who they are away from the specialty as well. And that can really help them to put things into perspective, like spending time with family or going on a holiday if that's what floats their boat. one thing that I would say in the acute phases is like writing down the questions and writing down tangibly what you said can be a really good download of information to allow people to then truly put it in a box on a shelf.
Knowing they can come back and pick it up when they're ready. And when they're ready might be in a couple of weeks. some people are like, right, let's do it again. And I'm like, whoa. Whereas other people, taking a break and giving yourself some grace, I think. The only other thing is sometimes it's just not people's day. Sometimes people have done a beautiful job in the years leading up to this, and their preparation has been faultless, and then it's just not their day. And it's not that they completely bomb the interview.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone truly bomb the interview, but it's just not landed where we would have thought they might have landed. And it sucks, but I think a little bit of putting that into perspective, brushing themselves off and thinking about why it didn't go well, it doesn't mean that person is awful at interviewing and it's never gonna happen for them. It's usually just like it was a bad day.
David Bade (28:02)
it's my problem with that sort of final interview carrying so much weight, because someone could have been just doing such a great job and working so hard that they just haven't been able to get the rest they needed in before this time 'cause other people have been taking leave at their institution or something like that. You know, that person's actually showing how good they are, yet can't represent it on the day and it counts for not much at all.
So yeah, it's a concern for me that it is still based on that sort of one day show up and
perform.
Brooke Bullock (28:32)
And like you said earlier, some people are better at performing than others. Some people are better at a humble brag than others. Some people,
their personalities, their cultural background, all of those things weigh into the way we talk, the way we present ourselves, which can be a huge barrier for some people.
from a systems perspective, I know that there is a lot that the colleges do and that the hospitals
do to support these processes. And I can't imagine running a national recruitment campaign. although I have lots of thoughts on it, I take my hat off to all of the work and thoughtfulness that goes into it. But I think it should be an ongoing conversation about how we can make this experience better. And I
Actually, something that I don't know if I've ever shared with you, but I think that another college, one very small thing that they do is they ask candidates for a friend, partner, family members.
email address and they ask candidates when the results come out, for example, you've got a training program position or you don't, do you want that person to also be emailed simultaneously? And I know that's one moment in time and there's a lot of things that the candidate would have to unpack afterwards, but when I heard that I just thought, what a beautiful move. So that if somebody's getting devastating news via email
their friend or partner or mum or sister might get that news at the same time. I think it's just such a small example of these things that can make a really big deal. I know that we could talk about this for a long time, but any thoughts on that?
David Bade (29:55)
yeah, look, I think that's such a small measure that shows essentially that the people that are organizing that care about the individuals. and we still really have systems where you're treated as a number, And I just think we we need to move away from that and be a little bit more
human about it 'cause it is a little bit demoralising
I think that is a really easy thing that all colleges should implement.
Brooke Bullock (30:18)
maybe it's about
trying to capture what are colleges doing to improve candidate care that are easy and doable and practical and and how can other colleges learn from that? Because I'm sure that there's many people who would go, we can do that. We can send two emails. that's fine. and I know I've certainly opened a can of worms, but is there anything else that you think needs to
change in how colleges, departments and bosses handle this rather than I guess leaving it
to individuals to cope better because I think you do this well. I hear that you do this well all the time.
David Bade (30:47)
Yeah, obviously my thoughts are very tailored in one particular area of specialty, but I am aware of other medical specialties because I really did a deep dive into this a little while ago. But I think the transparency of how this works and how decisions are made is really important. and it needs to
be better. I think there's still a lot of concern from specialty colleges about being as private as possible and being concerned about legal reprisal. and so have all of these defensive mechanisms put in there, which are very unhelpful because what they do is they decrease the transparency. and so I think that's bad. and I think it's really easy to improve.
if you have the right spokespeople for that transparency and the people that are going through the process trust those people. I think that's what I would say there. I think we also have problems with national selection systems when there's such geographic variability in practice and holding people in different areas to the same levels or expectations I think we've moved
beyond that in our population. and I would like to see that change over time. It's just about having, again, the courage to do it and do it appropriately and in the right frame. and by that I mean there should be, a national standard that we accept. And there are local or regional areas that are able to
go through the process of candidate selection and select their candidates based on a series of things that everyone's done and then they would supply that selection to a national body to accept. And if the national body then sees problems with maybe nepotism or things like that, then that group of people that have been peer selected to be the selectors in that regional area can say these are the reasons why we want to do that.
That would also allow that regional group of people to then speak to the people that aren't successful and say, hey, these are the reasons why you weren't successful. And this is what we would like you to do moving forward. And we think you've got a really good chance of being successful in the next year or following years. and it would be great if there was an ability for then that person who was unsuccessful that year to be able to achieve some sort of you know,
extra marker to show that they were there or thereabouts one year and so that should be considered for the following year. That would be, two or three ways to make that pretty,
clear and easy.
