Consultant Interview Skills

The Gold Standard Approach

Most people would not even consider taking an exam without acquiring the requisite knowledge, skills and insight in preparation for it and therefore why would you approach perhaps one of the most important events in your life, getting the right consultant job, with any greater uncertainty than there needs to be? You wouldn’t. In fact, we know that you’d want to absolutely ensure you stood the best possible chance of success and that is why we have developed the Medicology approach to consultant interview success. It’s your future and so we don’t believe you should take any more chances than necessary.

The Medicology approach consists of the following:

• Gold standard, low number, specialty-specific consultant interview course
• Access to consultantinterviews.co.uk, allowing you to see example questions, hot topics, key strategies, CV guidance and more
• Psychological profiling to understand your likely strengths and weaknesses, as well as their match to your specialty
• Back up coaching – fail to get appointed on 4 occasions and we’ll examine the reasons why, as well as coach you to success

If none of the above dates are suitable than have you considered 'Consultant Interview Coaching'

Course Date Already Full?

If you would like to attend a certain course date but it is already full, we do have a waiting list in case of last minute cancellations. If you would like to be added to the waiting list for a certain date, please ring us on 01332 821260. Thank you.

• Get the best jobs by adopting the right strategies for your specific specialty
• Develop appropriate confidence in all interview situations
• Communicate in the right language and with the appropriate degree of confidence for your specialty
• Utilise the full range of interview strategies to influence the result
• Increase awareness of the necessary key topics
• Gain valuable practice and personal feedback

CONSULTANT INTERVIEW SKILLS OPEN PROGRAMME

• Pre-Interview visits – creating personal presence & deriving benefit
• Understanding your consultant interview panel
• Building rapport with interviewers
• Effective communication skills within interviews
• Advanced interview techniques
• Psychological techniques for increased rapport, impact & clarity
• Understanding the reasoning behind the question
• Answering questions within the context of who’s asking – understanding the interviewer
• Recognising the effects of your internal wiring on your approach to answering questions
• Effectively structuring your answers
• Talking about yourself & showing the real you – do & don’t guidance
• The answers you must have – knowing what to research
• Handling difficult or unexpected questions
• Dealing with ethical questions
• Dealing with political questions
• Developing business or commercial healthcare knowledge
• Effective presentation skills
• Demonstrating initiative, personality, leadership and political awareness
• Understanding your body language
• Question practice with a 1:6 instructor-participant ratio

SPECIALTY-SPECIFIC E-LEARNING
Typical module contents

• The essence of Insights for your specialty
• What are the implications
• Sources of service risk & opportunity
• Key challenges arising out of the current change agenda
• What’s hot in your speciality
• Specialty specific initiatives
• Documents & frameworks you should know about
• Likely specialty-specific areas of interview focus
• Understanding the psychology of your specialty
• Key tips & strategies to optimise your interview

INSIGHTS - E-LEARNING
Actual topics may vary in line with the changing healthcare landscape


Why the Change?

• The changing nature of health and its population
• Population dynamics, the change in balance & disease burden
• The innovation dilemma and its impact on funding
• The public purse and the hole within it
• Impact of the banking crisis
• The ‘do nothing’ approach – short, medium & longer term implications
• The solution

The Evolving System

• A sensible model of the current NHS
• Understanding current and evolving NHS structure and control
• Appreciating a system in flux – the current is not yet the vision
• NHS organisations & bodies – who does what for whom?
• Understanding Lord Darzi’s vision -healthcare delivery models
• Increasing use of and reliance on the community
• What does this mean for GPs and other community-based groups?
• What does this mean for secondary, tertiary care organisations?
• Polyclinics (sorry, Health Centres) – what, where, how & implications?

Commissioning, Change & Competition

• The changing role of the PCT – what this means for you
• The principles in World Class Commissioning - insight & implications
• The relationship between commissioning and the clinical coalface
• Practice-based commissioning (PBC) – its role in healthcare reform
• Practice-based commissioning (PBC) – opportunities, threats & your role
• How will this change when GP Consortia take responsibility?
• How are services & specialties targeted for reform?
• Competing provider types - NHS & Foundation Trusts
• Competing provider types - commercial organisations & willing providers
• Borderless thinking – the removal of healthcare boundaries
• What does it take to be competitive?
• The role different staff play in service competitiveness

Understanding Service Funding

• Understanding how services are funded in the evolving system
• Payment by results (PbR) and tariffs
• Evolution of tariffs as Monitor gains responsibility
• Income & costs – viability, sustainability & competitiveness
• What does CIP really mean?
• Market forces and their impact on service funding
• Evolving roles and how this contributes financially
• The role different staff play in service income, cost & competitiveness

Performance, Quality & Experience

• The performance imperative of modern healthcare
• The implications of poor performance in the modern era
• How will quality be assessed and assured
• Quality risk for provider services
• The impact of quality on service remuneration
• Patient experience as a quality measure
• The principles of the patient as conduit - the choice agenda
• The link between experience & service funding
• The role & impact of different staff on patient experience

Adapting our model of service effectiveness

• What changes could we expect under the Conservatives?
• Impact of economic meltdown on NHS funding models
• Broad scanning – ensuring you are ahead of the agenda
• The 6 critical success factors of service success
• Understanding the factors in detail – what do they look like at a service level
• Auditing the factors to ensure your service is fighting fit
• The 7th factor for academic services
• Ensuring that services excel across all 7 critical success factors
• Organising principles for ensuring success in all factors
• Future perspectives and likely further evolution

The course consists of an engaging mixture of delivery styles including lectures, discussions and exercises all designed to ensure you the highest possible success in your future consultant interview. A substantial component of the afternoon is dedicated to interview practice in groups of 6 people with each person having individual mock interview questions in front of the small group. This structure is extremely successful in recreating the pressures of a real interview whilst giving each person the opportunity to rehearse in a safe environment whilst receiving valuable feed back from a trained facilitator and the small group of fellow attendees. All candidates learn from listening to others answers, reflection and tutor feedback. Topics covered include the political agenda, clinical governance, ethical decisions, clinical leadership, dealing with difficult colleagues, conflict, supporting junior doctors and teaching. These sessions are facilitated by senior Medicology coaches and by experienced, trained consultants with direct experience of interviewing for consultant colleagues.

These are other courses that provide a good companion to this course.

• Clinical Management & Leadership for Latter Year Trainees & Newer Consultants