Brooke Bullock (33:14)
I've not heard that articulated so clearly around what it could look like because I think there's a lot of conversations around about what's wrong with the processes, knowing that there's a lot of time, money, resources that does go into setting up these processes. So it's almost this hybrid state slash national selection. Because it's interesting where I sit where a lot of the surgical specialties are
These national processes that you've just described, but then you move over to radiology, for example, and it's all state-based.
what happens in some specialties that aren't centralized is everyone applies everywhere. so I think that anaesthetics, for example, is having that problem where it's state-based, everyone applies everywhere, so every state is getting 600 applicants.
That is such a huge resource on each state, but also on each applicant applying all these different ways to all these different states. So maybe this hybrid approach is the answer. We just needed to ask Beatty and we could have solved it for everyone. from where I sit.
five percent of people have ever received feedback about an unsuccessful recruitment that they've been involved in, whether that's, at a local level and again, the disclaimer, it's a huge resource to give people good feedback. But
It's really unhealthy, I think, for a candidate's well being to not receive feedback and not understand and then maybe play the same game again to get the same outcome in a year.
David Bade (34:28)
Yeah. it just needs to be done better. There there's no way about it. I think trying to do it unemotionally in a format where you get a letter saying these are the three areas that you did well in and these are the three areas you could improve in is useless. I think giving them a graph saying this is where you needed to be and this is where you were, but the graph
Has no numerators or denominators anywhere to be seen, so you don't actually know what that means. It just means you haven't been successful. in that vein, I've had people who've got feedback saying that, when they've got those three, what are you good at? What do you what do you need to work on? Two have been the same in each category, makes it highly confusing. with the model that I hypothesized, you would have a group of
people that are respected by the collegiate community or whatever specialty you are to be able to provide that individual feedback in a way. And it wouldn't just be one person. It can be two or three people in a non-intimidating way saying, look, this is this is where you're at. You know, well done, you made it this far. We think you're doing a really good job. But you weren't successful this time, A, because there were so many excellent people and there's only so many excellent people we can put on each year.
we're a little bit troubled on how you answered this and I think you can improve that a little bit better. Or hey, we've actually your interview was really good, but we've gone through your C V and you need to work on these couple of areas compared to some of the other people whose C Vs we've also looked at in this sort of multi formatted process of selection as it should be. and you could go and work on this. If you do that next year and perform as well as you did in your interview, I can't guarantee it but
you're going to be very high on our list. So, I think there's a way to provide feedback. it's intensive. it would take people who want to do it properly to offer their time to do it properly. And it's unfortunately it's always the same group of people that are going to be doing that. But that's a role of being selected to these positions that you wish to be part of that process. So I think feedback is the is the missing link for a lot of people and drives that.
disgruntled
feeling for so long in a lot of people.
Brooke Bullock (36:30)
Yeah, I think so too. It's the lack of information or being able to understand. So being heartbroken, exhausted, and then not understanding.
when perhaps there was a very reasonable reason why somebody missed out. with my recruitment hat on unfortunately it takes as much resources to do great feedback as it does to do the interviews. I always try and give myself that lens moving into a recruitment process 'cause yeah, you're only halfway there once you've, submitted the selection report and tell people they've got jobs, the next half is
or maybe more intensive, less boring part, let's say,
I know that you're just have such valuable opinions in this space, but thank you so much for everything you've shared. if someone is listening right now who's in the middle of preparing for a competitive interview whether it's orthopedic training programme selection or something completely different, is there one piece of advice that you would give them?
David Bade (37:16)
I think it is to control the controllables and be aware that every year people are unlucky and then the next step is, you weigh up the costs of you going through this process and how many times do you wish to do that. and have open discussions with
those around you that you appreciate their opinions as in mentors and those who, spend the better parts of your life with, being your loved ones. I think that's that's what I would say. it's not the end of the world if you don't get on. There are very many bright and shiny horizons out there. it's just about which direction you end up.
Brooke Bullock (37:52)
Beatty, thank you so much. I'm so grateful to be able to have these kinds of conversations with you, thank you so much for all of your wisdom and for being so thoughtful in how you think about people's well-being in the workplace generally as well as through vulnerable processes like recruitment. It has been so nice to have you on the podcast.
David Bade (38:10)
Brooke,
it is always a pleasure. I'm very, very happy to be involved, as always.
ending and disclaimer (38:20)
Thank you so much for joining me on the Interview Insider. Please remember that recruitment is a sensitive and subjective space. These conversations are intended to spark reflection, but keep in mind there is no one size fits all answer to recruitment. Importantly, the views expressed in this podcast are our own and don't represent any employer or affiliated organizations of either myself or my guests. If you've found this conversation has been helpful,
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